on the eve of destruction

I've been avoiding all things political for weeks months!, scrolling past everything that even smacked of politics, to the point of staying off FB because even scrolling past I am still inundated with the headlines and the meanness and fear and demonization and hatefulness and the total lack of compassion or decency or even politeness that has infiltrated this country, all of that seeps into my consciousness and it's like a bad taste in my mouth, an oily tang.

I rarely comment on news postings now and I have mostly stopped reading the comments altogether. I have enough trouble finding good in human beings as it is and if social media is the mirror of society that it is purported to be, I'm not likely to change my opinion any time soon. Few know how to be civil or even care about civility. It's a race to the bottom to see who can be the most vile in their comments. If they aren't insulting your integrity simply because you don't agree with them then they are threatening you with violence and if you are a woman, then it's double down in the most crude way possible. This is America today.

The Texas Republican party had their convention last May and voted on their new state platform that consists of 266 items. Last time one of the planks in their platform was being against teaching critical thinking in the schools because it might cause children to question their parents/authority for real. Some of the things they voted on to include this year are the complete repeal of the Voting Rights Act; the phase out of Social Security and, of course, the immediate repeal of the ACA; abolishing the IRS as well as the Departments of Education, Energy, Housing, Commerce, Health, BLM, Transportation, and the ATF; the right to just ignore federal laws they don't like; abolish the minimum wage; the demand for a Constitutional Convention so as to gut the basic principals of this country and allow them to hate on those icky other gendered people and deny them equal rights cause their god says so and run them out of town on a rail, so to speak, as well as chucking the whole separation of church and state thing so that they can impose their twisted form of religion on the government and through the government; and of course being totally against abortion, outlawing it completely as if that will stop it from happening. The petition to secede did not make it on the list but only just barely.

Now the national Republican convention is over and Trump has the nomination. Every speech given was full of lies and full of fear and finally Trump himself got up there and promised not to lie and then stood up there and lied or if he actually had a raw fact correct, it was presented in such a way as to be totally misleading. I'm not going to analyze his speech. Plenty of people have done so already pointing out the falsehoods and the inaccurate extrapolations. That anyone would vote for this man is scary. That he might actually become president of this country is a nightmare. That one of my brothers-in-law is a Trump supporter leaves me speechless on the one hand and aghast that I have been such a bad judge of his character all this time on the other.

It's not that Trump lies, which he does and mostly, or that he's unrepentant about it. It's not that he hasn't floated one single bit of policy or plan on how he would accomplish all his aggrandized statements of 'making America great again' aren't we still the richest biggest superpower? or 'getting America back' code for 'making America white again', which he hasn't. It's not that he hasn't any idea of what it takes to govern having never been in any kind of public office rich people don't govern, they give orders although all that is certainly extremely important. It's that he is completely unsuited to hold the office of President.

This is a man who in an interview before the 2008 crash said he HOPED the bubble would burst because then he and people like him would make a lot of money. He HOPED that thousands/millions of people would lose their homes because of bad banking practices so that he, Donald Trump, could make a lot of money. This is a man whose endeavor after endeavor has failed and oftentimes filed bankruptcy, who always managed to protect his money and so the fall was taken by everyone else. This is a man who has built his empire and his fortune by screwing over his contractors by not paying them or by paying them a pittance of money owed. This is a man who imports foreign workers so he can pay them less. This is a man who blames the opposition for jobs and industry lost and who has his gear made anywhere but in America. This is a man who is saddened because protestors can protest without the police or paid 'enforcers' bashing in their skulls so he encourages his followers to do it instead and then offers to pay their legal bills. This is a man whose supporters give him the Nazi salute. This is a man who lusts after his own daughter. This is a man who sics his lawyer on anyone who disses him with the orders to not just get even but to destroy the perpetrator. This is a man who cannot talk about anything but how great he is. This is a man who in his acceptance speech promised he would protect LGBTQ citizens from FOREIGN ideology but said nothing about domestic ideology and whose party platform calls for legalizing discrimination against the LGBTQ community. This is a man who casts everyone who isn't white and male as somehow deficient or evil or a criminal. This is a man who has chucked political correctness aside to 'say what he thinks' and in the process has legitimized hate, racism, and violence against those that are hated. This is a man who gained political support from people by threatening to ruin their careers if elected if they didn't support him. This is a man who has hinted that he will hire someone to do the parts of being President that he doesn't want to do.

I'm going to borrow from this essay: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12218136/donald-trump-nomination-afraid and I suggest you go read it and this is not the only essay I have read that has come to the same conclusion.

He is vindictive, a bigot, a sexist, a liar, a narcissist, he admires totalitarian dictators for their 'control', he never apologizes only attacks, he surrounds himself with yes-men, has not bothered to learn anything about policy, he is, for all his wealth, incompetent, he is a bully whose only response to any criticism is to demean in the worst possible way the perpetrator, he incites and encourages violence among his supporters.

