tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83970751363466066142024-03-12T21:24:42.542-05:00John Young ColumnJohn Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.comBlogger747125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-63771764358726452712022-08-07T21:56:00.001-05:002022-08-07T21:56:59.260-05:00Dark money's assault on our planet<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Something is killing the Great Salt Lake. Any guesses what that might be?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Lake Mead and Lake Powell are in the clutches of the worst water-level drop in their life-giving histories. What might the problem be?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">With hundreds of wildfires this year, over 200 Texas counties have earned "crop disaster area" designation. Any suggestions as to why?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">No suggestions, no guesses, and certainly no solutions from Republican-controlled legislatures committed to bury their heads in arid sand.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">All that concerns them is drilling, pumping and consuming – gas, oil, water – whatever. In other words, business as usual. The planet be damned.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In Utah, a rancher told the New York Times the existential crisis of the Great Salt Lake is an "environmental nuclear bomb." </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Ho hum, say Republican lawmakers -- and voters who send them to the Capitol in Salt Lake City to ignore (Earth's) reality. This being a political body tightly wrapped around a Big Lie, why not falsehoods, about the very existence of our planet?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">One would think Utah, with its stunning and delicate ecosystems, from snow caps to desert flats, would be as intently focused on the environment as any state. Nah.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">As such, Utah is one of the states represented in a well-oiled contraption called the State Financial Officers Foundation. It's made up of Republican state treasurers devoted to undercutting any and all efforts at addressing climate change.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">For instance, members vow to redirect state business away from "woke" businesses that express devotion to climate action.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Texas served as a model for this when Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law blocking state agencies from investing in businesses that have cut ties with fossil fuel companies.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In addition to spending taxpayer dollars to conspire thusly, the organization benefits from the largess of the Koch petrochemical dynasty and other players like the American Petroleum Institute, Heartland Institute and Heritage Foundation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">For those in a civics coma, this is one more example that parties matter, philosophies matter. Oh, yeah, and voting matters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">When pondering down-ballot races like treasurer and attorney general and secretary of state, consider the damage partisans can do, and many are sworn to do.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Rest assured, if one runs for any of these positions as a Republican, he or she can depend on massive dark money facilitated by the Citizens United ruling of 2010. Read all about the filthy stuff in Jane Mayer's "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">For decades, petro players like the Koch family have spent like mad to elect state officials who pledge to the vow that carbon extraction is next to godliness.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Part of that campaign is and was the effort to populate the courts with friends of polluters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">To that end, the biggest victory in the dark money offensive was the Supreme Court's recent ruling in West Virginia vs. EPA that ruled the agency couldn't regulate carbon emissions. That's up to Congress, sayeth the Koch Court.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In question was what's called the "Chevron deference," the principle that it's unrealistic to rely on lawmakers to sign off on intricacies of environmental policy, hence empowering the experts at the EPA.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The absence of such is frightening considering the technological ignorance that pervades this or any Congress.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Exhibit A was the explanation in 2006 by then Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, describing the internet as a "series of tubes."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Stevens said he was only speaking metaphorically. Whatever. For something more authoritative, let's leave it up to one of the Apollo astronauts, unattributed, who said of the level of technological expertise he found on Capitol Hill:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">"A lot of these people, they don't know their butt from third base."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">This fully explains what enlightenment awaits when innocents become industry sock puppets.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-80601016221308841542022-07-31T23:42:00.000-05:002022-07-31T23:43:00.576-05:00We know what the majority supports; will it vote?<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Poll after poll after poll.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Name your indicator and know the Republican Party is completely out of touch with the majority of thought in America. Completely on the wrong side of history. Completely wrong. Period.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Abortion rights. Sane gun laws. LBGTQ rights and social advancement. Voting rights. The Affordable Care Act and other steps to insure more Americans.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Not to mention the desire never to see Donald Trump in a position of power again.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It's a rout. So how is it possible that the Party of Trump could reclaim control of Congress in the fall?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">We all know how – the same way Trump became president in the first place: voter apathy -- miserable, unforgivable </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">non-</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">turnout by people who support all the above.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Republicans knew where the prize was when they looked at the bankruptcy king and said, "What the hell?" in 2016.