Where Do I Even Begin?

 

Where do I even begin?

Of all the issues that have been going wrong this summer, this one is at the forefront of my mind today thanks to Michael Moore’s column here https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/he-knew-no-one-would-expect-a-woman?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share.  I knew the killer was savvy enough to realize that he should dress up like a woman and put heavy make up over his facial tattoos.  After all, of all the mass shooters this year and any year, not a one has been a woman.  He was able to get away easily, running from the scene like any panicked woman would.

Here is what I didn’t know: Highland Park is made up of a third of citizens of the Jewish faith.  Half of the people killed were Jewish.  OH.  Why was this not reported?  That makes this, in addition to being a mass slaughter of humans, a hate crime.  But no one has said anything like that yet, and I think it’s because it hits too close to home.

We are made up of an overwhelmingly large population of hateful white supremacists.  White supremacy has been around since even before our country was founded.  White nationalists are rising again to regain “supremacy” in this country.  They claim they are Christians but they are not.  They do not follow Jesus’ teachings of love, acceptance and inclusion.  I don’t know why they think they reign supreme; we originated in Africa and the Middle East, not in white countries.  Where do they get this misbegotten notion that whites are better than everybody else?

There’s always been slavery among all the races.  One group has to subjugate another, humiliate and enslave the losers’ citizens.  It’s as old as groups of people on earth.  The US, sadly, has been no slouch at it.  It’s just that the white supremacists don’t want to face it, as the Germans did their truth about anti-Semitism and Hitler.

Since Congress has no interest in doing anything about restricting automatic killer weapons, surely there will be another mass shooting soon.  Here is a link from the FBI about what to do when (and it’s inevitable, when) there’s a mass shooting around you: https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources

What with our do-nothing Democrats and gun control as well as seeing to it law breakers (i.e., Rethuglicans as well as violent white supremacist anarchists) face consequences, it’s no wonder no one has any confidence in the government, police, or other federal agency these days.  The obstructing Rethuglicans aren’t any help either.  Congressional legislators are at the very bottom of the heap for peoples’ confidence and trust.

Gallup Polls have been around forever and, while I’m hesitant to completely trust the results of polls, theirs have been pretty much on the up-and-up.  No one has faith in government anymore.  Approval and trust have dropped not only for federal government, it’s also down for the police, medical profession and healthcare, banks, news media, justice system state and local, and just about everywhere else you can think of except for the military.  I guess we hope our soldiers would defend the Constitution even if no one else will.  I have my doubts, to be honest.  There were military folks at the insurrection, right in the thick of it all.  https://news.gallup.com/poll/394283/confidence-institutions-down-average-new-low.aspx It’s kind of depressing to think you can’t trust your own government or formerly trusted agencies to look out for your best interests.  They used to once upon a time, or did they?

One major drop in approval was for the “Extreme” Court, rogue SCOTUS.  I feel sorry for the three clearly thinking justices (Sotomayor, Kagan and now Jackson).  They are being drowned out by the outrageously right wing Christian nationalist judges who want to strip away our fundamental rights.  I think those six are salivating at the thought of being able to totally screw up the viability of our votes.

I can’t stand the idea that my vote might become meaningless.  If they get away with it, SCOTUS can legalize all the nefarious crap tRump pulled trying to overturn the election by having the states reject votes they don’t like and reissue new electors who’ll vote the way they want.  So, in 2024, the Democrat wins the popular vote and even the Electoral College but before it can be all certified, the red states can call “do-over” so that the Rethuglican candidate would win.

That terrifies me.

Here’s another thought that terrifies me while I’m thinking about treason and white supremacists: during the House Committee Jan 6^th hearings, there were video tapes of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers conferring before the Capitol assault.  I’m sure they’re all in communication with all the other hateful supremacy groups out there and I’m also sure they welcome the addition of the mass shooters with their depraved manifestos and plots.  What if they all come together in one force?

Anything is possible.  

Next on my mind: what our stinking Democratic leadership should be doing to protect women's health rights...and all our other fundamental rights~

Also: why did it take 60 bullets to stop an unarmed Jayden Walker at a traffic stop but the Highland Park mass killer was arrested without incident?  Could is be an issue of race?  One man was black; the other, white.  Guess which is which.

More SCOTUS: why are right wing Christians coming in to pray with the justices IN the Supreme Court?  Inquiring minds want to know.

The Fourth

I’m not feeling it this year.  To be honest, I haven’t felt much like celebrating July 4^th since tRump took office.  I felt more festive last year but not enough to do much more than watch the musical “1776”.  It’s been a favorite of mine, enjoying the songs and funnier scenes.  One part of that movie has always upset me and I’ll bet you can guess what it is:  the section wherein the legislators fight over whether the rights of slaves should be included in the Declaration.  It should have been but these were flawed men, slave owners many of them, and the topic would make up a separate post handily.

There is a poison spreading in our country.  This poison has always been there for at least 50 years but has now infected so much of our democracy that you can’t really ignore it anymore.  There are evil plotters out there dismantling our system of government, and they say they are patriots and Christians.  They are neither. 

