"Drain the swamp" and Lock Him Up #TFG

Sudden fall from power always comes hard. 

Echo essay published in The Guardian by Simon Tisdall.

"Trump, who promised to 'drain the swamp', waddled knee-deep in sleaze. So charge him!"

King Alfred* was reduced to skulking in a Somerset bog. A distraught Napoleon talked to coffee bushes on St Helena. 

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia hung around the haberdashery department of Jolly’s in Bath. Uganda’s Idi Amin plotted bloody revenge from a Novotel in Jeddah. Only Alfred the Great made a successful comeback.

All of which brings us to Donald Trump (#TFG**), currently in exile at his luxury club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Whingeing amid the manicured greens and bunkers of his exclusive golf course, the defeated president recalls an ageing Bonnie Prince Charlie – a sort of “king over the water” with water features. Like deposed leaders throughout history, he obsesses about a return to power.


Yet as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell moves to kill off a 9/11-style national commission to investigate the 6 January Capitol Hill insurrection, the pressing question is not whether Trump can maintain cult-like sway over Republicans, or even whether he will run again in 2024. The question that should most concern Americans who care about democracy is: why isn’t Trump in jail?

The fact he is not, and has not been charged with anything, is a genuine puzzle – some might say a scandal, even a conspiracy. Trump’s actual and potential criminal rap sheet long predates the Capitol siege. It includes alleged abuses of power, obstruction of justice, fraud, tax evasion, Russian money-laundering, election tampering, conflicts of interest, hush-money bribes, assassination – and a lot of lies.

Lock Him Up #LHU

Let’s take these allegations one at a time. 

District of Columbia investigators say they have charged 410 people over the January 6th Capitol breach. Some could be tried for plotting to overthrow the US government – a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison – or even for murder, given that five people died.

Yet Trump, who urged supporters at a Washington rally that day to “fight like hell” to stop Congress certifying his election loss, is not among them. In fact, #TFG tRumph has not even been questioned over his indisputably pivotal role.

For sure, Trump was impeached – but he declined to appear before Congress, and Republican toadies made a mockery of the process, voting to acquit him of inciting insurrection. In March, DC attorney Michael Sherwin said federal investigations involving Trump are still under way. “Maybe the president is culpable,” he mused. But updates about this key aspect of the affair are unaccountably lacking.

Letitia James, New York’s attorney-general, last week confirmed a criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Trump’s business empire. This inquiry is running in tandem with another criminal investigation into the Trump Organization by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance. Alleged false accounting and tax irregularities appear to be the main focus.

Yet, these long-running investigations lack tangible results. Nor do they appear to be examining potentially more politically illuminating allegations, such as Trump’s dealings with Vladimir Putin and Russia’s oligarchs, money-laundering via the New York property market, and the past role of disgraced Deutsche Bank. While claiming it’s all a “witch-hunt”, Trump may be happy for these limited inquiries to drag on indefinitely.

Why, meanwhile, has Trump not already been arraigned on charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power? Exactly two years ago, special counsel Robert Mueller cited 10 instances of the then president allegedly obstructing investigations into collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. They included his firing of the FBI director, James Comey, and an attempt to sack Mueller himself.

Mueller plainly indicated there was a case to answer, but said he was unable to bring indictments. “A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office,” he said. Even if that is legally correct, Trump is no longer in office. Merrick Garland, William Barr’s thankfully less Uriah Heep-ish successor as attorney-general, should be all over this. Why isn’t he?

Trump’s well-attested attempts to induce Georgia state officials to manipulate November’s election count in his favour were a crime, Fulton County prosecutors suggest. If so, why the delay? Charge him! Add to the rap sheet allegations of the ex-president corruptly channelling US taxpayer and foreign funds into his hotel and resort businesses.
Trump, who promised to 'drain the swamp', waddled knee-deep in sleaze. So charge him!

“Special interest groups likely spent more than $13 million at Trump properties” in order to gain access and influence, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an independent watchdog, reports. This typified an administration (#TFG) “marked by self-interest, profiteering at the highest levels, and more than 3,700 conflicts of interest”.

Trump has much to answer for internationally, too. The UN says the assassination he ordered last year, without just cause, of an Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, was an unlawful act – possibly a war crime. And if all that is not enough, then consider – from a moral if not a legal standpoint – the thousands of avoidable Covid-19 deaths attributable to Trump’s denialism, stupidity and reckless incompetence.

It’s truly strange that in a land of laws, Trump still walks free, strutting around his fancy-pants golf course, holding $250,000 a head fundraisers, evading justice, encouraging sedition, and daily blogging divisive bile about a stolen election. The Big Kahuna peddles the Big Lie. What other self-respecting country would allow it?

The dismaying answer may be that to lock him up – the fate he wished on Hillary Clinton – would be to risk another insurrection. That’s the last thing Joe Biden and America’s wobbly democracy needs. But letting #TFG get away with it harms democracy, too. In office, Trump ruled by lawlessness and fear. In exile, fear keeps him beyond the reach of the law.

*King Alfred was given the epithet "the Great" in the 16th century.

** The Former Guy

Epidemic ignorance is infecting the Republican party #GQP

"...Right-wingers have gone all in on ignorance...", Krugman.

