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xtruss · 3 years

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A Muslim Writer on Finding Her Voice in Post-9/11, Post-Trump America

— By Aisha Sultan | 09/01/21 | Newsweek.

A new generation of Muslim Americans is making its mark. Spencer Platt/Getty

Like most Americans old enough to remember, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001 when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I was showering when I heard my husband yelling for me. Dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, I watched in shock, along with tens of millions of others, as the Twin Towers fell, killing thousands of people inside.

Emotions from that day feel so much closer than two decades ago.

My stomach turned in revulsion. My body tightened with fear for my relatives who worked there. Dread settled like a heavy rock on my chest. Like other Americans, I wondered, who was attacking us. But as a Muslim, I had other questions too: Did the attackers claim to be Muslims? And, if so, what would happen to the rest of us?

I quickly got dressed and headed to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where I worked as an education reporter. I talked to stunned school officials and students while still trying to process what was happening.

That evening, I checked in with my family in Texas. My brother, then in middle school, had been in class when his teacher broke the news. He became nervous and, in the teacher's eyes at least, asked too many questions. "Is this World War III? Did they bomb downtown? Are they going to bomb our town next?" The teacher told him to shut up and leave her classroom, that she couldn't bear to look at his face.

Riz Ahmed attends the "Mogul Mowgli" press conference during the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin at Grand Hyatt Hotel on February 21, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Ahmed recently criticized “dehumanizing and demonizing portrayals of Muslims" in films. Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

My mother's co-workers at the department store where she had worked for years suddenly refused to speak to her. Cops escorted my hijab-wearing cousin off her college campus because it was no longer deemed safe for her to be there.

In the immediate aftermath of that day's horror, my grief and anger as an American was so compounded with my fear and anxiety as a Muslim that it compelled me to do something unthinkable for me: I poured my heart out to the readers of the Sunday paper.

Back then, it was unusual for a news reporter to pen a personal response to a national tragedy. This was long before social media made us all performative, confessional animals. I needed my neighbors in the Midwest to know that while Muslim Americans shared their grief and anger, we also feared whether our country would turn on us.

I ended that column with the questions my college-aged sister had asked me: "Will the government come after us like they did with the Japanese? Will other Americans stand up for us?"

I told my readers the same thing I told her: I don't know.

I wasn't sure what to expect but dozens and dozens of readers responded to her question with expressions of support: Yes, we will stand up for you, you and your family are one of us, they said, in one way or another, in message after message. There were just two negative, Islamophobic emails in the bunch.

Such an overwhelmingly positive response seems inconceivable now, given how polarized our discourse is now and how normalized hate speech has become—an irony, when you consider how heightened anti-Muslim sentiment was at the time.

Key moments after 9/11 also feel unimaginable now. Back then, a Republican president, George W. Bush, visited the Islamic Center in Washington D.C. days after the attack to tell the American people that the attacks violated the tenets of Islam—"Islam is peace," he famously said—and to defend Muslims as equal citizens worthy of respect and protection. Our last Republican president, by contrast, touted a "Muslim ban" across the country. Even my state, Missouri, now bright partisan red, was a swing state back in 2001, where Democrats sometimes voted for Republicans and vice versa.

Coming together after tragedy: U.S. Muslims sing "God Bless America" at an interfaith memorial service in Pasadena, California for 9/11 victims two days after the attacks. Lucy Nicholson/AFP/Getty

It was against this backdrop that I felt moved to share my vulnerability with readers who may never have met a Muslim before.

Their responses reassured and comforted me, but the expressions of support didn't always—or even mostly—translate into action on a national scale. Instead, the Muslim community bore the brunt of the fallout of 9/11 for years. The government targeted Muslim communities with surveillance, questioning and confinement. It seemed law enforcement and the media used the label of "terrorism" for heinous crimes only if the perpetrator was Muslim. The number of anti-Muslim hate crime incidents reported to the FBI rose from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001— and those are just the official numbers. Countless incidents are never reported to the FBI.

Yet, in those ensuing years, creative work by Muslims also bubbled up in the country. A trio of Muslim comedians—Preacher Moss, Azhar Usman and Azeem Muhammad—launched the "Allah Made Me Funny" comedy tour in 2003. Writer Laila Lalami's debut novel, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, was published in 2005. Actor Aasif Mandvi began appearing on The Daily Show in 2006. G.Willow Wilson published her first graphic novel, Cairo, in 2007.

People who had lived as Muslims in America prior to 9/11 became American Muslims, more engaged in its civic, cultural and political institutions. Muslims creatives were reclaiming the narrative and telling our own stories instead of responding to the false dichotomy of victim or villain told about us.

I was among them. Seven years after the attacks, I began lobbying my editors for a features column, a departure from a decade of straight news reporting. I had become a mother with two small children. I was trying to make sense of the confusion and isolation that parenting provokes. My first column in 2008 described a bleak winter day when I was sleep-deprived and frustrated and feeling slightly suffocated by the tight bonds of motherhood.

The author: St. Louis Post-Dispatch syndicated columnist Aisha Sultan. Elizabeth Wisemen

Again, readers in the heartland responded with overwhelming support and commiseration. I wasn't making any overtly political arguments. As readers got to know me, they appreciated the commonalities in our parenting experiences despite our differences. I wasn't trying to be an ambassador or spokeswoman for my faith or an ethnic community. I was sharing my observations and struggles as a suburban, middle class American mom who happened to be Muslim and of Pakistani descent.

An older, childless white man who lives in a conservative exurban county wrote to say I was the only Muslim he knew besides the attackers on 9/11. He said he had changed his perspective on Muslims in America after reading my column for years. We weren't just a faceless enemy to him anymore. He saw me as a person, my humanity very real to him.

We've stayed in touch for more than a decade.

Over time more Americans have become like that reader, increasingly comfortable with the idea and presence of Muslims—as neighbors and even family members. Yet simultaneously, the conservative right turned Islam into an effective political weapon and used it to bludgeon Muslims who have sought greater representation and political power.

These opposing forces once again became evident in the correspondence I got from readers, The tone and tenor changed notably in the summer of 2016 as the political rhetoric of the presidential campaign came to a boiling point. Public writers have always had our share of angry critics. But the criticism I received turned increasingly vitriolic, with a deep undercurrent of anger. People who disagreed with what I'd written weren't merely looking to dissent but to silence me.

Increasingly, pushback was laced with profanity, racial slurs and calls to go back to where I came from. Anonymous writers called me a 'raghead c*nt' and others told me to "get out of America, you towel head bigot b*tch." One reader mailed a handwritten letter after I wrote about talking to my children about the killing of Travyon Martin, the Black teenager fatally shot by a white member of a neighborhood watch patrol in Florida. She said she would make a point of cutting out my column photo from the paper every weekend so she could put it in the toilet and piss on it.

After the 2016 election, the heightened anxiety about personal safety I'd felt right after 9/11 returned, even stronger and lasted for years. It's not hard to understand why. During the period between 2015 and 2016, the number of assaults against Muslims rose significantly, surpassing the aftermath of 9/11, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of hate crimes statistics from the FBI. Over the following years, disinformation and conspiracies began taking hold in America at a level I'd never seen before. White rage was palpable online and eventually, on the streets.

The memories and feelings associated with the events of 9/11 continue to play a role in attitudes toward the American Muslim community in some quarters. Here, the annual 'Tribute in Light' memorial in lower Manhattan near One World Trade Center. Spencer Platt/Getty

And yet during this period, Muslims in America continued to create art and cultural capital at an unprecedented level. Playwright Ayad Akhtar produced his Pultizer-winning play Disgraced. Hasan Minhaj reclaimed the title Patriot Act, launching a show that became a cultural touchpoint for a generation of American Muslims too young to know firsthand how that legislation was wielded against the Muslim community. Ramy Youssef won a Golden Globe, Mahershala Ali won two Oscars and Lena Khan is directing Hollywood films. Models, pundits and Olympic athletes came into the spotlight while wearing a hijab.

At some point, I too decided that whatever the costs of speaking out, far greater was the cost of silence. If someone was going to attack me for speaking out against white supremacists, that was a risk I was willing to take. I couldn't back down from writing about controversial issues that I knew would provoke an angry backlash, even when it felt reader abuse could possibly escalate to violence.

What I've observed and experienced over the past 20 years, as a columnist and as a Muslim, perhaps boils down to this: As the politics of exclusion grow more strident, parts of the culture embrace inclusivity. Each force is a reaction to the other.

Certainly this has happened in my own relationship with readers. Even as the negative emails ramped up in intensity and bile, I still have far more readers who send words of kindness and encouragement than hatred. Many reveal their own secrets and most vulnerable stories.

My goal when I began writing a column was to give a voice to parents struggling to raise kids in this digital, social media saturated age. I hope I've done that but along the way something else important happened: I found my own voice too.

My youngest sister, who was in college when I wrote my first personal story in the aftermath of 9/11, decided to attend law school after she graduated. She eventually ran for state judge in the 113th District in Houston and was elected in 2018 as part of the record-setting number of Muslims who won public office that year.

With the benefit of two decades of hindsight and the insights I've gained from my interaction with readers over the years, I realize I could have given her a better answer when she turned to me as a frightened college student in 2001. I could have reassured her: Yes, there will be other Americans who will stand up for us.

More importantly, we will learn to stand up for ourselves.

— Aisha Sultan is a syndicated columnist based at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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thoughts-of-the-unheard · 3 years

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im losing my mind in 10th grade history i wrote my final essay on serbia vs the us bc serbia was the country id studied for a project and i just reread that essay bc i legitimately couldnt remember how to start my essay for my history final this year and holy shit guys

“Taboo Topics: Serbia vs USA Differences

There are several subjects that are usually talked in hushed whispers behind closed doors with the wonderful exceptions of the few who speak out. These subjects include, but are in no way limited to, the gender pay gap, LGBT rights, rape, and abortions. With these topics, there are some very obvious differences between how Serbia and the United States handle them. Serbia deals with these forbidden matters significantly better than the United States does.

The gender pay gap has been a popular topic for a few years now. Women are always paid less than men for the same work. In certain workplaces, women are actually less likely to be hired than a man even if she has more experience or better credentials, not always but quite often. The Boston Symphony holds blind auditions. There was a point where they had to make everyone who auditioned take off their shoes because the judges were hearing the women’s heel click against the floor and unconsciously judged against them. Bias against women is a very common and, unfortunately, normal thing to see is every country for quite a few centuries. It wasn’t always this way. We were all equal once. Now, we have male sports teams getting paid thousands for losing and female teams not getting paid at all. As of 2018, women in Serbia are paid 16% less than her male coworkers for the same job (Serbian Monitor). In the lovely United States, white women get paid 19% less then her white male coworkers. That is a three percent more difference than Serbia, which is bad enough but hispanic women are paid 39% less than her white male coworkers for the same work (iwpr). The three fifths compromise ended in the 1860s, and yet. This is the worst gender bias. People who love their job are the lucky ones. Most people now work a job, or several, just to stay afloat. Everyone deserves to be able to afford at least the bare minimum; food, water, housing, healthcare, and education. When women are paid a lesser wage than men when the wages are already insufficient, they have to pick and choose. To pay a woman less just because she wasn’t born a white man is telling her she isn’t worth as much.

LGBT, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, rights is, for some reason, a very taboo subject. People all over get killed for being part of the LGBT community. Many religions are very against anything related to the LGBT community. A lot of people think they are “confused” or straight up sinners. It should not matter what people think. If a person is a person no matter how small then a person is a person no matter their gender or sexual orientation. Serbia is very good with that. “In June 2017, Ana Brnabić became the Prime Minister of Serbia, as the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the office, and the second female LGBT head of government overall (after Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland). She was also the first Serbian Prime Minister to attend a pride parade.” (Wikipedia). America is not even ready for any female in such a high position of power while Serbia is making a bunch of firsts for women and the LGBT community. Serbia does not recognize same-sex marriages unless they are foreign but it is not illegal, either. Just in 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in America. Millions of people were told they were not allowed to feel how they were feeling for centuries. Love was illegal. It took so long to legalize because many people in America were so freaked out about the potential risk of an LGBT person raping them or their child or infecting them or it was against their religion.