Robert Reich wrote a column today about what it means to be a patriot: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/on-this-july-4-the-true-meaning-of?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share It’s an excellent piece and expresses exactly what I feel inside. 

As for what it means to be a real Christian, you’d have to follow and at least abide by the teachings of Jesus Christ.  To read the words of some of these so-called Christians, it’s easy to see that they are actually anti-Christian.  These are the folks who believe in forced birth but are against caring for the mothers and babies later.  They are the folks who would remove Social Security and Medicare.  They are the billionaires that don’t contribute to any charities and/or don’t pay taxes.  They are the ones perpetuating social injustice, white supremacy, and racism.

The recent actions of the “Extreme” Court and Rethuglicans in Congress run so counter to what the founding fathers hoped we’d be.  Those founding fathers weren’t perfect, don’t get me wrong.  Better days were coming as future politicians and judges began tinkering with the Constitution, adding more amendments along the way to provide protection and equality for everyone.  Now, though, it seems as if all the fundamental rights people had to fight for are in danger of being overturned by the rogue Court.

I used to love the Fourth, especially when I was little and unaware.  I loved the parades with their marching bands.  I loved going to the beach and playing in the water with my brother and cousins.  Best of all were the fire works when it got dark enough.  They were always spectacular.  Over the years, unpleasant truths were acquired but I still loved the fireworks.  I can’t even enjoy those anymore; they’re too much like bombs going off.  That’s in my nightmare scenario of what could happen here.

Why?  This is what Robert Barnes wrote in The Washington Post: ““The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will consider what would be a radical change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats.””

That means elections can be rigged to favor the party wanting to be in power, in this case the Rethuglicans.  They have been plotting this out for years and years.

Suppose the Democrats win in 2024 after SCOTUS overturns how we vote.  Rethuglican states can throw out the votes they don’t like and choose their own electors to deliver scam votes.  The will of the people won’t matter anymore.

From there, the Hartmann Report plays out the entire nightmare results https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-nightmare-scenario-scotus-is?r=e29jo&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Massive protests, shootings of the protestors by Rethuglican supremacist militias, and eventual take-over of our democracy.  What happened in Germany in the 1930s is happening here, now.

And people are just going about their lives like nothing is amiss.

If we don’t start doing something, if we don’t start demanding that Congress pass legislature to protect our vote, our freedom is definitely doomed for everyone.

So.  Not celebrating the 4^th may be the last chance I have to protest the loss of our freedoms thanks to the rogue SCOTUS.  I fully expect some attempt to monkey with my vote in 2024 if Congress doesn’t act to protect our votes.

 

Distress Signal

Distress Signal

Our flag is flying upside down.  We are not unpatriotic; we are in distress over the dangers we are facing now.  Women in red states will be losing freedom of choice about whether they’ll carry a pregnancy to birth.  The rogue Supreme Court seems to be bent on undoing more of our fundamental rights, like the right to contraception for crying out loud!  Even more sinister, the right to gay marriage or interracial marriage, Brown vs. Board of Education, and many others are now in danger of being overturned. I am reading and learning as much as I can about this new case they want to hear in the next session.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is not all SCOTUS has done.  Although gun violence is the leading cause of deaths in children, they’ve overturned a gun control law in New York.  They claim it’s a violation of the Second Amendment.  Basically, it means people can carry their guns around.  Go to the grocery store and you don’t know if the angry person behind you is buying groceries or about to pull out a gun and start shooting.  Although a gun bill was finally passed on the federal level, will it stand?

If that wasn’t enough, SCOTUS also gave a big fuck you to planet earth.  Reform was so slow to begin with and we’re already almost at the point of no way can Earth recover.  Legislators being supported by the fuel industry have always been reluctant to change.  Meanwhile, we are having climate change causing stronger storms and much hotter weather.  What kind of world are we leaving to our great grandchildren?

Our democracy is in danger.  It has been since long before January 6^th as witness that secret memo from Lewis Powell way back in 1971.  I wrote about it earlier.  Powell laid out a long-term strategic plan to convert democracy to an oligarchy.  I would say that he and the Rethugs have succeeded there.  The country now is powered by the 1%, the billionaires who can afford to bribe because they pay minimal taxes.  Do we have a middle class anymore?  Doesn’t seem like it.

Slowly, slowly like spiders build their webs and like cats wait, watching their prey, the Rethuglicans have been infiltrating their right-wing radicals and nuts everywhere, from local school boards to city councils to state legislatures to Congress and to the Supreme Court.  Slowly, slowly “judges” Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts have been raised up to their ranks to being nominated and approved onto the “Extreme Court.”

Thomas wrote in a separate opinion that he’d like to see cases related to same sex marriage, contraception, and consensual sexual acts brought up so that the Court could overturn those rights too.  His opinion that those rights are wrong and need to be corrected.  Of course, he didn’t bring up interracial marriage: he is Black and his treacherous wife Ginni is white. 

That’s plenty scary.

The more I read about this new case for next year, the more my hair stands on end and I break out into goose bumps of anxiety.