What Underlies the G.O.P. Commitment to Ignorance?

Echo opinion by Paul Krugman published in The New York Times.

NOT! As everyone knows, leftists hate America’s military. 

Recently, a prominent left-wing media figure attacked General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declaring, “He’s not just a pig, he’s stupid.” 

I don't think so!

Oh, wait! That was no leftist, that was Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. What set Carlson off was testimony in which Milley told a congressional hearing that he considered it important “for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and widely read.”

The problem is obvious. Closed-mindedness and ignorance have become core conservative values, and those who reject these values are the enemy, no matter what they may have done to serve the country.

The Milley hearing was part of the orchestrated furor over “critical race theory*,” which has dominated right-wing media for the past few months, getting close to 2,000 mentions on Fox so far this year. One often sees assertions that those attacking critical race theory have no idea what it’s about, but I disagree; they understand that it has something to do with assertions that America has a history of racism and of policies that explicitly or implicitly widened racial disparities.

And such assertions are unmistakably true. The Tulsa race massacre really happened, and it was only one of many such incidents. The 1938 underwriting manual for the Federal Housing Administration really did declare that “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities.”

We can argue about the relevance of this history to current policy, but who would argue against acknowledging simple facts?

The modern right, that’s who. The current obsession with critical race theory is a cynical attempt to change the subject away from the Biden administration’s highly popular policy initiatives, while pandering to the white rage that Republicans deny exists. But it’s only one of multiple subjects on which willful ignorance has become a litmus test for anyone hoping to succeed in Republican politics.

Thus, to be a Republican in good standing one must deny the reality of man-made climate change, or at least oppose any meaningful action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. One must reject or at least express skepticism about the theory of evolution. And don’t even get me started on things like the efficacy of tax cuts.

What underlies this cross-disciplinary commitment to ignorance? On each subject, refusing to acknowledge reality serves special interests. Climate denial caters to the fossil fuel industry; evolution denial caters to religious fundamentalists; tax-cut mysticism caters to billionaire donors.

But there’s also, I’d argue, a spillover effect: Accepting evidence and logic is a sort of universal value, and you can’t take it away in one area of inquiry without degrading it across the board. That is, you can’t declare that honesty about America’s racial history is unacceptable and expect to maintain intellectual standards everywhere else. In the modern right-wing universe of ideas, everything is political; there are no safe subjects.

This politicization of everything inevitably creates huge tension between conservatives and institutions that try to respect reality.

There have been many studies documenting the strong Democratic lean of college professors, which is often treated as prima facie evidence of political bias in hiring. A new law in Florida requires that each state university conduct an annual survey “which considers the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented,” which doesn’t specifically mandate the hiring of more Republicans but clearly gestures in that direction.

An obvious counterargument to claims of biased hiring is self-selection: How many conservatives choose to pursue careers in, say, sociology? Is hiring bias the reason police officers seem to have disproportionately supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, or is this simply a reflection of the kind of people who choose careers in law enforcement?

But beyond that, the modern G.O.P. is no home for people who believe in objectivity. One striking feature of surveys of academic partisanship is the overwhelming Democratic lean in hard sciences like biology and chemistry; but is that really hard to understand when Republicans reject science on so many fronts?

One recent study marvels that even finance departments are mainly Democratic. Indeed, you might expect finance professors, some of whom do lucrative consulting for Wall Street, to be pretty conservative. But even they are repelled by a party committed to zombie economics.

Which brings me back to General Milley. The U.S. military has traditionally leaned Republican, but the modern officer corps is highly educated, open-minded and, dare I say it, even a bit intellectual — because those are attributes that help win wars.

Unfortunately, they are also attributes the modern G.O.P. finds intolerable.

So, something like the attack on Milley was inevitable. Right-wingers have gone all in on ignorance, so they were bound to come into conflict with every institution — including the U.S. military — that is trying to cultivate knowledge.

*Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine U.S. law as it intersects with issues of race in the U.S. and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice.

Lock Up the Former Guy #TFG

Echo Letter to the Editor, Published 20 Feb 2021: "Lock Trump up!"

Jake Pickering published in The Daily Independent* newspaper.

Former Guy Donald Trump incited a deadly insurrection against the U.S. government, according to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

 January 6, attack on the US Capitol building by a pro-Trump #TFG mob, 

January 6, was a disgrace!  American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism... Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor, they tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth, because he was angry he had lost an election... There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it... This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing President who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out...”

Lock Trump up!

From Jake Pickering in  Arcata, Calif.

*Ashland, Kentucky

Medicare for All explained

Echo opinion by Rose Ann Miele, a journalist, published in the Boulder City Review (check reference list at the end of Miele's essay):

Who out there likes to see people suffer? Raise your hand, please. I am dead serious.  Medicare for All: sign up to help!  https://m4m4all.org/

Maine Writer- Medicare is already a law!  There is no need, whatsoever, to pass a "Medicare" law.  Support for "Medicare For All" should be made as simple as it really is - just change the age requirements!  That's it!  Medicare is not free.  Everyone pays for Medicare, whether or not we use it. So, makes sense, to allow all who qualify for the coverage to have access to the health care they are entitled to.  

Information about July 24 rally.