He painted a picture of this country that makes me wonder if we are living in the same country.

Two things have leaked out about what he plans if elected. First he will seek to change the law so that he can purge (fire) from every corner of government anyone who does not agree with him. The second thing is that he has claimed that he will bring the 'lawlessness' rampant in American society to it's knees on Jan. 20, 2017 as soon as he is elected. Coming from a man who admires totalitarian dictators and who thinks anyone who isn't white and christian to be a terrorist or rapist or murderer, how do you think he plans to accomplish that and who is he going to target first? Because there will be seconds and thirds and whether you are a citizen or not won't matter one bit to him.

If Trump is elected President, you can kiss your constitutional protections goodbye.

But it's not just the citizens of this country at risk, it is also our position on the world stage. This is a man who has said he will use torture without hesitation, he will authorize the use of deadly force against the families of suspected and known terrorists, he will not necessarily come to the aid of our NATO allies. He will have the nuclear codes fer cryin' out loud. And wouldn't that feed his colossal ego, pushing that button.

This man is in no way intellectually or emotionally prepared to be the President of the United States and he is making no effort whatsoever to become so. 

And an alarming amount of people are ready to vote him into office.

myth verses reality

This is long and I've written about our nation's gun problem before. I debated whether or not to post it in two installments but decided to just get it over with. Read it or don't.

I just don't know what to say. It is so crystal clear and yet so many refuse to see. Every study, all the research, comes to the same conclusion over and over. More guns equals more gun violence. States with more guns per capita have more gun violence. States with less guns per capita have less gun violence. And gun ownership has no effect on the crime rate. In fact, gun ownership increases the likelihood many times over that the gun owner or a member of the gun owner's family will suffer from death or injury by that gun. Women are 7 times more likely to be killed by a loved one if that person owns a gun. Children are dying by the hundreds because there is a gun in the home.

The NRA has convinced a large segment of the population that the only thing standing between themselves and chaos is a good guy with a gun, preferably themselves but that's why we have a police force. That's their job. The NRA's creed of an armed society is a polite society has filled this country with guns. As it stands now, there are enough guns in the population for every man, woman, and child. And still the gun nuts don't feel safe.

This is what it has come to. With the exception of the instability in the Middle East, the drug wars in Central America, and some rogue African nations, America is the most dangerous country in the world and the danger comes from our own citizens. You wouldn't expect the biggest 1^st World nation to also be the most dangerous. But we are. Now instead of just worrying about being killed by the police with their tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, we have to worry about every stranger on the street as well.

Cases in point...

1. A man witnesses a carjacking and whips out his gun and starts shooting. He does not stop the carjacking and shoots the victim in the head instead. Then he gathered up all his shell casings and fled the scene.

2. A woman witnesses a man coming out of Home Depot being chased by a store employee. The man gets in his car and starts to flee the scene. She whips out her gun and starts shooting at the fleeing car. She does not, in fact, know whether this man has shoplifted anything and yet she takes it upon herself to shoot at him instead of just taking down his car license and a description of the vehicle to give to police.

In both these instances, which happened in one week, these citizens appointed themselves judge, jury, and executioner. In the Home Depot case, she didn't even know if a crime had been committed. And since when did we give start giving the death penalty for theft? They are lucky they didn't kill anyone (the head shot victim lived). The woman could have killed a child in that car or the driver whose moving car would have then careened into some other family or she could have just as easily shot one of the many people who were in the parking lot.

This is called vigilantism and it is against the law. Just because you have a license to carry does not mean you can whip out your gun and start firing away anytime you want to. The law is very clear about when you can use a gun to protect yourself or someone else and theft, not even of your own property, isn't one of the reasons. You can see a thief carrying your fancy TV or whatever out of your house and you still cannot legally shoot and kill that person.

Did you know that the only time a gun buyer is subjected to the briefest background check is when they buy a gun from a gun store? Once a person owns that gun, they can sell it to anybody they want as long as that person has the money to buy it. No background checks needed. You also don't need any kind of background check to buy a gun on-line or at a gun show. There is no limit on how many guns you can own or how much ammunition you can buy.

Here's a few myths that need dispelling...

Good guy with a gun: well, I think that one has already been addressed above but in the case of mass shootings about which the NRA loves to tell us the solution is more guns, anyone who is not highly trained is not going to be effective and will likely just get themselves shot or shoot other innocents. Any combat veteran can explain the fallacy of John Doe citizen bringing down a shooter while all hell is breaking loose. Target practice or plinking at cans does not equal 'highly trained'. Target practice or plinking at cans is not going to give you the training to ignore that adrenaline dump with your brain screaming at you to run away while scrambling for your weapon with trembling fingers. You are not Rambo and real life is not like the movies. And even in the few cases where a good guy with a gun was present and did manage to prevent or stop the shooter, the few lives saved does not in any way make up for the thousands who are killed by the over abundance of and easy access to guns in this country.