Weirdest thing is that, in the same America, when non-LGBT people rape anyone, they are less likely to go to jail than any other criminal, even murderers. According to Rainn, Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 995 out of 1000 perpetrators in America will walk free. With 38.6 cases of rape for every 100,000 population, as of 2015, that is a lot scarier than the bisexual girl that lives down the street who has no interest in her friend in the same way that she wouldn’t if she was straight. LGBT people are not the problem. Rapists and the morally gray judges who let them walk without so much as a smack on the wrist because it was only one person and they don’t have a history of this sort of thing, are. The victim is never the issue. Ever. People are terrified to tell anyone they were raped because they could lose their friends and even their job. The victim. The victim who was brave enough to speak out against a violation of their body and mind. They have a higher chance of losing their job than their rapists does of going to jail. They have a higher chance of dying from whooping cough, which has a 0.52 death rate in America, then their rapist has of going to jail. Statistically, in America, someone is sexually assaulted every 92 seconds (RAINN). An estimated 63% of sexual assaults are not even reported. Very largely, in part to the low incarceration rate. In 2010, America was ranked first in 117 countries for number of rapes. Serbia was 45th. One was 1177 times more likely to get raped in America than in Serbia. As of 2015, the Serbian rate of rape cases per 100,000 was 0.7 (Knoema). Serbia is 55 times safer in these terms. They have an astronomically lower rape rate than the United States does.

Serbia has a very high amount of abortions. Taking into consideration that Serbia severely lacked even a decent sex education system to inform their people about safe-sex. Approximately 12% of sexually active women were using condoms in the 1970s and 1980s (Wikipedia). Because of the awful education, abortion was the leading method of birth control. Serbia allows abortion up to ten weeks of pregnancy for a regular case. Twenty weeks is allowed for special cases such as “rape, incest, psychological trauma and socioeconomic reasons” (Women on Waves). Unheard of in America, abortions in Serbia “can be obtained for free as it is covered by the healthcare.” (Women on Waves). The United States does not have nearly as high of an official abortion rate because every woman, and even some men, get verbally harassed for walking into a place that happens to give abortions even if they are there for any other medical reason. Recently though, Ohio, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky have all passed heartbeat bills that make abortion illegal after six weeks. Most women do not realize they are pregnant until almost halfway through their first trimester. Six weeks pregnant is two weeks late on a woman’s period. Texas, Florida, New York, Missouri, Louisiana, South Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Minnesota plan on also passing the heartbeat bill this year. Alabama has made a near-total ban on abortion. Birth control, IUDs, and similar things are going to be banned in Ohio. Birth control could stop a fertilised egg from implanting in the uterus and will be considered an abortion, which is already banned. Birth control has about six other uses that have nothing to do with preventing pregnancy. Georgia will prosecute women who plan to leave the state to get an abortion in a state where it is legal. This follows people out of Georgia. This makes women property of the state. Ohio is currently forcing an eleven year old girl, who was raped, carry her rapists child to delivery. Ohio, one of the free states of America, in 2019, is forcing a child, who is in fifth or sixth grade, to carry the child of the man who raped her, for nine months and then give birth. Childbirth is one of the most painful things ever and Ohio is forcing a literal child to go through it.

Serbia may, on a governmental level, be a mess but at least their people are treated well. Despite Serbia being a conflict magnet country and America being “the land of the free”, Serbia generally has less restrictions and more acceptance with these choice issues and maybe -probably- even more. Serbia has a lesser pay gap, an openly gay, female prime minister, less chances of being raped, and abortion is legal and free because of healthcare that makes sense. Serbia is far from perfect but it is undoubtedly closer than America.”

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 5, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

It appears that the closing argument from the Trump campaign for his reelection was supposed to be that the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, was overreacting to coronavirus, making fun, for example, of his insistence on wearing a mask and staying distant from others.

Trump was supposed to project strength in the face of the pandemic, suggesting that it has been way overblown by Democrats who oppose his administration and who are thus responsible for the faltering economy.

Then, of course, coronavirus began to spread like wildfire through Trump’s own inner circle after last Sunday’s Rose Garden celebration of Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court seat formerly held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As Trump and increasing numbers of people in his inner circle began to test positive for the infection, the campaign first floundered, and now appears to be trying to brazen out the idea that the disease is not a big deal, and that Trump has conquered it.

This is insane. Covid-19 has currently infected more than 7 million Americans, and killed more than 210,000 of us, close to the number of Union soldiers—224,097-- who died in our bloody four-year Civil War.

Apparently, it is frustrating Trump that he cannot campaign. Last night, he traveled in a motorcade around Walter Reed Hospital, waving to supporters. The trip horrified medical personnel, who noted that the presidential vehicle is sealed against chemical attack, meaning that the secret service professionals traveling with the president were exposed to a deadly disease for no apparent reason. One of the agents assigned to the First Family told CNN “That never should have happened… The frustration with how we’re treated when it comes to decisions on this illness goes back before this though. We’re not disposable.”

Dr. James P. Phillips, from the Walter Reed Hospital, took to Twitter: “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential “drive-by” just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”

Even staffers were complaining about the disorganization in the West Wing after Trump’s drive. But things did not get more anchored this morning.

Early on, the president began to tweet at a great pace, in all caps, campaign slogans followed by the word “VOTE!” His promises were random and unanchored in reality, with words like “BIGGEST TAX CUT EVER, AND ANOTHER ONE COMING. VOTE!” According to Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair, the Trump family is divided over Trump’s performance. According to two Republicans close to the family, Don Jr. was worried by the drive around the hospital. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” said one of the sources. But Ivanka, Eric, and Jared Kushner “keep telling Trump how great he’s doing.” All of them, though, worried about the morning’s tweet storm.

The infection continues to spread through the White House. This morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that she, too, has tested positive for coronavirus, a day after she briefed reporters without a mask. Two sources told CNN that two of McEnany’s deputies, Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, have also tested positive, along with two members of the White House staff. McEnany said at first the White House was planning to put out the number of staffers infected, but then said it could not, out of “privacy concerns.” But of course there’s no privacy at stake in the raw numbers.

Today we learned that another person who attended the Rose Garden event, Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest Christian Fellowship megachurches in California and Hawaii, has tested positive for coronavirus. In addition, thirteen workers who helped to cater a private Trump fundraiser last Thursday in Minnesota are all quarantining.

Although doctors expressed surprise and concern at the idea Trump might leave Walter Reed Hospital today, the president tweeted: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

Doctors noted that he is in a dangerous period for the progression of Covid-19, and that anyone who had required the sorts of treatments Trump has had is too sick to leave the hospital. “I will bet dollars to doughnuts it’s the president and his political aides who are talking about discharge, not his doctors,” William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, told the Washington Post.

A briefing by Trump’s doctors obscured more than it revealed. The White House physician, Sean Conley, has refused to tell reporters when Trump last tested negative for coronavirus, a piece of information that would tell us when he knew he was infected. He also refused to explain why the president is being treated with a steroid usually reserved for seriously ill patients, or to discuss the state of Trump’s lungs. He did say that the president is “not out of the woods yet.”

Nonetheless, Trump left Walter Reed Hospital tonight, after lights had been installed to enable him to make a triumphant exit. Still infectious, he went back to the White House and climbed a flight of stairs to a balcony, where he dramatically removed his face mask and saluted well-wishers from a balcony. Although the moment was clearly designed to make Trump look strong, it was obvious he was struggling to breathe.

Vox’s Aaron Rupar noted that “Trump has no choice but to continue to downplay coronavirus (despite 210,000 dead and record new case numbers) because if he changed course, it would be an admission that he was wrong about the defining issue of his presidency -- at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.”

This evening, Trump released a video telling people not to let the coronavirus “dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it…. Don’t let it take over your lives.” CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta dubbed him “Coronavirus in Chief.”

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a town hall tonight in Miami, Florida, where he gave detailed answers to questions about police reform (more money, ban chokeholds and no knock warrants); socialism (“I’ve taken on the Castros of the world. I didn’t cozy up to them”); a mask mandate (the president can only mandate masks on federal property, but he would call on governors and mayors to do the same); and reopening schools (PPE, small classes, ventilation). Watchers noted that it was a treat both to see a normal conversation and to hear detailed, informed answers.

To stay in touch with voters, Biden today began “Notes from Joe,” a daily newsletter.

Bloomberg is reporting that the contrast between the recent craziness of the White House and Biden’s calm detail has led the stock market to stabilize. Strategists are coming to think there will not be a contested election after all. Biden’s lead over Trump increased again after Trump’s debate performance, which apparently was designed to try to bully Biden by hitting triggers until he began to stutter, thus enabling the Trump campaign to portray him as mentally incapacitated. That strategy failed as Biden parried the triggers, and Americans were repelled by Trump’s behavior. Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA, told Bloomberg, “Polls are shifting from a close election and prolonged uncertainty to more a dominant Biden and clean succession…. That is reducing uncertainty and increasing risk appetite.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Heather Cox Richardson

#quotes #election 2020 #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #COVID-19 #superspreader

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cardstumble · 4 years

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https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Year-of-Dangerous-Days/Nicholas-Griffin/9781501191022

police brutality drug crisis immigration white/latin/black tribes

Excerpt

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1

DECEMBER 1979

By 1979, there were several Miamis that barely lapped against one another, let alone integrated. The county itself was a strange beast, twenty-seven different municipalities with their own mayor, many with their own police departments. But Miami wasn’t divided by municipalities; it was separated into tribes.

There was Anglo Miami, which the city’s boosters were still hawking to white America: beaches, real estate, hotels, and entertainment. Tourists dominated the region. Dade had 1.6 million residents but

2.1 million international visitors a year. Anglo Miami was far from monolithic. There were southerners, migrants, and a large Jewish population that ran some of the most important businesses and institutions in Miami Beach.

Across the causeway in Little Havana and up the coast in Hialeah sat Latin Miami, created by the Cubans who’d fled Fidel Castro’s revolution twenty years before. Whenever there was violence south of the border, Latin America coughed up a new pocket of immigrants. Most recently that meant that the Cuban population in Dade was being watered down by Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Colombians.

Then there was black Miami. It, too, had more divisions than cohesion. There was a strong Bahamian presence, plenty of Jamaicans. Both felt distinct from the African Americans who had moved south from Georgia, and those who were born and bred in Miami. The latest immigrants were only beginning to spill in: a large number of unwelcome Haitians. Arriving on rickety boats, fleeing both political persecution and economic despair, they were docking at a time when not one of Miami’s communities was in the mood to reach out and welcome them.

For all the nuances, if you were black, white, or Latin, you tended to know so little about the other tribes that you regarded them as rigid blocs. Who knew a Jamaican turned his nose up at a Georgia-born black, or that a Puerto Rican couldn’t stand another word from a Cuban, or that a Jew couldn’t walk through the door at the all-white country club at La Gorce? There was enough inequality to go around, but in this one thing, the black community got the most generous helping.

In 1979, if you were black in Dade County, you most likely lived in one of three neighborhoods: Overtown, the Black Grove, or Liberty City. Liberty City was the youngest of the three, dating back to 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the first large public housing project in the South. It was Roosevelt’s response to local campaigns for better sanitation. In the ’30s, Liberty City had what most houses in Overtown and the Black Grove did not: running water, modern kitchens, electricity. Overtown remained the center of black life in Miami until the arrival of I-95, the vast stretch of American highway that ran from Maine down the East Coast all the way to Miami. It stomped right through the middle of Miami’s most prominent black neighborhood in 1965, a ravenous millipede with a thousand concrete legs.

Had the 3,000-kilometer highway been halted just 5 kilometers to the north, black Miami might have had a different history. Instead the highway, touted as “slum clearance,” bulldozed through black Miami’s main drags. Gone was much of Overtown’s commercial heart, with its three movie theaters, its

public pool, grocery store, and businesses. Goodbye to clubs that had hosted Ella Fitzgerald, to the Sir John Hotel, which had offered their finest suites to black entertainers banned from staying in whites-only Miami Beach. But more important, goodbye to a neighborhood where parents knew which house every child belonged to. Goodbye to the nighttime games of Moonlight Baby, where kids would use the bottle caps of Cola Nibs to mark the edge of their bodies on the pavement. Goodbye to unarmed

black patrolmen walking black streets.