Echo opinion published in the Boulder City Review: 

Have you known people who couldn’t pay for insurance or a doctor’s care or medicine? There were many times in my life when I couldn’t afford health insurance and just hoped nothing would happen to me or my family because I didn’t have the money to pay for any type of care.

During one of those times, I had to be hospitalized and had no clue where the money would come from. 

A social worker at the hospital in Chicago came to me after surgery and explained how to apply for Medicaid.

Fortunately, I qualified, and the hospitalization and surgery were paid for.

I was lucky, but there are many in this country who “make too much money” to qualify for Medicaid in their state. What happens to them? They suffer and live in pain and die.

Are we a country that allows this to happen to people because they can’t afford private, for-profit insurance? Do we believe it is more important to allow drug companies to reap profits, profits that come from real people? What do we value? Money or people?

On July 24 there will be marches all over this country demanding Medicare for All. I believe health care is a right afforded to everyone. Each one of us deserves to live a healthy life — no ifs, ands or buts. There should be no test to qualify for health care. The federal government can pay for it without taking money from anyone’s pocket, despite what you’ve heard, what politicians say or what you think you know is correct.

Spending by the federal government doesn’t come from your taxes. State taxes come from us because states are currency users, not the issuer of the currency like the federal government is. Here’s a video on issuer vs. user https://youtu.be/mODnz8DnhCQ.

All spending at the federal level is new spending appropriated by Congress for what they, the 535 members, agree to spend it on. That is how it works, and you can believe me or not.

Congress doesn’t print dollars or take money from a big piggy bank to pay any company, person, state. Directions are given and accounts are credited by keystrokes. Proof exists to demonstrate how the system works, and I’m more than happy to share that with you. Call or email me any time, please.

Back to the march on July 24. As I write this, more than 14 groups nationwide have signed on as sponsors of this event, and they represent thousands of individuals. 

City after city is signing on to march on this day. You can find more information on the national website, https://m4m4all.org/, beginning with this paragraph:

“Currently more than 30 million Americans still do not have health insurance, and even more are underinsured. Even for some who already have coverage, premiums are so high that many cannot afford it. Despite the health care industry being a substantial amount of the GDP, Americans still rank high in many health conditions and have a higher infant mortality rate than countries that spend much less. Americans deserve better.”

The bottom line to me is whether you believe Americans deserve better; you either do or you don’t. If it is shown that Medicare for All is not going to take money from you, does not have to increase your taxes in any way, shape or form, and will stop so many issues connected to illness, why would anyone be against this proposal?

Here is an article (https://realprogressives.org/warren-moslers-crisis-management-proposal) written at the start of the pandemic. Item number six suggests: “Lower the eligibility age of free Medicare from 65 to 0 and adequately fund it to provide medical care that makes us proud to be Americans.” Looks straightforward to me.

The words “adequately fund it” are vital. Congress chooses where the money goes. They need to hear from us we want a country that is healthy, not suffering.

Do we put people before money? You decide.

Resources

1. Proposal for single-payer national health insurance: https://www.pnhp.org/PDF_files/Physicians%20ProposalJAMA.pdf

2. Health over profit: http://healthoverprofit.org/2018/02/01/which-path-to-national-improved-medicare-for-all/?fbclid=IwAR3idZ-4HwS2DkkU38lUjp51sLIewfUsmE_gDAp5J7OkqlE63dAl2Tw_8mo

3. Common dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/05/29/medicare-none-response-state-based-universal-health-care-act-2021

4. “Power To Heal” film: blbfilmproductions.com

American Bishops have no authority to deny the Eucharist to the faithful

Echo opinion published in The Salem News in Salem Massachusetts:

Bishop's miter and staff

To the editor: I have some basic (Roman Catholic) catechism” questions for the US Catholic bishops, particularly those who would attack the chief executive of a democracy for doing the right thing, which is staying neutral in public pronouncements concerning a woman’s right to make decisions involving her body.

You would deny Joe Biden access to the Eucharist for respecting all Americans and their differences on an issue that will never personally affect your body?

Please answer these very basic catechism questions “yes” or “no.” Given your priestly status you and I both know what your (public) answers must be:

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is actually present in the Eucharist?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God, Son of God, Creator of the Universe and Savior of Mankind?

After answering those questions in the only way that you as a priest can answer them, how do you answer this next question?

Who are you to determine who the Creator of the Universe and Savior of Mankind can and cannot visit?

It would certainly appear that you are trying to control God by treating the Eucharist as a political commodity. Shame on you!

Brendan Walsh,
Salem, Massachusetts

American Catholic Bishops are not God

Obviously, I'm certainly not a theologian, or a religious historian or even a person with a philosophy degree. Nevertheless, I am qualified to unequivocally say this: "United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are not God".  Full stop.

Bishop's Mitre

Two echoes:  

America Magazine- echo by Ashley McKinless and Zac Davis:

"...timing. I mean, we’re just coming out of this pandemic where people have been deprived of the Eucharist for over a year. And then, just as we’re starting to go back to Mass in person, what we hear from the national bishops’ conference is, if you’re just reading the headlines, it sounds like they’re debating when we should be denying the Eucharist to people instead of welcoming people back and saying, 'We’re so glad you’re coming back. We can’t imagine what it would be like to be without the Eucharist for a year'. Because, the bishops have not been without the Eucharist for a year."

