It’s not often a courtroom is packed with joyful people. And only for this one significant celebration are cameras allowed – even encouraged – in the courtroom. The difference in atmosphere is palpable.
Yesterday, 33 people from a variety of nations took their oath to be responsible American citizens. There were moments when their was no sound, no noise at all, in the courtroom; the silence was a salute to the importance of the event, and respect for the moment.
Judge Collier managed to be both solemn and celebratory, lauding the diversity of the group and the importance of their choice to be US citizens. He, and other, congratulated the applicants for “earning” their citizenship by learning our history, customs and language, and appreciating it’s rewards even more than those of us who are citizens by birth and heritage.
David Stafford, our long time Supervisor of Elections, now the right-hand man to Pensacola’s Mayor Reeves, gave a moving and motivating speech about the gift of citizenship, its rewards, and the great responsibility each citizen has to sign up to vote – and to vote.
My friends, you receive my frustrated rants and my frequent musings. Today, I share with you a day full of pure joy. A packed courtroom, for all the right reasons; official speeches, short, pithy, and full of positivity and possibilities, and people who fully believe in the Rule of Law, Equality, Diversity as a strength, and the great inclusionary current of neighborly brotherhood that connects people in the United States of America.
I am haunted by memories of our Janus-like leader telling people while running for the office of President that if we voted for him, we would never have to vote again. What could he have meant by that? Aren’t elections part of what we value as a Democracy?
I am troubled by a leader who insists that what we saw with our own eyes on January 6th, that the thugs beating policemen, breaking and entering the Congress, chasing down Mike Pence with a noose was NOT an insurrection, not at all what he was going for when he told followers to “Fight Like Hell!” or we would have no Democracy. This leader who said he would be with them, and scurried back to the white house to watch events unfold on his Presidential television. He didn’t call off these hooligans and goons until HOURS after the violence began.
He PARDONED these thugs who invaded the Congress. He now calls it a “Day of Love.” Like we can’t see with our own eyes?
Just in time for Black History Month, he continues to dismantle exhibitions exploring the relationship between the enslaved and the enslavers. If it makes white people uncomfortable, isn’t that appropriate? Is slavery something we want to return to? And who, exactly do we enslave. Like are camera bearing Democrats candidates for the new underclass?
Armed with Whistles and Phone Cameras
J.D. Vance tells us to “lower the temperature” and help the ICE forces. J.D. Vance, you are talking to Minnesotans! You are talking to the descendants of Norwegians, the very nationality our orange leader wants to come to the USA! You are talking to people who have peacefully incorporated people from many nations, welcomed them! YOU created a spurious policy, based on a poorly made video by a social influencer. Yes, there was a child care scandal, and the people charged were not Somali but US citizens! YOU are creating the rise is heated emotions, and those you are shooting are armed with whistles and phone cameras!
Who has a history of creating violent insurrections? Who has sent unwelcome storm troopers into Minnesota? Who is poking Minnesota officials? Who is creating the problem and like every school boy bully, blaming the victim – “You started it!”
Go HOME, ICE. You are not welcome, you are not needed. You are invading the homes of US CITIZENS without a warrant, and laughing! You are shouting “Boo HOO!” to witnesses when you shoot a non-violent demonstrator 10 times! 10 Times! If that isn’t excessive force, what is?
I applaud the citizens of Minneapolis who are standing against this villainy and this bullying. I applaud their self-restraint and their persistence. I applaud Portland, Oregon for utilizing the legal system to lower the temperature and resist the pressure to give the radical bullying thugs any opportunity to raise the stakes.
Self restraint and Persistence while we activate the legal system is our only hope if we want to continue to have free and safe elections, and I believe that is what this is all really about.
It started during COVID. Politicians and their Administrations stopped publicizing statistics when the stats revealed their government was doing little or nothing to prevent spread of disease. Now, under the cover of cost reductions and eliminating fraud they are gutting the agencies that maintain the statistics and restricting publications of what few statistics are being gathered. Fortunately, private institutions and individuals are watching, keeping track, and doing their best to keep a vulnerable population informed.
Today in the Lectionary readings, we come to the Gospel and one of my all time favorite verses and personal life guide. If you claim to follow Jesus, there are some basics. You have to follow the old Jewish traditions of loving God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself. You have to take care of the poor, the widowed (the single mother), the mentally ill, the children. You have to welcome the stranger, for we were strangers in Egypt.
Our national policies today are taking away medical benefits from our poorest citizens, are rolling back protections against pollution and contamination of air and water and even the foods we eat. The callousness of it all appalls me. Spiritually, we pay a price. As a country, I believe we will survive, but it will take a while to undo the damage that is being done, day by day.