Overtown had its own all-black police station, with strict rules. Black officers couldn’t carry a weapon home, since “no one wanted to see a black man with a gun.” They could stop whites in Overtown but

had no power of arrest over them. The closest affordable housing for Overtown’s displaced was in and around the Liberty City projects. Block by block it began to turn from white to black, until neighboring white homeowners built a wall

to separate themselves from ever-blacker Liberty City. White housewives in colorful plaids and horn-rimmed glasses carried protest signs: “We want this Nigger moved” and

“Nigger go to Washington.” Someone detonated a stick of dynamite in

an empty apartment leased to blacks. Nothing worked, and by the end of the 1960s the first proud black owners inside Liberty City were joined by many of Overtown’s twenty thousand displaced. As white flight accelerated, house prices declined, local businesses faltered, and unemployment and crime began to rise. By 1968, Liberty City had assumed a new reputation. The CND—the Central-North District—had

earned the nickname “Central Negro District” from both the city and the county police departments.

There was still beauty in Liberty City, still sunrises where the light would smart off the sides of pastel-painted houses, and the dew on the grass would glisten, and churches would fill, and the jitney buses would chug patiently, waiting for the elderly to board. Still schoolchildren in white shirts tightening backpacks to their shoulders and catching as much shade as possible on the way to the school gates. There was still beauty, but you had to squint to see it.

Eighty percent of South Florida homes had air-conditioning in 1980, but in stifling hot Liberty City,

only one in five homes could afford it. It was a neighborhood without a center, few jobs to offer, seventy-two churches but just six banks,

not one of which was black-owned. There were plenty of places to pray for a positive future but few institutions willing to risk investment in one. The fact that a teenager called Arthur McDuffie got out at all was unusual. The fact that he came back, found a good job, earned steadily, and raised a family was rarer still.

Frederica Jones had been Arthur McDuffie’s high school sweetheart at Booker T. Washington, one of Miami’s three segregated schools. They’d met while Frederica was walking home from the local store, where she’d bought a can of peas for her mother. She’d swung her groceries at her side, and McDuffie, who’d been watching her from across the street, fell into step beside her.

After a few moments of banter, McDuffie made a simple declaration. “I like you.” Then he asked for Frederica’s number. That night McDuffie called, and the two talked for an hour. At the end of the conversation McDuffie, two years Frederica’s senior, asked, “Would you go with me?”

“Yes!” she said.

They became inseparable. They were in the Booker T. Washington band together. McDuffie was the baritone horn

and Frederica a majorette. She watched McDuffie win the local swim meets. When McDuffie graduated, he joined the Marine Corps, and for the next three years, they communicated through letters. Then, within two months of his honorable discharge, they married. Two children quickly followed. After which came problems, separation, and, in 1978, divorce. McDuffie had always had a reputation as a ladies’ man, and now he had

a child with another woman to prove it.

Yet toward the end of 1979, the thirty-three-year-old McDuffie was back visiting the house he’d once shared with Frederica. He mowed the lawn, fixed the air conditioners, and trimmed the hedges of their neighbor, the last white family on the block. The warmth in the failed marriage seemed to be returning. The two spent the night of December 15, 1979, together, and McDuffie asked Frederica to join him on a trip to Hawaii—a vacation he’d just won at the office for his performance as the assistant manager at Coastal States Life Insurance.

The following day, Sunday, under bright 80-degree skies, Frederica, a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital, drove McDuffie back to his home. She parked the car feeling like there was positive momentum.

They’d talked of remarriage in front of their families. The deal was that if McDuffie could make “certain changes” in his life, then they could go ahead and make it official. As they sat in the car, McDuffie kissed his ex-wife goodbye and promised to be back at her place that evening to take care of their children before her shift. Normally, Frederica worked only afternoons, but the hospital was short-staffed over the Christmas period and she’d agreed to work that night at 11:00.

Shortly after 2:00 p.m., McDuffie walked into 1157 NW 111th Street, the home he now shared with his younger sister, Dorothy, a legal clerk. It was a modest building, painted green. Inside there was a record collection and books of music. McDuffie played

five instruments, all horns. There was

an entire white wall “covered with plaques and certificates of achievement,” including his “Most Outstanding”

award from his Marine Corps platoon. He wasn’t a war hero, hadn’t fought in Vietnam, but McDuffie had been faithful to the corps, a military policeman who had done his job impeccably.

A dutiful father, McDuffie had already wrapped Christmas presents for his two daughters and hidden them in a closet in his bedroom. His nine-year-old would get a wagon, a jack-in-the-box, and clothes. His oldest would get a watch, a tape recorder, a radio,

and a pair of roller skates.

He’d saved for months, but it hadn’t been an easy year to make money. Under President Jimmy Carter, the country, most especially the South, had been battered. Unemployment was stubbornly high, and it looked like the president was being swept downstream by the economy. For all Carter’s preaching of forbearance, the reality was that interest rates were up to 17 percent. In thirty years, inflation had never run higher.

Gas prices had doubled in two years. Even hamburger meat was two dollars a pound.

Despite all this, Carter was about to enter an election year in comparatively good standing. Whatever America thought of his ability to steer the country, he retained the people’s sympathy,

with an approval rating of 61 percent. Six weeks before, the Iranian revolution had become very real to the distant United States. The sixty-two hostages captured in the American embassy in Tehran had helped generate a sudden sense of solidarity in the United States. Between that and the following month’s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was an understanding that Carter had a tricky hand to play. He would promise a strong and quick response to both situations. By the end of the year Carter led his presumptive challenger, Ronald Reagan, by

an enormous 24-point margin.

Still, the mood was summed up best by the

Miami Herald

in 1979. It was a year the average American wallet had “barely survived.” The unseen benefit, according to the paper, was that Miamians like McDuffie lived in Florida. They weren’t being hammered on heating oil like the rest of the country.

By Miami standards, the evening of December 16 counted as cold, expected to dip below 70 degrees and then drop below 60 the following day. Miamians traditionally overreacted, digging out winter coats and scarves for a rare outing. McDuffie selected blue jeans, a navy shirt over a baby-blue undershirt,

and a black motorcycle jacket. He searched his house for a hat to wear under his helmet. At 5:00 p.m., he closed the door behind him.

His own car, a 1969 green Grand Prix, wasn’t parked in its usual spot in his driveway. A friend had borrowed it. So he climbed on an orange-and-black 1973 Kawasaki 2100, “a more or less permanent loan” from his cousin. McDuffie turned the key, revved the engine, and drove the motorcycle south to Fifty-Ninth Street, to his friend Lynwood Blackmon’s house. He pulled up at the front door, feet still astride the bike, and talked to Blackmon’s seven- and eight-year-old daughters. He explained to them that he couldn’t help their father tune their car as he’d promised. His tools were in the back of the borrowed Grand Prix. Next he drove to his older brother’s house, his most common stop, and found him washing his car in his driveway. McDuffie grinned, revved the engine, spat up dirt over the clean car, and sped away before his brother could grab him. He raced to the far end of the street, turned, and braked hard.

“You better slow that bike down,” shouted his brother. McDuffie nodded, grinned, and pulled away.

Sometimes on weekends McDuffie moonlighted as a truck driver, making deliveries to Miami Beach. Sometimes he gave up his time to help jobless youngsters, teaching them how to paint houses. Just two years before, he’d painted the Range Funeral Home, where his body would arrive in exactly a week. On this particular Sunday evening, he was going to see Carolyn Battle, the twenty-six-year-old assistant that McDuffie had hired at Coastal Insurance. She was pretty, independent, and stylish, with a preference for dresses and wearing her hair in an Afro. He’d brought a helmet for her.

McDuffie shouldn’t have been driving at all. His license had been suspended months before, and he’d paid his thirty-five-dollar traffic fine with a check that had bounced. He’d told a coworker that he was worried about getting stopped again, but there were no alternatives for

driving back and forth to work. Public transport was pitiful in Miami, and Liberty City—barely serviced—was reliant on independent jitney operators who rarely worked weekends. Not having a car was a self-quarantine.

McDuffie collected Carolyn Battle. They drove fifteen minutes south, to the edge of Miami International Airport, where they watched planes arcing out over the ocean or dropping into landing patterns above the Everglades. Tiring of the airport, McDuffie drove Battle across MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. When McDuffie was a child, dusk would have found an exodus heading the other way:

black Americans subject to a sunset curfew. But on December 16, on the three lanes that ran east over the bright blue shallows, McDuffie showed off, hitting eighty miles an hour. They walked in the sand, stopped for Pepsi, and then at 9:00 p.m. headed back to Battle’s apartment at 3160 NW Forty-Sixth Street, just

five blocks from the Airport Expressway.

At one in the morning, McDuffie slept in Battle’s bed while she watched television on her couch. At 1:30 she woke him up. “Jesus,” said McDuffie, reaching for his watch. He was far too late to show up at his ex-wife’s house. Frederica would have taken the kids over to a babysitter two hours ago. How was he going to make that up to her? Had he blown it? McDuffie gathered his watch, his wedding ring, his medallion. Still dressed in his blue jeans, two blue shirts, and boots, he put on his knitted cap under his white helmet, tied his knapsack to the back of the Kawasaki, and headed north toward home.

Was it a wheelie, a rolled stop sign, a hand lifted from a handlebar to give the finger that caught the sergeant’s attention? The officer would later offer all three explanations of why he’d first noticed the Kawasaki pass by him. It was 1:51 a.m. The sergeant got on the radio, described McDuffie’s white helmet and the tag number of the motorbike, and flipped on his red light and siren. On a cool night, with the rider in jeans, jacket, and helmet, he couldn’t have known if he was black, Latin, or white.

McDuffie appeared to glance in his mirror and then sped through a red light on NW Sixty-First Street. As the sergeant followed in his white-and-green county squad car, McDuffie blew through another red light and swept around corners,

not even slowing for the stop signs. He’d picked a very quiet night for these traffic infractions. Within sixty seconds of the beginning of the chase, McDuffie was being followed by every available unit within Central District.

