those pesky puerto ricans

"Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.  They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort".
-- Donald J. Trump, September 30, 2017 (There.  I said his name).

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico about ten days ago.  It was a category four storm, carrying sustained winds of up to 155 miles per hour, leaving behind what can only be described as total devastation.  For ten days now, there has been virtually no electricity, no water, little food, fuel, hope and most importantly, virtually no help from our government.

Almost immediately, it became apparent that the storm would leave in its wake the potential for a human catastrophe the likes of which we have never seen before, as the population desperately scrambled to stay alive without power, fuel, food or water, or any practical way to get any to it.

As of 2015, there were approximately three and a half million (that's 3,500,000 for those of you who need to see numbers) people living in Puerto Rico.  That's three and a half million people who are citizens of this country, even if they do not get to vote in federal elections, even if many of them are of darker skin tone, and even if many of them do not speak English.  So what?  They are all American citizens.

Even more important, they are all human beings.

So, the reaction has been what?

After nearly complete radio silence for days, the occupant of the White House went on the air to say that he was doing a "fantastic" job responding to this humanitarian crisis.  What exactly he had been doing up until that moment that was so fantastical remains a mystery to the rest of us.  Right after making the announcement, it is believed he visited his orthopedist to get the shoulder he dislocated from patting himself on the back surgically reattached.  He then strongly implied that one of the problems was the fact that Puerto Rico was struggling under massive debt that had crippled the economy of the Island, which seemed to further imply that he was reluctant to respond to a humanitarian crisis because those suffering owed money to those who could provide the relief, or that the storm was divine retribution for not paying the bills on time.

If only his creditors and the courts had reacted the same way each time he or one of his "world class" companies fell into massive debt and filed for bankruptcy.

Right after that, as emergency supplies began arriving at the port in San Juan and just sat there, we began to question what was being done to help our people, our fellow Americans, who were getting beyond desperate.  We were told by those on the ground, that the supplies could not be delivered due to a lack of drivers, who were obviously at home trying to somehow survive and save their families, a lack of fuel and the fact that most roads remained impassable.  So, where were the helicopters, the army of national guardsmen, and the aid professionals sent by the government who can drive trucks, the tankers who could deliver the oil, provide humanitarian relief and put boots on the ground to start making the roads passable enough to deliver food, water, medicine, fuel, etc.?

In the interim, further shipments of relief supplies sat off the coast and could not be delivered because of the Jones Act.  What is the Jones Act?  Look it up.  46 USC 688 and 46 USC 30104 for those who want to bother slogging through the United States Code.  The Jones Act was originally codified in 1920, and remains on the books to this day. 

In short, the Jones Act exists, at least in part, to protect the United States Merchant Marine by requiring all goods transported by water between the ports of the United States be carried by United States flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned and manned by citizens of the United States.  There is nothing in the statute that either obliges or prevents anyone on board from taking a knee as the ship enters port.  Foreign ships inbound with cargo are not allowed to stop and offload their cargo at certain locations, specifically including Puerto Rico, without paying a significant tariff on the goods on board.  As a result, many of these shippers simply do not send their goods via water to Puerto Rico in the first place.

The effects of the Jones Act are bad enough; however, it is not difficult in times of emergency to overcome the hurdles to humanitarian aid presented by the Act.  All that is needed is an executive order by the president waiving the Act and allowing the aid to flow.  He did that almost immediately for Texas after Hurricane Harvey.  Texas went for him in the election.  Ditto for Florida after Hurricane Irma.  Florida also voted for him in the last election.  He did not do that for Puerto Rico until he was practically shamed into it.  He only did it after originally explaining that he was not going to waive the Jones Act for Puerto Rico because the American shipping companies did not want him to do it.  In other words, the potential protection of profits of American shippers was more important to this guy than saving lives of American citizens in Puerto Rico.  Nearly three and a half million of them. 

And when he did get around to finally doing the right thing, his order waiving Jones Act requirements, issued September 28, only waived the requirements for ten days.  This at  time when it is generally understood that it is going to take months, if not years, if not our entire lifetimes for Puerto Rico to get back to where it was before the storm hit.  So eight days from now, Puerto Rico is going to be right back where it was ten days ago, unless he can be prodded or shamed into doing something again.

