It sure didn't have to be this way

On Wednesday, 5-24-2020, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States became the first country to suffer 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

That's just about like wiping a Billings, MT off the map...or a Davenport, IA...or a Sparks, NV.

Think about that.

And it sure didn't have to be this way.

I read an online article at theintercept.com that stated America's first confirmed case of COVID-19 was made public on 1-20-2020. That same article said that Vietnam saw its first case of the disease three days later.

Vietnam still has yet, as of 5-24-2020, to record its first COVID death.

Yes, yes, yes...Vietnam doesn't have as many people in it as the US; the 2020 edition of "The World Almanac" states that Vietnam has 97.9 million people in it compared to America's 327.2 million people (a 2018 estimate).

Now take a look at the world's most heavily-populated country, China.

Not counting Hong Kong or Macao, China's population is 1.39 billion people. Billion. 

If you go right now to worldometers.info, you'll find that the latest figures show that 4,634 Chinese have died from COVID.

Nope. That's not a typo. 

As far as I'm concerned, it all comes down to the White House's totally inadequate and completely halfhearted response to the coronavirus pandemic.

And yes...it's an utterly racist response.

Maybe you've heard that deaths from the disease have been disproportionately Black and Brown...the two biggest ethnic groups America's Republicans love to defecate on.

If you're thinking about cutting out on this post, just understand that the same article from theintercept.com yielded a quote from HHS Secretary Alex Azar: "Unfortunately, the American population is...very diverse."  

That's Azar trying to justify the world's highest COVID casualty total.

Remember: Azar is part of the first White Supremacist administration in Washington since Woodrow Wilson slept at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

The Republicans- especially those in the White House- made this whole coronavirus pandemic political. They, not I.

To them, it's all about winning on 11-3-2020. The Con Artist in Chief knows that the fewer people out there casting ballots this year, the better his chances of staying in the Oval Office.

And to The Adolf...oops, I mean The Donald, the pandemic is just another weapon in the GOP arsenal. Just like the call to keep the country's meatpacking facilities running, labeling meat as a vital item.

A significant percentage of immigrants and non-White people works at those plants.

And too many of the employees at those plants have complained about the lack of coronavirus (or any other kind of) protection at too many of those facilities.

Listen, if protein's the issue, cookinglight.com lists 21 other sources of protein.

For instance, you can get protein from peanuts, yogurt, cottage cheese, kidney beans, peanut butter, veggie burgers, lima beans, and all kinds of cheeses from Swiss to mozzarella to Colby Jack.

Okay...is social distancing the issue?

I get that millions of us are chafing to Get Back to Normal...even if it's not going to be all that simple. Millions are chafing to hear the nation's cash registers "KA-CHING!" at the same rate as when 2020 began and we were looking forward to a whole new decade.

Coming back to the article from theintercept.com, epidemiologists Britta L. Jewell and Nicholas P. Jewell said that about 90% of America's COVID-19 deaths could've been prevented if social-distancing policies had been put into effect on 3-2-2020.

At that time, only 11 Americans had died from the biggest global pandemic since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-20.

In response to COVID, social spacing finally got placed into effect on 3-15-2020.

Think where we'd be right now if the United States had REAL leadership at the top...instead of the con job that commenced on 1-20-2017. 

For now, let's think about saving lives first.

Then we can worry about saving the economy.  

Who says House Democrats haven't done anything since retaking the House?

One of the biggest claims to come out of this rapidly-concluding 2019 is that, since becoming the majority party in the US House eleven months ago, the Democrats haven't done a cotton-picking thing.

Don't believe it.

For even one millisecond.

