I've got my mind made up

I'm just going to come right out and say it. My White House choice for 2024 is...Vice President Kamala Harris. Okay...I've probably lost some followers for making this decision. Here's my reasoning: 1. If Harris wins on 11-5-2024, it's the one way that all Americans of voting age, regardless of their party affiliation (or lack of one), will be able to cast future ballots. 2. The former US senator from California wants to end the filibuster so that (among other things) the Roe vs. Wade precedent (1973-2022) on abortion can be restored. (Okay...how would you like it if a politician got between you and your doctor when you needed to make a decision that could save your own life?) 3. She doesn't want to raise taxes on those Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year. In addition, she'd roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest US citizens...cuts that were signed into law in 2017. And the tax rate for long-term capital gains for millionaires would go to 28%. 4. Harris would sign the bipartisan border security bill into law...you know, the Senate deal that fell by the wayside after Donald Trump told House Republicans to abandon it so that he'd have something to campaign on. 5. I like her proposal to get 3 million new rental units/affordable homes built...and her proposal to provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 each for down payments (as well as legislation to outlaw new forms of price fixing by corporate landlords). 6. Harris is also in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (to prevent states from passing laws that make it harder for non-White people to cast ballots), the Freedom to Vote Act (designed to set standards for early voting and voting by mail...as well as to curb gerrymandering), and the Equality Act (extending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation). 7. And the former California attorney general advocates term limits for Supreme Court justices as well as a code of ethics for SCOTUS members. What's more, Harris wants to end America's record as the only major country without a national paid-family-and-medical-leave policy. You can check this and more out by going to politifact.com and checking out its article on Harris' 2024 campaign promises. I don't want to sit this one out...and if you're a voting-age American, I hope you won't sit this one out, either.

The protests MUST continue

Last week, two encounters with coworkers at the plastics factory that employs me made it personally crystal clear why the worldwide protests against the brutality shown by America's police forces MUST continue.

Last Sunday, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert issued a 72-hour curfew in light of the Big O being one of the many American cities holding demonstrations not only against police brutality, but also against the militarization of this country's police forces...and against vigilante brutality. In the curfew, people couldn't go out between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM...unless they had vital jobs. (The company I work at makes, among other things, personal protective equipment...no, not coronavirus masks, but the masks worn by assembly-line employees at dairy factories and by soldiers.)

So...on 6-1-2020, as I got off my second-shift job at 11:00 PM and was heading for my car to drive home, a supervisor from another plant within the same building headed for his own car to go to his own home.

I held the door for him (just trying to be polite, that's all)...and he started talking about the local curfew.

And then he praised this country's chief White House occupant, talking about how "honest" this occupant is...and how this one-time reality-TV show host "says what's on his mind."

Guess what? 

Just because the former host of NBC's The Apprentice says what's on his mind doesn't make what's on his mind cool...especially when he declares war on the nation's own citizens by vowing to sic the military on protesters if governors don't do his bidding and "dominate the streets."

That's dictatorial talk...no ifs, no maybes, no buts.

Sorry, folks. The way I see it, we started having a dictator here the afternoon of 1-20-2017.

A couple of nights ago, a fellow second-shift employee of mine at the same plant I work at weighed in on the continuing protests.

She wondered when the demonstrators would get off the streets "so that people can get on with their lives." What's more, she wondered what good the protests are doing.

So I told her.

Not only did I tell this fellow machine operator that the demonstrations have, at long last, gotten the attention of some corporate leaders (one of the leaders took to the electronic billboard at 72nd and Pacific Sts. here in O and loaded a message: "We Need Each Other")...I told her I'm glad the protests continue to take place.

The sign on the east facade of Omaha's Do Space (at 72nd and Dodge Sts., in a building that previously housed a Borders book store) proclaimed: "BLACK LIVES MATTER."

By the way...some of the protests here in Omaha happened at 72nd and Dodge.

Hours before second shift began that day (6-5-2020), NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement admitting that the league was wrong in the way it's been handling player protest ever since San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick went to one knee in 2016.