Puerto Rico does not vote in presidential elections.

Puerto Rico has a large population that does not speak English.

Many Puerto Ricans do not look like "us".

Besides, as our nitwit in office told us yesterday, Puerto Rico is an island.  It is surrounded by water.  Lots of it.  As Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station said yesterday, we would all like to thank the president for filling us all in on what an island is.  We never would have known otherwise.

Throughout this time, politicians in Puerto Rico; specifically, the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, and the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, complimented the president, telling us all that the president had been responding to all their requests.  While they were complimenting the president, it was clear that the situation on the island (surrounded by all that water) was becoming more and more desperate by the moment.  To many of us, both the governor and the mayor made their statements knowing that the only way to get something out of this president is to compliment him.  So to save their people, they said he was fully responsive and on top of everything.

Until they could not say it any longer.

This has gone past the point of desperation.  People -- American People are dying.  People are dying of thirst.  People are dying of starvation. They are dying because they cannot get their medications.  They are dying because they are shut off from the rest of the world while our president is more concerned with the profits of American shippers and whether or not football players are standing at attention for the national anthem.

Finally, the mayor could not play the game any longer and criticized the lack of response from our government to save its own citizens.

"We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy".

His response?  A tweet.

His people are dying, and he responds with a tweet.

And the tweet, of course, lashes out at the mayor, accusing her of poor leadership.  Well it takes one to know one...

The tweet concludes with a statement that Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans "want everything".

No, they just want help.  They want enough food and water so the citizenry will not starve to death, medical supplies for the sick and wounded, and help starting the rebuilding of their homes, their infrastructure and their lives.  We did not seem to have that sort of trouble in Texas or Florida.  As far as I can tell, at this point, he has not asked congress for anything for Puerto Rico, although he has repeatedly told us what a fantastic job he is doing.

Aside from the lack of concrete assistance, the lack of a plan, the lack of urgency, and the basic lack of humanitarianism, the tweet brings to mind that old stereotype of lazy Hispanics who want nothing more than to live off the largess of the rest of us, resurrecting an old canard that insults everyone, not just Hispanics.  Especially not Puerto Ricans.  Not now.  Not ever. 

I would like to think that real aid is on its way.  I would like to think that there is much more going on to help than appears apparent from what we have seen on television, even on the Fox Cheerleading Network.  One would hope that the allusion to the lazy Puerto Rican bringing all of this upon themselves is not what the president meant.

But then again with this guy, you never know.

some thoughts on kneeling during the national anthem

Since nobody in particular asked, I thought I would add my two cents to the National Anthem/NFL debate.

During the time I participated in sports through high school and then in college, the anthem was played at just about every event, except perhaps little league games.  Nobody missed the fact that the anthem was not played at little league games.  Nobody demanded that it be played.  At the organized high school and college games, everyone stood at attention during the anthem.  It was just the thing we did without thinking about it at all at the time.  If the anthem was not played, very few, if any, would have demanded to hear it.  At the games I played when the anthem was not played, nobody called a timeout to demand it be played.  Nobody missed the fact that it was not played at all.  Frankly, for many of us playing in the games, the anthem was an interruption in our pre-game preparation that we knew was coming, we knew we had to stand politely for, and we just wanted to get over with so we could get on with our preparations and the game itself.  Patriotism, real or otherwise, had nothing to do with it.

How or why the anthem came to be played before just about all games is not relevant to this discussion, other than to note that in the NFL, which seems to be the controversy du jour, it was not until 2009 that the teams even came out onto the field prior to anthem being played.  It was only when the government thought that in the interests of patriotism and recruiting folks to join the military that the teams were trotted out to stand at attention on the sidelines.

And they only did this because our government, in their great judgment about where to spend our money, paid the billionaire NFL owners millions annually simply to have a somewhat elaborate and entirely unnecessary pageant/ceremony associated with the flag and the anthem before each game.