Besides turning Donald Trump into just the third chief executive to get impeached, the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives has passed the following bills:

*HR 1 (the For the People Act of 2019)
*HR 5 (the Equality Act)
*HR 7 (the Paycheck Fairness Act)
*HR 8 (calling for background checks on gun sales)
*HR 9 (the Climate Action Now Act)
*HJ Resolution 37 and SJ Resolution 7 (both directing the removal of Uncle Sam's forces from unauthorized fighting in Yemen)
*House Congressional Resolution 24 (calling for the Mueller Report to be made public)
*House Resolution 183 (condemning anti-Semitism and condemning anti-Muslim intolerance and bigotry against non-Caucasian people)
*HR 259 (the Medicare Extenders Act of 2019)
*HR 271 (to condemn Trump's efforts to take health care away from rank-and-file Americans)
*HR 375 (amending the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to reaffirm the Interior Department's green light to take land into trust for indigenous tribes)
*HR 986 (Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019)
*HR 987 (designed to strengthen health care and lower prescription drug costs)
*HR 1500 (Consumers First Act)
*HR 1585 (the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019)
*HR 1644 (made to save the Internet)
*HR 1994 (SECURE Act/Gold Star Family Tax Relief Act)
*HR 2480 (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act)
*HR 2513 (Corporate Transparency Act)
*HR 2722 (the Securing America's Federal Elections Act)
*HR 4617 [the SHIELD Act...drafted to make sure what happened (namely, Russian interference) in the 2016 election doesn't take place again]
*On 12-19-2019, the House passed the USMCA agreement (the replacement for NAFTA), 385-41.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

By 11-15-2019, the House had passed almost 400 bills (resolutions excluded)...but when you add this country's Senate to the equation, you find that in total, Congress had, by said date, passed just 70 bills.
 
Most of the bills still stalled in the Mitch McConnell-run chamber are common-sense ones. What's more, legislation such as background checks, 'Net neutrality, and a reauthorized Violence Against Women Act has gathered proven bipartisan support.

McConnell's Senate thinks nothing of confirming 150 of Trump's nominees to the federal judiciary.

It's all because Senate Republicans are unwilling to take the tough votes Pelosi's House has made...and laid out there for the upper chamber to take up.

And...yes...USMCA now awaits a Senate vote, too.

Much of the information you're reading came from Ella Nilsen's 11-29-2019 article on https://vox.com, "House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills. Trump and Republicans are ignoring them." 

We'll see what happens with these bills in the months to come as vanloads of Senate Republicans (including Moscow Mitch himself)

fight to save their hides as they come up for reelection.
 
 

 

A simple-but-drastic solution

Well, it finally happened.

After two long years and eight long months, the United States House of Representatives has initiated an impeachment inquiry.

The last straw?

That former host of TV's The Apprentice decided that withholding $400 million in US funds, supposedly earmarked for Ukraine's defense, to get dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden would be a great idea.

This is, by no means, the only impeachable offense committed by a man who kept NBC happy from 2004 to 2015. Heck, the site https://rootsaction.org lists 23 impeachable actions as of 8-8-2019...the eve of the 45th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation from the White House, for crying out loud.

Take just Donald Trump's violation of domestic emoluments, for example.

His lease of Washington's Old Post Office Building alone would be enough to get him kicked out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...and, according to the General Services Administration, that lease is a no-no.

Speaking of Washington...at least somebody on Capitol Hill is paying some sort of attention to this country's Constitution. Somebody on Capitol Hill still cares about preserving the Constitution...and not just its Second Amendment.

It's the Democrats who control this country's House.

And it's the Democrats in the Senate.

And don't forget Congress' three independents...US Sens. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME) as well as US Rep. Justin Amash (MI).

This past February, House Democrats passed a bill calling for background checks on future purchasers of guns. It was one of 49 bills passed in the four months since the Donkeys regained control of the House.

The only reason we don't have background checks right now, lower prescription drug prices yet, or an infrastructure deal in place is the same reason the Equality Act and the Green New Deal aren't law yet:

Senate Republicans won't bring these bills to a vote in the upper chamber. 

They're the same Senate Republicans currently fighting tooth and nail to defend their 73-year-old meal ticket...the one who used to end every telecast of his with: "You're fired!"

The way I see it, the only way to get these bills up to the Senate and get these bills to become law is simple.

And drastic.

