THEN AND NOW - 1961-2016

In about 12 hours from now, 9:30PM, 55 years ago on 11/18/1961, my Mom and I arrived at Idlewild Airport aka JFK.

I was so cold and I was so, so excited, there was snow on the ground, it was 36 degrees as we waited for our family friend to get us, (he forgot where he had parked the car, and I won't even begin to tell you how cold I was, by the time he returned) none of that mattered, because we were in America.

I had flown here on a Pan Am propeller plane, we stopped in Bermuda to refuel, something went wrong and we sat on the plane for about 2 hours, my feet hurt because I had removed my shoes, but none of that mattered, because we were in America.

I saw a bridge for the first time, I saw highways filled with cars late in the evening, tall buildings, I saw so much that first night.

I was thrilled, I was one of the happiest teenagers on earth.

Are you wondering why I posted a picture of a wrecked airplane instead of one a shiny Pan Am prop that brought us here?

This is why:
For years I have watched on country skidding on a runway to destruction, last week on November 8, 2016, the pilot lost control and since then and for years to come, there will be a wreck where our country once was, and it will take years to repair.

Today, I am so sad, I am not dancing, I am not celebrating my 55 years here, I am crying, crying tears of endless sadness.

I hope and pray that somehow, we as a people will come together for the common good of our country and stand up for what is just and what is right.

IN THIS CORNER

We have the first woman nominated by a major party to be president of America.

And in the other corner we have a cabal of male sexual predators.

Oh the irony.

In the main ring, we have Donald J. Trump, thrice married, (during marriages 1 and 2, he was publicly dating his next wife) who is heard on tape discussing grabbing women's genitals and kissing them regardless of their desires.

In addition we have women who are coming forward saying, Yes he did. This is a timeline of the accusations, including that of a 13 year old girl.

In one side ring, we have Newt Gingrich, again thrice married.  In each of his failed marriages he was involved with the next Mrs Gingrich while still married to the then current Mrs Gingrich.  Apparently forgetting his past, he decided to attack Megyn Kelly on national TV accusing her of being "fascinated by sex."  Think about that for a moment and consider the irony.

In the second side ring, we have the ex Mayor of New York and America.  He is also on his 3rd wife. He was able to obtain an annulment of his first marriage, by claiming that he was unaware that his wife was also his cousin.
His second wife found out that he was divorcing her when he announced it in a press conference.

And now we have the ultimate omg moment.  The Director of the FBI, who apparently does not understand the meaning the word of "secret," announced that the FBI was in possession of additional emails in a unrelated matter and would be looking at them relative to the previous Hillary Clinton email investigation.

His letter created a stir probably only equaled by Nixon's Saturday night massacre.

While we were all trying to digest what had just happened, we found out that the emails were not sent by Hillary Clinton, but were emails on a 'device' of her aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated by the FBI for sexting with a teen.

We, of course, have the candidate's husband's sexual exploits being again front and center as the GOP candidate and his surrogates try to muddy the waters and distract us from his abhorrent behavior.

And so, instead of being able to celebrate the fact that we are within days of busting out of the male dominated presidency, we are back in the ring with a bunch of disgusting white men, creating chaos in our lives.

The ultimate irony of course, is that except for Weiner and Clinton, all of them are members of the Party of Family Values, whose male members from Vitter to Sanford, seem to unable to control their sexual drive.

Millions of Americans have already voted, but on November 8th, we will know the result of the election.  Will Americans decide to remain with the status quo and elect another old white man who cares only about his power and millions, or a woman who has spent most of her life working in the public sphere trying to improve the lives of children and women both in the United States and around the world.

Stay tuned and vote.  Our futures depend on the decision we make.

The Glass Ceiling

On November 8th, 2016, Americans will go to the polls and choose a new President.

Will we finally join India, the UK, Germany and other countries and choose a woman to be our head of state?

8 years ago, Democrats faced a choice between 2 firsts, a woman or a black man.  The party chose the black man, Barack Obama, who went on to become our first Black President.

The excitement was palpable.  You could feel the excitement, a black man in the White House? so many of us did not believe it would happen.

We were afraid to believe the polls, we were afraid he would be assassinated even before he was elected. We were afraid of so many things.