Query whether or not the owners would have made the players come out and stand for the anthem if they were not getting paid to have them do it.  That stands for Jerry Jones, who owned his team prior to 2009 and who never made the players come out and stand for the anthem before he was paid to do it, and now says any of his guys who do not stand will be immediately fired.  I for one am really looking forward to Dez Bryant, Ezekiel Elliot, Dak Prescott, et. al. taking Jerry up on this, and watching him run out onto the field and fire them on the spot, thereby eliminating the possibility that the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl this year or that any minority NFL superstar, or anyone for that matter, will ever want to sign to play for the Cowboys again.

So there is no requirement by law that says anyone, including NFL players, has to stand for the anthem, although many folks think they should.  In fact, there is Supreme Court precedent in connection with the Pledge of Allegiance that says we cannot be forced to stand.  There is also nothing in the NFL collective bargaining agreement that says the players have to stand; therefore, as a condition of their employment, they do not have to, and the owners cannot stop them from kneeling, turning their backs, or eating a hot dog during the playing of the anthem, as many of those at home actually do if they are not using the time to go to the bathroom, nor can they discipline them if they choose not to stand.

Which brings us to the National Anthem and the present spreading protests, which he who is residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would have been far better off keeping his mouth closed about if he had any sense about the situation at all.

I never served in the military.  I never had any desire to.  I have family and friends who have served.  I have all the respect in the world for them.  I have all the respect in the world for all who served.  I also have all the respect in the world for those who kneel or who do not stand with their hands over their hearts during the anthem.  Doing so has nothing to do with respecting the flag, the anthem or our military.  It has everything to do with upholding the rights our military supposedly fights for.

When we send our military to defend this country, if we are not sending them to protect this country and its people, and to protect our rights under the Constitution, then what are we sending them for?  If we are sending them simply to make profits for oil companies, then the troops should be brought home and the oil companies should be told to protect their pipelines and their profits themselves.  I am not a citizen of the United States of Exxon.  If we are sending troops to fight and die for us simply to massage the ego of whomever is in charge at a given moment, bring them home, and kick the ego out of office.

There is not, and should not be an argument that our military is there to protect our rights under the Constitution, and that the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance exist to recognize our rights.

All of our rights.

Each and every one of us and each and every one of our rights.

One of those rights is that granted under the Constitution to petition our government with our grievances, as explicitly provided for under the First Amendment.  There is a reason that freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly is the first of the amendments.  It is that important.

When one is kneeling instead of standing for the anthem, one is expressing those very rights.  Considering that our military is fighting on our behalf for those very rights, I would ask who is right and who is wrong when Colin Kaepernick kneels on the sideline.  Mr. Kaepernick, who is quietly, and I would add respectfully expressing and asserting his rights or those who are denying his right to do so simply because they do not want to see it.  As long as the protest is done respectfully, there is nothing wrong and everything right about it.  Players quietly kneeling on the sideline shows no disrespect to anyone.  It simply makes a statement and upholds the right to protest as guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Besides, is there really a dispute that people of color, who were enslaved for nearly the first one hundred years of our history are still not treated equally?

Is there really a dispute that educational, housing, employment, etc. opportunities are much greater for whites than they are for people of color?

Is there really a dispute that whites are given the benefit of the doubt by law enforcement far more than minorities?

Is there really a dispute that when I am walking in a strange neighborhood at night and happen to pass by a police officer that I will simply nod to him and he will nod back, but if I were a minority, chances are I would be stopped and questioned over what I was doing there?

Really?

If you ask most veterans, while they have enormous reverence for the flag and for the anthem, nearly all of them will tell you that they fought or continue to fight for the rights granted to all of us under the Constitution.  That includes the right to protest peacefully.

So when Colin Kaepernick sees what is happening and decides to exercise his constitutional right to protest, is he really wrong?

And if we recognize the right to protest, who better, a star athlete who will be seen on national television or some guy who anonymously kneels in the stands of the game or at home?

So in the interests of peace and understanding, why don't we just stop playing the anthem before games.  Nobody will really miss it.  Nobody will complain when the players kneel in protest beforehand.