Some people are going to have to do it kicking and screaming...but it's got to be done if America's going to remain a constitutional republic and not the police state Mitch McConnell, Steve King, Trump, and Co. crave so much.

Here it is:

We've got to stop putting Republicans in office...and we've got to stop reelecting incumbent Elephants. 

Think about it. 

I wasn't going to let construction work stop me from voting!

Well, yesterday, I did it.

Finally got it done.

At 12:20 PM (Central time), I walked inside Dundee Presbyterian Church (52nd St. and Underwood Ave.) to cast a midterm ballot.

Took me 25 minutes to go through the whole procedure...from giving the Election Day attendants my name all the way to filling out a two-page ballot.

And once it was all done, I was able to join millions of other Americans in scratching an itch that had been festering for two years.

Two long years.

Two excruciatingly long years.

Two years of- let's face it- this country's Republicans setting the stage for full-fledged fascist rule, what with the Elephants dominating all phases of government...from the national level all the way to (in too many places) the local level. 

Speaking of local level...it seemed as if Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert (she's a Republican) and her staff were determined to make it difficult for folks in the precinct around Dundee Presbyterian (and people living in the precinct centered by nearby Brownell-Talbot School) to get to their respective polling places. 

Roadwork along 52nd Street gave the game away.

So...I ended up parking on Webster Street and walking across Happy Hollow Boulevard to get to the church. 

And when voting was done and I left the polling place, it felt good.

But I ended up spending most of the next ten hours on pins and needles.

I'd feared that the Republicans had retained both divisions of Congress.

They didn't. 

The Democrats took back the House while the Republicans added to their Senate majority. And according to www.dailykos.com, the Elephants won 18 gubernatorial races while the Donkeys got 13 of 'em.

I didn't get everything I voted for (Kara Eastman and Jane Raybould didn't unseat, respectively, Don Bacon and Deb Fischer, while Pete Ricketts got reelected as Nebraska's governor), but I'm glad about the fact that in two months, this country's House having more Democrats in it than Republicans should help to bring checks and balances back to Washington. 

And here's hoping that Nancy Pelosi and Co. investigate, investigate, and investigate.

And oh, yes...start impeachment proceedings.

Pronto.

 

Overlooking and letting go

When I'm not writing blogs or getting involved in music, I work in a plastics factory here in Omaha. 

This company recently hired a new director of human resources after firing her much-appreciated predecessor, a long-time company executive.

This past Wednesday, a question the firm's new HR chief asked me got under my skin...big time.

At 4:55 PM that afternoon, I was trying to leave the break room at the plant I work at in order to resume production. A fellow machine operator of mine (a middle-aged woman) was talking with the new head of HR about trying to recover items stolen the previous day from the machine operator while she herself was in the women's restroom at the same plant. 

The operator was attempting to find the culprit.

As I was trying to get back to the machine I was assigned to run, our company's new exec asked me: "Did you do it?" 

I felt stunned.

Nevertheless, I answered: "No, I didn't! I was raised better than that." 

WHAT THE HELL MADE THIS DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES THINK I'D GO INTO A WOMEN'S RESTROOM AT ALL...LET ALONE TO STEAL FROM ANYONE IN IT? 

When I returned to the break room that night to eat dinner, I told another machine operator about the incident...and this coworker asked me to "let it go."

I WON'T!!

I'm still stunned by this question.

In fact, three days ago, I regained enough composure to write down what had happened in the break room and submit the report to the supervisor's office...then got a copy made for personal safekeeping (and to provide documented proof that this HR honcho asked me this inane question). 

By the way, I learned that this isn't the first time said executive popped off like this to a rank-and-file employee.

Every late summer or early fall, the firm holds a picnic, and all the executives within the company get involved in it. (And that means the head of human resources will be there...to, among other things, help conduct an employee raffle.)

This year, I'm not going to show up.

And I'm going to continue to boycott the company picnic as long as this new HR leader is part of the firm I'm still with. 

