Monthly Archives: July 2019

WITH NO EVIDENCE AT ALL

Leave a reply

They say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and what goes around comes around. 

Ever wonder what  kind of country we would be if we all played by Donald Trump’s rules of engagement and just made stuff up about him?

Not a very good one I suspect. 

Trump’s blatant lies about President Obama are well documented here are just a few that he states WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL:

In 2011 Trump said “somebody” told him Obama might be hiding his birth certificate because it might identify him as a Muslim.  Not that this is a bad thing even if it were true but that’s a discussion for another day  

In 2014 Trump tweeted “Obama sent weapons to ISIS through Benghazi yet holding up shipments to Israel”

In 2015 Trump said “they actually think Obama hates Israel. I think he does”

The clear implication in all of this was that Trump was attempting to portraying Obama as anti-Semitic WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL  

So if we as a country dropped to his level and played in the gutter using Trump’s own rules of engagement would it be wrong to say WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL:

That Trump is German and “somebody” told me he is a believer in Hitler’s master race theory

That Trump is secretly arming white militias around America

That Trump has secretly told white nationalist to prepare for a coming race war and that when it’s over America will be cleansed of it’s black and brown problem and America will be great again.

I’m just wondering because Trump has, with the help of Fox News, been given carte blanche to say whatever he wants about whoever he wants WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL to verify the validity of his statements and smears on a person’s career and character and  yet many in his base take his statements to be true. So why can’t we do the same to him? Oh yeah that really wouldn’t be American now would it?

The truth still counts for something and we should all reject statements made WITH NO EVIDENCE AT ALL

Living while Black

Leave a reply

Police officers in New York City were doused with water by punks, not black punks, not Spanish punks, not white punks. No, just punks; their color does not matter. They were wrong and showed a level of disrespect to the men and women who put on a uniform every day and risk their lives to protect us that should never be accepted. They should be arrested and charged to the fullest extent possible. Leaders in the community need to speak out in the loudest possible voice to condemn them. To let it be known that their type of behavior does not represent us, and our communities will not stand for it.
With that said, let us not lose sight of another issue, those who would use this disrespectful incident to justify police misconduct with memes like ever wonder why the police mistreat you. Stop breaking the law. Seizing upon the disrespectful action of a few as justification for police misconduct, no better than we an entire police force is held accountable for a few bad officers’ actions. Rather than looking to exploit the issue to create a false narrative, it is time we have a real discussion about the disconnect between the communities they patrol and the police. Let’s talk honestly about the issue of police misconduct. Like every company, government agency, not-for-profit, and the church has a few bad apples, and those bad apples need to be rooted out.
Sadly if you believe the concept that people of color can avoid police misconduct by obeying the law.I guess:

You have never been pulled over numerous times but never receive a ticket and are left to wonder if you were stopped because you were driving while black.
You have never been stopped and frisked in a low crime neighborhood while sporting an argyle sweater and matching socks. You didn’t appear to fit the profile of who they were supposedly looking for unless that profile was merely black.

You never had a gun pointed in your face while tossing a football in a white friend’s suburban backyard because you didn’t appear to belong in that neighborhood because you were black.

You have never been a 53-year-old African American male whose never been in trouble with the law. Whose palms get a little sweaty when a police car is following you while black.

All of which have happened to me.
But you’ve never been black.

Let’s stop protecting the rotten apples on the police force and applauding punks who disrespect the good police officers and have a real discussion.

We as a people ain’t going nowhere!

Leave a reply

”Go back where you came from.”
“If you don’t love it, leave it.”
Words of those who are the most unpatriotic among us,
words of those who would rather see a country divided against itself than united for the common good of all, words of those who don’t care if America ever truly lives up to the ideas on which it was founded on, words of those who hate, words of those who look to profit from humanity’s natural fear of the unknown, words of those who look to tap into, for personal gain, the innate prejudices that we all harbor with-in just waiting for someone to unleash it.
But they are only words.
We as a people must rebuke these words.
We as a people must come together through our actions to shout down those words.
We as a people must form a coalition of the righteous to defeat the hatred of those words.
We as a people must shout for all to hear:
Your words mean nothing!
Because I am here!
Because this is my country as much as yours!
Because I love my country, and I will continue to fight for the values it was founded on!
Because we as a people ain’t going nowhere!

Destroyed from within. How Trump and the GOP are eroding our democracy

Leave a reply

Robert Muller a registered Republican and former Marine Corps officer during the Vietnam War who receiving a Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart. A man appointed to positions by both Republican and Democratic presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  Seemingly the definition of a true blood American frets his findings that the Trump’s campaign openly accepting Russian assistance would prove to be a new norm and that Russian interference in our democratic elections is happening right now.