Even better, how about we address the problems those protesting point out instead of yelling about supposed disrespect of a piece of cloth that happens to have stars and stripes on it.

september 11

So that day has come upon us again.

Once again, I find myself wanting to hide and stay away from the onslaught of social media, urging me to "Never Forget", as if I could.  It certainly is not my intent to tell everyone or anyone not to commemorate this day, nor is this meant to insult the memory of anyone we lost or anyone who wishes to look back and contemplate the events of the day.  Like many other days, events, or experiences in life, this is personal to each of us and one that should be observed as one wishes.  If you believe that we should "Never Forget" and that the meaning of this day is that we should be patriotic on this day, then by all means, that is your right, and I will not try one bit to prevent anyone from doing so.

As for me, I don't want to forget, but I don't want to be awash in the tidal wave of "patriotism" that images of the towers, first responders, weeping statues of liberty and bald eagles can rain down upon me in a single day.

For three hundred and sixty-four days a year, we face a continuous torrent of hate postings calling all of us anti-american, haters, bigots, etc., simply because we have some basic disagreements over how we should be governed, over our form of government, over how we approach basic decency between us.  Much of this comes from our so called leaders and television commentators who all get way more attention than they deserve.  I admit that I am probably as much a part of that onslaught for a good many people on the right.  That being said, we come together for twenty-four hours a year because somebody else attacked us.

We don't seem to come together so much when it is a commemoration of when we attacked ourselves. Please note we do not come together April 19 every year.  What is April 19?  In case you forgot, that is the day of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 by "one of us".  We also do not seem to go into a national catharsis every year on December 14, which is the date "one of us" shot up Sandy Hook Elementary School.  That day was not even enough to get a package of common sense gun control legislation passed.

We also do not seem to come together so much when it comes to upholding decent human rights and dignities in this country.  It is worth remembering that the atrocities that occurred on September 11, 2001 were not perpetrated by every single Muslim in the world.  It is also worth remembering that there are any number of persons in this country who are just as American as anyone else, but either look different, sound different, worship a different god than you do, love somebody you personally would not fall in love with and live a lifestyle you do not want for yourself.

On this day, and every other day, they are just as American as you are.

On this day, they hurt just as much as you do.

On this day, they remember too.

So on this day, as I search for something to say, as if I or anyone else really has to, I come back to what I wrote and posted on Facebook as the tenth anniversary of that day approached.  It seems just as valid to me today as it did then:

"i was downtown at my office four blocks from the world trade center that day. i watched the second plane hit. i watched from my office as the first tower fell, and received word that the second tower fell while in the bomb shelter of the building. the attendant at the parking lot and i brushed a couple of inches of building dust and probable human remains off my car so i could drive home. at each corner was a national guardsman with rifles pointed straight at us. i don't intend to watch all the 9/11 hullabaloo tomorrow. i would like to spend a quiet day of reflection and relaxation, while not having the day shoved down my throat. i've had enough. i hope that doesn't make me a bad person".

God bless everyone one of those who we lost on that day, and may this be the year we finally remember each other with kindness and respect the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.

impeach him or remove him from office NOW.

On the morning after the election, I wrote:

"While I accept the results of elections and he is going to be the president whether I like it or not, I for one cannot yet bring myself to even say his name right now.  My hope is that he can show me something very soon so that I can. Believe it or not, I hope he can show me something so that I can actually become proud that he is our president".

In spite of what you may have read from what I have written here and elsewhere, I truly believed what I had written at the time.  I truly hoped that with the campaign behind him, he would turn to governing, and that the immensity of the task would transform him from histrionic race baiting, misogynistic, etc. campaigner into something presidential and worthy of calling a leader.

Today, I surrender.

I am not going to get into the campaign complete with the pussy grabbing nonsense, the race baiting, and his refusal to state whether or not he would be willing to accept the result of the election if he lost.  The mere fact that he refuses to let go of the fact that he did not win the popular vote tells you he would, in fact, have willingly created a potential constitutional crisis if he had, in fact, lost the electoral college vote.