You know, all of this overlooking and letting go has, in recent decades, led America to the point where- let's not kid ourselves- a dictator is in the White House (and his fellow Republicans, especially the ones on Capitol Hill, are fighting tooth and nail to help him convert America from the constitutional republic it was founded to be into a police state). 

During 2016, 231.6 million of America's 323.1 million people were eligible to cast ballots. 

62.9 million people voted to turn these United States into a fascist nation. (I mean, let's face it. They're getting what they've been on their knees begging for.)

They sold out their country...and, in the process, trashed the Allies' 1939-45 efforts to keep full-fledged fascism from spreading beyond Germany, Italy, and Japan (let alone hit America's shores in a complete and total way). 

In addition, according to the United States Election Project, 108.6 million citizens stayed away from the polls on 11-8-2016...but 21.0 million of them were forced to do so on account of voter-suppression laws enacted in state after state after state after Barack Obama picked up his second term of office (and because the Supreme Court ruled against the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013). 

So...87.6 million citizens are, like it or not, just as complicit as the aforementioned 62.9 million folks in saying "yes" to the nightmare we entered into on 1-20-2017.

That's right...the self-inflicted nightmare. 

After all, when you don't vote, you give the other side the choice. That's all there is to it. 

Do you enjoy GOP efforts to take away more and more of your rights- especially the right to speak out against injustice? Are you okay with the Republicans' drive to capitalize on Russia's heavy hand in the 2016 US election? [By the way, do you remember when US Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) talked about how much they admired Russia's Vladimir Putin? This was just four years ago!] 

You cool with families being torn apart at the border...

with the children thrown into cages? 

Well, if you don't like this Great American Nightmare, all you've got to do is make sure you get out to your neighborhood polling place on 11-6-2018. 

Vote to take Congressional control away from the Republicans. Today's Elephants keep proving that they don't give a crap about America.

They just care about power.

Come on now...you can't really expect a Graham (or a Mitch McConnell or a Paul Ryan or a Steve Scalise) to call Donald Trump out when they have the same basic core beliefs Trump has.

And you can't expect the heads of this country's biggest media companies to call DJT and his fellow Republicans out on the carpet when Big Media helped bring all of this garbage about. 

It's up to us rank-and-file citizens to save this country.

We won't do it by overlooking and letting go.   

Dear Democrats in Georgia's 6th House District:

You've got no excuses now.

If you want Donald John Trump out of there, you're going to have to vote for Thomas Jonathan Ossoff this coming Tuesday.

That's all there is to it.

You just can't afford to sit this one out...the way some of you not only sat out last year's US presidential election, but also the 2010 and 2014 midterms. 

Some people here in America don't think any sort of anti-Trump resistance is taking place. After all, Democrats are 0 for 2 in special elections thus far this year. Kansans in what used to be Mike Pompeo's US House district rejected James Thompson, the Democrat who was trying to take the seat out of Republican hands. 

And Montanans just got through demonstrating that they wanted Republican Greg Gianforte (who beat up a reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, on the eve of Big Sky Country's US House election, the effort to replace Ryan Zinke) instead of Democrat Rob Quist. 

You folks are the firewall. You can't afford to wait until next year and cross your fingers.

Registered Democrats have GOT to end their history of staying away from polling places whenever there's a midterm election or a special election.   

I mean, don't you understand, after all these years, that if you don't go out and cast a ballot, you give the opposition the choice?

Don't you remember how millions and millions and millions of Americans put their lives on the line- even gave up their lives- to expand the right to vote beyond White male landowners? 

You've got no excuses. None.

The cat didn't eat your homework. What's more, if you electronically turned in your homework, the cat didn't walk across your laptop and hit "Delete."

Matter of fact, I researched Ossoff's platform and that of his opponent, Karen Handel (who, in 2007, became the first elected Republican to serve as the Peach State's secretary of state). 

*First of all, the 30-year-old Ossoff has made suggestions that could save the US government $16 billion (an assertion Politifact agrees with). For example, if the government consolidated its data centers, it'd mean $5.4 billion extra to spend. And if the Department of Defense could try strategic sourcing, $4 billion would be freed up.