To the editor- echo to the Los Angeles Times: I have been a Roman Catholic for the past 80 years. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in the Catholic Church. The fact that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has the temerity even to discuss denying Communion to President Biden for following the law of the land on abortion rights is disgraceful to me.

This is a church that ran homes in Ireland where babies died at shockingly high rates or were stolen from their young unwed mothers, and whose priests committed willful acts of depravity against young boys. Yet U.S. bishops have the audacity to question the devotion of our president?

It is time to take the church’s tax exemption away. It has now become a very political organization.

Aine Smallwood, Encinitas, California

Gruesome COVID death images from India - Yes, a resurgence could happen here!

COVID Alert redux!  Two echo opinions published in The New York Times: Yes it can happen in the US, too. 

With the COVID virus variant infecting India, the dominant strain is now in the US and showing up among those who are unvaccinated.

What do unvaccinated people not get about their increased risk of illness and death when they choose to refuse the COVID vaccine?

Gruesome! Corpses wrapped in shrouds were exposed along the banks of the Ganges River in Shringverpur. (Credit...Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images)

INDIA- Kunal Kamra, an enormously popular stand-up comedian in India, puts all jokes aside and takes a serious look at his government’s handling of the pandemic.

His assessment is withering: He accuses the nation’s leadership, especially an overconfident Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of putting political vanity before common sense and opening the door to a devastating resurgence of coronavirus infections.

India has been struggling amid a second COVID wave, which has sickened millions, killed tens of thousands and overwhelmed the nation’s health care system. At the peak of the crisis, new infections numbered about 400,000 a day, a record-breaking pace. Since then, the daily counts of infections and deaths have dropped. But Mr. Kamra says that had Mr. Modi and other political leaders responded more quickly and more effectively, a lot of lives and heartache would have been spared. “My people are needlessly dying,” Mr. Kamra says. “Our government has blood on its hands.”

LUCKNOW, India-  "Returning the dead...." echo opinion by Om Guar: — The Ganges, or Ganga, is the holiest of India’s rivers, and most Hindus believe that dipping their body in it will purify their soul. But when the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit this spring, the river also became Exhibit A for the Modi administration’s failures and deceptions.

The northern state of Bihar recently revised its death toll for April and May from 5,424 to 9,375. Private agencies tasked with conducting coronavirus tests at Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious festival in northern India that attracted millions of pilgrims in April — and turned out to be a coronavirus superspreader event — reportedly falsified some 100,000 results.

The second wave of infections appears to be ebbing, but the country is struggling to process the staggering toll — nearly 380,000 people dead, the vast majority since just March — hobbled by the continuing obfuscation of both local and central authorities. But the holy Ganges does not lie.

On May 12, villagers in Buxar, a district in Bihar, found bloated and disfigured corpses floating in the river. Some 100 bodies were fished out there and in a district upstream, Ghazipur. A local senior police officer said the bodies had traveled downriver from Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

The national editor of Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi-language newspaper that sells about five and a half million copies a day across India, mostly to readers in small towns and villages sent 30 reporters and photojournalists to walk the banks of the Ganges in major cities and districts in Uttar Pradesh.

Reporters counted 2,000 bodies on May 12 and 13 alone as they traveled 700 miles along the river. The bodies weren’t only floating in it; on some days, 65 or 70 were washing up on its shores. Yet by our calculations, based on official data, the state authorities claim that just 7,826 people died from Covid-19 from April 1 to May 13.

Shringverpur, a small village in southern Uttar Pradesh, is considered holy for its association with Lord Rama, a Hindu deity and the protagonist of the epic poem “Ramayana.” Our reporters saw many bodies buried just a yard apart; hundreds of saffron shrouds wrapped around the corpses were poking up from the ground. 

Poor villagers who couldn’t afford to buy wood to cremate their kin had sought some solace by burying them near a sacred site.

After more reporting, we estimated that between mid-April and mid-May some 4,000 corpses had been placed in shallow pits by the river along a stretch of less than one mile.

We might never have heard of this tragedy but for the weather. 

Rains in early May swelled the Ganges, tossing corpses up to the river’s surface and onto its shores. They washed dirt from the banks, exposing the bodies buried there.

Truth about the 2020 election and Republican propaganda

"Hopefully, at some point, the repetition of truth will crowd out the repetition of the big lie." 

Echo editorial opinion published in the Tennessee Lookout , by Holly McCall.

Almost five months ago, Joe Biden was inaugurated President of the United States, an event that came after months of lawsuits filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign team, outright lies and a disgraceful and violent insurrection against Congress the very day that body was certifying the results of the federal election.

That was bad enough, but even worse is that almost half a year after Biden was seated, an eighth of a way through his term, is that so many Americans are still buying into the big lie that Trump won.

A poll conducted and released by the Vanderbilt University Poll June 8 showed that 71% of poll respondents who identify as Republican believe that Joe Biden stole the presidential election, while 30% of those identifying as independent voters share the opinion.

To be clear, there is a big difference between opinion and fact.

“This is a remarkable number—that the vast majority of a political party feels the other party is illegitimate, despite the lack of any evidence,” said Josh Clinton, professor of political science at Vanderbilt and co-director of the university’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. “This survey question has not been previously relevant in American politics, so going forward this will continue to be a concern when evaluating how this will impact future elections around the country.”