An armed society is a polite society: Right, that's why people with guns shoot at other cars in road rage. That's why people get in an argument and before you know it, someone has pulled out a gun and started shooting. That's why these open carry idiots strut around with their guns and get in your face and insult and threaten you because you don't agree with them. That's why back in the frontier days the sheriffs made you check your guns in at the office when you came to town.

If you ban guns, only criminals will have guns: You do know where criminals get their guns, right? They get them by buying a weapon that has already been legally purchased or they steal them from people who legally purchased them. Less guns in the population means less guns available to criminals. Did you know a gun company created a gun that would only fire if it was being held by it's owner? Yeah and the NRA put all it's might behind making sure that it didn't make it to market or failed to find buyers.

Guns are needed to prevent the government from becoming tyrannical, also known as we need guns to protect ourselves from the government: Almost 250 years and not one tyrant that needed to be or was brought down by citizens with guns. The system works folks, or it did until Citizen's United and the Lobby consortium took the power away from the people. It's not the government we need to fear or bring down, it's the corporations who think they can buy the government. And really, the largest and most advanced military in the world is not going to be brought to its knees by a bunch of untrained yahoos with guns, not even by those private self-styled 'militias'. I don't care how many guns they have. If the government wants to take your guns or take you down, it will succeed.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people: Yes, and they do it with freaking guns! If a person is determined to kill someone, they will find a way. Knife, poison, hit 'em with a car, use a baseball bat or iron skillet, yeah, people will kill. A gun takes no determination. All a gun takes is a little twitch of the finger and you don't even have to get close. If people had to get up close to kill there would probably be a whole lot less killing.

Freedom!: Sorry, your freedom will not be abridged because you can't have a fucking personal armory. No one is coming to get you unless you become a threat with your fucking armory. We live in a civilized society where, yes, bad things do happen but on the whole people go about their daily lives for their whole lives without ever needing a gun. And your right to freedom does not allow you to abridge the rights of others. We have the right not to be afraid every time we go out because of some yahoo carrying a gun.

The 2^nd amendment was written because the Founding Fathers want people to be able to rise up against the government: Wrong. That's a myth. The second amendment was written to appease the slave holding states that had their private militias to hunt down escaped slaves look it up. This gave them the authority to continue to do that (you know, the 'well regulated militia part'). Also, they recognized that many people needed their arms, which consisted of muskets and cap and ball pistols, for food and safety on the frontier. It was the Supreme Court that twisted the 2^nd Amendment into what it is today and we are reaping the results of that in thousands of deaths a year.

Liberals want to ban guns: Well, that would be nice but it's never going to happen. What liberals want is extensive background checks every time a gun is sold or re-sold, required extensive training, waiting periods, limits on the amount of ammunition that can be bought, limits on the type and quantity of guns an individual can own, insurance so that if and when you are irresponsible with your gun you will be responsible for the damage. We want you to have to show a need for that gun and we want you to keep it in your house and locked up with exceptions when you can show a need to take it out in public. And we want all that reviewed every year. Any of or all that would be great. Why should it be harder to own a car than a gun?

I'm not against guns per se. I know there are people out there who are justified in owning their gun...people who hunt, those who live out in the country and have to deal with things like venomous snakes and wild hogs, people who are isolated and any call for help would take a long response time, people in urban areas who have to be in high crime rate areas, people who transport large sums of money or other valuables, people who have a reasonable fear of assault, etc. I grew up in a time when people carried their hunting rifles on the gun rack and my father had guns that he kept locked up, I've gone skeet shooting. But this unfettered access to a ridiculous array of weaponry combined with a complete lack of mental health care and the glorification of violence (we are the most war mongering nation on the planet, have been in one war or another for nearly every year of our national existence look it up) and division and this particular national feeling of entitlement to whatever we want and want to do, because America!, has got to stop!

Right now, we don't need foreign enemies because we have lost more people to gun violence than to all the wars and terrorism. And we did it to ourselves. We've had more mass shootings than days of the year so far just this year alone and that doesn't count all the other forms of gun violence.

What the fuck is wrong with us as a nation that we do not have what it takes to do what it has to take.

press 1 for English

Another rant. I know, right?