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32427minden · 4 years

Quote

A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country. Also targeted was Marriott International, which was ordered to cease operations in Cuba, and other companies in the tourism sector, an industry that constitutes 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP and has been devastated globally by the pandemic. It seems that the more Cuba helps the world, the more it gets hammered by the Trump administration. While Cuba has endured a U.S. embargo for nearly 60 years, Trump has revved up the stakes with a “maximum pressure” strategy that includes more than 90 economic measures placed against the nation since January 2019. Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, called the measures “unprecedented in their level of aggression and scope” and designed to “deprive the country of income for the development of the economy.” Since its inception, the embargo has cost Cuba well over $130 billion dollars, according to a 2018 estimate. In 2018-2019 alone, the economic impact was $4 billion, a figure that does not include the impact of a June 2019 Trump administration travel ban aimed at harming the tourist industry. While the embargo is supposed to have humanitarian exemptions, the health sector has not been spared. Cuba is known worldwide for its universal public healthcare system, but the embargo has led to shortages of medicines and medical supplies, particularly for patients with AIDS and cancer. Doctors at Cuba’s National Institute of Oncology have had to amputate the lower limbs of children with cancer because the American companies that have a monopoly on the technology can’t sell it to Cuba. In the midst of the pandemic, the U.S. blocked a donation of facemasks and COVID-19 diagnostic kits from Chinese billionaire Jack Ma. Not content to sabotage Cuba’s domestic health sector, the Trump administration has been attacking Cuba’s international medical assistance, from the teams fighting coronavirus today to those who have travelled all over the world since the 1960’s providing services to underserved communities in 164 countries. The U.S. goal is to cut the island’s income now that the provision of these services has surpassed tourism as Cuba’s number one source of revenue. Labeling these volunteer medical teams “victims of human trafficking” because part of their salaries goes to pay for Cuba’s healthcare system, the Trump administration convinced Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil to end their cooperation agreements with Cuban doctors. Pompeo then applauded the leaders of these countries for refusing “to turn a blind eye” to Cuba’s alleged abuses. The triumphalism was short lived: a month after that quote, the Bolsonaro government in Brazil begged Cuba to resend its doctors amid the pandemic. U.S. allies all over the world, including in Qatar, Kuwait, South Africa, Italy, Honduras and Peru have gratefully accepted this Cuban aid. So great is the admiration for Cuban doctors that a global campaign has sprung up to award them the Nobel Peace Prize. The Trump administration is not just libelling doctors, but the whole country. In May, the State Department named Cuba as one of five countries “not cooperating fully” in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The main pretext was the nation’s hosting of members of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN). Yet even the State Department’s own press release notes that ELN members are in Cuba as a result of “peace negotiation protocols.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called the charges dishonest and “facilitated by the ungrateful attitude of the Colombian government” that broke off talks with the ELN in 2019. It should also be noted that Ecuador was the original host of the ELN-Colombia talks, but Cuba was asked to step in after the Moreno government abdicated its responsibilities in 2018. The classification of Cuba as “not cooperating” with counterterrorism could lead to Cuba being placed on the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which carries tougher penalties. This idea was floated by a senior Trump administration official to Reuters last month. Cuba had been on this list from 1982 to 2015, despite that fact that, according to former State Department official Jason Blazakis, “it was legally determined that Cuba was not actively engaged in violence that could be defined as terrorism under any credible definition of the word.” Of course, the United States is in no position to claim that other countries do not cooperate in counterterrorism. For years, the U.S. harbored Luis Posada Carriles, mastermind of the bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane in 1976 that killed 73 people. More recently, the U.S. has yet to even comment on the April 30 attack on the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C., when a man fired on the building with an automatic rifle. While there are certainly right-wing ideologues like Secretary Pompeo and Senator Rubio orchestrating Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, for Trump himself, Cuba is all about the U.S. elections. His hard line against the tiny island nation may have helped swing the Florida gubernatorial campaign during the midterm elections, yet it’s not clear that this will serve him well in a presidential year. According to conventional wisdom and polls, younger Cuban-Americans – who like most young people, don’t tend to vote in midterms – are increasingly skeptical of the U.S. embargo, and overall, Cuba isn’t the overriding issue for Cuban-Americans. Trump won the Cuban-American vote in 2016, but Hillary Clinton took between 41 and 47% percent of that electorate, significantly higher than any Democrat in decades. As an electoral strategy, these are signs that Trump’s aggression towards Cuba may not pay off. Of course, the strategy might not be just about votes but also about financing and ensuring that the Cuban-American political machinery is firmly behind Trump. The strategy has certainly not paid off when it comes to achieving the goal of regime change. The Trump administration is arguably farther from achieving regime change in Cuba now than the U.S. has ever been in over 60 years of intervention. During Trump’s tenure, Cuba calmly transitioned from the presidency of Raul Castro to that of Miguel Díaz-Canel. In 2019, Cuban voters overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution. These aren’t signs of a country on the brink of collapse. All Trump has achieved is making life more difficult for the island’s 11 million inhabitants, who, like people all over the world, have been battered by the economic impact from coronavirus. Tourism has collapsed. Income from remittances has tanked (both because of new U.S. restrictions and less income in the hands of the Cuban diaspora). Venezuela, once a major benefactor, is mired in its own crisis. But Cuba’s economy, which was forecast to contract by 3.7% before the pandemic hit, has been through worse, particularly during the 1991 to 2000 economic crisis known as the “special period” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A change in the White House would bring some relief, although Joe Biden has staked a rather ambivalent position, saying he would restore relations as President Obama did, but adding that he was open to using sanctions as punishment for Cuba’s support to the Venezuelan government. It’s clear that from now until November, and perhaps for four more years, the Trump administration will pummel its island neighbor. Cuba will continue to seek global condemnation on the blockade (the 2019 UN vote was 187 against vs 3 in favor—the U.S., Brazil and Israel) and continue to show what a good neighbor looks like. It responded to these latest provocations in the way that only Cuba does: with more global solidarity, sending Covid-19 healing brigades to Guinea and Kuwait a day after the June 3 round of sanctions. A total of 26 countries now have Cuban medical personnel caring for their sick. That is the kind of goodwill that money just can’t buy and it greatly presents a stark contrast to the Trump administration’s shameful behavior during the pandemic. Back in March, as Cuban doctors arrived in Italy, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa tweeted: “One day we will tell our children that, after decades of movies and propaganda, at the moment of truth, when humanity needed help at a time when the great powers were in hiding, Cuban doctors began to arrive, without asking anything in return.” Medea Benjamin is an author/activist, and cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK. Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and a campaign coordinator with CODEPINK. For more on the Nobel Prize for Cuban Doctors campaign, see www.cubanobel.org.

https://countercurrents.org/2020/06/trump-hammers-cuba-while-cuba-cures-the-sick/

#https://www.cubanobel.org/#cuba #Cuban doctors #Cubacooperation

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jerseydeanne · 4 years

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George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, sat in his hotel suite by Lake Zurich last week, lamenting the turn much of the world has taken in recent years: "Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong."

His favored presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost to President Donald Trump, whose "America First" platform runs counter to the globalism Soros embraces. Trump, he said, "is willing to destroy the world." The European Union, which Soros once hoped would be so successful that he could end his charitable work in the region, is contending with the impending loss of Britain and a rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. And Soros himself has emerged as a political target in elections from Hungary to California, where his donations have been used as a cudgel against the causes he supports.

The 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, who has poured much of his fortune into promoting liberal values around the globe, is now confronting a wave of nationalist sentiment washing against issues he has championed.

But rather than recede from public life in his twilight years, Soros has decided to push even harder for his agenda, he told The Washington Post in a rare interview

"The bigger the danger, the bigger the threat, the more I feel engaged to confront it," Soros said Thursday. Wearing an open-collar shirt, he spoke animatedly for an hour, sitting at a table in his suite after an appearance at a Human Rights Watch conference.

Confronting brick walls

Soros' willingness to remain in the fray comes as he faces renewed vilification from a wide-ranging group of opponents that includes actress Roseanne Barr and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been accused of being an all-powerful puppet master, a Nazi sympathizer and the person controlling the Democratic Party.

He acknowledges that the attacks can blunt his impact.

"It makes it very difficult for me to speak effectively because it can be taken out of context and used against me," Soros said.

For all the billions of dollars at his disposal, Soros is also being forced to reckon with limits on his political influence in the United States. He acknowledged that he did not see Trump's election coming. "Apparently, I was living in my own bubble," he said.

Soros, who plans to spend at least $15 million in 2018 races, has already faced some setbacks this cycle. His bid to replace several district attorneys in California with challengers seeking changes to the criminal justice system was largely unsuccessful in Tuesday's elections. "We ran into a brick wall in California," he said.

Soros said he is certain in his assessment of Trump, whom he describes as a "narcissist" who "considers himself all-powerful."

But he does not appear settled on the strategy to defeat him. Soros said he disapproves of a campaign by fellow liberal billionaire Tom Steyer to push to impeach the president, saying he would only support such an effort if Democrats retake Congress this year and gain Republican support.

Soros, who said he wants to avoid dividing the party, also refused to pick favorites among the emerging crop of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders. But there is one prospective candidate he said he hopes does not get the nod: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

He blames Gillibrand for pushing the resignation of former senator Al Franken "whom I admire," Soros said, "in order to improve her chances."

Franken resigned in January after a number of women alleged that he touched them inappropriately. Gillibrand was a leading voice urging her fellow Democrat to quit.

She declined to comment.

Earlier this year, Patrick Gaspard, the former Obama White House political director who now runs Soros' Open Society Foundations, said he asked the billionaire how he viewed the organization's role at a time when so much of Soros' work is under assault.

"This is the moment we were built for," Soros responded, according to Gaspard.

The Hungarian-born Soros, who became one of the world's wealthiest people by managing hedge funds and betting on currency changes, has given away billions of dollars to groups promoting human rights, democracy and liberal causes.

His New York-based Open Society Foundations now spends $940 million a year in 100 countries, promoting values such as free speech and free elections, according to the group. In the United States, the Open Society spends $150 million a year financing groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood.

For a period of time, Soros was the largest private donor in Russia, funding initiatives such as an anti-torture program, according to the foundation. Two years ago, Putin's government effectively banned Soros' group from distributing funds in the country, calling it "undesirable" and "a threat to the fundamentals of the constitutional system."

Last week, Putin suggested that Soros's spending around the world resembles the kind of political interference that U.S. intelligence officials blame on Russia.

"He intervenes in things all over the world," Putin told Austrian television. "But the State Department will tell you that it has nothing to do with that, that this is the personal business of Mr. Soros."

Elsewhere in Europe, Soros has also come under attack. This year, Viktor Orban, the right-wing prime minister of Hungary, won reelection after charging that Soros wanted to flood Europe with Muslim immigrants. Orban said one of his first efforts would be to pass a "Stop Soros" bill, aimed at cracking down on organizations he views as countering his agenda.

"I'm painfully aware that they are against the ideas that I stand for," Soros said of his critics around the world.

2016 and Trump

In the United States, Soros was initially seen as an ally by Republicans who shared his opposition to communist dictators. He made modest donations to support the GOP in the 1980s and 1990s, according to campaign finance reports.

But he turned decisively against Republicans after President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 based on faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, his political spending - a fraction of the money he gives away every year - has made him one of the Democratic Party's most reliable and generous donors.

In 2016, he poured at least $25 million into mobilizing Democratic voters in an effort to bolster Clinton and other candidates on the left, a Soros spokesman said.

In the final days of the White House race, Trump spoke in his closing television ad about sending a tough message to "global special interests" who wanted to control Washington, as images of Soros and other financial leaders who are Jewish flashed on the screen amid footage of Clinton.

Soros, who describes himself as an agnostic Jew, said he considered the ad "a coded anti-Semitic message."

On Election Day, Soros gathered with friends to watch returns in his Fifth Avenue duplex, overlooking the reservoir of New York's Central Park.

As the returns came in, "the party turned into a wake," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who was one of the guests.

Soros said he spent months studying what went wrong in the election. He said he concluded that while Clinton would have made a "very good president," she was not a good campaigner. "She was too much like a schoolmarm," Soros said. "Talking down to people . . . instead of listening to them."

But he said he also diagnosed a larger problem: the increasing ease with which people's opinions can be manipulated. "It is so much easier to destroy trust than to build it up," Soros said.

Soros has known Trump for years. Decades ago, the two men dined together several times at the Berkshire estate of a mutual friend, Soros said.

"I had no idea he had political ambitions, but I didn't like his behavior as a businessman," he said.

At one point, he said, Trump asked him to be the lead tenant in a new office building he was developing in New York City.

"Name your price," Trump said, according to Soros. Soros said he declined because he was concerned that being so closely associated with the developer, whose Atlantic City casinos were financially troubled at the time, would hurt "my reputation."

The White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

Soros said that if Democrats win in a "landslide" and forge a bipartisan relationship with moderate Republicans, as he expects, then he would favor impeaching Trump "because he is endangering the United States and the world."

But even then, there would be a cost, he said: "This would make [Vice President] Mike Pence the president, who is much more competent in representing the far right, whose views with which I disagree, than Trump himself."

Races, donations, defiance

This cycle, Soros has focused his political investments on congressional races and mobilizing voters on the left. His largest donation this year has been $5 million to Win Justice, a voter-mobilization group focused on minorities, women and young voters in Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

He has also continued to invest in district attorney races, saying prosecutors are "the linchpin of the judicial system" and key to his effort to reduce prison sentences. He sent $1.45 million to a group that supported civil rights attorney Larry Krasner in his successful race for Philadelphia district attorney last year. A spokesman said Krasner had never met Soros or anyone in his organization.

Soros' recent efforts in California were not so successful. Three of his candidates for district attorney in California lost their primaries, and a fourth faces a runoff.

His financial support became a political issue in some of the campaigns. Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who defeated her challenger Tuesday, claimed that the city was "under attack" from the billionaire, "who has brought his war against law enforcement" to Sacramento.

The breadth of Soros' spending has made him a frequent target of critics on the right, who suggest he is secretly backing movements that appear to be driven by the grass roots.

Former congressman Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican who is a CNN commentator, suggested on Twitter in February that Soros and other activists, rather than students, were behind a protest in the wake of a Florida high school shooting in which a gunman killed 17 people.

A spokesman said Soros had no involvement with the protest.

Kingston said in an interview that he was merely raising the question of whether Soros was involved.

"Some names invoke an emotional outcry from the red-meat crowds, and certainly he is one of them on the right," Kingston said. "The left has theirs. He does get that sort of sinister, that is, that kind of myth about him, that he plays in the shadows. Maybe that's wrong."

Last month, Soros' name went viral again when Barr tweeted that he is "a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews to be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth."

Among those who retweeted her was the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

Soros, who said he used false papers at age 13 to survive the Nazi occupation of Hungary, calls such claims "a total fabrication," adding that they "annoy me greatly."

But he is not fazed, he said.

"I'm proud of my enemies," Soros said. "When I look at the enemies I have all over the world, I must be doing something right."

The Washington Post's Alice Crites and David Weigel contributed to this report.

Europe

George Soros

Russia

Elections

Donald Trump

Republican Party

#europe #george soros #russia #elections #donald trump

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tawannafitzpatri-blog · 5 years

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Federal Reserve Delays Taper, Continues Debasement

The next question that can logically follow is, "do I have the need for a Valcambi CombiBar Gold payment system; will things ever really get that bad?". Well, the obvious answer fot it is "I sure hope not".