*If our businesses played with money the way America's government does, those firms would be in deep doo-doo. TJO wants to bring our government up to private-sector standards. (Think about this: The General Accounting Office found out that, in fiscal 2014, Uncle Sam made improper payments totaling $124.7 billion. Also, GAO found out 6.5 million active Social Security numbers have been set aside for people over the age of 112...despite the fact that only 42 such people the world over are currently drawing breath!)

*Jon Ossoff wants to promote high-tech and biotech research...at a time when today's GOP-led Congress wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, one of Georgia's top fifteen employers. 

*On top of that, he's out to prioritize STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, colleges, universities, and technical schools. Ossoff would like to let college students refinance their loan repayment programs and, in the process, reap the benefits of lower interest rates.

*Atlanta native Ossoff supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.

*He doesn't want nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. (With those nonviolent drug offenders clogging up the jails, where's the room for the convicted murderers, sex offenders, what have you?)

*Jon won't raise your taxes; in fact, he's in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses.

*Ossoff wants the United States to stay in the Paris climate accord.

*Although he doesn't want a single-payer health-care system, he's in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act the law of the land. (Don't get him started on the proposed ACA replacement, the so-called American Health Care Act.)

*To top it all off, this son of an Australian mother will work for comprehensive immigration reform...the kind that strengthens enforcement along the US-Mexico border and makes a citizenship path for America's 11 million undocumented immigrants.

If you flip this platform around, you can just imagine what Handel's platform looks like. 

Still, here it is:

*Handel wants to repeal the ACA (as did Tom Price, the new HHS secretary whose House seat Ossoff and Handel are after) and replace it with the AHCA...a proposal that, contrary to Republican assertions, reduces protections for preexisting conditions (in addition to taking health insurance away from at least 23 million Americans!). 

*She's made it clear that she opposes the minimum wage: "I do not support a livable wage."  
*Handel opposes abortion rights, government funding of Planned Parenthood, and embryonic stem-cell research.

*Karen wants to limit Uncle Sam's role in combating climate change; she'd rather leave it up to the states and their cities. What's more, she doesn't believe that we human beings are the biggest reason the world's average temperature has gone up.

*And, of course, Handel doesn't want an automatic (or any kind of) path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants. 

*Do you remember when the 55-year-old Handel was an executive with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure? Remember when, in 2012, the foundation pulled back a $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood to fund mammograms and other breast-cancer-related services?

The cutoff was completely and totally political.

And it had Handel's fingerprints all over it.

The same woman who purged voter rolls as soon as she became Georgia's secretary of state five years earlier. 

So there you are, Democrats in GA-6. Take it from me, a man who, in 1986, failed to cast a ballot in an historic election here in Nebraska.

Two women- a first here in these fifty states- fought for Bob Kerrey's gubernatorial seat as he sought a seat in the US Senate. Instead of former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis keeping the governor's mansion in Democratic hands,

State Treasurer Kay Orr put it back in the GOP's lap.

My excuse: "I ran out of time before I had to go to work."

I got raked over the coals for my decision...and ever since, I've made it a point to cast a ballot every chance I could get.

This one's too important to pass up...especially if you want Trump impeached and then convicted (before he and his people do further damage to America and its reputation).

Please...get up off your excuses and VOTE for Jon Ossoff! 

Sincerely, Jim Boston

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

This date, too, will live in infamy.

That's because yesterday, hatred and bigotry won out.

That's all there is to it.  

Yesterday, American voters- as a whole- chose to replace Barack Obama with a PROVEN racist/sexist/misogynist/homophobe/Islamophobe who's studied Adolf Hitler's speeches.

And they were aided and abetted by the reporters, producers, and executives from the nation's biggest media companies...as well as by FBI director James Comey.

Many claim they never saw this coming. But they might have forgotten about how, in 2010, voters joined with those Democrats who chose to stay home in giving the US House of Representatives back to the Republicans...and, four years later, repeated the process with this country's Senate. 