  

Friday I was out in the car and was listening to a show on Pacifica (the local public radio station). The topic was Jeb Bush addressing a latino community in gasp Spanish. The caller didn't think that was appropriate...this is America, these people need to learn English, these people aren't even trying to learn English or assimilate into this country they just want to take without giving back...on and on he went. The show host eventually, through judicious questioning, got him to admit that by 'these people', he meant Spanish speakers. The show host rightly pointed out to him that this country was built by foreign language speakers, that there is no official language in the country (which the caller tried to dispute by saying the Constitution was written in English), that many presidential candidates in the past have addressed constituents in Italian, Polish, German, etc...how else do you inform voters of your position who don't yet have a good grasp of English? The caller sort of brushed that aside as his focus was on Spanish and his opinion, one completely devoid of facts to back it up, and he gave an example of how disrespectful it is about going into a store and the clerk/cashier he dealt with didn't speak English. This highly offended him and he went and spoke to the manager about why he hired people who couldn't speak English (uh, to help with customers who don't speak English or speak it well?) and he was convinced that this woman was an illegal even though he had no proof whatsoever and when pressed on why he thought she was, all he could say over and over was...I guarantee she was illegal.

Obviously, English or no English, they managed to communicate well enough for him to buy whatever it was he was buying so the non-English speaking clerk didn't really affect him in an adverse way. It makes me wonder though, what his objection is really about, why he and people like him are so intolerant of other people conversing in a language they do not understand, as if they have some sort of inalienable right to understand every word spoken within their hearing.

I was recently pilloried on FB resulting in the unfriending of one person and the blocking of his granddaughter and one of her friends because I took issue with an 'English only' meme he shared which I found to be petty, pointing out that, like it or not, this is a multicultural and multilingual country, that this country was built by people who did not speak English.

Wave after wave of non-English speaking people have immigrated to this country. It's why we have Chinatowns, Italian quarters, German enclaves, Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods, Barrios, etc. First generation immigrants do not usually assimilate. They may cling to their language, their culture because being in a new place is daunting and scary. They get comfort in familiarity but they are here for the same reason all of us are here...they want better futures for themselves and their children. They come here and they work hard. If they have trouble learning English as an adult (and English is a hard language to learn), so what? It is their children who assimilate. While they may have a different cultural heritage, these children and their children grow up fully assimilated. Assimilation takes time and to proclaim that first generation immigrants don't want to assimilate is absurd.

This is a big country filled with great diversity and instead of accepting that diversity as the strength it should be, too many people spend far too much time being divisive with hate for and fear of their fellow citizens who are different...in color, in heritage, in culture, in religion, in sexuality, in language, the list goes on. What they aren't seeing is that we are ALL equally Americans and I don't understand why anyone would object to companies and local/national government making information available in however many languages it takes to insure that all citizens get the help and info they need.

I mean, really, how hard is it to press 1 for English?

Next post I promise will be pretty pictures.

the reason we have separation of church and state

Well, I see that Ms Kim Davis accepted jail in defense of her principals, that she is standing by her faith that same sex marriage is an abomination and she won't let herself be tainted by that sin. It's too bad she doesn't show the same adherence to faith and religion when it comes to her own personal life since she hasn't observed the other strictures concerning marriage that are laid out in her scripture.

I think she is wrong not to comply with the law regardless of her position on marriage and who may or may not get married as dictated by her religion. She may have been raised to think that marriage didn't exist until Christianity but that does not give her the authority to deny the license required by law, not religion, to any couple who wishes to marry. Her faith does not give her the authority to determine the course of other peoples' lives. Her religious beliefs do not allow her to break the oath of office she took when elected to her position. Her religion, her beliefs, her faith are pertinent to her life alone. It is not for her to judge the lives of others. If her religion tells her something should not be done, then she should not do it. It is not her place to force others to comply with what she deems acceptable. Indeed, her own religion tells her not to judge. Her own religion tells her that her faith is a private thing. Her own religion tells her to obey the laws of the land.

In her own arrogance, in refusing to sin, she has sinned many times over. If, of course, you believe in all that sinning stuff. Which I don't exactly. Right/wrong, yin/yang, light/dark, up/down, in/out...duality, opposites, balance but also that great gray void in-between. Anyway, that's beside the point. 

The point is that if her religious beliefs, her faith, were such that they compelled her not to do her job, a job she was elected to do, and worse, prevented others in the office from doing the job, then she should have resigned her job even if what she was required to do was not required when she was elected. She took an oath to uphold the law, not whatever law she agreed with.

Had she just done that, instead of wrongly thinking she had the right to impose her sense of morality on the public at large in defiance of the law, she would not be in jail today.

I'm sure the Founding Fathers never imagined this sort of struggle between religion and rule but they well knew the danger of religion in law.

clown car and congress

I see the Republican clown car of presidential contenders is full and careening around. All the usual suspects...Sarah Palin who couldn't even finish one term as governor, Jeb oh god not another Bush, Mitt Romney who only ran last time because everybody kept asking him too, Rick good hair Perry who has a felony indictment against him, Dominionist* con-man Ted Cruz the anointed king and savior who wants to slice and dice the constitution, and then there's Rand Paul or any number of other idiots trying to crowd in.

All that's just pre-game entertainment though since the Koch Brothers have pledged 889 million dollars towards the next presidential election. Nearly a billion dollars to buy the presidency for the person of their choice. I read somewhere that might be Scott Walker. Hell, they already own the Republican Party and Mitch McConnell has admitted as much. If that doesn't enrage you, then what the fuck does it take?