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partied together. Then an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion came between them.

https://wapo.st/2GBQrDK

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partied together. Then an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion came between them. (THERE'S RECEIPTS)

By Beth Reinhard, Rosalind S. Helderman and Marc Fisher | Published July 31 at 5:05 PM ET | Posted July 31, 2019 10:22 PM ET |

For the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront manse called Maison de l’Amitie — the House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy.

Before the auction, Epstein and Trump each tried to work the ref; the trustee in the case, Joseph Luzinski, recalls being lobbied by both camps.

“It was something like, Donald saying, ‘You don’t want to do a deal with him, he doesn’t have the money,’ while Epstein was saying: ‘Donald is all talk. He doesn’t have the money,’ ” Luzinski said. “They both really wanted it.”

Only one man would win.

In the wake of Epstein’s arrest last month on sex trafficking charges, many who socialized with him — including Trump — are eager to have it known that they never much liked the man, or weren’t really friends, or barely even knew him.

“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” the president said in the Oval Office the day after New York authorities took Epstein into custody.

But friends and associates said the two wealthy New York-to-Palm Beach commuters had socialized for years, drawn together by a mix of money, women and power.

“They knew each other a long time,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide who said he pressed the candidate about his ties to Epstein in late 2014 as the real estate mogul considered a White House run. “Bottom line, Donald would hang out with Epstein because he was rich.”

Their falling out, Trump said, happened about 15 years ago — several years before Epstein’s conviction on a prostitution solicitation charge.

Trump has not said why their relationship ruptured. “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly,” the president said.

Fifteen years ago, the two men squared off over the Palm Beach mansion. Just a few months later, local police began investigating allegations that Epstein was sexually abusing minors. Trump has also said — without providing details — that he at some point banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

The White House declined to comment. Epstein’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

It had been a typical Trump relationship: heavily chronicled in the news media, with an uncertain core beneath the surface.

Photos and articles captured the men together over the years, the future president of the United States and the future convicted sex offender: Here they are, Epstein and longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump and his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss, double dating at a celebrity tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago. Partying with Britain’s Prince Andrew. Hanging out with National Football League cheerleaders. Dancing, laughing, palling around at a party Trump threw to celebrate his “freedom” after he divorced his second wife, Marla Maples.

“Terrific guy,” Trump said of Epstein in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.”

Within two years, public sightings of the two had ended.

‘THEY WERE GOOD FRIENDS ’

Trump and Epstein were more than just neighbors who happened to end up at the same parties. They were two outer-borough New York guys, both with a knack for building their images and making a buck. Both attracted a ton of attention, though Trump worked hard to win notice and Epstein sometimes sought to deflect it. Both won reputations as men who were seen around many beautiful women.

In 2016, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten told Fox News that Trump had “no relationship” with Epstein: “They were not friends and they did not socialize together.” Garten declined to comment for this article.

But Epstein, asked in a 2010 deposition if he had ever socialized with Trump, responded: “Yes, sir.”

The Epstein-Trump relationship didn’t exist in isolation but as part of a larger Palm Beach social swirl. In the early years after Trump bought the private Mar-a-Lago estate in 1985, Epstein and Trump were spotted together at Palm Beach events, including a pre-pageant dinner at Mar-a-Lago in 1992, according to people in attendance.

“They were tight,” said one person who observed them together and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “They were each other’s wingmen.”

Trump, recently divorced from his first wife, Ivana, was in an on-and-off relationship with the woman he would soon marry, Marla Maples.

During that period, the New York developer, casting himself as a carefree playboy billionaire, hosted and attended parties at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, sometimes featuring models, cheerleaders and beauty pageant contestants. Trump had a business connection to all three industries: For a time, he ran a modeling agency. He owned a team in the United States Football League, a short-lived competitor to the NFL. And he controlled the Miss Universe pageant.

Since the start of his career, Trump had made his love life a central part of his public image. The idea was to build his brand as an avatar of fabulousness and to extend that brand by attaching beautiful women to his name, he has said.

“I create stars,” he said on ABC’s “Primetime Live” in 1994, adding: “I’ve really gotten a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creating process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”

Trump’s parties at Mar-a-Lago often featured models from Miami who floated around the patio and pool, with many more women than men, friends have recounted.

“That’s true,” Trump said in an interview in 2015, stressing he was single at the time. “The point was to have fun. It was wild.”

“There’s 100 beautiful women and 10 guys,” Roger Stone, his longtime adviser, told The Post in 2016. “ ‘Look, how cool are we?’ . . . I mean, it was great.”

Epstein, who in 1990 bought his own place in Palm Beach, two miles north of Trump’s, never became a member of Mar-a-Lago but visited the club for social events, Garten has said. On some of those occasions, Epstein was accompanied by Maxwell.

“Donald liked Epstein,” said Steven Hoffenberg, a Trump acquaintance who was Epstein’s business partner at a New York private equity firm in the 1980s and ’90s, until Hoffenberg was convicted of running a massive Ponzi scheme. “But he was crazy about Maxwell, a very charming lady.”

Epstein made several appearances at Mar-a-Lago. He attended a party there with NFL cheerleaders in 1992, where he was videotaped by an NBC news crew gathering footage for a segment on Trump. The network recently released the footage, in which Trump greets Epstein warmly and whispers in the financier’s ear, leading Epstein to double over in laughter.

Photographs and videos show Epstein and Trump posing together at the mansion in 1992, 1997 and 2000. The two were also pictured together, with model Ingrid Seynhaeve, in 1997 at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York City.

Around that time, Trump flew at least once, in the late 1990s or 2000, on Epstein’s private plane from Florida to New York, according to Epstein’s brother, Mark, who described the flight in a 2009 deposition.

In an interview last week with The Post, Mark Epstein said Trump flew on the plane “numerous times” but said he was only present for one flight.

“They were good friends,” Mark Epstein said. “I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.” He added that Trump used to comp Epstein’s mother and aunt at one of Trump’s Atlantic City casino hotels. When a Post reporter sought further details, Mark Epstein hung up.

When Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book of phone numbers appeared in a court file a few years ago, it contained 14 numbers for Trump; his wife, Melania; and others in Trump’s inner circle.

Trump and Epstein’s appearances together often made the news: In February 2000, Epstein and Maxwell attended a celebrity tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago. Epstein brought along Prince Andrew, who was photographed with Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.

Trump also dined at Epstein’s Upper East Side Manhattan mansion in 2003, according to New York magazine. “The dialogues are so engaging,” Epstein told the magazine, “that serving even the most extraordinary food sometimes seems inappropriate.”

But according to Stone, Trump turned down numerous invitations to Epstein’s private island and his Palm Beach home. In a 2016 book, Stone quoted Trump as saying that “The one time I visited [Epstein’s] Palm Beach home, the swimming pool was full of beautiful young girls. ‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’ ”

‘Palm Beach egos going at it’

It was another prime property on Palm Beach island that pitted the two men against each other — a six-acre oceanfront estate with a 180-degree view of the Atlantic.

In November 2004, Trump, who was starring in NBC’s “The Apprentice” at the time, declared himself intent on winning “the finest piece of land in Florida and probably the U.S.,” an estate that had been seized as part of the bankruptcy of nursing home magnate Abe Gosman.

Trump said he planned to create “the second greatest house in America, Mar-a-Lago being the first” and then resell it.

Epstein was also enraptured by the property, which Gosman had purchased in 1988 for about $12 million from Leslie Wexner, the Ohio-based retail executive who was a friend and patron of Epstein’s. In contrast to Trump, Epstein seemed interested in living at the place. Harley Riedel, an attorney for Gosman, said the previous owner had filled the mansion with pricey art and “really did have in his heart that it would be nice if someone moved in and lived there.”

At first, Epstein pressed to gain the upper hand in the competition for the estate, according to Luzinski, the bankruptcy trustee. Epstein agreed on a price and terms that were viewed as favorable for Gosman’s creditors if a higher bid didn’t emerge, he said.

As the competition heated up, Trump and Epstein began talking each other down to the trustee, Luzinski said.

On Nov. 15, 2004, the bidders, their representatives, and a small cavalry of lawyers representing the creditors and the Gosman family gathered in a courtroom at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in West Palm Beach. Trump was connected by phone.

The auction began with an attempt by one of Epstein’s three attorneys to knock Trump out of the bidding. Attorney Andrew Kamensky argued that Trump was not qualified because he demanded that the property have title insurance or he would not close on the sale. “What I’m telling you is that Mr. Epstein will — he will close,” Kamensky said, according a transcript obtained by The Post.

Trump wasn’t in Palm Beach — his own attorney, Raymond Royce, was in the courtroom. But Trump was on the phone, and now he chimed in to defend himself.

Riedel’s first notice that Trump might personally take part in the proceedings came when his voice boomed from the speakerphone. “I was sort of shocked,” the lawyer said.

Judge Steven Friedman rejected Epstein’s objection. The bidding began with Epstein’s offer of $37.25 million, but he dropped out after his bid of $38.6 million was topped.

Trump “had made up his mind to get it no matter the price,” said Charles Tatelbaum, a lawyer for one of Gosman’s creditors, JPMorgan Chase Bank.

A third bidder jumped in late, prompting Trump to pipe up again. “This is Mr. Trump,” he said over the speakerphone. “It seemed to be very clear that they dropped out also.”

The judge allowed the other bidder, Mark Pulte, to proceed, but Trump outbid him, too, with an offer of $41.35 million.

“I will therefore determine by the bang of the gavel that Mr. Trump is the higher bidder,” Friedman said.

In an interview, Luzinski described the showdown as “two very large Palm Beach egos going at it.”

It is unclear whether Trump and Epstein were in contact after the house sale. That month, Trump left two messages for Epstein at his home in Palm Beach, according to records obtained by Vice News — the last known interaction between the two men.

Four years after he bought the Gosman mansion, Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.

‘HE’S A REAL CREEP ’

It is unclear when Trump learned of allegations that Epstein was preying on teenage girls. In a 2002 interview, he gave no indication of concern, telling New York magazine that Epstein “enjoys his social life.”

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said.

On Nov. 28, 2004 — less than two weeks after the mansion auction — Palm Beach police fielded a tip that young women were seen coming and going from Epstein’s home, then-Police Chief Michael Reiter said in a deposition. Reiter declined to comment.

Four months later, in March 2005, police received a complaint from a woman who alleged that her 15-year-old stepdaughter had been paid $300 by Epstein to massage the financier while partially undressed, according to the police report. The Palm Beach police investigation identified more than a dozen possible victims, the report shows.

In 2006, a Palm Beach grand jury returned an indictment against Epstein of a single count of soliciting a prostitute. Epstein pleaded not guilty. That July, news organizations first reported that Palm Beach police had investigated Epstein for unlawful sex with minors and wanted the FBI to take up the case.

After a lengthy FBI investigation, federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute Epstein under federal law, allowing him instead to plead guilty in state court in 2008 to two felony counts, including soliciting a minor.

Epstein is now facing federal charges in New York of sexually abusing dozens of girls. He has pleaded not guilty.

In late 2007, the New York Post reported that Epstein had been barred from visiting Mar-a-Lago, which Epstein at the time denied.

Earlier this month, Garten, the Trump Organization lawyer, said that Trump “banned him from stepping foot on the property.”

Nunberg said that when he quizzed Trump about his relationship with Epstein, Trump told him, “He’s a real creep, I banned him.” Trump told Nunberg that Epstein had recruited a young woman who worked at Mar-a-Lago to give him massages. Nunberg said Trump told him he issued the edict against Epstein years before the police investigation became public.

Epstein has also been accused of preying on a girl he met at Mar-a-Lago.

One of his alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, has alleged in court documents that when she was a 16-year-old towel girl in Mar-a-Lago’s locker room in 2000, Maxwell “recruited” her to come to Epstein’s Palm Beach place to make money by giving massages.

Giuffre said in a lawsuit against Maxwell that Epstein sexually abused her at his mansions in both Palm Beach and Manhattan. That case was later settled out of court. Epstein and Maxwell have both denied taking part in any sex trafficking.

Trump also appears to have been helpful to Epstein’s accusers.

Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of the alleged victims, said in an interview last year that when he was seeking information from Epstein’s acquaintances in 2009, Trump was “the only person who picked up the phone and said: ‘Let’s just talk. I’ll give you as much time as you want. I’ll tell you what you need to know.’ ”

Edwards declined to say what Trump told him but said he was “very helpful in the information that he gave.”

When Nunberg looked into Trump’s ties with Epstein, he said that Trump’s longtime secretary, Rhona Graff, and others in the Trump Organization all agreed that Trump had made a clear break with Epstein.

“That’s all I needed to know,” Nunberg concluded. “He’d never let somebody else get leverage over him.”

Manuel Roig-Franzia and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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drumpfwatch · 5 years

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Attack on Abortion

So, it finally has started. For the past...well 50 years really, the Right has been trying their hardest to do everything they can to fight abortion. Recently, they became a lot closer. So let’s talk about what’s happening.

Their most recent take has been Jim Crowing Abortion by making it stupid hard to get for women, regardless of state. In Mississippi for instance, there is one abortion clinic for the whole state. The whole entire state. And if you finally get there, you have to wait 72 hours before an actual procedure can be performed after you consultation.

I won’t get into every single detail of how this was done, but it was piece by piece, and in the name of protecting women. These legislatures would draw up new regulations specifically for abortion clinics - which, by the way, are only not a part of hospitals because everyone is afraid to admit abortion is a useful and helpful medical procedure - after going and examining all of them. They then would come back with a plan that none of the clinics could abide all of the regulations of. You have to have walls that are certain distance apart (which doesn’t matter because surgical gurneys aren’t used in most, if any, abortions), you have to hospital admitting privileges (which is also not all that important because by the time the situation would reach that point the patient is probably already in a hospital), can’t be within a certain distance of a school (because all abortion-performing OB-GYNs are sex offenders, apparently). Literally every trick they could try to limit access to abortion without banning abortion or otherwise making it completely inaccessible because that would be illegal.

Honestly, I could go on for hours and hours on this topic, so I’ll try to keep it brief while still making the points I want to make. But the big thing to know is that while Roe V. Wade is still law of the land, it has since been...altered by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. The law is now “Abortions must be accessible, buuuut you can make women jump through a few hoops to get them, I guess, as long as there aren’t too many.”

Which I’m not sure which part of that is more insulting, the fact that these idiots think that abortions are such a causal decision for women that a little inconvenience would discourage them from getting one, or the fact that these are the same standards for dog agility contests.

Let me be clear up front, right here, right now. Women don’t get abortions casually. It’s not like they’re sitting there 7 months into the hell that is pregnancy and suddenly decide “You know, maybe this just isn’t for me” and aborts. Mostly because that’s not what’s actually legal. Neither do they just fuck anyone they want and then decide “OOps, I got pregnant, better go get a quick aborch to fix this mistake laaaawal!”.

Let’s talk about what is actually allowed and what actually happens in an abortion.

So let’s say a woman has sex and the condom breaks. It’s an accident. She might go to the store and get an order of Plan B. Plan B is not an abortion. Plan B needs to be taken quickly, because what Plan B does is prevent the egg from implanting in the uterine wall - a process that begins the actual pregnancy. It’s possible for a fertilized egg to not make this, and when this happens it’s so minor it’s not even considered a miscarriage. If you believe that life begins at fertilization then you have to grapple with all these innocent babies that die without any fault of the mother.

Anyway, let’s say the woman doesn’t know the condom broke. Hey, it happens. It will take her at least a month to find out that she’s pregnant, because it turns out that unless you get a pregnancy test (which, you used a condom, why would you think you need one?) it’s more or less impossible for a woman to know she’s pregnant until she stops having her period. And keep in mind periods are fickle temperamental things that will change when they show up for whatever reason, so it might be 6 weeks before a woman even has a reason to suspect she’s pregnant if something went wrong. So she goes to the doctor and gets an abortion.

At this stage in development, the fetus is more or less vaguely human shaped, but incredibly tiny and really only has the rudiments of various organs. It’s not even aware yet because it doesn’t even have what could reasonably be called a brain.

So, the woman realizes - wisely - that she is not in a position to have a child despite being pregnant. Maybe she doesn’t have the financial resources, maybe she doesn’t have the time to dedicate to the consuming and difficult task of raising a child. Maybe she just isn’t emotionally capable of it. This is the part most anti-abortionists never think of - why might a woman want an abortion? Even if she puts the baby up for adoption (which is its own complicated and expensive process), she still has to go through the actual 9 months of pregnancy. Her entire life for nine months will be dominated by taking care of this thing. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been pregnant understands what it’s like. There’s so much you can’t do or experience while pregnant. It’s like being hooked up to a life support machine for another person for nine months. And if you didn’t agree to it, well then, that’s a problem.

So, this lady goes to a doctor and gets an abortion. Within the first trimester, these procedures will nine times out of ten be either minor procedures of suction or even just taking a pill that will cause a miscarriage. No anesthetic required. The fetus at this point is unable to live on its own, of course, so it dies. At this stage you could freeze the damn thing and unfreeze it at a later point and it would theoretically still be viable if you could somehow implant it back in a woman. Which, Representative Smitherman, is not a thing, but whatever.

Most women who don’t want a pregnancy know they don’t want it and decide on an abortion before three months. Which, by the way, another one of those Jim Crow type laws that they liked to use was putting in weighting periods so that it’d be after the three month mark that it’s illegal to get an abortion for whatever reason.

See, without going into specifics, the further along in a pregnancy you are, the harder it is to get an abortion. Second trimester limitations basically mean you need a reason more complicated then “Nah, I just don’t want it” and it’s actually illegal to get an abortion in the third trimester if the baby isn’t a threat to the mother’s life. And that makes sense.

Most women who go through with a pregnancy that far willingly want the baby. They’ve been planning for it, they have a room set aside for it, they’ve bought cribs and toys and had baby showers. I haven’t ever met a woman in her third trimester who wasn’t excited for her child. So getting an abortion then is always a tragedy.

The only reason they get it is because the child is dying, if it’s even still alive. The baby could potentially survive outside the mother at this point with a bit of medical help, but that’s the thing. The baby isn’t going to survive at all. We’re talking skull deformations that collapse the brain in on itself, lungs that won’t ever form properly, hearts that half the size they need to be. These children are loved, they sometimes have names already, but tragically they’re just not going to make it. This is basically the only reason a woman gets an abortion in the third trimester, mostly because it’s more or less illegal to get an abortion at this point and most of them have made the decision by now.

This is where you get the rather horrible looking and graphic procedures that pro-deathers like to shove in your face - half of which are so graphic because the baby’s already dead, if they’re even real at all - and that’s more or less the story of how and why abortions happen.

So now that we established how the process of an abortion actually happens, let’s talk about these new laws.

Because these new laws that have been showing up in, say, Alabama, have a purpose too. While the Jim Crow Type laws were meant to try and skirt Planned Parenthood V Casey by making abortions as difficult to get as possible, these laws outright ban abortion. And there’s a reason for that. With Trump loading the bench with people like Brent the Rapist Kavanaugh, suddenly there’s a chance that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe V. Wade.

That’s why these laws are stupid and draconian. When the 25 cis white heterosexual men who voted for the abortion ban voted for it, they were doing so with the full knowledge that even most Alabamians would find it disgusting because as it turns out most human beings have at least some understanding of sexual health enough to know why this is complete nonsense.

No, we have records of them specifically debating things like, say, whether or not they should include exceptions for rape and the safety of the mother, and deciding they shouldn’t because that wouldn’t guarantee a challenge. And that’s what they’re looking for. These fuckheads don’t care about this law coming into effect, they’re not interested in what the actual law says. The purpose of this law is so that it - and every other one of the heartbeat bills and such - can be used as a wedge to burst open the Supreme Court now that it’s stacked with people who hate abortion and don’t care about women and kill Roe V. Wade. But here’s the thing, the law is going to be upheld in the process.

I want you to look at this picture and remember these names and faces as I tell you this. IF the Supreme Court upholds the law, then until Alabama decides to change the law - and that’s a big if - then every woman in Alabama will be unable to get an abortion in the state of Alabama. She’ll have to leave the state, and to where? Well, we’ve already established that Mississippi is horrible to go to, and Louisiana and Georgia aren’t much better. I’m not sure about Florida’s abortion laws, but I’m willing to bet Kentucky isn’t exactly convenient to get one in either. That’s all the states touching Alabama, so at that point you’re looking into a road trip or a plane ticket.

You see the problem? Rich people can still get those abortions by leaving states and going somewhere else, but the poor people suddenly can’t. Now, one mistake is enough to condemn a poor woman to teenage motherhood. Meanwhile the rich bitches can go wherever they need to to get one done quick and cheap, away from any sound of a heartbeat bill.

And here’s the thing. A disproportionate number of those poor women are going to be black, because it’s Alabama and that’s just a thing there. So not only is this law sexist, an argument could be made that it’s racist too! But that’s not the half of it.

Some women are not capable of bringing life into this world. I don’t mean that physically, I mean that mentally. Some are too young, some don’t have the financial acumen, some have mental illnesses that just make it too hard. These women are condemned to motherhood. But it’s not just that.

Say what you will about what pregnancy actually is, you cannot deny it’s incredibly risky. Death is not an uncommon outcome, and increases in all manner of diseases are just a fact of it.

These men are willing to kill the poor black women of Alabama just so they can take rights away from women all over the United States. And that is disgusting.

#Wednesday Essays #by Phoenix #TheDrumpfWatch

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oselatra · 5 years

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Arkansas becomes casino country

The state rolls the dice with the passage of Issue 4.

On Nov. 6, for the second election cycle in a row, Arkansas voted for vice. Issue 4, a constitutional amendment authorizing four casinos in the state, was approved by 54 percent of voters on Election Day 2018 — an echo of the vote on the medical marijuana amendment that Arkansans approved by a similar margin in 2016.

Note that the state also overwhelmingly supported Republicans both years. Maybe it's the influence of Donald Trump or maybe it's some larger cultural slouch toward Gomorrah, but social conservatism just isn't what it used to be. Many GOP voters in Arkansas seem increasingly comfortable with sinful behavior, at least when it has the potential to be entertaining.

The passage of Issue 4 was no foregone conclusion. Arkansans rejected ballot initiatives that would have amended the state Constitution to allow casino gambling in 1984, 1996 and 2000. That didn't discourage gaming interests from continuing to try: In 2012 and 2016, proposed amendments were placed on the ballot, only to be disqualified by the Arkansas Supreme Court because of problems with the wording of the ballot title.

Issue 4 faced two legal challenges of its own, but in October the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in favor of Driving Arkansas Forward, the committee behind the measure. Little Rock attorney Alex Gray, counsel for Driving Arkansas Forward, said the Supreme Court ruling was half the reason this amendment succeeded when so many other attempts had failed.

"First off, it was actually on the ballot. The ballot title was drafted properly, people could understand it and ... we got good signatures. It was not susceptible to the challenges that we saw with other initiatives," he said.

The campaign for Issue 4 won voters over by framing its arguments in terms of economics. "The second reason is that people are tired of losing our dollars to surrounding states and their casinos," Gray said. "This was not an effort to somehow make Arkansas a 'casino state.' It was not an effort to do this huge expansion of gambling in the state. It was just an attempt to boost our economy, create thousands of jobs and keep our tax dollars here."

Nonetheless, Issue 4 will significantly expand gambling in Arkansas. The measure directs the Arkansas State Racing Commission to issue four new licenses for casinos to be located in Garland, Crittenden, Jefferson and Pope counties. The Garland County license must be awarded to Oaklawn Jockey Club in Hot Springs and the Crittenden County license must be awarded to Southland Racing Corp., which operates the greyhound track in West Memphis. The racing commission will award the other two licenses following a merit-based application process that has yet to be established. No entity may hold more than one license.

Sanctioned gaming activities include anything found in casinos from Tunica to Vegas. The amendment authorizes "any game played with cards, dice, equipment, or any mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic device or machine for money, property, checks, credit, or any representative value, as well as accepting wagers on sporting events." A federal law prohibiting sports betting was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, and Issue 4 overrides an Arkansas statute that otherwise still bans the practice in the state

Good legal verbiage and PR aside, there are other reasons why Issue 4 beat the odds and became law. One is the fact that Arkansas's existing gambling industry seems to have been cut in on the deal from the beginning.

