Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

The Golden Calf Going Viral

May 12, 2026 Posted by | corruption, Leadership | Leave a comment

“And Some, I assume, are Good People”

Today’s Washington Post gives the following information:

Since Trump returned to office: Nine out of every 10 deported immigrants have been men, most without criminal convictions. Many of them had lived in the U.S. for years.

In 2015, when first running for President, this is what Trump said:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” 

Nine out of ten of those targeted by ICE for deportation are good people, the same kind of people as my ancestors, and, unless you are born a Native-American, yours. They are people here, willing to work long, hard hours doing jobs none of us original immigrants want to do, even our unemployed. They have families. They have children. All they want is a living wage, a roof over their heads, food on the table, and an opportunity for their children to have a better life – just as our ancestors did. They believe in the American Dream, and many risked their lives to get here. They pay taxes (Yes! They do!) They contribute to our national GNP.

Nine out of ten. Deported for NO reason. Not given the same chance our families were given. Many of these are people who have gone through legal channels, and are on the way to citizenship.

I have lived in countries that have different levels of citizenship. What is it in our meager hearts that wants hierarchies that make one better than another? We believe – or so believers claim – that we are created equal. What worm in our hearts will shove others aside to achieve an ephemeral wealth or glory?

May 12, 2026 Posted by | Community, corruption, Counter-terrorism, Crime, Economic Issues, Heritage, Interconnected, Law and Order, Lies, Quality of Life Issues, Social Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land, Work Related Issues | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Robert Reich: Freedom Summer 2026

Robert Reich shares an idea for hope in a shocking season of gerrymandering. Win anyway, by registering voters. Michelle Obama would say “we go high”:

Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones and Yours Truly

Friends,

Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.

The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts. 

Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”

Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.

Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.

At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.

The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.

South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.

Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.

“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”

I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do. 

“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”

“So, what’s the strategy?” 

“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”

“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.” 

“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”

“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”

“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”

I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.

May 12, 2026 Posted by | Character, Civility, Counter-terrorism, Florida, Geography / Maps, Leadership, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Quality of Life Issues, Social Issues, Values | , , , , | Leave a comment