In the meantime the Republicans who promised to 'get stuff done' if elected into a majority of both houses, are continuing to do nothing. Well, not nothing. First thing off the bat they had a little infighting. Since then they have appointed Ted Cruz, who hates NASA and has been trying to defund it, to oversee it. They passed a resolution to not allow actual scientists to testify to science committees but businesses with an interest can. They passed a resolution that OK, yes, climate change is real, but there's no way humans are accountable for it. They tried to pass an abortion ban after 20 weeks and only failed because some of the female Republicans balked. They did vote to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline even though it will not benefit Americans one whit but will spill the dirtiest tar sands onto American citizens' property. And they still want to get rid of the ACA even though they have nothing to replace it with. Not to mention they continue throwing up roadblocks and undermining the president every chance they get, bordering on treason especially with Boehner's latest stunt inviting Netanyahu to speak to Congress.

And while the clown car is entertaining, what Congress is doing and trying to do is not. Now that Republicans have the opportunity to govern, they are still the party of no...no showing any kind of respect for the president, no jobs, no health care, no restraining wall street, no restraining businesses, definitely no protecting the environment, no raising taxes unless it's on those who can least afford it, no social security, no disability, no humane treatment of 'illegal' immigrants even if they have been here since they were children and are productive members of society, no infrastructure repair, no support for the hungry and homeless, no raising the minimum wage, no fucking equality thank you very much.

Is this really what they mean when they say America is the greatest country on earth?

I hope Obama has his veto pen ready cause he is going to need it.

* I was going to provide a link to info about Dominionism but couldn't find one in the 5 seconds I looked that I wanted to read through but you should read up on this and these people. Scary. 

AmeriKKKa

When my son was 15, he and two of his friends went down to the park at the end of our block after dark to play war with their BB guns where they proceeded to run around, hiding behind trees, and shooting at each other. A neighbor, hearing the shots, called 911 reporting gunfire in the park. The police responded with a helicopter using its searchlights and several cars which descended on the boys and officers approached the boys with guns drawn. After the boys were questioned, the officers confiscated their BB guns, loaded them in the back of the car unhand-cuffed, and brought them home. They were released into my care and issued citations for being in the park after hours. 

My son and his friends are white.

Granted, this was 17 years ago before the NRA decided that every home in the country needed to have 10 guns, the more powerful the better, but I have no doubt that even 17 years ago if my son and his friends had been black they would have been shot first and questioned later. If they survived being shot and the questioning, they would surely have been hand-cuffed and hauled off to jail. If it happened today to my white son and his friends I feel sure that they would be brutalized and maybe shot. If they were black, they would most certainly be killed before any orders of compliance were issued and none of the cops would be charged with their murders.

Killing blacks with impunity in this country is nothing new. As slaves their owners killed them with impunity, when freed their neighbors killed them with impunity, and now the cops kill them with impunity.

Much has been said by whites shielded by their white privilege about these recent and continuing murders of black people by the cops mostly amounting to saying that if those black people had just complied with police orders, if they had just showed some respect they would still be alive. But the fact is that these victims aren't given a chance to comply, aren't treated with respect, before they are shot dead, tased into unconsciousness or death, or brutally beat up. The police have done this so often with no repercussions that they are out of control. They respond with deadly force first and ask questions later knowing that all they have to do is say they felt their lives were in danger. According to the white officer Darren Wilson who murdered a black teen, just being black makes cops feel endangered. If these cops are so fearful for their lives while they do their jobs that they shoot first and immediately, that they unload their guns into unarmed citizens, then these people need to get a different job.

We hear about how most cops are good cops, that only a small percentage of cops are racist sociopaths but when good cops won't stand against bad cops, when good cops don't stop a bad cop from being unnecessarily brutal, when good cops allow bad cops to continue, just how good can 'good' cops be? They close ranks and protect them. Grand juries refuse to indict them. They stand by and watch a fellow officer employ an illegal chokehold on an unarmed man for selling single cigarettes, a chokehold so tight that he crushed the man's trachea and killed him. Not one of the other officers on the scene tried to intervene and stop it.

More training the pundits cry. But the problem is not lack of training. The problem is extreme racism in the police forces. Ask any black cop. The problem is hiring sociopaths, the problem is not requiring a certain level of intelligence to become a police officer, a person who is supposed to protect and serve.

A bunch of white separatists can point guns at and stand off police and federal agents and they aren't even arrested. A 12 year old black boy playing with his legal toy gun is shot dead within moments of the police arriving. White guys parading around in stores or on the streets with their semi-automatic rifles aren't even approached by police. A black guy holding a toy gun in a store that sells toy guns in an open carry state is shot dead basically on sight.

The problem is not lack of training. The problem is not lack of compliance on the part of black people.