I am not going to get into the nearly all male lily white cabinet of curiosities he created to drain the swamp, including a collection of people who were primarily unqualified for the position appointed, including one who outright said he was not qualified for any position in the cabinet and then accepted a nomination to the position he now holds the very next day.  So we have a secretary of state who had no prior government or foreign policy experience, matched by a U.N. Ambassador who also had not foreign policy experience.  We have a secretary of education who does not believe in public education, but does believe we need guns in schools to protect the children from grizzly bear attacks.  We have a secretary of energy, who when he can remember the name of the agency he now heads, has no degree or experience in nuclear energy or arms, which he now presides over.  We have a secretary of the interior who has apparently discovered that a comprehensive study of national monuments he intends to remove from the protected list of national monuments can be conducted while smooching with his wife somewhere in the Greek Islands.  We now have a head of the environmental protection agency who believes he can protect the environment by removing every environmental regulation he can find.  What he does not believe in is climate change, leaving us in grand company with Syria and Nicaragua upon our withdrawal from the Paris Accords.

Etc.

No I am not going to get into that.

I am not going to get into the fact that in seven short months, he has denigrated the value of the United States of America to the point where North Korea...  NORTH KOREA... is talking and acting in terms that are being taken seriously as amounting to a threat of war against this country.  He is openly talking about starting a nuclear war with a peanut dictator, a war that considering the alliances of various countries involved, could thrust us almost instantly into a mass global nuclear event.  There is no indication whatsoever that he has given any thought to the consequences of his words or his actions that have either led to this moment or could follow his pushing the button.

I am not going to get into the fact that he cannot control himself to the point that his closest advisors have apparently given up on advising him to stay away from twitter.  I firmly believe in the first amendment, but would support legislation forbidding any president from posting ANYTHING other than perhaps directions for the public in the case of a national emergency on twitter.

I am not going to get into the fact that he violates the emoluments clause of the constitution daily via refusing to divest himself of his businesses or place them in a truly blind trust, while at the same time charging the government for offices in his buildings, rooms in his hotels, etc.  We will not even get into the nepotism involved in appointing family members to government position, who have no business being near any governmental position of authority.

I am not going to get into the fact that he can routinely denigrate in schoolyard terms anyone who has the temerity to oppose him, to the point where it can now reasonably be said that there will be no significant legislation of any kind that can be expected to be passed for the foreseeable future for the simple fact that he cannot get anyone in congress to work with him.  It takes a special kind of talent to get Mitch McConnell, whom I have previously called the worst person in the world, to no longer be on speaking terms with you. 

On the other hand, while he can routinely excoriate people, who unlike himself or anyone in his family, have spent their entire careers in public service, even if you do not agree with their politics, he cannot seem to unequivocally bring himself to condemn nazis, white supremacists and the ku klux klan.  You would think this is the easiest thing he would ever have to do; however, I have no doubt that I could get my cats to issue a clear condemnation of the nazis, white supremacists and the ku klux klan before I could get him to do it, and then not backtrack on his words the next day.  And I would not even have to offer the cats the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you ever saw.

I am not going to get into the fact that he apparently has never seen a fact he cannot lie about.  You have to wonder about the state of the presidency when it reaches the point where you can tell the president has said a lie simply because his lips are moving.

No, I am not going to get into any of this, even though he has turned us into the laughing stock of the world from all of the above and more.

I am simply going to point to today.

1.  He has brought us to the brink of war with North Korea, while at the same time increasing the number of troops dedicated to the quagmire in Afghanistan without any apparent strategy for how that is going to end this abomination, other than his assurance that we are in it to win it, which is about the same strategy I have used in the past in playing the lottery.  Hint, I have not yet won, but inspired by the president, next week, I will spend more money to play more numbers.  In the mean time, while he is bringing us further into war, for no real reason I can discern, today, he actually signed that order disqualifying transgenders from military service.  He can point to nothing at all that shows that patriotic persons who happen to be transgender cannot serve ably and honorably.  Instead, he hides behind the canard that unidentified generals have told him they cannot absorb the cost of gender transition surgery that obviously all transgenders are using the military to obtain.  I assume I will be seeing an executive order shortly banning the military from spending any money on viagra.