Handing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue back to the Elephants was the next step. 

Those who decided to go with Donald Trump just spat on the graves of all those American veterans who died during World War 2- people who gave up their lives in an effort to keep German/Italian/Japanese totalitarian rule from reaching America's shores. 

So now, as early as 1-20-2017, Trump could call a fascist government. 

I wouldn't put it past him, knowing his supersized ego.

It isn't as if we weren't warned, what with years of evidence that DJT doesn't give a hoot about rank-and-file citizens.

And when many of this country's Trump supporters find out he really doesn't give a crap about them, they'll express remorse over giving control of the US government to the one-time host of TV's The Apprentice...instead of letting one of the most qualified presidential nominees in history take the reins. 

Those Trump supporters' eventual tears and sadness will prove useless and meaningless. 

What's more, media personalities such as CNN's Dana Bash and NBC's Matt Lauer might privately express grief over allowing this con artist to become this year's Republican nominee, let alone the leader of the American people. And Bash's boss, Jeff Zucker (the same man who, when he was president of NBC Entertainment, got The Apprentice on the air), might eventually start expressing sadness...if only in private.

Me, I stopped watching corporate news programs the night of 11-4-2014. After all, news is news, not entertainment...contrary to what Zucker and CBS CEO Les Moonves teach.

But now, I'm going to stop watching ANYTHING the Big Media companies have to offer, now that this has happened. 

They have to pay for their part in bringing eventual (if not immediate) full-fledged fascist rule to the United States...just as those voters who thought Trump would be better than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton must pay for their decision. 

If you're just as worked up about what just took place at the polls as I am (and yes, I voted yesterday), then you're welcome to join me in this boycott of CBS', Comcast's, Disney's, News Corporation's, and Time Warner's shows. 

Yesterday, America threw it all away.

With the whole world watching.

The 84-Year Itch

I took a look at the opinion page in this past Sunday's Omaha World-Herald...and was stunned out of my wits. 

Then a smile crept onto my face. 

The paper's editorial staff decided to go ahead and endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton to be America's 45th president.

I don't know how long Nebraska's largest newspaper has made presidential endorsements, but I do know this: It's only the second time since the Great Depression began this month in 1929 that the World-Herald thought a Democrat would be better off calling the shots from the Oval Office than a Republican. 

In fact, the fact that Wall Street laid that egg on 10-29-1929 led the OWH's then editors to tell their readers that it was time to kick Republican Herbert Hoover out of the White House and put Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in there for 1932. (Hoover- who died on this very date in 1964- was America's commerce secretary from 1921 to 1928; some historians feel he was the best chief this country's Commerce Department ever had.)

In the intervening 84 years- with one exception- the World-Herald went strictly with GOP nominees. (The paper's editors didn't endorse a presidential nominee in 1964.) 

When it came to 2016, editor-in-chief Terry Kroeger joined the rest of the editorial staff in biting their fingernails over Endorsement Time. 

They could've decided to sit out Endorsement Time.

Instead, Kroeger and his people made Clinton their choice...albeit with some trepidation. Sunday's editorial cited the fact that many Americans are still ticked off about Clinton's private email server from her days (2009-13) in charge of this country's State Department, all those deleted emails, and her handling of the 9-11-2012 attack at the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Kroeger and Co. even cited some Americans' anxiety over HRC stumping for a single-payer health-care system, American style. 

The 10-16-2016 editorial, nevertheless, said that giving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Donald Trump just wouldn't cut it. 

Trump's alienated too many people (especially those who aren't male, Caucasian, professing Christian, heterosexual, and/or wealthy), failed to show a real grasp of current events, and repeatedly shown a bent for lashing out whenever he's attacked.

Et cetera.

The World-Herald top brass gave Clinton the nod over her vast governmental and political experience...from her days as Arkansas' first lady all the way to her 2016 US presidential bid (her second one ever, of course). 

And the paper's editors thought that kind of experience would make the difference in a world whose most closely-watched land (yep, this one) has a debt of nearly $20 billion and whose Middle East region is once again a ticking time bomb.