The problem is, this is a racist country with racism rampant in the police departments and in the white population. The problem is that black and brown people are targeted for search and harassment just for being out in public. Even all the protests and rioting caused by the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager among others, with all the publicity and evidence shared massively through social media, the police have not even paused.

So now the 'solution' is to have all cops wear body cameras as if that is going to make a difference. We already have plenty of video out there showing police brutality. It doesn't matter. No one will indict a cop. They don't even lose their jobs. And until they do, nothing will change.

Until this country stands up for, stands with, stands behind it's black and brown citizens, then we have no moral ground to criticize other countries for human rights violations.

I have focused on the racism in this country because most of the police brutality and murders are inflicted on people of color but the fact is, white people are also brutalized by police and in growing numbers.

the voter ID card or hell no, you can't vote

I've been spending too much time the last several days trying to explain to people on FB why voter ID cards are a hindrance to voting. The common start is some person who already has an adequate ID card so that their ability to vote is not compromised espousing the opinion that they don't see what the big deal is. Just go get a card.

As a resident of the state with the most stringent requirements for a voter ID card, so say the memes, that just chaps my ass.

It never occurs to them that someone might not drive because they can't afford the insurance, much less a car. That this person might work a minimum wage job and has to take an unpaid day off from work which would represent 20% of their pay for that week which they can ill afford, take the bus to the nearest DMV office which could take hours, walk to the office from the bus stop and then wait several more hours to get their card. If they have the proper documents to prove who they are. And if they don't have a copy of their birth certificate (and how many of us do), then first they have to take another unpaid day off to appear in person with the acceptable proof of identity. And yeah, there are fees associated with that. This is not an 'easy' task. Now, throw in a couple of young children and bad weather and poor education and trouble with the language and infirmity and all of a sudden, it can be insurmountable.

A cousin informed me that he read that TX DMV was not charging for the voter ID card. Small comfort.

In Texas, to get the card that the Republicans have decided will prevent non-existent voter fraud...

Studies have shown that voter fraud accounts for only 2/100 - 1/10 of ONE % of votes cast. Two hundredths to one tenth of ONE fucking percent. And most those infinitesimal fraudulent votes are not cast by in person voting.

...a person must show one form of identification from the primary list or two forms of identification from the secondary list or one form of identification from the secondary list and two from the supporting list. That's one to three forms of identification needed to get a voter ID card.

The primary list is a driver's license, passport, military ID, or certificate of citizenship.

The secondary list is a birth certificate, or an original or certified copy of a court order showing your name and date of birth.

The supporting list of acceptable documents is very long and includes SS card, income tax documents, voter registration card, concealed carry permit, vehicle registration, and so on.

So, if you don't drive, don't have a passport, haven't served in the military, don't have a copy of your birth certificate, don't have a certificate of citizenship because you were born here, and can't afford to take a day or two off work or have small children you have to take with you on the bus to the DMV and the records office, and maybe you are in a freakin' wheel chair then getting this ID is not easy and while perhaps the card is free as the cousin says, there are fees associated with getting other proof of person documents.

The result and the purpose of this new required voter ID card is to prevent people from voting, to make voting some kind of privilege instead of the constitutional right that it is. One commenter claimed she felt the right to vote came with responsibility and I agree, when we vote we are being responsible citizens but that's not what she meant. She meant that people should be responsible enough to acquire the proper ID card.

I always thought the proper card for voting was your voter's registration card and your signature at the polls. At least it has been for every year of my life since I've been old enough to vote til now. We should be making it easier to vote, not harder.

While I am angry that the Republican politicians in charge here have passed this new law, whose only true purpose is to discourage voters who traditionally vote for Democrats, that has been challenged and will probably get overturned in time though the Supreme Court has upheld it for this election, what really upsets me is the complete and total lack of understanding and compassion so many people, overwhelmingly white, have for those that don't already have an acceptable form of voter ID.

They have the ease of their white privilege and relative wealth and sneer at the poor, the elderly, the infirm, the people of color, the young, the disenfranchised who all have the same constitutional right to vote for the leaders of their country and community as those that need make no special, and in some cases herculean, effort in order to exercise that right.

And that is just wrong and makes me sad that so many people in this country have become so heartless.

Here's a link to just one woman's attempt.  

Here's a link to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's dissent on the recent ruling allowing Texas' discriminatory voter ID law to stand.

another day, another mass shooting

What has happened to this country? What has happened to the people in this country? When did the right to own guns trump the right to life?

When did the people of this country start to believe that it was their right to solve every problem with a gun? When did people start thinking it was an acceptable thing to do to threaten, intimidate, and stalk those who are protesting for stricter gun laws?

I engage, at times on FB, in conversations about the level of gun violence here and, of course, with the paid trolls who continue to extoll the virtues of guns and gun owners, most recently about the two men who brought their assault rifles into a family restaurant making sure everyone saw them and striking fear in the hearts of everyone else there.

