Here’s some good news for a change: thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/500452-supreme-court-rules-immigrants-who-fear-torture-can-appeal
Joe Biden did the right thing in attending George Floyd’s funeral. But unnecessary (in terms of protecting the public) killings of African Americans continue, such as the recent shooting of a fleeing suspect in Atlanta. So, he was drunk, just let him run away, don’t kill him! Gun possession, even by police, seems to make the possessor trigger-happy. Maybe not all police should carry guns.
Mr. Trump now seems to be facing the possibility he might lose reelection, even under our skewed Electoral College system, saying that if he loses, he’ll just “do other things.”
Mike Pompeo declared he’s stepping up pressure against Latin America’s “Troika of Tyranny:” Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. For once, someone in the Trump administration has said something I might agree with. The governments of those countries are oppressive, dysfunctional, and corrupt, though Pompeo’s heavy-handed approach may not be the most effective. But basically, he’s right, in my opinion, surprised that I might agree with anything this administration says or does.
Mr. Trump simply shows no awareness of the impact that his threatening antics and violent rhetoric have on others. He often says or does something that seems to create an effect directly opposite of what he intended. Nor does he care if his threats arouse his own followers to create mayhem. He makes a point of never wearing a face mask, defying the laws of nature, never mind if his followers follow suit and get sick. (Those attending his rallies will not be allowed to wear face masks and must sign a waiver of claims if they get sick from the virus.)
The man is devoid of normal human empathy, impulse control, and the ability to foresee the likely consequences of his words and actions. He goes out unmasked with an avalanche of armed escorts to barrel violently through a protest crowd to pose for a photo-op next to a burned church structure while holding up a Bible, a book he’s never read because he doesn’t read—doesn’t even know how read? If he is criticized for that ham-fisted exercise, that’s simply “fake news.” If his advisers had told him beforehand not to do it, he would have ignored them because, after all, he always knows better. He doesn’t need any advice, as he is “a very stable genius.” Now when he’s being accused of fanning the flames of violence and of desecrating the Holy Book, it’s just more fake news. It must be wonderful to live in a mental bubble where everything you do is great.
The morning after the debacle with the Bible, Trump went with Melania to be photographed in front of the John Paul II shrine near at the entrance to Catholic U. As demonstrators shouted, Trump seemed be nudging his wife to smile, but she remained stony-faced for the photo while wearing a black dress and sunglasses. Catholic Archbishop Wilton Gregory denounced the effort to turn a religious shrine into a political symbol. In El Paso, Texas, Bishop Mark J. Seitz, took a knee in a Black Lives Matter demonstration and received a call from Pope Francis applauding his gesture. .
How did this troubled and troublesome man become the president? Can we afford to wait even until November to get him out? One of my neighbors has started a petition asking Mr. Trump to resign. Melania might be happy if he did that.
The well being of the citizenry, of other people, means nothing to Donald Trump. He is impervious to the pain and even death that he may inflict on others, He was willing to jeopardize the health of West Point cadets by ordering them to hear him speak in person and now some are ill with the virus. But he got his photo-op..
Police guarding the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC are in a very tough spot.
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Have been
trying now to help out with an asylum case. To summarize, Basilio Guznan was a political prisoner in Cuba for 22 years,released with Jesse Jackson in 1984 when our local Amnesty group asked Jackson to ask Fidel for the release
of 26 Cuban political prisoners, including one assigned
to our own group. Jackson brought them all out, as per my Confessions
book. Basilio was among them, he married a member of our Amnesty group,and I
ghosted a memoir in English for him. He has done work on my house
as a carpenter, but at age 83, has retired. Now his grandniece and her
husband left Cuba in Dec. 2018 after they were harassed by authorities for not
voting for the only candidates on the ballot when voting is obligatory and,
they say, after the wife, who was pregnant, was struck in the
abdomen by police causing her to miscarry. So they left Cuba and crossed
the Texas border before “wait in Mexico.” The husband was sent to
detention in Arizona and the wife to Louisiana, where she still remains. Both
had asylum hearings.The husband was granted provisional asylum, but the wife was
denied and is set for deportation. Now the husband, with a lawyer, is asking a
Cuban-born South Florida Republican, Congressman Diaz-Balart (whose family
in Cuba once supported Fidel), to intervene. So,
now I'm doing what I can to advise the husband and the lawyer because of my
experience with asylum, both as an interpreter and as an Amnesty volunteer
leader. Will keep you posted.
Don’t
Republicans support state and local government? For example, DC government? It seems
that they have been only too willing to bow down to Donald Trump, not daring to
say the emperor has no clothes, though recently, a few seem to be weighing the
loss of his followers against the loss of everybody else. Now a few prominent
Republicans are expressing reservations, not actually opposing him outright,
but not promising to vote for him either. In that waffling category are Senators
Murkowski and Collins, as well as former President GW Bush and Senator Mitt Romney.
This gives waffling Republicans
permission to vote for Biden, a moderate who may not appeal to the left spectrum
of the Democratic Party, but may still seem better than Mr. Trump. Biden is
someone whom others can work with, unlike Trump, who knows everything. Gen. Colin Powell who has said
he will vote for Biden is a prominent example. Let's hope this starts a
landside against Mr. Trump. But the big question mark is among dieha Trump
supporters who may abandon a candidate who does not fully support Trump.
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Because the Corona virus and Trump presidency have so upset the status quo in our country and the world, many of us have started thinking more about making big changes, not only individually in our own lives, but collectively as a nation and even internationally. While most people would not want to repeat the “socialism” of the former USSR or even of present-day China, dare we try to create a market economy that provides more benefits for the majority of workers and citizens, instead of allowing ever-increasing riches to go to the top 1%? No one in the top 1%, or even 2% or 3%, is so many times more productive than the ordinary worker sufficient to merit his or her salary and benefits. Nor can someone even in the top tier actually get that much more enjoyment from their excessive wealth. Everyone has human limitations, so why not spread the benefits of what is produced around to all those who have helped to produce it through greater taxation at the top, higher minimum wages, and more social benefits? Nordic countries seem to have done this with no loss of productivity. The result is a more contented citizenry and less social strife.
I sent the following message to a friend who is lukewarm about voting
for Biden: If you like the policies of Betsy DeVos, Stephen Miller, and Mike
Pompeo, by all means vote for Trump or even write-in Micky Mouse. If you don’t
care about Trump’s rush to fill life-time judgeships and if you think Ginsburg
can survive 4 more years on the Supreme Court, then just let Trump win again.
Unfortunately, as in most elections, we are confronted with a binary choice,
with choosing what may seem to us to be the lesser of 2 evils. Lots of folks
didn’t like Hillary, her personality or whatever, and, still, despite getting 3
million more votes, she lost to Trump in an Electoral College system that
favors Republicans. So Democrats have to get a super plurality and each voter
only has one vote. Do I like Joe Biden? I don’t dislike him, but I would have
liked to have seen a female candidate after the victory was stolen from
Hillary. But Biden is all we’ve got against the ongoing national and
international disaster that is Trump. It would also be nice to see the defeat
of henchman Sen. Mitch McConnell, but that’s probably too much to wish for.
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