The poll sampled 1,000 people across Tennessee and it was conducted between May 3-20 with a 3.7% margin of error.

Reuters news service, an unimpeachable news service, provided a succinct fact check on the stolen election rumors in February.

“Courts dismissed more than 50 lawsuits of alleged electoral fraud and irregularities presented by Trump and allies. U.S. election security officials have said the election was ‘the most secure in American history,’” stated the Reuters story.

What in the world has happened to our country and our state that so many people continue to believe such an easily disprovable lie? How did Donald Trump manage to convince so many people, many of whom are reasonable about other issues, that he won an election he clearly did not?

I was recently a guest on a Nashville TV political talk show that typically features two guests from the right or the Republican Party and two progressives. I’ve known one of the Republican men for more than 30 years: We met at a time when we were both active in Democratic politics. Now, I know Southern Democrats are traditionally more conservative than, say, Northeastern Democrats, but I can’t help but wonder why he changed courses. Maybe he saw more opportunity as the Republican Party became the majority party in the state or maybe the Trump movement allowed him to be who he was all along.

But I was still surprised to hear him admit on television that he, too, believes the election was stolen from Trump. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, for I also saw the photos he posted on his social media channels from just outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The other guest, a man who works in state government, agreed that he, too, believed the election was stolen. 

Both men sat there, on camera, with Cheshire cat grins on their faces. Again, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

If our own state lawmakers don’t have the integrity to accept valid election results—and the truth—how can we expect different from their constituents who are look to them for leadership?

“I weep for America,” responded my fellow guest, Justin Kanew, to the two Republicans perpetuating the election lie on air.

I get it. Many of us weep for our country, torn apart by political division and lies. But we must do more than weep. One of the tenets of propaganda is that the repetition of lies makes them seem truthful. Psychologists call this the ‘illusion of truth’ effect. Those of us who care about the truth must just as stringently keep repeating it, no matter how long it takes. Hopefully, at some point, the repetition of truth will crowd out the repetition of the big lie.

The Big Lie is a Republican problem!

Echo opinion published in The Tennessee Tribune

The Tennessee Republican Party has become the party of the Big Lies. First, there was the big lie that the 2020, Presidential election was fraught with fraud and was stolen from the
Republican nominee. 

Republicans are the problem!

Practically every elected Republican in the state perpetuated this lie; some refusing to this date to acknowledge that President Biden won the 2020, election! 

This notwithstanding, the fact that officials appointed by former Guy (#FG) Trump to monitor the election have stated that the presidential election was the most secure election in the history of presidential elections.

In addition to perpetuating “The Big Lie,” Republican leaders in the state refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the Covid-19, pandemic; refused to encourage face coverings and refused to enforce mask mandates or encourage citizens to take the vaccines developed at warp speed to fight the deadly virus.

If spreading the big lie about the election was not enough, Republican members of the Tennessee General Assembly are telling other big lies and otherwise attempting to legislate the cancellation
of historical truths. 

Unbelievably, Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, is spearheading legislation that would forbid teaching about racism, inequality, and racial and sexist privilege! 

Moreover, teaching the existence, past and present, of racism and racial privilege would result in the loss of federal funding for
Tennessee’s public and charter schools. To push his bill, Rep. Ragan relies on a proven
Republican strategy of demonizing those who might oppose his bill; name calling. 

Those who oppose Rep. Ragan’s big lie are characterized as “hucksters,” “charlatans,” and “useful idiots
peddling identity politics.”

If the big lies about the presidential election and no racism are not enough, Republican Representative Justin Lafferty of Knoxville recently stated on the House floor that the three-
fifths compromise to the U.S. Constitution was designed to end slavery. 

Perhaps this is the biggest lie of all the Republican lies. The purpose of the compromise was to give slaveholding states additional population numbers in order to give the southern states greater representation in Congress, and accordingly, more electoral college votes.

Tennesseans deserve good, decent, honorable government led by good, decent, honest representatives, and not big lies and a cancel culture that seeks to deny the truth and cause
constituents to be intellectually illiterate.

From Carlton M. Lewis, Magistrate, Davidson County Juvenile Court, Tennessee.

Explaining For the People Act in plain language

This Brennan Center for Justice article is an excellent summary about the For The People Act!

For the People Act: Separating Fact from Fiction

There’s a lot of disinformation and misinformation swirling around the landmark legislation. We set the record straight.

By Daniel Weiner and Gareth Fowler

Our democracy urgently needs repair.

The “Big Lie” of widespread voter fraud in the 2020, election that motivated a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has sparked an unprecedented wave of voter suppression laws in the states. 

The upcoming redistricting cycle threatens to once again be marred by extreme partisan gerrymandering that will distort congressional elections for a decade. And our broken campaign finance system continues to foster a widespread sense from Americans across the political spectrum that their voices simply do not count relative to big donors and entrenched interests.

These challenges are, among other things, intimately connected to our nation’s history of racial injustice, from persistent efforts to keep voters of color away from the ballot box, to gerrymandering that has repeatedly sought to dilute their political power, to the racial wealth gap that is a persistent barrier to many candidates of color raising enough funds to compete.