Eleven days after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis cop named Derek Chauvin (with an assist from four other members of Minneapolis' Supposedly Finest), Goodell finally gave the okay for the NFL's players to speak out and peacefully protest.

What's more, he stated: "We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country."

Goodell also admitted that "Without Black players, there would be no National Football League." 

Now, Roger...if you and the league's 32 team owners get rid of that kneeling ban, I'll be glad to get back to spending Sunday afternoons and evenings (and any Monday night or Thursday night I can get off during the season) watching NFL action.

And what about US Sen. Willard Mitt Romney (R-UT), the most recent Republican to lose a presidential election, marching with protesters in the nation's capital?

We'll see what happens in the days/weeks/months/years to come...but Romney's and Goodell's actions are a start. So are those taken by corporate bigwigs everywhere.

So if you're still upset because the protests, as this fellow machine operator of mine put it, prevent people from going "on with their lives," let me tell you something:

Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and too damned many others weren't allowed to get on with their own lives.

Vigilantes took it upon themselves to snuff Martin's and Arbery's lives out.

FOR NOTHING.

And I'd like to ask you something:

Do you REALLY believe in freedom for all to live their lives peacefully...to go about their everyday business just as you do?

Do you REALLY believe people have a right to petition this country's government...especially this current garbage fire of a government, one built on hatred and bigotry?

 

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. 

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.   

Guess what I'll be doing on Sundays this fall?

Well, I won't be watching National Football League action, that's for sure.

It's all because the owners of the league's 32 clubs have decided to ban kneeling during the singing/playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Players must now stand during Francis Scott Key's claim to fame...or risk getting fined. 

The only other option for the NFL's athletes: Stay in the locker room until the song's finished.

I remember all the letters that appeared in the Omaha World-Herald during the 2017 NFL campaign...letters that asked those protesting football players to air their grievances "on their own time" rather than in front of stadiums full of people (as well as in front of millions of TV viewers).

Well, those Americans who gave their newspapers such letters have now gotten what they've been on their own knees begging for.

And it probably won't take long before some of those same letter writers attack any NFL players who actually use "their own time" to address issues such as police brutality. 

In time for last Wednesday's Washington Post, Shaun R. Harper (a professor at USC who runs the school's Race and Equity Center) turned in a heck of an editorial about the circuit's new kneeling ban. 

Harper talked about how the new edict is all about ethnicity. 

Out of over 1,700 NFL players who suited up last season, 70% are Black. Seven of the teams had African Americans as their head coaches.

Every last squad in the league is owned by White people.

And starting with head honcho Roger Goodell, most of the people who make up the power structure at NFL headquarters in New York City are Caucasian Americans.

Add it all up. 

Harper did just that, talking about how the kneeling ban signals that the team owners don't give a good, good hoot about fighting racism in America. In addition, he stated that "the league is only interested in Black men as laborers and entertainers, not as citizens with the right to use their influence to awaken our nation's racial consciousness, disrupt racism, and improve circumstances for members of their communities who are harmed by racist policies and practices."

The key word is "citizens."

Later on in that editorial, Harper (he's written a dozen books; his most famous one: "Scandals in College Sports") called on NFL players to sue the league over its efforts to hold back gridders' freedom of expression (we're talking First Amendment rights, you know!).  

SRH also talked about how he joined many other African-American football lovers in boycotting last year's NFL contests to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and other activist players.

Shaun, I'm a year late to the "party," but here I am.

I'll continue to read about the games in the paper and online.

I just won't watch the games on TV anymore...until the Jerry Joneses and Daniel Snyders lift that stupid kneeling ban and stop cozying up to a man who wanted one of those NFL teams earlier in this decade.

That's right...Donald John Trump.

Even if Trump and his enablers/supporters don't really get it, patriotism involves more than standing at attention when you hear, as George Carlin put it, the world's only national anthem that mentions rockets and bombs.

Much more. 