Oaklawn and Southland have fiercely guarded their turf from outside competition by fighting previous attempts to establish casinos in Arkansas. Their opposition helped bring down the 2016 proposal, which was pushed by a group of Missouri investors and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

The racetracks in Hot Springs and West Memphis have long operated casinos in all but name. Technically, Arkansas law prohibited any casinos until last week, but Oaklawn and Southland convinced the legislature in 2005 to enact a statute allowing patrons to wager on so-called "electronic games of skill." Issue 4 ends the need for this farcical workaround and allows the two "racinos" to begin offering real slots and table games instead of video simulations of such. It also gives them a tax cut and a sizable head start on their two potential competitors, which still must secure licenses, build facilities and gain the blessing of local officials. (In Pope County, at least, that could prove to be a significant roadblock.)

With the racetracks and their attorneys co-opted, groups opposing Issue 4 were left underfunded and outgunned. In 2016, the Family Council, a conservative political advocacy group that opposes gambling in all forms, found itself effectively aligned with Oaklawn and Southland in fighting out-of-state gaming interests. But in 2018, Southland threw its support behind Issue 4 while Oaklawn stayed neutral. Two committees formed to fight Issue 4 together raised only about $30,000 through Oct. 27, the most recent campaign finance reporting date. A third opposition gropu called "Vote No on Issue 4" was only formed in late October. It raised $150,000 from Caesars Entertainment of Las Vegas, but it's not clear how much of that money was actually spent.

In contrast, records show Driving Arkansas Forward raised $7.05 million in contributions through Oct. 27; another committee created to back Issue 4 raised a separate $1.91 million during that period. Through the end of October, supporters of the amendment appear to have outraised opponents by a factor of more than 50 to 1.

Family Council President Jerry Cox said the amendment will adversely affect Arkansas. He said the casinos will have a harmful effect on the communities in which they're located, as those who live nearby will be more susceptible to gambling addiction. Cox also said the casinos will have a negative impact on local economies, as some will choose to spend money on gambling instead of more essential purchases, like groceries and house payments. (It's not just conservatives, of course; plenty of moderate and liberal voters also feel casinos will bring more harm than good to their communities and hurt the poor.)

The passage of Issue 4 is indicative of Arkansas voters becoming less socially conservative, according to Cox. But he said this was in part due to voters being susceptible to expensive, deceptive advertising for Issue 4. "Advertising is very powerful, and voters need to be more astute in discerning what's true and what's not true," Cox told the Arkansas Times.

Much of that money — over $3 million — came from Delaware North, the parent company of Southland. The biggest single contributor, though, was the Downstream Development Authority of the Quapaw Tribe, which contributed at least $3.65 million to promote Issue 4. Cherokee Nation Businesses added another $2.28 million. The Quapaw are the favorites to win the permit in Jefferson County. The Cherokee were eyeing Pope County, but local opposition may derail their plans.

Much is yet to be determined as Arkansas gears up for casinos. Here's what we know so far, and what we don't:

What will change at Oaklawn and Southland, and when?

At this point, the racetracks are holding their cards close to the vest. Both sent terse nonstatements to the Times when asked for comment.

Oaklawn said it's preparing for the 2019 horse racing season, which begins in January, and will "move forward as legislation and regulation permits." Southland didn't offer much more: "We plan to increase our investment, provide more jobs and continue to offer a great experience for our guests. We're still determining our expansion timeline and will have more to say about our specific plans in the coming months, but we will work with the state to add live table games at Southland as soon as is feasible," a spokesman wrote by email.

On Nov. 4, a Talk Business & Politics article quoted an executive at Delaware North as saying the Buffalo, N.Y., company planned to build a $200 million hotel and convention center in West Memphis should Issue 4 pass. Jack McNeill, a senior vice president of governmental affairs, said the investment would be "a priority." Note, however, that that statement came immediately before the election.

The amendment suggests the racetracks could go full casino as soon as mid-March. The Issue 4 ballot title says "Southland and Oaklawn do not have to apply for a license and will automatically receive a casino license upon the [racing] Commission adopting rules and regulations to govern casino gaming." It also says the commission must have rules and regs promulgated within 120 days of the amendment's passage, which is March 14.

If the Hot Springs and West Memphis casinos are as successful as everyone seems to assume they'll be, that raises the question of the future of their tracks themselves. Horse racing at Oaklawn isn't going anywhere anytime soon, presumably. But the world of dog racing is rapidly disappearing. On Election Day, Florida voters approved a measure ending greyhound racing in that state, which is home to 11 of the 17 remaining dog tracks in the U.S. In his interview with Talk Business, McNeill claimed Delaware North hasn't discussed the possibility of discontinuing greyhound racing, but it's hard to believe the multi-billion-dollar food service and hospitality company isn't taking a hard look at the profitability of the track as it prepares to expand.

How will the other two licenses be awarded?

The state Racing Commission is tasked with awarding the Jefferson and Pope county permits. There are seven commissioners, each appointed by the governor, and the positions are unpaid except for a per diem for meetings and travel. The state Department of Finance and Administration provides staff for the commission.

Gray said the application process will be merit-based: "They will pass rules and regs governing the application and licensing process, similar to what was done with medical marijuana. There will be an open application period, and qualified groups will submit applications, and the racing commission will score those applications and award permits."

If there should be more than one applicant for a site, it's not yet clear how they'll be graded. Those criteria will be part of the rules now being promulgated by the commission. The amendment does specify a few things: An applicant must have casino gaming experience and a letter of local support and cannot have a felony conviction.

Might the licenses get tied up in litigation if there are multiple applicants? After all, that's what's happened with medical cannabis. In February 2018, the medical marijuana commission scored dozens of applicants vying for just five cultivation licenses, a flawed process that led to multiple lawsuits, months of delays and accusations that the commissioners' merit-based grading system was riddled with inconsistencies and conflicts of interest.

That seems less likely to happen with the casino licenses. First, there probably won't be large numbers of competitors jostling for the Jefferson or Pope county sites. Second, the medical marijuana commission was created from scratch in 2016, and its five members had no professional knowledge of medical cannabis and very little experience with regulation.

"The racing commission has been around a long time. They are experienced, extremely qualified, and this is not their first rodeo in terms of acting responsibly," Gray said.

How soon can the Jefferson County casino get up and running?

Though the amendment allows any would-be casino operator to seek a permit from the state, the Oklahoma-based Quapaw Tribe has been working with Pine Bluff officials for five years to gain approval of their bid. Quapaw Chair John Berrey said he hopes the tribe's work with the city will help his group prevail in the permitting process.

Berrey told the Times he hopes to file the tribe's application by the end of April, to be "digging dirt" by June and to open a casino in Pine Bluff early in 2020. He said the group has an option on land on the southwest side of the city, but he wasn't ready to reveal the precise location yet. Some land lies outside the city and would be voluntarily annexed. He said the tribe wants an orderly planning process and envisions developing some 180 to 220 acres initially.

Berrey said it took 10 months to build a casino the tribe operates in Joplin, Mo., a development he said has been worth several billion dollars in associated economic activity to that city. If that construction timeline holds, his 2020 target for a Pine Bluff casino and restaurant could be close. It might take longer to complete the hotel portion of the project, Berrey said.

The Quapaw-run casino would offer all gambling options, including a sports book, but Berrey said sports wagering is not a major focus of casino operation because it has a low profit margin.

The Quapaw Tribe is a government, not a shareholder-owned corporation, Berrey emphasized. He said it would devote more to community development than a casino corporation driven strictly by the bottom line. "We're about building communities," he said. "Our goal is to make it a better place for people to live."

Pine Bluff was briefly home to the Quapaw during the 19th century. The tribe occupied eastern Arkansas during prehistoric and historic times.

Will Pope County hold the line?

The situation in Pope County is complicated by the fact that the voters there don't want a casino. Sixty percent of those casting ballots in the county voted against Issue 4 in the election. And, 70 percent of Pope County voters approved an initiative that would bar the county judge or the quorum court from issuing a letter of support absent a local election that gives them the authority to do so. Issue 4 requires any applicant to obtain such a letter.

But would a local option election be permissible, given that Issue 4 is now enshrined in the Arkansas Constitution?

"Obviously, civics 101 says state law trumps local," County Judge-elect Ben Cross told the Times. The issue is moot, however, because Cross said he will not issue a letter of support "until the people of Pope County decide otherwise." The quorum court has already expressed its opposition. As things stand now, then, it doesn't appear that a casino will be built near Russellville anytime in the near future.

Christopher Burks, the lawyer for Citizens for a Local Choice, a Pope County group that sought to throw Issue 4 off the ballot, noted that the amendment could be read as having contradictory language. It says licenses "shall be" issued for Jefferson and Pope counties, but that to be successful, an applicant must have a letter of support either from the county judge or the quorum court — and, if the casino is to be operated in a city, from the mayor of that city.

Representatives of the Cherokee Nation met last summer with Cross. According to people familiar with the casino campaign, that wasn't early enough to convince county leadership of the benefits of a casino. The Quapaw worked for five years gathering support in Jefferson County.

The Cherokee interest in Pope County could be intended to stymie competition from the Choctaw Tribe, which operates a casino 15 minutes southwest of Fort Smith. The Cherokees operate a casino in West Siloam Springs, on the Benton County border.

What does the passage of Issue 4 mean for Indian gaming in other parts of Arkansas?

Federal law says that lands held in trust for recognized tribes can be used for any type of gambling otherwise permitted elsewhere in the state. The Quapaw Tribe owns undeveloped land near the Little Rock Port. Should the tribe convince the federal government to designate that land as tribal trust land, it's possible the Quapaw could build a casino there. City and county officials took a number of steps to prevent the Quapaws from doing that after they acquired the land.

But Berrey said that putting land into trust "has become more and more difficult and political." It requires approval of members of Congress, a governor and other local officials. "I just don't see it happening," he said.

What will be the impact on state revenue and jobs?

Don't expect public coffers to see a big windfall in the near term, unless you live in Garland or Crittenden counties. The state Department of Finance and Administration has projected general revenue will take a $36 million hit in the upcoming fiscal year as a result of Issue 4. Driving Arkansas Forward believes that number will rebound and then some within several years.

Currently, Oaklawn and Southland are taxed at 20 percent on their net wagering revenues on "electronic games of skill." The state takes 18 percent and city and county government take 2 percent. On top of that, an additional 15 percent is set aside for purse money (meaning prizes distributed to live racing winners) and support for the racing commission.

After the racetracks obtain the new licenses under Issue 4, the 15 percent dedicated to purses and the racing commission will remain in place. But the total 20 percent rate paid to state and local government will decline to just 13 percent on the first $150 million of net wagering revenues. Of that 13 percent, a little over half will go to state general revenue and a little over a quarter will go to local governments. The rest will further fund racing purses. The tax rate rises to 20 percent again on any wagering revenues above $150 million.

In short, that means more money for city and county government, more money for purse support (which bolsters the status of Arkansas as a racing destination), more money staying in the pockets of Oaklawn and Southland and less money for state general revenue.

Right now, state general revenue receives about $64 million from the two racetracks. That will decrease to about $28 million in the next fiscal year, according to the DFA analysis. Garland and Crittenden counties, together with the cities of Hot Springs and West Memphis, will see a projected gain of about $7 million in that time.

Gray said his group didn't dispute that state general revenue will see a "temporary gap" before the new casinos come online. The big question is what happens after that. The first year all four casinos are operational, Driving Arkansas Forward said it anticipated a total of $120 million in total tax revenue, yielding $66 million for state general revenue, $33 million for local government and the rest for purse support.

The DFA analysis didn't take such a rosy view. Even once all the casinos are up and running, it projected state revenue would only stand at about $50 million, or $14 million less than the current take.

Gray said Driving Arkansas Forward projects general revenue to increase thereafter. Five years after all the casinos are online, he said, general revenue should reach $80 to $85 million. "But those projections were before Southland announced it was going to make a $200 million investment on its property, so I would assume that Southland will potentially exceed what was projected," he added. Gray also noted state and local governments will also receive more sales, property and income taxes as a result of the casinos.

As for jobs, Gray said a study commissioned by Driving Arkansas Forward estimated Issue 4 would generate about 8,000 construction jobs over the next 18 months. After construction is complete, he said, the casinos should sustain about 6,000 new positions statewide.

Will new laws need to be passed?

The passage of a new constitutional amendment often necessitates new legislation to flesh out the details. But Gray said he didn't foresee the need for enabling legislation in the 2019 session, which begins in January.

"I don't really anticipate any legislation that would affect the amendment. The amendment was very detailed and very thorough in terms of who does what, and the racing commission has the authority to regulate casino gaming," he said.