But today we also have a historic opportunity to strengthen American democracy.

The For the People Act, passed as H.R. 1 in the House and pending as S. 1 in the Senate, would curb voter suppression and make it easier for all Americans to register to vote and cast a ballot. It would outlaw partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. And it would overhaul our campaign finance laws to amplify the voices of ordinary Americans, combat corruption, and make federal campaign spending more transparent. Together with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore the full protections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 hobbled by the Supreme Court, the For the People Act would move us measurably closer to realizing the promise of democracy for all.

For the People!

Poll after poll has shown overwhelming public support for this "For the People", legislation. One recent survey found 67 percent of Americans in favor, including 56 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents.

Despite the bill’s popularity, some commentators have suggested that it should be broken up because its individual pieces would be easier to pass than the whole. But the bill’s comprehensive approach is actually its greatest strength. Its ambitious scope has attracted a vast and unprecedented coalition of civil rights activists, labor organizers, faith-based organizations, environmental groups, consumer advocates, voting rights experts, and many others.

Without effective arguments against the For the People Act, some of its opponents have instead relied on misinformation. At a May 11 Senate hearing, for instance, opponents charged that it would allow Democrats to “take over our democracy,” permit “millions of people to vote illegally,” and funnel taxpayer money to politicians.

These and similar attacks are simply wrong. Here are some of the most common misconceptions about the For the People Act circulating today.

FICTION: The For the People Act is a partisan power grab

Leading opponents of the For the People Act have charged that it is a Democratic power grab, accusing the Democrats of seeking to “win elections in perpetuity” by rigging the system in their favor. This assertion is utterly baseless.

The key reforms in the For the People Act are modelled off successful practices that have been implemented in red, blue, and purple states. Forty-three states have some form of early voting and 34 states allow no excuse vote by mail, which the bill would require for all federal elections. The bill also requires states to adopt Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) — where eligible voters are registered when they provide their information to a government agency like the department of motor vehicles. AVR has been passed in 19 states of all political hues, including by a unanimous vote in the Illinois Legislature and two-thirds of voters in a Michigan ballot referendum. Redistricting reforms like those in the For the People Act have been adopted by voters in red and purple states like Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, and Utah, often by overwhelming margins. Republican states like Alaska and Montana have some of the nation’s strongest campaign finance rules.

It is simply not true that the For the People Act gives an electoral advantage to the Democratic Party. These measures benefit all Americans, regardless of party, especially over the long term. For instance, Republican voters have long taken advantage of both early voting and vote by mail at the same rate as Democrats. Redistricting reforms have helped Republicans. In California, for instance, using map-drawing criteria similar to those in the For the People Act, the nonpartisan redistricting commission drew a congressional map highly responsive to changes in voter sentiment. The result: Republicans won back four of the seven House seats they lost in the 2018 Democratic wave.

Similarly, the campaign finance reforms in the bill would have a bipartisan impact. In fact, Democrats in the last election cycle benefited more than Republicans from the sort of secret campaign spending the For the People Act eliminates. And far from a “partisan takeover” of the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission, as critics have charged, the For the People Act creates many new statutory safeguards to prevent the agency from being weaponized by either party.

The bottom line is that the For the People Act would empower the American people as whole — which helps to explain why it enjoys such widespread, bipartisan support.
FICTION: The For the People Act is a federal takeover of elections

Critics have alleged that the For the People Act would result in a “federal takeover” of elections. This is false.

Under the For the People Act, state and local governments would continue to administer all elections, just as they do now, and they would continue to set policies for their jurisdictions beyond what is required by federal law. The For the People Act merely sets baseline standards for voting access in federal contests, as Congress has done many times before.

Even though that’s not what this bill does, the Constitution gives Congress the power to completely supplant states in setting the rules for federal elections. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2013 Supreme Court decision, the Constitution authorizes Congress to “provide a complete code for congressional elections” if it desires. The For the People Act stops well short of doing so; it would merely ensure that every American has a reasonable opportunity to vote no matter where they live.

FICTION: The For the People Act will allow noncitizens and people under 18 to vote

Some opponents of the bill have falsely claimed that the For the People Act (WRONG!) would allow noncitizens or those under the age of 18, to vote in American elections. It would do no such thing.

The bill would modernize voter registration and take other steps to expand access to the ballot, but it would do nothing to weaken existing laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting. Under its automatic voter registration provisions, government agencies would only register people known to be citizens or those who affirm their citizenship, as under current law and practice. Automatic voter registration and other changes to modernize voter registration, like online and Election-Day registration, are already the law in dozens of states, and they have not led to an increase in noncitizen registration or voting.

The charge that the For the People Act would allow those under 18 to vote is equally baseless. It would allow citizens aged 16 and 17 to preregister to vote, as is currently done in more than a dozen states, but they would not be allowed to cast a ballot until they turn 18.
FICTION: The For the People Act will open the door to “voter fraud”

Another attack is that enacting the For the People Act will somehow result in widespread “voter fraud.” But there is no credible basis for this prediction.

Voter fraud is vanishingly rare, and efforts to show otherwise have been soundly debunked. Key reforms in the For the People Act, like modernizing voter registration and expanding access to early voting and vote by mail, would do nothing to change this basic reality. Already, tens of millions of Americans vote in states with similar rules, and there is no evidence of any uptick in fraud.