Meanwhile a President, who used suspect medical deferments to avoid service to our country, attacked the character of Gold Star family members and made light of Vietnam war hero John McCain’s service record and sacrifice by saying “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” refuses to admit Russian interference is a problem or even occurred and the GOP Congress men and women, who like sheep go along with his madness afraid of how it may impact their new election rather than how it impacts the country block four election security bills all since Muller’s dire warning.

Making matters more laughable, if it wasn’t such a threat to American democracy, Trump has the audacity to say the Russian investigation was treason.  Never mind the fact that the investigation has yielded 199 criminal counts against 37 people and entities of which 7 have already pleaded guilty and 5 have been sentenced to prison but according to our President this investigation was treason. Treason? It appears to me the real crime against American democracy is the decision by the President and the GOP to continue to let this type of interference go on.

Meanwhile Americans for the most part yawn more interested in the results of the Bachelor than the protection of our democracy from a foreign power and Russian President Putin laughs as he pull the strings of our elections like a puppeteer pulls the string of a puppet.

Sadly, the words of great 16th President Abraham Lincoln come closer to fruition

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

We Are The Coalition Of The Righteous

Leave a reply

GOP politicians are lining up to defend Trump’s racist tweets some going as far as too call them patriotic and informing us that we should just move on from this and get back to the business of governing. 

REALLY? Just move on from it? So now You’re going to tell US what is racist and what isn’t. Is this the same logic you used when you told us Slavery wasn’t racist, segregation wasn’t fine as long as it was separate but “equal”, red lining wasn’t racist. the shooting of unarmed black men of color were justified. 

No we can not simply move on from it.

Now more than ever we have a difficult time ahead of us. But we must shed our fear of it.

Why?

Because we are not here because of the path that lies before us but because of the path that lies behind us. Four hundred years we have endured slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia and the denial of basic human rights and with each step forward we take, with each of our achievement we accomplish it produces fear among those among who still preach hate, who look to divide, do not believe in the brotherhood of all but would rather hold onto the old ways of subjugation and bondage.

But we are rising up now, together as one, race, color, religion, creed, gender and national origin .  We are a coalition of the righteous and we are gathering momentum each and every day. We are going to create a world where color, gender, religious belief and country of origin doesn’t matter. A world without conflicts and killings. A world without borders and boundaries. A world united not divided, ruled by love not hate. A world where anything is possible.

Today we send a message to those who still cling to the past, those who still preach hatred, those who still wish to divide this great nation not on the content of our character but on the the color of our skin. Today we take OUR country back from the racist and bigoted. Today we tremble these amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties from sea to shining sea. Today we remember, this is America where we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and all women regardless of color are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness.

Today we make them remember we are still here

GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM? REALLY

Leave a reply

GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM

African-Americans have long heard those words of hatred spewed in their direction by racist and bigoted individuals but they are not alone

Italian American immigrants heard it

Irish American immigrants heard it

Polish American immigrants heard it

German American immigrants heard it

Japanese American immigrants heard it

Mexican American immigrants heard it

Immigrants from various Caribbean Islands heard it

Catholics heard it

Jews heard it

Muslims heard it

And many others have heard it

Ellis Island officially opened this week in 1892, and would subsequently process more than 20 million immigrants from around the world, all seeking a better life in America.  Just as our Founding Fathers intended.  Millions of immigrants would travel to America, leaving the only home they ever knew behind. Many times leaving family and loved ones and in some cases risking their lives to experience this new nation and idea. To be a part of a society birthed in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all citizens are created equal, theoretically if not literally. For the Founders, immigration was a mutually beneficial process.  The goal of which was to create a “melting pot,” in which immigrants successfully assimilate and become representative of our national identity, while also proudly retaining key aspects of their ethnic past.  We are all Americans, but in this country we are free to honor the many traditions and customs unique to our ancestral homelands.  It is without question what has made America great. 

This Sunday a President who ran on the slogan of make America great again, but seems to believe that means dividing Americans more than any President ever has and turning his back on diversity, tweeted that a group of four minority congresswomen feuding with Speaker Nancy Pelosi should “go back” to the countries they came from rather than “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States” how to run the government. Predictably his base ate it up.  Commenting that President Trump is the greatest ever because he’s not afraid to tell it like it is. This group of Trump supporters, the lowest common denominator, haven’t a clue as to what makes this country unique and special among the countries of the rest of the world. America’s greatness has always been rooted in its embrace, sometimes kicking and screaming, of diversity.  As Speaker Pelosi bluntly said recently Ms. Pelosi may have offered the bluntest take on Mr. Trump’s comments when she said his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” “has always been about making America white again.”