As a cold warrior, I am horrified, but that is not a spiritual thing 🙂
Matthew 25:31-46
31 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” 37Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” 40And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.”41Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” 44Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” 45Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’
New Report: ACLU Membership More Than Quadrupled Since Trump’s Election
Thanks to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has more than quadrupled its membership, according to an article in The New York Times.
Before Trump’s election the group had just 400,000 members and most of its actions were out of the public eye. But now, after 15 months of the Trump presidency, the membership is over 1.8 million and it has become one of the most active and visible opponents of Trump’s agenda.
Donations to the nonprofit group have also increased exponentially. The ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, said that the organization has raised over $120 million since the 2016 presidential election. Before that watershed election, he said, donations had been in the range of just $3 million to $5 million annually.
Romero said that concerns over Trump’s attack on constitutional rights and civil liberties have brought a whole new generation of political activists into their group. “Until Trump most of our support came from people who have been with us since we challenged Nixon,” Romero told the Times. “Now we’re kind of cool. Cool’s not a word generally associated with us.”
The surge in membership, coupled with the massive increase in contributions, has for the first time given the ACLU all the resources it needs to fight Trump and other administration officials in court and elsewhere. They have been involved in more than 100 legal actions against Trump administration policies, including the White House’sseries of travel bans on the citizens of several Muslim-majority nations, which happened shortly after he took office.
According to Romero, his group has over 170 times taken what he calls “Trump-related legal actions” since he became president. This number includes the filing of 83 lawsuits, Romero said.
As the Trump administration steps up its attacks on refugees and asylum seekers, the ACLU has been filing class action lawsuits and also seeking injunctions to attempt to make the government stop separating families and incarcerating children. In some cases they have already been successful, and they are continuing to fight for the legal rights of people who may have been illegally detained and deprived of due process.
The large increase in ACLU membership is a good sign for American democracy. It shows that many Americans not only disapprove of Donald Trump’s policies and actions but are willing to support the fight against them. Ultimately this may be what saves our country from becoming a dictatorship and what preserves and protects the Constitution of the United States of America.
I’m one of those people. I used to think the ACLU was extreme, that was until I saw them first to man the tables offering free legal advice to incoming passengers the night Trump implemented his first travel ban. I sent my first check. I was asked why I had joined, and I told them because they are now our front line against thugs with no moral values, oppressors of the poor, led by a heartless, selfish, man who must be reined in. They sent me a sweet little ACLU pin, which I don’t dare wear in Pensacola.
AdventureMan is hollering from his office to mine “Can I read you something?”
We all find ways to express our indignation. He writes directly to our president, our representative (he calls him Trump’s butt-boy, to me, not to him), to Pruitt. He tells them, in acceptable language, exactly what he thinks.
“I’d say ( . . . . ), but as a retired army officer, I think I am still subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice),” he says, and censors himself so that he is within civil boundaries.
How did we come to this, when our own national leader lies, again and again, even in the same day, and we have come to accept this as “normal?” How can we accept his calling people who are brown, and seeking a safer, better way of life “vermin” and their countries as “s-tholes?” The unthinkable has become our daily reality. It is not only the children, separated from their parents, who are becoming traumatized, it is also normal every-day Americans who believe that the American Dream is for everyone.
I think the American president is afraid of a world in which our nation is more brown than white, which it is well on it’s way to becoming. I think the thought of losing power terrifies him. I can’t imagine any other rational reason for his behavior towards the “other,” the stranger, those he labels as enemies.
So while I am startled when AdventureMan tells me he self-censors, I also understand. The unimaginable had manifested itself daily since this man was elected, and he will stop at no ends to complete his agenda. His cronies and fellow thugs will thrive, while we drink polluted water, and watch oil seep on to our shores from the off-shore drilling. We will watch our public schools fail, and our jails overflow. My heart breaks on a daily basis, watching what we, as a nation, are becoming.
I used to think the ACLU were a bunch of wackos. When the first travel ban went into effect, and we watched the stunned travelers arrive only to be told they must go back, the ACLU had tables in the airports offering free legal services. I sent my first check that night. I DO protest, via RESISTBOT (text Resist to 50409) wondering if my voice even matters. Sending checks to those who are resisting successfully gives me greater satisfaction. Reaching out my hands to “the other” gives me greater satisfaction. Building bridges and connections feeds my feelings of resistance, that together we can make a difference.
When you are watching The Post, the story is so interesting that you can forget that this really happened, that newspapers were told they could not publish the Pentagon Papers, and that the Washington Post ultimately defied the “cease and desist” and printed, believing the First Amendment protected their rights.
Meryl Streep is perfect as Katharine Graham, who inherits the Washington Post on the death of her husband, and Tom Hanks makes a great Ben Bradlee. The sets are wonders of 1970’s decor, and oh, Meryl Streep in the frowzy seventies clothes, hilarious.