The troll's position was that it was their right to do so in that open carry state. Perhaps so, but that doesn't count for a reason. When I asked for one reason, other than it is legal for them to do so, that they felt it necessary to carry assault rifles into a family restaurant in a civilized community I was met with silence. When other posters commented about the fear that these men caused, the troll wanted to know why people felt fearful if the men weren't acting in a threatening manner.

Seriously? How is anyone supposed to know that these men aren't going to open fire? Personally, I wouldn't wait around to find out.

They will also tell you that crime has decreased with the increase of gun sales but crime rises and falls for many reasons. What they don't talk about is the rise in gun violence and gun deaths with the rise of gun sales.

Just today, on FB, someone posted the link to the news statement of the father of one of the victims of this latest shooting. Predictably, someone commented that guns don't kill people, people kill people witness the guy who drove his car into a crowd at SXSW in Austin and the Boston marathon bombings.

Yes, people do kill people and they do it most often with guns. Do you know why bombings are so rare? Because it is illegal to possess or make bombs. But who needs bombs when you have an arsenal at your disposal?

Unfettered access to guns in this country is a serious problem and if you don't recognize that then you are part of the problem. It is easier to buy a gun in some states than it is to vote.

Here's a link to some statistics about gun violence in this country. 

But, they reply, why punish responsible gun owners. It's not punishment to restrict the kinds and quantities of guns and ammunition, it's not punishment to require extensive background checks, waiting periods, and extended training because all gun owners are responsible until that moment they aren't, until that moment they let their anger get the better of them, until that moment they forget to lock up the gun and a child finds it and commits suicide or accidentally kills a sibling or friend, until that moment it is stolen.

More statistics about gun violence as it pertains to women and children

And here, the 10 favorite pro-gun myths shown to be exactly that.

The fact is that the gun culture as promoted by the NRA and it's craziest proponents have turned this country into one of the most dangerous places on earth. They have equated unfettered gun ownership to religious observance and they refuse to acknowledge the correlation between increased gun sales and ownership and increased gun violence.

So, have we had enough yet? Will this country ever have enough? Will the politicians ever actually represent the will of the people and tell the NRA 'no'?

Oh, who am I kidding, of course not. The most warlike country on earth, this country that has been at war, one war or another, for almost every year of it's existence, will never curb the kinds or amounts of weaponry available to any Tom, Dick, and Harry regardless.

It won't matter how many innocent people are killed.

Edit: I am not against gun ownership but I do think guns should be much harder to acquire than they currently are and I am for restricting the types of guns ordinary people can buy. People who want to buy guns should have to submit to extensive background checks, a waiting period, extensive training, and a license that must be renewed every year. Guns are not toys. Any responsible person should not object to these restrictions.

internet exchange

I read a guy's blog post this morning about an encounter he had with the police which was nominally about the gun culture here in this country. This particular man refuses to subscribe to the culture of fear so rampant in this country. He does not let fear control what he does or when he does it or where he does it. By the same token he does not own a gun. Neither is he deluded about the safety, or lack there of, of the streets. He prefers to not live in fear and just be vigilant.

The encounter he had with the police was that he was working in his office when he became aware of two people in the hall testing the door knob to see if it was locked. He walked over to the door and suddenly opened it to find two policemen pointing their guns at him.

They didn't shoot, obviously, and that was his point, comparing trained and psychologically prepared police with the average citizen with a gun reacting with the fear with which they live their lives.

Scrolling through the comments, of course he got his share of the 'guns are my right' crowd, one of whom referenced the Second Amendment. Or rather part of the Second Amendment, the part about the right to keep and bear arms so I reminded him of the rest of that, the part that precedes it that says 'a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state'. Can't just quote the phrase you like best.

Of course he replied, quoting some Supreme Court decision that guaranteed the right to bear arms to which I replied that we have that part well in hand, now let's work on the well regulated part.

His response was predictable. He made assumptions about me, then insulted me in a condescending manner because of those assumptions. Essentially he patted me on the head and told me it was OK to just go on being a soccer mom but to stay out of discussions I didn't understand or else do some research and quoted some other Supreme Court decision as he explained that 'well regulated' meant 'well equipped'. Earlier he had used the term 'soccer mom' in a derisive manner to describe those who are uninformed spouting off opinions on things they don't understand.

What is it with those people? Are they totally incapable of having a civil conversation?

I'm certainly not an expert on all the law and court cases surrounding the Second Amendment but I have read about it on several past occasions. This ain't my first rodeo after all. And I will do quick searches before posting a comment to make sure I can back up my post. So I did a quick search of the meaning of well regulated as defined by those who used it in that context and it did indeed mean well equipped.

It also meant thoroughly trained and well disciplined, men the country could rely on in time of need to protect itself. I also read that the phrase 'to bear arms' almost exclusively referred to 'in military service'.