The silence of so many Republicans on Trump’s blatant racism, sexism and bigotry dating back to the 1970’s when his real estate company was sued by the Department of Justice for racial discrimination to his administration’s systematic attempt to dismantle much of the gains made as a result of the civil rights and women’s movement is unacceptable at best and morally corrupt at worst. Their silence reminds me of a scene from the movie Star Trek Nemesis, it’s true if you look for it Star Trek always has the answers, when a Romulan commander says: Are you truly prepared to have your hands drenched in blood? He’s not planning to defeat Earth. He’s planning its annihilation. …And his sins will mark us and our children for generations. Trump is not planning to defeat the dreams of our founding fathers as it relates to immigration he’s planning its annihilation. And his sins will mark the Republican Party for generations. 

It’s not injustice until it happens to me

Leave a reply

Wow, I can’t believe some people still don’t get the kneeling during the National Anthem protest. That they still allow themselves to be bamboozled by those who have hi-jacked the real reason for the protest and turned it into a protest against America. Hi-jacked it because it is uncomfortable to address the social and racial inequalities this country still has. Their desire for us to remain quiet on the issue is misplaced, as E.A. Bucchianeri states
“It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf; perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do.”
For us to do nothing may make their life simpler and more comfortable. Harkening back to a time when “America was Great,” minorities and females knew their place. But trust me, we love America as well, maybe more so than they do because after everything America has thrust upon us, we are still here fighting to make it a better place. Doing nothing will most certainly net us nothing. Doing nothing will not force this country to take on the issues that prevent it from being the idea on which it was founded. The idea that all men are created equal and are what is more patriotic than that. As James Baldwin said: Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
For many who have twisted and contorted the real idea behind the flag protests, I can only assume the only time they think about injustice is when it happens to them or paraphrase NK. Jemisin they never had to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question. It easy to wrap yourself in the red, white and blue and scream to the world you are a patriot. It is, however, challenging to fight for what is the true idea of America.
So while they will continue to scream USA USA at those individuals brave enough to stand up in public to inequality and call them unpatriotic, remember they are likely doing this as they stand on line for their hot dog and a beer during the National Anthem.

They Don’t Really Care About Us

Leave a reply

They don’t really care about us.

This statement could be attributed to the attitudes of many so-called American “Christians.” Many of whom have decided, led by Pat Robertson, that God sent our current President to save America. The same President who rose to power by preying on the baseless fears of many and campaigning on a platform of hate, fear, and division.

A President who turns his back on the concept of global unity for a doctrine of America first, a President who appointed an Attorney General in Jeff Sessions who once said: “We are a Christian nation. We should only be accepting Christian refugees.” This is when some twenty-two million people are displaced, and the world is amid the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. Almost a quarter are refugees from Syrians. Yet each iteration of Trump’s travel ban has sought to block travelers trying to enter the U.S. from Syria and to restrict refugee admissions from the country. In a country whose people are so devastated, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in May of 2018, “I’ve seen refugees from Asia to Europe, Kosovo to Africa. I’ve never seen refugees as traumatized as coming out of Syria.”

A President who has submitted proposed budgets that hits the poorest Americans the hardest, slashing billions of dollars in food stamps, health insurance, and federal housing subsidies. A budget that would gut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, by $17.2 billion in 2019 — equivalent to 22 percent of the program’s total cost last year, calls for cuts of more than $213.5 billion over the next decade, a reduction of nearly 30 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

A President whose policies are applauded by many of his “Christian” supporters as Making America Great Again.

But Matthew 25:41-46 is clear in saying:

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food, I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

This is a resounding answer to the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). The person who helps those in need will inherit the kingdom. The person who fails to do so will be relegated to fiery punishment.

It has always been easy to say to the world I am a Christian. It is not so easy to live your life as a follower of Christ and his teachings.

Are you ready to show through your actions that you can love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39)?

Are you ready to show through your actions that you can feed the hungry, clothe the needy, visit the sick? (Matthew 25)?

Are you ready to show through your actions that you are ready to love your enemies (Luke 6:27)?

Sadly, for many of those who love to brag, America is a Christian country founded on Christianity’s principles; it seems want their religion to be is easy and simple. A religion that affords them a comfortable living with no room for outsiders unless they immediately become like them.

The time has come to choose. Are you a person who simply gives lip service to the teachings of Jesus?

A man who gave his life willingly as he said:

 “The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.” John 10:17-18 NLT

A man who died willing for our sins, to save us and purchase us from death.

Or are you a person who chooses to follow a President that many have turned into a false god?

A President who preaches hate and division.

If you indeed are a follower of the Lord, it shouldn’t be a hard question at all to answer.

Because as a follower of Christ, the world should be saying:

They really do care about us.