The bottom line on this is that at a time, when he is ramping up military adventure, he is reducing those eligible and who are otherwise qualified to serve.  In other words, he is deliberately setting us up to have a weakened military in a time of war.  

In my book, that is treason.

2.  He has pardoned a man, who is about as disgusting a figure in public life to come along in decades, not waiting for the courts to issue their final verdict in the form of a sentence upon him.  It appears quite possible that this pardon comes simply because the man supported his candidacy early and never wavered in his support.  You can support the policies of Joe Arpaio if you want.  It is certainly your right.  He was not convicted of any such policies.  He was convicted and found in criminal contempt of repeatedly ignoring federal court orders.  You cannot ignore or support this.  This is a country built upon the rule of law.  Without respect for the law, we are no better than any tinpot dictator in any banana republic, including North Korea.

And now, I am hearing and reading about talk that he is looking for ways to pardon himself, his family, friends and cronies from anything to do with Russia and Robert Mueller's investigation.

So in one single day, putting aside all the other nonsense since January 20, he has weakened the military simply due to the fact that he can't stand transgender people for no logical reason, and undermined the rule of law in this country.

I said on November 9, 2016 that I could not bring myself to state his name.  Now I can.

DONALD J. TRUMP IS A MONSTER.  HE IS A MENACE TO THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THIS COUNTRY AND THE DEMOCRACY WE SEEK TO SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

DONALD J. TRUMP MUST BE STOPPED, AND THE SOONER THE BETTER.

DONALD J. TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE FOR THE GOOD OF THIS COUNTRY, AND FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD.

HE MUST BE IMPEACHED OR REMOVED VIA THE TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT.

WE CANNOT AFFORD TO WAIT ANY LONGER.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

With apologies to my mother, who does not like when we use certain language in describing events and feelings here on line...

We now know precisely how sincere his statement was yesterday.  It took only a day to walk it back.  It will take a lifetime to walk back our moral standing in the world.  In the mean time, where do the rest of us go to protect ourselves from the monstrosity that occupies the White House and the under the surface evil he has unleashed.

We are back to there are bad people on all sides.  Ok, there are bad people on all sides.  How many bad people on the left yelled nazi slogans in Charlottesville?  How many bad people on the left were there with a published purpose to let the world know that Jews, Blacks, Immigrants, Gays, Transgenders or anyone "who does not look like us" does not belong?  How many bad people on the left ran down the good folk on the right with their cars, killing and maiming along the way?  How many bad people on the left put those good little nazis on the right in hospitals?

But they were just protesting the removal of statues and renaming of a park.  Never mind that the statues were offensive to a very large percentage of the citizens of this country, many of those offended not being Jews, Blacks, Immigrants, Gays, Transgenders or anyone "who does not look like us".  Where does it stop, he wants to know.

No, it does not stop at Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson.  I may not have taken all the history classes at Penn, where I am ashamed to say he also attended, but if I search the back of my mind, I seem to recall something along the lines of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson being generals in an army that fought against the United States in the Civil War.  They were Americans who fought against their own country.  Translation -- they were traitors.  Worse, they committed treason against this country.  Last I looked, we did not erect statues and celebrate treason and traitors.

Yes, it does stop short of George Washington.  Last I looked, he was and is still called the father of this country.  He fought to establish this country, not to tear it apart.  I know you did not major in history at Penn, but I would have thought this knowledge was a basic requirement to entrance at the university.

This false equivalence is bad enough, but he used it to try to justify the behavior of nazis.

Think about that for a second.

The president of the United States just tried to justify the behavior of nazis.

NAZIS.

Holy shit.

He just tried to justify the behavior of nazis in this country, just barely a generation after THE greatest generation, of which I am sure he tries to think himself a part of, fought and died in a war to defeat nazis and save the free world.  Since that war, more than a generation has lived by "NEVER AGAIN".  When a list of the worst people in the history of the world is compiled, Hitler, the leader of the nazis, is always at the top.  There are countries in the world where just being a nazi is a crime.  That's how bad it is.

But according to this jerk, "there were many very fine people from both sides in the crowd".