If anything, such changes often make our elections more secure. Automatic voter registration, for example, has been shown to increase the accuracy of the voter rolls. The For the People Act also includes other much needed election security provisions, like requiring the use of voter-verified paper ballots and offering more funding for post-election audits to confirm results.

Critics of the For the People Act have often zeroed in on its provisions expanding access to mail voting, repeating false allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 vote, in which unprecedented numbers voted by mail and many burdensome requirements (like witness signature and ballot notarization) were relaxed due to the pandemic. False allegations of fraud in 2020, are the same lies that fueled the January 6, insurrection.

In reality, the evidence shows there is no widespread fraud in connection with mail voting. States have been voting by mail for decades. Oregon, a pioneer in this area, has sent out approximately 100 million mail ballots since 2000 and has documented only about a dozen reported cases of fraud — that is 0.0001 percent of all votes cast. An exhaustive analysis by investigative journalists of all known vote fraud cases between 2000 and 2012 found exactly 491 cases of mail voter fraud.

As one noted scholar pointed out, “literally billions of votes” were cast during that period. As with in-person voting, it is more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than commit mail voter fraud. Likewise, hundreds of officials — including scores of Republicans ranging from high-level appointees at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to state and local election officials, to multiple federal judges nominated by Republican presidents — have confirmed that there was no widespread fraud in 2020.

In making mail voting more accessible, the For the People Act would not increase the risk of fraud. However, it would help to ensure that all eligible Americans, including voters who are disabled or live in rural areas without reliable access to transportation, have the opportunity to easily and securely cast a ballot.
FICTION: The For the People Act will funnel taxpayer money to politicians and foment political extremism

Opponents of the For the People Act have claimed that the bill’s campaign finance reforms will divert taxpayer money to politicians and encourage political extremism. These assertions are mistaken.

Moreover, the For the People Act will create a voluntary small donor matching system for federal elections, under which small contributions to participating candidates would be matched at a six-to-one ratio. Small donor matching, which has been used in presidential primaries and at the state and local level for decades, gives candidates a way to fundraise without relying primarily on donations from the very wealthiest contributors and special interests.

It is the best antidote to the inequities of the current system, in which $1 out of every $13 contributed over the last six election cycles has come from just a dozen megadonors and their spouses. Small donor matching benefits the vast majority of candidates, but it is especially useful for candidates of color, particularly women, who thanks to historic discrimination often cannot access the same wealthy networks as their white counterparts.

This program does not use any taxpayer money. It is entirely funded by a surcharge to be assessed primarily on penalties from corporate lawbreakers. The bill expressly forbids any use of taxpayer funds.

A few academic commentators have worried that empowering small donors will result in more elected officials with ideologically extreme views. But overall, small donors are no more ideologically extreme than the large donors who currently bankroll our campaigns. Small donors do support some ideologically extreme candidates (so do large donors), but many moderate and establishment politicians are also highly successful small dollar fundraisers.

Furthermore, public financing programs that reward small donor fundraising tend to broaden the range of people who give to campaigns, including incentivizing more of a candidate’s own constituents to give. In other words, such systems tend to make the pool of donors look more like the electorate overall rather than empowering ideological extreme segments.

Landmark legislation: Support For The People Act

Senator Joe Manchin Alert! Echo opinion published in the West Virginia The Register-Herald, in Beckley, WV.  

"Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has announced that the Senate will take an initial vote on the For the People Act legislation next week; Senator Manchin said he did not know what changes Schumer and other Democrats would be willing to make to win his support."- Washington Post

Dear Editor:

Some people would have you believe that legislation dubbed the For the People Act is a solution in search of a problem. I wish that were true. Unfortunately, it is not the case whatsoever if you look at widespread efforts to restrict access to voting.

On May 11, Senator Capito authored an op-ed claiming that “Democrats want to politicize our elections.” 

There are some serious issues with saying this (oxymoron 101!) – especially falsely alluding to the idea that the For the People Act is a partisan bill. 

Although the bill has been introduced by Democrats, 76 percent of registered Republican voters in West Virginia support the For the People Act. Senator Capito and I agree: Republicans and Democrats want to see more people voting and that is why she should support S. 1.

Right now across our country, we see state legislature after state legislature—including here in West Virginia—considering and even passing legislation that would make access to the ballot box more difficult. The For the People Act is a remedy that seeks to combat restrictive measures to voting.

The For the People Act does three things. The first is that it would make it easier to vote, address challenges voters faced in casting their ballots, and protect the security and integrity of our elections. It also would end the predatory and harmful dominance of big money in politics. Finally, it would restore ethics and accountability in government by ensuring public officials are working in the public interest.

After the (seditious) attack on our capitol on January 6, and the spread of mistruths (aka "lies!"- The Big Lie) following the 2020, election, we know that the sanctity of our democracy is under threat from actors both foreign and domestic. The only way we will preserve our system of governance is if we stand up and demand it and further make it more inclusive for all to participate. The best way to stand up for our democracy is to demand passage of the For the People Act. Join me and let’s show both Senator Capito and Senator Manchin that we support this landmark legislation.