I made one more reply. I rebuked him for the condescending attitude and insult, I told him I was neither unintelligent nor unread and I didn't need him to mansplain things to me, and I directed the conversation back to the Second Amendment and the complete meaning of 'well regulated', something that our current culture and society is far from. I certainly wouldn't trust my defense to a peacock strutting around in a parking lot brandishing his AK-47 in a deliberate attempt to intimidate a few 'soccer moms' upset at the level of gun violence in this country.

The thing is, I really don't have a problem with the Second Amendment as written by the Founders because what they wrote, what they intended, what they meant is not what we see in this country today. Citizen's owning a gun that they are competent to use for defense is one thing. The wacko with his conspiracy delusions stockpiling weapons and ammunition and fomenting insurrection is not what the Second Amendment was supposed to protect.

So, I ended my final reply to that guy by telling him I expected he would reply probably with more insults and maybe even some profanity because I didn't acknowledge his superiorness but that I was giving him a gift anyway, the last word.

Buh-bye

I see a notice that he has responded once more. Good for him.

I won't be reading it.

it's far from over

I've refrained from ranting on my blog about the ridiculous antics in the House of Representatives the last several weeks though I have been very vocal about my opinion on FB.

I'm glad the stalemate has come to an end but unfortunately not without damage to the country in general, and I totally expect the Tea Party members to repeat their performance in 4 months.

I'm also glad the President and the Democrats stood firm in refusing to negotiate with them. If they had, it would have been a terrible precedent and would have been the end of democracy in this country.

Because the way democracy works is that you have elections to appoint the people to make the laws and run the country and if one person or party loses the election, they do what they can to garner support and prepare for the next election.

What they don't do is act like a petulant child and try to force their agenda on the people who rejected that agenda at the ballot box. The Republican Party, led by the nose by the Tea Party Republicans did exactly that. They weren't winning so they tossed the game so that no one could play.

Having tried over 40 times to undo the ACA and having failed every time, they did what all dictators do that have a little power, they tried to force their agenda on everyone else. And not satisfied with just demanding the end to the ACA before they would pass a funding bill, they issued a list of over 20 other demands as well, including but not limited to:

Approving Keystone XL

Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood

Medicare privatization

Allowing employers to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control

Preserving all the Bush tax cuts

Slashing funding for food stamps

Protecting mountaintop strip mining

Stripping the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases

Loosening regulation on coal ash

Repealing a tax on medical devices

Eliminating Social Service Block Grants

Restricting the child tax credit

I think it's pretty clear who pulls their puppet strings.

When the President refused to give in to their demands, they accused him of refusing to negotiate and compromise when, in fact, the Republican Party had ignored over two dozen calls by the President to come to the table and talk in the weeks leading up to the shutdown.

The fact is, the Tea Party led Republican Party has no intention of compromising, something they consider to be selling out, something only 'losers' do. They do not want compromise. What they want is complete capitulation from the other side and that is the only thing they will accept. They have had five years to compromise and instead all they have done is obstruct.

President Obama is not perfect. He has done things that I am not in favor of but never has he purposely thrown democracy under the bus and if anything, he has been too willing to concede to the opposition. In return, they have voted against and obstructed every attempt to help the American people. You need only look at the congressional record for the past five years to see what their priority has been...restricting women's rights, abolishing the ACA, and obstructing every single thing the President has tried to do, even to the point of voting against things they were previously for and helped write.

And don't even get me started on the unprecedented level of disrespect they have shown to not only a sitting President, but the Office itself. Hateful and vile are two of the more positive adjectives I can come up with.

It would be nice if the Tea Party was duly chastened by the result of their unAmerican and anti-democratic stunt but don't kid yourself. They are proud of what they did (they looked pretty pleased with themselves during the press conference right after they voted to shut down the government) and you can expect more of the same from them in 4 months. They are doing what their handlers and supporters elected them to do...destroy the American government. It's not like they have been secretive about their goal. Ted Cruz alone received ¾ of a million dollars to his campaign fund in the last three weeks for their act of sedition.

And the fact that polls show that 30% of Americans support them is scary indeed. There is no one more dangerous than the person or people who think themselves anointed by their idea of god to bring about god's will in this country.

Make no mistake about it, these people are theocratic dominionists. They seek to replace the secular government, and subsequently the U.S. Constitution, and create a political and judicial system based on their perverted view of Christianity, all bankrolled by the likes of the Koch brothers.

And, like the Terminator, they will. not. stop.

Ever.

Those of us who believe in equality, in compassion, in compromise, in the separation of church and state, in the rights and the will of the American people over the will of the ultra-rich and mega-corporations who buy our politicians and who continue to try and subvert the democratic process for their own personal gain; we must engage in the political process, not turn our backs on it.

Because if we do, we're lost.