I suppose those were the ones yelling "Jew will never replace us", because we know that the Jews had everything to do with the South being on the losing end of the Civil War, which led to the erection of the statue being taken down and the renaming of that park that all those very fine people were "concerned" about.

I may have missed the class that he apparently took at Penn where we were taught that the nazi salute was a call to arms for all the good people of the confederacy, and has since morphed into a source of cultural pride for them.  Maybe that's what those very fine people were there remembering.

Or maybe those very fine people were the ones walking around in white shirts with symbols of the old South emblazoned over their hearts, carrying tiki torches to remind everyone of the good old days when those lovable louts from the Klan rode into town all robed up and with torches so they could lynch the nearest uppity nigger.  Ah the history.  Ah the nostalgia.

Here's a clue for the clueless.

THERE ARE NO VERY FINE NAZIS.  THERE ARE NO VERY FINE GRAND WIZARDS OF THE KKK.  THERE ARE NO VERY FINE BLOOD AND SOILERS.  THOSE "VERY FINE FOLKS" ARE NOT BIDING THEIR TIME WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT TO CONVINCE EVERYONE ELSE THAT THEIR COMRADE REALLY DID NOT MEAN IT WHEN HE PUSHED US INTO THE OVENS, HUNG US FROM THE TREES ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, OR JUST SHOT US AND BURIED OUR REMAINS IN EARTHEN DAMS OUT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE.

Just because your daughter married a Jew does not make you one of us.  It also does not make you tolerant.  Some of the worst anti-semites, racists, etc., try to convince you that they are not who they really are because they "have a friend who is a (fill in the blank)".  I am sure Ivanka loves her husband.  That does not make you a true friend of any Jew on this planet, other than perhaps your son in law.

Let me clue you in further.

YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US.  YOU WILL NEVER BE ONE OF US.

There is no Jew who can now morally claim any part of their heritage and embrace you.  The same goes for people of color, women, gays, transgenders, immigrants, Native Americans, anyone who does not look like you, most people who do look like you, and anyone who has a brain and a heart.

You have ceded the moral ground permanently.  For crying out loud, the leader of fucking GERMANY, the birthplace of the nazis, came out with the appropriate statement.  She came out quickly, and without the need to be told it was the right thing to do.

The president of this country is supposed to be our moral compass.  We now have no compass, no rudder, no steering wheel, no navigational system.  We do, however, have all those good nazis and klansman who prevented an all out massacre last weekend, and their cheerleader in the white house.

We also have a congress who can now not avoid their moral and constitutional duty to this country to get this menace away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as fast as their grubby little minds can move him.

Until then, God help us all.

white domestic terrorists

I posted this one originally in my own name.  I repost it here.

I do not care if your daughter takes a few seconds out of her very busy day to tweet out a condemnation of white supremecists and nazis as domestic terrorists.

I do not care if you send your minions to the sunday morning talk shows to tell the world that "of course" you condemn white supremecists and nazis as domestic terrorists.

I do not care if the vice-president is willing to be your sychophant once again and blame the press for your ongoing failures by pointing out that "of course" you condemn white supremecists and nazis as domestic terrorists.

Frankly, I do not even care if your wife comes out and says the right thing, even if she could only do it by plagerizing Michelle Obama yet again. At least she tried.

You are the president, the so called leader of the so called greatest nation on earth.

You are the leader of the free world.

You have sworn an oath to protect the constitution and the people of this country. That means everybody. All the citizens. All the immigrants, all the tourists, anyone here peacefully, and yes even those who came here illegally, but are simply trying to make a new life for their families without breaking any other laws.

We need to hear it from you, and not when you hide behind the anonymity of a tweet.

Go in front of the cameras. Look us in the eye. Do not read a script written by somebody else, or even by you for that matter.

YOU ARE THE FREAKIN' LEADER OF THIS COUNTRY. LOOK US IN THE EYE.

As you said to Hilary and President Obama -- call it what it is. SAY THE WORDS.

It won't take long. Maybe a few seconds. As i used to tell my sons when they were little and had misbehaved, I do not even care if you do not mean a single word of it, just say it.