To sum it all up, Kroeger and his staff said that the first lady-turned-US senator from New York-turned US secretary of state needs to show she's a uniter once she gets the job that her husband Bill once had (1993-2001).

I think she'll do it...as long as we help out.

And I congratulate the OWH staff for endorsing HRC instead of DJT.

A Moral Obligation

He's disparaged Mexicans, labeling them as murderers, rapists, and drug runners.

He's called African-American people lazy...and said "they can't help it."

He's talked about banning (or at least curtailing) immigration to America, and he doesn't want Muslims to travel to these United States "until we can figure out what to do with them."

He still wants to build that wall along the US-Mexico border. 

His weapons of first choice: Nuclear bombs. 

He's made dirty, rotten, filthy remarks about women of all colors. To say he's got utter contempt for women is an understatement.

He poked fun at a reporter (Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times) who's surviving cerebral palsy.  

He's made it clear that if you disagree with him in any way, shape, or form (especially if you're a news reporter), you'll suffer dire consequences. (Just ask the folks at The Washington Post. They're not allowed to interview him anymore.)

 

He still insists Barack Obama (who's got the job our subject is after) wasn't even born here in the US...despite planeloads of evidence showing otherwise.

He's got a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin...and thinks it's cool for the KGB to spy on Americans.

He's suggested that his chief 2016 US presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, should be murdered by Second Amendment advocates. 

As a real-estate tycoon, he's filed for bankruptcy six times and been sued 3,000 times. 

He's too darned chicken to disclose his income tax returns. 

He's been known to shortchange his rank-and-file employees and to stiff his contractors. What's more, he wants to see the nation's minimum wage lowered.  

All along the campaign trail, he's incited violence...time and time and tiresome time again. 

He's got too enormous an ego to compromise, to delegate...to actually do the job he's seeking. 

With his authoritarian bent, he isn't really running for the presidency. He's running to be the nation's first dictator.

He doesn't give a crap about the country's rank-and-file citizens. It's all about HIM, HIM, HIM. 

His whole campaign has been built on bigotry. 

With him in front of the Republican Party, the GOP continues to represent the biggest threat to any hope for democracy in these United States.

He's been treating his whole campaign as if it were another season of The Apprentice. 

The bottom line:

We Americans have a moral obligation to make DOGGONE SURE Donald John Trump doesn't give the next inaugural address.  

After all, the whole world is watching us.

I've Got My Paper Bag(s) Ready...How about You?

Take a look at all these Republican presidential candidates for 2016.

Study them.

If you've got the stomach, pick up a copy of your local newspaper or a newsmagazine and read what they've got to say.

And if you've got even more of a stomach, watch these candidates on TV...and listen to what they've got to say.

Donald Trump...John Ellis Bush...Scott Walker...Rafael "Ted" Cruz...Rand Paul...Rick Perry...Marco Rubio...Rick Santorum...Chris Christie...Mike Huckabee...Piyush "Bobby" Jindal...Lindsey Graham...Ben Carson...Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina. (I've got the feeling I've left somebody out!)

You hear them bashing this ethnic group, that ethnic group, LGBT people, America's middle-income and low-income households, this country's rank-and-file employees.

You catch the officeholders among them just plain making it harder for rank-and-file Americans to live their own lives. If the Walkers and Jindals among them aren't fighting to put labor unions out of business, they're working 24/7 to make sure women can't get real access to health care products and services.

This country's biggest media companies don't help when their reporters and their immediate superiors (and the superiors' own bosses) care more about Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails (and actual or perceived role in the 9-11-2012 Benghazi uprising) than about JEB's role in the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s, his role in the 2000 US presidential election, and his signing of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law when he ran the Sunshine State's government. 

It all makes me want to vomit. (And I've thrown up just twice in my life...once in 1965, and then again two years later!)

The rhetoric of today's Republicans- especially those trying to get the chance to ride Air Force One- just makes me want to vomit.

How about you?