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The prize was the Supreme Court.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Trump </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">got fewer votes, but thanks to the Electoral College,</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> he</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> got the prize.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Now R</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">epublicans hope – assume – that by way of voter apathy and gerrymandering they can have control of Congress with the new year.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">For those very reasons, prospects are not good in the House.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">A principal reason is a Supreme Court sculpted by the forces of backsliding and racism. Fair districts and much of what came from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been flushed down the toilet.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Things are looking less bleak in the Senate, thanks to – drum roll – Donald Trump.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Trump's hand-picked celebrity candidates (Dr. Oz? Herschel Walker? Don't make us laugh.) and made-to-order election deniers aren't doing too well. Meanwhile, the abortion issue is proving to be exactly the kind of voter motivator Republican strategists feared.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Let's face it: The GOP's driving cause is to keep people away from the polls. When turnout goes up, Republican candidates go down.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Off-year elections are notoriously low turn-out. The party in power almost always gets punished by the "anti" vote – voters motivated by grudges and momentary concerns.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Inflation is the biggest concern of the moment, and Republicans hope to hang it around Democrats' necks.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Too much of the reporting on inflation has been a disservice ("What's the stock market saying?") Too few Americans understand that this is a global problem driven by two factors: supply-chain problems worldwide related to the pandemic and stunningly sweeping sanctions against Russia for the horrors it has wrought in Ukraine.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It's going to hurt the Democrats, without question.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Other issues are going to motivate people, however, headed by Republican policies to empower states to order every pregnant woman to gestate to term.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It's been stunning and revealing how quickly red-state legislatures have taken this step. Republicans will not profit from this politically.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Poll after poll after poll shows this to be true.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The horrifying carnage in Uvalde, Texas, once again has drawn a focus on the fact that the GOP is motivated not by public safety but the needs of commerce when it comes to gun-happy constituents -- and the gun lobby.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The organic grassroots protest in Uvalde demanding that Texas lawmakers convene in special session to age-restrict the purchase of assault weapons shows the desire among the masses to shed nutty Old West inclinations about killing machines.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The U.S. House was representing the majority of Americans when it voted to ban assault weapons last week. Of course, the gun lobby will ride the filibuster in the Senate, and dependable Republican lap dog obedience, to have the final say.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">This is a scary time. Suddenly lawmakers must protect such things taken for granted, such as contraception and the right of privacy. The highest court has become an adversary of basic and long-held rights.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The majority must stand up. It must assert itself by voting. It must put the minority in its place this November, not in control of Congress.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><font color="#000000">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</font></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-37182183927792966992022-07-24T23:41:00.001-05:002022-07-24T23:41:34.369-05:00Party of Trump is certifiably off its rocker<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Donald Trump and shoeshine boy Rudy Giuliani like to throw around claims of dead people voting in massive numbers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Eight thousand dead voters in Philly! Make that 30,000!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Uh, yeah. As he admitted to Arizona's House speaker, Giuliani had no evidence for any of his claims, only theories.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Ah, but I'm here to report that Colorado has confirmed an instance. Sorry, Rudy, but the dead person's vote went to your client.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">It's quite a story, actually, because the man who cast his presumed-dead wife's vote was (is?) being investigated for her murder.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Barry Morphew is the name, a resident of Chaffee County in Southern Colorado. His wife Suzanne disappeared two years ago. He was held for months as the prime suspect, then released in April when the case grew cold. Whoever killed Suzanne did a really good job of concealing the deed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Morphew didn't try to conceal his illegal vote, however. He told the FBI, "I just thought I'd give (Trump) another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Who are "these other guys," Barry? Maybe Rudy can tell us. The only other cheaters we can lock-cinch confirm from 2020 were those conspiring to re-install Trump president after getting shellacked at the polls.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">"All these other guys." That line is one of the fruits of the Big Lie.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Trump has built an industry of out of bogus claims, brick by brick. In the process, he's raked in millions of dollars from followers who believe he needs their money to investigate the "steal."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">In the Jan. 6 rally that sent rioters on their merry way up the Capitol steps, Trump juiced the crowd with specious voter claims:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">"Dead people. Lots of dead people. Thousands."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">In Pennsylvania, he crowed, "you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters" and "10,000 votes illegally counted."