He was elected, and the one fear that most of us did not have, came to be. A Party that refused to accept the legitimacy of his Presidency and fought against him every day, up to and including not holding hearings on his Supreme Court nominee.  (A party which is now in shambles because of their presidential nominee—a party which if we are lucky will cease to exist and be replaced with a Conservative Party that can honestly say it is the Party of Lincoln).

And so we now face in 2016, another first.  Finally there is a woman on the ballot.

Some of us, especially those of a certain age are extremely excited.

Some of us, those of a younger age that have not faced the prejudice of being a woman in this country are not very excited.  Their attitude is "no big deal."  They have not yet faced not getting a job or promotion because it is given to a less qualified man.  If HRC is not elected they will face that ugly situation and will finally understand.

When Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination in 2008, she said, "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time."

Well it was not easier, thanks in part to the GOP’s war against her, a war fought for over 30 years and culminating in a Republican Party’s nominee from whose lips come things never heard before in a presidential campaign.  She is days away from shattering that ceiling, days away from this country joining so many others that have or have had a woman President or Prime Minister.  Days away from showing that in the United States anything is still possible.

But to show us that she knows that glass ceiling is still there for so many, she chose a venue for her election night party that literally has a glass ceiling, The Javits Center.

THE JAVITS CENTER, NYC

MOST DISGUSTING MOMENT

                                          Screen shot from msnbc

On Sunday night when Donald Trump the candidate from another planet said "if I had been president, he would be alive" I just about lost my mind.
His callousness is beyond anything I have ever witnessed.
George W Bush lied us into a war, in which hundreds of thousands have died.
Richard Nixon allowed his paranoia to destroy his presidency.
Ronald Reagan destroyed the safety net.
Bill Clinton had problems with his zipper.

But Donald Trump as our President would make all of those men look like angels.

Last night Khizr Khan, the father of Captain Humayun Khan, the fallen soldier that Trump was referring to appeared on the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.  As he listened to a soldier who was on the base that fateful day described the event, msnbc did a split screen, showing Mr Khan.
The pain on his face as he heard that story again, had me in tears.

Has Donald Trump ever cried, except perhaps in a fit of fury because he could not get the toy or car or woman that he wanted?

This is the video from last night, I hope you can spare a few minutes to watch it.  To remember that lives depend on decisions made by our leaders.

BANANA REPUBLIC

As this campaign season continues, the further down the rabbit hole we have gone.
The GOP candidate has gone from the Clown Car into the sewer and is trying his damnedest to take us with him.
Watching his CEO smirk last night as the candidate sat at the podium with those 4 women was sickening.
Then having him threaten to lock up his opponent if he is elected was truly the low point of an evening filled with low points.

The Overwhelming Hypocrisy of the Right wing

United States Amendment 2910 – 114^th Congress

12/3/2015

Sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein with 25 cosponsors

PURPOSE:  To increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists.

REJECTED: 50 to 48. 50 Republicans voted to allow anyone, including persons on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns.

47 Democrats and 1 Republican voted to prevent this abomination. (The list of names is below).

WINNERS: The NRA and their masters, gun manufacturers and terrorists.

LOSERS: America, its citizens and those folks who are unfortunate enough to be present the next time there is a terrorist attack, either here or abroad.

We are the main supplier for madmen with guns.

The hypocrisy, the gut wrenching hypocrisy displayed by the members of the GOP running for President and those who voted yesterday is beyond the pale.

On Wednesday we were greeted by the standard my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families of this terrible tragedy comment by any politician who had a microphone thrust into their face.  The Right was upset when the President’s statement after the attack in Colorado Springs read in part “We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.”

Well enough on Friday, November 27^th was not enough, since on Thursday, December 3^rd, a day after 14 Americans were massacred and 21 injured by 1 domestic and 1 foreign terrorist*, who obtained their guns here in the States our elected officials chose not to close one small loophole in our laws.

*They were not on the watch list, we do not know how they obtained the guns, but with our lack of laws anyone can buy a gun legally.

How many more must die? How many must die in one massacre before the 2^nd Amendment Americans wake up to the crimes they are committing by supporting the gun manufacturers?

I believed that when 20 children and their teachers were murdered on December 14^th, 2012, that we would finally pass some laws to curb the easy access to guns.