Dear Jeffrey Toobin:

You recently told Larry Wilmore that you now find yourself regretful about your role in pushing a "false equivalence" between Hillary Clinton's actions and those of Donald Trump during Big Media's coverage of the 2016 US presidential race.

Fine.

There's just one thing:

You're too freakin' late!  

The whole problem is that you, your buddies at CNN, and counterparts at America's other newsgathering television networks pushed this "false equivalence" to begin with.

After all, Jeffrey, you work for Jeff Zucker...the same man who, when he headed up NBC Entertainment, helped Trump's The Apprentice get on the air in the first place.

You people were so smitten over the prospect of one of your medium's biggest stars landing the most talked-about job in politics that you failed to see the danger signs...such as his studying Adolf Hitler's speeches for ideas on how to handle things.

By telling your viewers that Clinton- one of the most politically-experienced major-party nominees in a long, long time- is just as wretched as Trump, you helped usher in a period where, when Trump, Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Co. are through doing their damage to this country's government, we won't have a constitutional republic anymore...let alone a shot at a real democracy.

You helped usher in a time where America's now the laughingstock of Planet Earth.

ARE YOU SATISFIED?? 

Instead of going for truth, you folks in Big Media wasted the 6-15-2015/11-8-2016 period going strictly for ratings...and you consistently think the way to get those good-looking Nielsen numbers is to portray every US political campaign as a horse race.

The way I see it, we stopped having presidencies on 1-20-2017.

Instead, we've got an emperor/king/dictator/premier/generalissimo. 

I hope you're happy, Jeffrey.   




  

Just desserts?

I read this on the Internet yesterday:

"Matt Lauer fired from Today for sexual harassment" 

I couldn't believe it.

I'm still, to this very day, thinking about his role in helping to create the garbage going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (Do you remember the MSNBC special he hosted last year, where Lauer threw hardball questions at Hillary Rodham Clinton, then turned around and gave softball inquiries to Donald Trump...a man who spent eleven years on Matt's main network, NBC?)

Late this past Tuesday, NBC News Chief Andrew Lack told the 59-year-old New York City native to clean out his desk. And as soon as Today came on yesterday morning, coanchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb gave viewers the news about Lauer's firing.

Lauer threw two decades as show cohost down the drain.

One of Lauer's colleagues turned in a detailed complaint against his inappropriate sexual behavior, and it triggered a serious review by Lack and his colleagues. 

It all stemmed from an incident the colleague reported took place in 2014, when NBC and most of the other Comcast networks were showing the 2014 Winter Olympics (held in Sochi, Russia). 

Lauer's victim reported this to NBC's human resources department this past Monday; the next day, he got the pink slip.

Two years before the Sochi incident, Katie Couric (who cohosted Today from 1991 to 2006) was interviewed on Bravo's Watch What Happens. 

Host Andy Cohen asked Couric to describe Lauer's "most annoying trait."

Couric's reply: "He pinches me on the [posterior] a lot." 

'Nuff said. 

From what I've read, it's not so surprising that Lauer would help deliver a proven sexual predator to the very top of American politics. 

Compared to what just happened with Lauer, it's going to be very hard to remove Trump from the most talked-about political office there is...but we really need to be up to it. 

Some of this information came from Jen Hayden's 11-29-2017 Daily Kos article about Matt's removal from the job he's best known for. (Jen, many, many, many thanks!)  

Just got to thinking...

Just got a few thoughts rolling in my mind right now...so, here goes:

*Quite a few people who've been sending letters to the Omaha World-Herald to protest the NFL players who are taking a knee during the playing/singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" have been asking those athletes to protest "on their own time." (Maybe such letters have also shown up in your city's newspaper or newspapers, too.)

Say those NFLers went on to confine their grievances over America's longstanding history of injustice to "their own time."

Once the word got out, how do you think the people attacking the NFL players following in Colin Kaepernick's footsteps would react?

I'll bet you the same way they are right now. 

*One of the biggest myths out there in sports is that today's NFL players don't get involved in their communities.