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">All were among the claims Trump's own attorney general, Bill Barr, pronounced to be "bullshit."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Of course, Trump knew it was all a lie. Steve Bannon assured as much in a broadcast before the 2020 election: When Trump lost, he was going to say he won – bigly. Then he would surf the wave of chaos as far as he could.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">As grievous as was Trump's comportment, lounging before the big screen while big-bellied rioters assaulted the Capitol and threatened his vice president's life – more egregious is what the Big Lie has done to our elections system.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Draconian moves have been made nationwide to make voting more difficult and purge voters, all based on unconscionably bogus claims pertaining to "ballot security" and more.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Last week the Republican-majority Wisconsin legislature passed a bill to ban voting drop boxes except at county election headquarters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">As one who uses them, let me say, "You've got to be kidding."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Ballot drop boxes are absolutely secure and are the essence of voter convenience. No evidence exists – none – that they can or ever have been used fraudulently. They are more secure, for example, than the mailbox outside your pharmacy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">The only reason for this move is the Republican power structure's pledging allegiance to Trump's Big Lie.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">It was a disgusting spectacle -- an insult to Americans far and wide -- that at its state convention, the Texas Republican Party voted to pronounce Joe Biden's win null and void.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Based on what? Rudy's "theories"? No -- based on the calculated fiction of one serial liar on the cusp of indictment for defrauding the U.S. government and fomenting an insurrection.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Texas Republicans also called for a vote on secession from the United States. Let me be the first to say:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Good luck, compadres. After our troops at Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, Fort Sam Houston and elsewhere occupy all major citadels, gulf ports, petrochemical facilities, oil fields and pro football palaces, and control the entire I-35 corridor, they will have reduced New Texas to a place where only the deer and antelope play – and a functioning electric grid won't matter at all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">The Republican Party, running on a lie and supporting a lawbreaker, isn't fit to hang a shingle in a constitutional republic.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-86520020695920273012022-07-17T22:45:00.001-05:002022-07-17T22:45:23.095-05:00Agents of chaos and criminality<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Where did they find these people? Roger Stone. Paul Manafort. Sidney Powell. John Eastman.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">How is it that <i>any</i> of these people could <i>ever</i> be at the elbow of the most powerful man on the planet?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">We know where they found Rudy Giuliani: begging for pizza crust and publicity on the sidewalks of New York.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">And someone made a deep dive into the sewer where Steve Bannon dwells.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">How did any in this police lineup gain entrance to the White House?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">They were there at the behest of the former president who, if "justice" is more than a seven-letter world, will wear numbers on his chest for his next portrait.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">So much to digest from Republicans inside the administration who appeared live and videotaped in the public hearings of the Jan. 6 Committee:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Team Crazy knew Donald Trump lost bigly, knew the courts wouldn't help him, ran into "deep state" resistance on seizing voting machines and appointing a special counsel (Powell) to declare the election stolen.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What was the final option for a pack of political thieves?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Chaos. That's what.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This is what Bannon was referring to in a podcast a few days before the 2020 election.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"What Trump's gonna do is just declare victory, right? He's gonna declare victory. But that doesn't mean he's a winner. He's just gonna say he's a winner."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This, he said, would create a "firestorm."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Bannon knew of what he was speaking. Chaos is what the man is all about, and why Trump so values his opinion.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Chaos – to disrupt the electoral count and cause discord in the streets with the hope of sending all of it back to pliant Republican-controlled legislatures.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country." That's not some liberal MSNBC talker venting. It's former campaign manager Brad Parscale in a text exchange expressing deep regret for having served "a sitting president asking for civil war."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Mike Pence's former chief counsel Greg Jacob testified to the committee that the whole idea – fake electors and all -- was to create a violence-inducing "constitutional jump ball" to create rage and confusion, with a void to be filled by the loser who wouldn't leave.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, plain and simple. People died, and democracy was gravely wounded.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Speaking of fraud, that's what the Department of Justice said Bannon did, claiming in 2020 that he siphoned from a fund ostensibly to raise private dollars to build a border wall. He got a Trump pardon, and returned to being one of America's loudest voices for political chaos.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">If one wants a "smoking gun" on Donald Trump's intentions for Jan. 6, it comes from the caldron of chaos that is Bannon's own mouth.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">After two phone calls Jan. 5 with the president, Bannon broadcast, "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's all converging and now we're on the point of attack."