Look into the camera and talk to us. Don't send somebody else to do it for you. It does not mean the same thing when it is not said by the president himself. Don't hide behind a tweet. Say it. Say the words.

"I CONDEMN WHITE SUPREMECISTS, NEO-NAZI, RACIST, ANTI-SEMITIC DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. THEY HAVE NO PLACE IN OUR SOCIETY, AND AS YOUR PRESIDENT, I WILL WORK WITH YOU TO RID THIS NATION AND THIS WORLD OF THIS SCOURGE".

Practice it a few times. Go in front of the camera and take the ten or fifteen seconds it takes to say it slowly, pronouncing each word properly. Do not make a face while saying it. Do not roll your eyes. Do not add anything else.

Say it.

Because until you do, you are part of the problem.

my son

Allow me to introduce my son, Jeremy Michael Graber.

Jeremy is the kind of son most of us can only dream of having.  He is a kind, loving and charitable young man.  He gives without question and without thought to himself, seeking only to help those who cannot otherwise help themselves.  He has set up and run a number of charities and charitable events which seek to assist those in his community in need.  He has served this country in the military and is an honorably discharged veteran.  He is a paramedic, meaning that he is still out there on the front lines everyday rendering assistance, and not seeking any kind of recognition in return.

And he is the kind of person our president and our attorney general care so much about that they would deny him basic rights they would readily grant to themselves, their families and their friends.  The guy in the Oval Office and the guy heading up the Justice Department may not care very much for each other at the moment, but they are united in their hatred of my son, a person they have never met.

You see, Jeremy does not fit into their vision of what a "real man" is supposed to be.

Jeremy prefers to go by the name "Remi".  It is what all his friends and his partner call him.  He prefers this name because he prefers his lifestyle, and he believes the name fits his lifestyle better.  Jeremy prefers not to have any kind of gender identification.  He does not refer to himself in the masculine or the feminine, and members of his lifestyle community prefer the same.  I do not confess to understand his lifestyle or that of his community.  There are certain aspects of it that I find rather strange; however, it is his chosen lifestyle, and as far as I can see, that lifestyle does not hurt anybody in any manner whatsoever.  Within his community he is well respected to the point of downright admiration, and most importantly, appears to be loved by all.  Who am I to disrespect or disapprove of his choice in life?

Yet, because Jeremy does not believe that he should be identified by any particular gender, the commander-in-chief would deny him the right to serve in our military, even though he already has honorably served.  Perhaps you did not notice, but on the same day he could not stop the urge to tweet, his Justice Department, headed by his favorite attorney general announced that they would be seeking to end protections afforded to transgender individuals under federal housing and federal workplace discrimination laws.  In other words, if either of these fine gentleman were to suffer a heart attack while they were in the jurisdiction where Jeremy works, they would expect him to show up in his ambulance and save their lives without questioning or giving thought to who they are; however, when he returned to his base, they would allow his employer to fire him simply because of who he is and for no other reason.  When he then returned home to tell his partner what had happened, from their hospital beds while a recuperating after Jeremy saved their lives, they both would allow Jeremy's landlord to kick them out, once again for the sole reason of being who they are.

It would not matter to the president or the attorney general that he had just saved their lives.

It would not matter to either of them that he had served this country honorably.

It would not matter to either of them that he is a person, who in spite of limited wealth and means has probably given more in his lifetime than either of them combined, and I am not referring to money.

It would not matter to them that he is presently in the midst of a campaign to establish yet another charity, "Not 1 More".  The project was conceived after the Pulse nightclub shootings last year.  It is designed to provide protections to vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community, not that our president or our attorney general would care.  Check it out under his facebook page.  I know two who live in Washington who won't.

All that would matter to these two cretins is that Jeremy does not gender self-identify, as if that is any of their business, and once in a while, in spite of the fact that the doctor who was present at birth yelled, "It's a boy!" when he was born, he prefers to wear a dress.  His parents don't care.  Why do they?

So in the end, I find myself asking one question:

Of the president, the attorney general, and my Remi, which one or more is the real deviant?