Zachary Fancher, Fairmont, West Virginia

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are creating a hypocritical fake Eucharistic document!

"...single issue US Bishops..."

Catholic Democrats-: An echco opinion published by Catholic Democrats.  Thank you Catholic Democrats.

Maine Writer: This decision by the American Hypocrite Bishops makes my brail boil in anger!  It is time to Tax Roman Catholic Churches because these Bishops are making the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ -the Eucharist- a political statement. You know what? The Bishops may have the give of transubstantiation but they are not Gods.  In other words, "What Would Jesus Do?".

Catholic Democrats "Communion Wars" WWJD? 

Boston, Mass., June 18, 2021 - Catholic Democrats is observing today that the proposal for a Eucharistic document – passed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) yesterday with 73 percent of the U.S. (hypocritical!) Bishops (!?- WWTT?) voting in favor – comes from the fruit of a poisonous tree. 

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone

 

Although the genesis of the proposed document dates back to the emergence of the culture wars in the United States and the related “Communion Wars” of the 2004, presidential and subsequent campaigns, its specific development this year is a result of the election of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in November 2020. Immediately following the 2020 presidential election, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, President of the USCCB, asserted that the election of the first Catholic President since John F. Kennedy would create “confusion among the faithful about what the Catholic Church actually teaches” and he announced the formation of a working group “in order to help us to navigate [the situation].”

“After the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, including worship by virtual Mass without receiving Holy Communion, Catholics have a spiritual hunger for the Body and Blood of Christ. In this regard, a document on the Eucharist that welcomes the faithful back to Church could be of legitimate pastoral value, but within the context of the USCCB’s recent actions, it is not,” said Steve Krueger, president of Catholic Democrats. “Given that the roots of this document are tied to the election of our president and the development of the proposal has included language regarding ‘worthiness to receive communion’ and has ignored guidelines from the Vatican stressing a much more comprehensive process and unity, this proposal is the fruit of a poisonous tree. Prudence can only lead one to conclude that its passage at this time, in this way, has put the church in the U.S. on a dangerous, more divisive path.”

“As an African-American Catholic woman, it is heartbreaking to me that there are so many misguided single-issue US Bishops who reject this teaching moment of racial awakening to address the complex systemic evil of racism in our Church and society,” said Leslye Colvin, a member of Catholic Democrats board. “Rather than use the Gospel of Christ and the teachings of Pope Francis to dismantle the flawed construct of race and advance racial healing, they are blindly taking us down a path that will demean their teaching authority and will only lead to further division within our church. I pray that these men, individually and collectively, will move beyond their certainties and humbly enter a period of discernment inviting the Holy Spirit to move them beyond the duality of our time.”

“It is very disappointing that a majority of the USCCB decided to ignore the guidance of Cardinal Ladaria, the counsel of almost 70 of their brother bishops including 5 cardinals, and the direction of the Papal Nuncio and Pope Francis. The root of this initiative, the lack of process acceptable to the Vatican or conducive to consensus, and the rush to bring it to a vote raises serious questions about what these bishops are really seeking to accomplish. Some bishops told us on Thursday that they know their credibility is at stake. If the USCCB does not want to further diminish its reputation, it should release the vote of each bishop so that American Catholics can engage in dialogue with their bishops and priests on this dangerous undertaking,” said Bibiana Boerio, a supporter of Catholic Democrats who is on the boards of several other Catholic institutions.

“Nothing good can come of this as currently proposed – it will only further division,” said Krueger. “The only rational purpose to this dubious proposal would be to either diminish the Holy Father, the President of the United States, or both. In this regard, the proposed Eucharistic document will only further politicize the presence of Jesus in our lives.”

We watched January 6th with our own eyes! It was not a tourist visit

What America witnessed!

GOP claims about Jan. 6 mar country's integrity

Echo opinion published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch

On Jan. 6, I, along with other Americans, watched agog as a large mob of former President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and attempted a coup on his behalf. The live TV coverage showed the mob’s violence and the futile attempts of the U.S. Capitol Police to prevent it without any support whatsoever from the military that was under the command of the Trump administration.

Tear Gas outside United States Capitol

Recently, however, three Republican congressional members — U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., and Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas — told me and the world that it had not happened that way. According to them, the crowd was orderly, polite and nonviolent. One said there was no insurrection. In short, despite my seeing the live coverage, I got it wrong. Oh, and others even say that the crowd was not really composed of Trump supporters.

Say what? People were hurt, people died and the Capitol was damaged. Again, I saw this with my own eyes as it was happening. Nevertheless, the current holy writ of the GOP is that Jan. 6 was just a midwinter outing of excited tourists and any violence was the fault of antifa, a nonexistent boogeyman for the far right.

Republicans blocked a January 6 commission study

The attempts to rewrite history are the most dangerous sequelae of the Jan. 6, insurrection. These revisionists and apologists insult my intelligence and that of the millions of other Americans who saw what happened. They do not deserve public office and their lies illustrate why we must prosecute not just the rioters but also those who summoned them to Washington and whipped them up before releasing them like a bullet at the heart of our republic. 

Trump, Brooks, Hawley, Cruz and others must be punished if our republic is to maintain its integrity and vitality.

Robert Adams, North Chesterfield, Virginia