When that did not happen I accepted the fact that it would take a massacre of at least 20 x 5 or perhaps even 10 before something is done.  We almost had such an occurrence on Wednesday, since the killers in San Bernardino had tried to retrofit the long guns to make them automatics.

So Senators, governors and politicians at every level of government here in America, if you do not support the curbing of the madness that has overtaken us, then spare us your ‘thoughts and prayers’.  You do not care about us; all you care about are the contributions from gun manufacturers and our votes.  Your thoughts and prayers are directed towards hoping that we as a people do not at some point say “enough is enough”.

The Leader of the Senate received $922,000 in contributions from the NRA to help fund his 2014 re-election bid.

He tweeted:

At least he had the decency not to say “and prayers”.

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---48
Baldwin (D-WI) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Booker (D-NJ) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Coons (D-DE) Donnelly (D-IN) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN)	Gillibrand (D-NY) Heinrich (D-NM) Hirono (D-HI) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Leahy (D-VT) Manchin (D-WV) Markey (D-MA) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murphy (D-CT)	Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Peters (D-MI) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Toomey (R-PA) Udall (D-NM) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---50
Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Capito (R-WV) Cassidy (R-LA) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Cotton (R-AR) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Daines (R-MT) Enzi (R-WY)	Ernst (R-IA) Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ) Gardner (R-CO) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Heitkamp (D-ND) Heller (R-NV) Hoeven (R-ND) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Lankford (R-OK) Lee (R-UT) McConnell (R-KY) Moran (R-KS) Murkowski (R-AK)	Paul (R-KY) Perdue (R-GA) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rounds (R-SD) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Sullivan (R-AK) Thune (R-SD) Tillis (R-NC) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 2
Johnson (R-WI)	Warner (D-VA)

Whigs, Dodos and High Button Shoes

Some days I am not in the mood to write a Blog post and then a headline, comment, column or something will catch my eye and I head for my laptop.

Today is such a day.

Yesterday (12/2/2015) in California, 14 people were massacred and the last count that I saw 20 were injured. 

There was also another shooting in this country on that date.  1 woman was killed and 3 men were injured in Savannah, GA.  I found out about that massacre (we now define “massacre” according to our do nothing congress, as a shooting that results in 3 or more deaths) from an article posted on Facebook today.

I received countless emails and notifications from several news organizations about California. Not one about Georgia.  Too small? Too much like all of the others? How many of us have to die before there is a notification or email. How many of us have to die before the massacre becomes a commercial free event on our 24-hour cable stations?

California was the 3^rd “mass shooting” since the Colorado Springs massacre.

I would guess that because of the number of dead and the location of the shootings, the coverage was constant.

Savannah received a 3 paragraph statement on the website of one of its TV stations.

Research by a Reddit community and others show that there have 355 mass shootings in the US this year.  That means we have had more multiple death and injured shootings than days in the year.

We are living in a time in which when we wake up in the morning, there is a possibility that we could be injured or killed by a lunatic with a gun.  A gun that even those on the terrorist watch list can buy because Congress is beholden to the NRA and gun manufacturers and not to us the American people.

We are also living in a time when the media has failed us completely. Listening to some of the junk being spewed yesterday on TV was enough to make my head hurt, but not enough for me to want to write a Post.  That desire was prompted by an email I received this morning from the Washington Post.  In the Politics email that I receive every day, the article with the headline “Obama’s inconsistent claim on the ‘frequency’ of mass shootings in the U.S. compared to other countries” did that. The first paragraph read “We urge the president to be consistent in [sic] precise in describing mass shootings in the U.S.”

At least 15 people died, 23 are injured in 1 day in 2 different shootings in 2 different parts of the country and the writer was given a platform to criticize the President’s use of words, as he compared our gun crazy society to other nations that are not war torn, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria etc.

We, the people of the United States have no one advocating for our needs.

We have a Congress, which is peopled by the serfs of the wealthy.

We have a media, which for the most part is wholly owned by the wealthy.

We have police departments that seem to be less caring and are more racists that the KKK.

We had the Occupy movement and now Black Lives Matter, which we do not support and so they are attacked and demonized by politicians and the media.

We have a planet that is dying and those who worship the checkbook of the Koch Brothers are withholding life support.

If we do not wake up, stand up and say no more, we will all join the Whigs and the Dodo.

We will be no more.

Chart below by Wonkblog.