In 2017, after Arkansas voted yes on medical marijuana, legislators put forward a host of bills tinkering around the edges of the amendment. Some were meant to slow down or derail the rollout of cannabis, but others were much needed clarifications to law. Gray said the situation is different with Issue 4.

"I think the difference between medical marijuana and casinos is that marijuana was and still is a Schedule 1 drug, so there are some federal issues," he said. Also, while medical marijuana laws are still fairly new, casinos have been operating in many states for decades. "So, I really don't think you'll see the same sort of reaction," he said.

State Rep. Doug House (R-North Little Rock), who sponsored a number of 2017 bills aimed at fixing issues with the marijuana amendment, said he's heard "loose talk" among some members about passing oversight legislation related to Issue 4.

"It's just discussion at this point. There's no clear formulation of issues," House said. The main concern for the legislature and the governor, he added, is addressing the $36 million state budget shortfall expected to result from the tax break given to Oaklawn and Southland.

Max Brantley, Rebekah Hall and Leslie Newell Peacock contributed to this story.

Arkansas becomes casino country

#Arkansas becomes casino country

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thotsonthebible · 6 years

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Dance for Joy

Luke 6.23

'On that day, be glad and dance for joy; for assuredly you have a rich reward in heaven; in just the same way did their fathers treat the prophets.'

Have you noticed the growing anti-Christian sentiment in our society and throughout the world? Along with anti-Semitism, hatred and scorn for Christians is growing in modern society.

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary about a research team in the Himalayas. Before they entered the treacherous terrain of the high mountains, the team stopped at a Buddhist temple to receive the blessing and prayer of the high priest for that region. The scientists sat there soberly and respectfully while the old man performed his occult ritual. If a Christian leader had offered to pray for the team before they ventured forth into danger, would he have received the same respect?

How many of you are familiar with Survivorman, Les Stroud? In a number of episodes, he submits to tribal chants, body painting, and pagan rituals intended to bring him luck and safety. Yet he scorns Christianity and ridicules prayer to the Most High God.

Our Savior has told us we should rejoice when unbelievers mock and ridicule us.

--’Blessed are you when people hate you…' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

The women of ABC News' 'The View' took a shot a Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian faith on Tuesday, mocking the former governor of Indiana for talking to Jesus and even calling it a 'mental illness.'… —Fox News, 02/13/2018

--'…when they exclude/ostracize you…' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

Facebook has removed the Christian ministry 'Warriors for Christ' page, saying the page violated community standards on bullying and hate speech. —www.christianheadlines.com/blog, 01/09/2018

Col. Leland Bohannon has been suspended from his command and denied a promotion to a one-star general for his belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. —www1.cbn.com, 10/20/2017

The sign was not very hard to miss: 'ANY AND ALL CHRISTIAN MUSIC IS BANNED.' That message was posted on an organ located in a commons area of Cambridge House, a condo building in Port Charlotte, Florida… Residents were also allegedly told they could no longer host a weekly Bible study in the commons area, according to a Fair Housing complaint filed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. —townhall.com, 03/08/2018

--'…when they insult you and scorn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

Michael Gove is right – Christianity has become a laughing stock

Christianity, he says, is now regarded in England with condescension or dismissal when not with active hostility. To say that you are a Christian is 'to declare yourself intolerant, naive, superstitious and backward'. —www.theguardian.com, 04/02/2015

A venerable Christian ministry based in Fort Lauderdale recently saw its name listed on a CNN map of 'all the active hate groups where you live,' as well as in local news reports as the No. 1 hate group in Florida… [T]he Christian broadcaster [James Kennedy Ministries] was mapped alongside about 60 'hate groups' in the Sunshine State, using designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)… —www.christianitytoday.com, 08/24/2017

Regular Christians Are No Longer Welcome in American Culture.

This new vigorous secularism has catapulted mockery of Christianity and other forms of religious traditionalism into the mainstream and set a new low for what counts as civil criticism of people’s most-cherished beliefs… Some of the faithful have paid unexpected prices for their beliefs lately: the teacher in New Jersey suspended for giving a student a Bible; the football coach in Washington placed on leave for saying a prayer on the field at the end of a game; the fire chief in Atlanta fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching; the Marine court-martialed for posting a Bible verse above her desk; and other examples of the new intolerance. Anti-Christian activists hurl smears like 'bigot' and 'hater' at Americans who hold traditional beliefs about marriage and accuse anti-abortion Christians of waging a supposed 'war on women.' Some Christian institutions face pressure to conform to secularist ideology—or else. Flagship evangelical schools like Gordon College in Massachusetts and Kings College in New York have had their accreditation questioned. Some secularists argue that Christian schools don’t deserve accreditation, period. Activists have targeted home-schooling for being a Christian thing; atheist Richard Dawkins and others have even called it tantamount to child abuse. —time.com, 06/29/2016

How are we, as Christians, to respond to society's growing scorn and mockery?

--'Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.' —Luke 6.23 (ESV)

--'If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first.' —John 15.18 (NLT)

This is no more than we can expect in the last days. Our Lord told us:

--'You will be hated by everyone because of Me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.' —Matthew 10.22 (NIV)

An evil and sinful world persecuted the prophets and killed the Son of God. Should we expect anything better?

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Please forgive the formatting. I wasn’t able to do a double-indent here, as I did in the original article, so I had to ad-lib. I hope you have been able to read it without a problem.

#Bible #Bible study #Christianity #religion #persecution #last days #Jesus #society

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keywestlou · 3 years

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KEY WEST HOME TO #1 RESORT AND SPA IN FLORIDA

I am sue you noticed there was no blog yesterday. A tuesday disaster.

I take 19 pills a day. I made it to 86 so far so they must be helping. I take the pills during the course of the day while on the computer. A case of bottled water nearby to assist.

I was opening a new bottle. The cap was hard to turn. Finally turned snapping my wrist. Came the deluge. My keyboard buried in water. Tried to clean and dry. Didn’t work. Sloan stopped by yesterday with a new one.

My notes for tuesday night’s Tuesday Talk show covered with water also. Ink turned into black water. Notes for the show gone 15 minutes before show time. Did the show of the top of my head.

I do not need the computer to do Tuesday Talk. Only a land line. Ergo, I was still able to get the show in.

Tragedies occur.

Travel + Leisure is one of America’s top travel magazine. Its recent edition listed the top 15 resorts and spas in Florida. Key West was home to three.

Number one was Sunset Key and Cottages. Number two Oceans Edge Resort and Marina. Number three Ocean Key Resort and Spa.

A big deal! All top notch.

E-bikes. I see them coming to Key West.

Tourists and locals alike are bike crazy here. Bicycles the reason Key West is #1 for bicycle deaths and injuries in Florida.

The bicycles are motorized. Electric power. Can enjoy the ride or peddle. Whatever is desired. Speed under 25 mph.

A hit already in major cities. Sales in the 12 month period ending in July up 240 percent. By next year, they will be all over Key West. I am not looking forward to it. Unless you have experienced it, you have no idea how dangerous it is to drive a car on a roadway covered with bicycle riders.

A bit of coronavirus.

Israel has been one of the world leaders in dealing with coronavirus. It will be announcing shortly that 4 shots will be required to be considered being “fully vaccinated.” Two booster shots rather than one.

Israelis will only be able “to engage in society” if their vaccine passports show 4 shots have been taken.

Israeli people not happy. Already protesting.

Pope Francis is generally on the right side of things. Vaccines, for example. He encourages vaccines, discourages religious exemptions.

On September 27-28, the Vatican held its Assembly Meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Life. The Academy deals with issues at the intersection of bioethics and moral theology. The Academy advocated for equitable distribution of vaccines and to combat vaccine skepticism.

YouTube announced it is going to ban any who claim “vaccines are infectious or dangerous.” Included is Robert Kennedy, Jr. who is a prominent vaccine opponent.

Does not surprise me Kennedy would be opposed to vaccines. He most times is on the wrong side of issues. Recall that it was recently announced he supported the parole of his father’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan.

His father he is not.

On this day in 1939, the Munich Pact was signed.

Prime Minister Chamberlain feared Germany was going to start a war. England mentally was still suffering from the huge number of young Englishmen it had lost in World War I.

Hitler did not invite Chamberlain to Munich. Chamberlain went uninvited. In fact, Hitler wondered what he wanted.

Chamberlain wanted peace, “peace at any cost.”

A one page document was signed. Hitler agreed not to begin a war. There was one condition. Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland was to be given to Germany. It was so agreed.

Chamberlain returned to England. As he departed his plane in England, he waived a copy of the one page agreement and shouted, “Peace with honor, peace in our lifetime.”

History reflects he was wrong.

The surprising thing was Hitler’s recollection of the meeting. He had no thought of asking for the Sudetenland. It was actually Chamberlain’s idea. Chamberlain thought Hitler could be “bought off” by his suggestion. Hitler agreed to accept the Sudetenland. Why not, he said. Something for nothing.

Upon death, one’s remains are either buried or cremated. There is now a third way gaining in popularity. Cost the primary consideration. The new way is cheaper.

It is composting. Turning the body into a “sack of dirt.” The process takes 3 months.

The concept is promoted with the thought one’s body is still living in a sense. Composting renews life.

Composting is legal in Colorado and Washington. Expected to be legal soon in Oregon.

Eighty six year old Thomas Krob of Spring Grove, Illinois recently died. He refused to be vaccinated. His problem was not coronavirus. It was rabies.

He woke one night discovering a bat on his neck. He refused the set of 4 rabies shots. He died in one month.

It was discovered a colony of bats were living in his home.

Rabies deaths can be prevented if timely rabies vaccinations are given. Krob was anti-vaccine and paid the penalty many persons do who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

I am perplexed. When are Manchin and Sinew going to do what’s right?

Manchin may yet capitulate. Sinew perhaps never. She does not seem capable of seeing the light of day.

A newscaster last night described her as “bush league.” Her conduct suggesting she does not belong in the Senate.

I have the feeling she wants her constituents to view her as another John McCain. She is an Arizona Senator. His life experiences qualified him to act as he did. He had earned the right. She, not.

John McCain she is not.

The House Progressives are to be admired. Some 60 odd in number.

They are sick of having been ignored over the years. They are standing strong at this time and saying “no more.”

Good for them!

Today is National Coffee Day. Free coffee available at many coffee outlets. Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks being two. One requirement generally. Food or a bakery item must be purchased.

Enjoy your day!

KEY WEST HOME TO #1 RESORT AND SPA IN FLORIDA was originally published on Key West Lou

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Republicans Are Still Running For President

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-republicans-are-still-running-for-president/

What Republicans Are Still Running For President

What Is A Voter

Republican Lawmakers Are Terrified Of Trump Running For President Again

The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect January 1, 2011, created voter-nominated offices. The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act does not apply to candidates running for U.S. President, county central committees, or local offices.

Most of the offices that were previously known as partisan are now known as voter-nominated offices. Voter-nominated offices are state constitutional offices, state legislative offices, and U.S. congressional offices. The only partisan offices now are the offices of U.S. President and county central committee.

Withdrew Before The Primaries

The following individuals participated in at least one authorized presidential debate but withdrew from the race before the Iowa caucuses on February 1, 2016. They are listed in order of exit, starting with the most recent.

Name

The following notable individuals filed as candidates with FEC by November 2015.

Name

Additionally, Peter Messina was on the ballot in Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Idaho.Tim Cook was on the ballot in Louisiana, New Hampshire and Arizona. Walter Iwachiw was on the ballot in Florida and New Hampshire.

Death Threats And Conspiracy Theories: Why 2020 Won’t End For Election Officials

Kelley said members of his staff have been followed and videotaped while picking up ballots from drop boxes in recent weeks.

“I’ve been doing this almost 18 years, and I would say the end of ’19 leading into ’20 and then all the way up to today has been the most stressful period of my career,” Kelley said.

Up until now, the fraud claims have been mostly isolated to national campaigns and the occasional statewide race.

But Jamie Shew, who oversees elections in Douglas County, Kan., said he worries the tactic could trickle down to local races, where margins are often extremely thin.

“Even in candidates were going to ‘there was fraud’ rather than it was a bad campaign,” Shew said. But “2020 took it to a whole new level. And I don’t think that’s going to go away.”

In Douglas County last year, for instance, a County Commission race was decided by just three votes. Both candidates running accepted the results after a hand recount, but Shew said he worries next time, they might not be so lucky.