What isn’t so hilarious, what is actually painful, is watching Meryl, as Katharine, dither and constantly ask the men around her what to do. She was the first woman publisher of a major American newspaper. It was her family newspaper; her father has asked her (now deceased) husband to take it over, and she was delighted. He was the man, and women weren’t expected to take on roles of such importance. As the movie opens, she is getting ready to take The Post public. It is painful watching the bankers and lawyers talk down to this intelligent woman, painful watching rooms full of men making all the decisions, and, as the movie points out, some very bad decisions in the management of the Vietnam War.
It is also a great reminder of who we are as Americans, and the power of a free press. It is a great reminder that the free press is here to put a spotlight on that which is hidden, to help us have transparency in our government, that decisions are not to be made in private huddles, but are to be in the “sunshine” of public awareness, so that we have the ability to question, and to debate, what we want our country to look like.
We found The Post exhilarating. We found it full of hope, even in these dark times.
Actually, it isn’t a Bad Moon Rising, it’s my blood pressure.
We’ve not paid any attention to the news for almost three weeks. We would catch a glimpse here and there, but we had other things to hold our attention.
I usually watch news while waiting for our grandson to arrive after school. It’s like an addiction. I can feel myself getting angry and tense, I don’t really think my blood pressure is really going up, but I no longer feel relaxed and content.
I can’t speak for AdventureMan, but together we spent years in Germany and in the Middle East, at military posts and in Embassies, fighting totalitarian regimes who cannot tolerate and who suppress all dissension.
I saw a news story yesterday, about an 88 year old WWII veteran who posted a photo of himself, a white man, bending the knee in support of those who are using the bent knee as a non-violent, respectful way of drawing attention to recent increased racial inequality and injustice in our great nation. His courage brought tears to my eyes. He says “I am a warrior, and I stand for all the good things that our nation stands for. We stand together for justice and equality.” He expressed solidarity with those bending their knees.
I don’t see bending the knee as disrespectful. It’s not turning one’s back. It’s not disrespectful to our country in any real way. It’s an expression that all is not well with the current direction of our leadership. It’s a First Amendment right, peaceful dissension.
I wonder if I bend the knee in support, will someone help me get back up? 🙂
We lost Zakat in July; one Saturday night at bedtime, he noticed Zakat had a dime-sized hole in his side. In the time it took us to get dressed and head for the animal emergency care hospital, it had grown to the size of a quarter. As we waited – the hospital was full, that night, of heartbreaking cases – it continued to grow. We had to leave him there to be sewn up, but they called us and told us that his skin wouldn’t hold stitches, and other lesions had opened. “A cat can’t live without skin” she said. We had to let him go.
When we adopted him, we hoped we would have more time with him. Zakat was the sweetest cat we have ever had, just full of love and trust. He was also FiV positive, feline AIDS, and he was susceptible to everything. He lost teeth. He had frequent pink eye. He would have fevers. He had skin problems. Through it all, he was sweet. When we lost him, we were desolate. AdventureMan said “No more cats.”
I think Trump changed his mind. I think he had to do something to fight our increasing dismay and outrage, we had to have some source of laughter in our lives. We know these immigrants he wants to keep out; we have lived among them and know them, for the most part, to be peaceful, hospitable people, very much like the people we live among in Pensacola. We have trans friends, and gay friends, and to limit their freedom threatens our own, for where do you start restraining those who hate? We prefer to drink untainted water, and to breathe unpolluted air, and we trust the EPA to measure, and to confront, and to enforce. And we want to trust in the “truthiness” of our elected officials, which we demonstrably cannot.
We have become activists. Who would have though it?
And, to nourish our souls, we have adopted Ragnar, a Russian Blue mix, and Uhtred, a creamy gold total mutt, both street cats, both sweet and funny and playful and delightful. Our house is once again a jumble of scattered and wrinkled carpets, dining room chairs knocked out of place, training not to go on countertops, and clear duct tape on the furniture to train them not to scratch there, but on the scratching posts. They give us joy, and a delightful reason to get up in the morning.
So, thank you, Donald Trump, for being so obnoxious and so depressing that we welcomed the diversion of these two delightful little angels into our household. One small step to help a hurting world.
You all know me – I read. I especially read newspapers and reliable news magazines, and I read even the small articles. I get two wonderful news services that alert me to sometimes obscure stories, or stories the bigger news channels aren’t carrying.
On social media, I often check a story one of my friends has posted. I use Snopes, by preference.
Today, in Digg, is a lengthy article you will want to read – about Snopes.
Here is the leading quote:
Can mythbusters like Snopes.com keep up in a post-truth era?
The fact-checking website was launched to correct urban legends and false rumours. Now, with even presidential candidates repeating fake stories from the web, its co-founder David Mikkelson says ‘the bilge is rising faster than you can pump’
Here There and Everywhere 