Remember good old Judge Luttig?  He wrote an opinion piece for CNN some months ago, warning us that Rethugs and GQP would continuing trying to steal elections until they succeed.  Most recently, tRump etal’s plot included having SCOTUS adopt an idea called independent state legislature.

This is the concept I’ve been trying to fully understand.

This quote comes from an article I read in an NBC article this morning:

““The independent state legislature doctrine says that, under the Elections and the Electors Clauses of the Constitution, state legislatures possess plenary and exclusive power over the conduct of federal presidential elections and the selection of state presidential electors,” Luttig explained. “Not even a state supreme court, let alone other state elections officials, can alter the legislatively written election rules or interfere with the appointment of state electors by the legislatures, under this theory.””

The link to that article is here https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/supreme-court-consider-radical-independent-legislature-theory-rcna36301?cid=eml_mda_20220703&user_email=13660bfeb26f12d44f84b122ca5ed8d5f1acd1ca439a25e7fe835ee487c11d11

How we vote has been in place forever.  We the people vote and then there are people set up along the way to count our votes and verify them.  We have a census poll that helps to draw and redraw congressional district boundaries.  That’s what started the case before the Supreme Court.  Rethuglicans in South Carolina drew up district boundaries heavily favoring themselves.  Their maps were thrown out.  The thugs appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will hear this case.

So, if they decide in favor of this independent state legislature concept, it means that our votes would become meaningless.  Why?  Because that particular piece from the clause says that if state legislatures in red states didn’t like the outcome of the election, they could invalidate (throw out) the votes.  They would bypass everything in place that’s supposed to protect our votes and, worse, state courts wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. 

That is really and truly scary.  Think about it.  The party in control of the state legislature (in Rethug states) could decide an election because they could choose their own electors to present to the Electoral College.

With the Rethugs in control, they could do all kinds of draconian shenanigans in addition to taking away our rights.  All these years, we’ve been contributing a portion of our salaries for Social Security and Medicare.  They want to take those away and have said so openly.  Some of the more openly racist legislators have talked about overturning Brown vs. Board of Education, Plessy vs. Ferguson and on and on until we’re back to the white-old-days when women were subservient and people of color knew their place.

It's absolutely horrifying.

I don’t understand why more people aren’t up in arms.  Ostrich syndrome, I call it.  They go about their daily lives as if nothing important was going on.  It’s really way past time for people to WAKE UP.

 

Birthday Luncheon

Last month, I submitted a flash fiction entry to a contest by Writers' Advice.  I didn't win, but I did get honorable mention.  I was very happy with that and will continue to participate in the contests.  For a small fee, they'll give you feedback about your submission.  It's worth it to me to have that advice.

I'd posted this before under a different title.  I like this title better.

Birthday Luncheon

 

It really pisses me off when I have to waste my free time feeling bored.    Why do I have to go to family lunches and stuff like that?  No one talks to me, well, hardly ever.  Today we had to go because it’s Nana’s birthday.  I don’t even know how old Nana is!  My father got out of it because he works.  I told my mom I needed to do homework and she said she didn’t want to hear it because it’s Saturday and I can do it tomorrow.  It’s not fair.

At least the restaurant we went to is kind of fun.  It has all kinds of cool things up on the walls.  There’s a really old bicycle.  It has to be ancient because it doesn’t even have any brakes on the handles.  There’s a lot of pictures of people from olden times.  Some of them look like movie pictures.  There’s a really rough looking guy in a big cowboy hat.  He’s laughing about something.  Maybe someone called him beautiful – not!  There’s also a guy wearing a raincoat and a brown slouch hat almost down over his eyes.  He’s really ugly – and old.  There are sports things up there, too – a hockey stick and a baseball mitt.  The weirdest thing up there is someone’s arm sticking out of the wall.  I guess it’s from a dummy model but I wonder why they just stuck an arm up there?  Where did the rest of it go?

My mother and Nana yakked across the table while I looked around the room at all the cool stuff.  Brian kicked me under the table.  I stuck my tongue out at him but he was pointing to something over our heads.  It was just an old airplane.  So, what.  He was trying to tell me something but I wouldn’t look at him.  Brothers are so stupid, especially the older ones.  They think they know everything.

I was bored so I grabbed a dessert menu off the table and opened it up.    At first, I didn’t understand why all the desserts were in tall float glasses and then I realized that this was a drink menu.  I didn’t want Brian to know that I made a mistake so I kept looking at it just long enough to be able to put it back down without getting all embarrassed.

When I looked up, I saw the waiter standing by Brian’s shoulder.  He was writing and Brian’s mouth was moving, telling the waiter what he wanted.   I tapped my mother on the shoulder but she was still talking to Nana.  Why didn’t she tell me the waiter was there?  I tapped her again but she held her hand up. I hate it when they do that.  They don’t ever bother to talk to us and they expect us to just sit there and be polite.  I tapped her again, harder.

“WHAT?” my mother signed to me, looking exasperated.  “What do you want?”

I fingerspelled: “S-p-r-i-t-e.”