You'd be surprised to find that many (if not most) of the players on the league's 32 teams are involved, in some way or another, in community work...be it through foundations or through some other kind of charitable work.

*I read yesterday that NBC's and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell blew out 71 candles. 

And I still can't help but think about Mitchell's role (as well as that of so many other Big Media journalists) in handing the Big Prize to a man who, from 2004 to 2015, hosted NBC's most famous stunt show (okay, reality show). 

Last year, as Donald Trump sought the Big Prize, viewers of the news programs Mitchell appeared on (as host or as a guest) got the impression that the New Rochelle, NY native didn't "want to cover the Clintons anymore."

Well now, special prosecutor (and former FBI director) Robert Mueller is spearheading an investigation of the Trump-Putin connection that- let's face it- helped take 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue out of the Democratic Party's grip. 

Heads are rolling right now...especially that of Trump's first campaign manager, Paul Manafort. 

With that in mind, does the birthday dinner Mitchell enjoyed yesterday leave a bad taste in her mouth now? 

Speaking of taste...hope you're enjoying today's Halloween candy! See you later! 

Donald, have you ever read the Constitution in your life?

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b***h off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'" 

-Donald Trump at a recent special-election rally in Alabama 

With Puerto Rico in a gigantic mess because of Hurricane Maria, among other huge issues, the head of the American people finds it more important to denigrate National Football League players who've taken a knee during the singing/playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to protest bigotry, racism, and police brutality right here on these shores.

Vintage Trump.

YECCH! 

Trump was in the Heart of Dixie on 9-23-2017 to help Luther Strange, the Republican who inherited- and is trying to keep- the US Senate seat that Jeff Sessions gave up to become this country's attorney general (or top shyster, now that Sessions has the top spot in the Justice Department). 

All the former host of NBC's The Apprentice did was unleash the biggest day of protest in NFL history. 

19 of the league's 32 squads participated in protests of some kind or another; in total, 200 players took a knee or sat down during what the late George Carlin called the world's only national anthem that mentions rockets and bombs.

  

And three entire teams- including the Pittsburgh Steelers- wouldn't even come out of the locker room for our national tune.  

This time, some team owners (one of them was Washington's Daniel Snyder) joined those protesting players in solidarity. 

Now if one- just one- of those team magnates would just sign the man who brought taking a knee during Francis Scott Key's claim to fame to football...

Right now, a lot of those teams are off to terrible starts on the gridiron. Week 3 of the 2017 NFL campaign is in the books, and the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants (a playoff team last season), San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Chargers [yep...they moved back to Tinseltown (their 1960 home as one of eight original American Football League teams) after spending the 1961-2016 period in San Diego] are still winless. 

Seven more- the New York Jets, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks (another 2016 playoff squad)- are 1-2-0 right now.

Maybe one of them could use a Colin Kaepernick...even as a second-stringer or third-stringer, if not as a starter.

All the former University of Nevada star was doing, starting with the NFL's 2016 preseason, was calling attention to racism and police brutality here in these fifty states.

He wasn't disrespecting the national anthem or the flag the song praises.

And the Constitution's First Amendment guarantees Kaepernick and America's other 321 million citizens the same right to take a knee, sit down, sprawl on the floor, etc., etc. to protest injustice.

Check this out:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (emphasis mine), or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

If you've got a copy of the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts, crack open Page 511. You'll find the above paragraph. 

Maybe that'd be something Trump can somehow get up the courage to do. 

Oh, by the way, football isn't the only sport where players at any level you can name are taking knees in protest.

This past weekend, Bruce Maxwell of baseball's Oakland A's became that sport's first player to protest by kneeling during "The Star-Spangled Banner." 

If Trump and other Republicans found out about Maxwell's feat, how would they react?

How about you? 

If kneeling while someone sings his or her heart out prior to the beginning of a sports event doesn't cut it for you, what's a better way to protest injustice from sea to shining sea (and then some)?

 

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