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Attack? The attack on democracy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Again, where did they find these goons? Before he became editor of Breitbart, the online MAGA mouthpiece, Bannon was involved in a deep-data exploitation operation called Cambridge Analytica.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The now-defunct company, a client of the Trump campaign (after having helped Ted Cruz in his losing bid for the GOP nomination) dug into online activities of millions of average Americans on Facebook and then used targeted fake social media posts, pure disinformation, to influence them in advance of the 2016 election.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Read about it in the book "Mindf*ck" by former Cambridge Analytica insider Christopher Wylie.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.75pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In particular, posts were meant to discourage Black Americans from voting at all. It was cunningly evil. No bloc was more crucial to Donald Trump's victory than those who didn't vote.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> So, how in the world did Trump and Bannon end up in a position to blow up the democracy that's the envy of the world? Apathy and disinformation, that's how.</span><img width="1" height="1" align="left" hspace="12"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>. </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-35187960228259609042022-07-10T22:08:00.001-05:002022-07-10T22:08:40.782-05:00Now, Coach will lead us in satanic verses<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">When my son was in fifth grade in Texas, he found himself a pawn in a morality play. Literally.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">His teacher, Mrs. Thrasher, had scripted a performance about early settlers taming the land. It was pastoral. Literally.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Central to the plot was the felling of trees and the milling of wood, presumably to build a cabin, or North America's first Starbucks.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">The audience presumed wrong. The communal quest was fulfilled when the lumber was erected – into a cross.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">My wife and I later would refer to the play as "Deforestation for Christ."</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">It was a stunning imposition of the teacher's religion not only on the class but on an audience.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">This was just one wrinkle of an unabashedly evangelical quest for a person whose position of authority was granted by taxpayers.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Parents later learned that Mrs. Thrasher was leaning on her students to join a campus Bible club she was forming.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">To the school district's great credit – this was Texas, after all -- she was fired for refusing to acknowledge that as a representative of the state her job was not to push her religion on captive audiences.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">This made her a local folk hero among others who believe this to be a "Christian nation" and who think that the government's role is to make you, me and that guy on the corner more holy.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">They say the worst thing that ever happened to schools is the end of organized school prayer. They call it "God removed from our schools." That's as much of a lie and deceit as "pro-life" for those who would engage the state of Texas in each woman's reproductive cycle.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Rest assured, for them it was "Praise Jesus" time when the Supreme Court ruled on behalf of a Bremerton, Wash., football coach who decided his calling is to make his religiosity a 50-yard-line spectacle.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Unanswered would be the court's position if the marching band formed a pentagram and played "Sympathy for the Devil."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Justice Neil Gorsuch's opinion said at issue was one man humbly offering "prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied."</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">That's a Trumpian falsehood. Video of coach Joseph Kennedy doing his thing shows a loud and zealous group activity that continued to grow in zeal.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If he's</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:red"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">unplugged from Youtube, Justice Gorsuch could read press accounts including one in the Seattle Times of swarms of people from both sides of the field "hopping the fences and rushing to the field to be close to Kennedy before he started his prayer."<img width="1" height="1"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">And there was no question about the coach's motives, either. He said the objective wasn't observing his faith in private but "helping these kids be better people."</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">In other words, he wasn't pulling a Tim Tebow. He was pulling a Billy Graham.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">In the hands of this Supreme Court, the separation of church and state – and the liberties it protects -- stands to take a battering.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Yes, liberties – freedom of people of varied faiths to handle their business without imposition, interference or sponsorship from the government.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">One of the great deceits of the religious right, and of the court majority, is that restrictions on states like the prohibition on school prayer are averse to religion.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">It is just the opposite. The reason the founders included the religion clause of the First Amendment was to prevent the oppression posed by piously tyrannical majorities in the homelands of America's early settlers.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Prayer isn't calisthenics. The state can tell you to run laps to keep your pads.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">The state can say, "Give me 20 pushups." But it's against the spirit and intent of the First Amendment for the state to say, in the form of a full-of-himself coach, "Now, gather around to pray" -- even if a reckless court now says it's OK.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Those who represent us have no business casting anyone in their morality plays.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span><span style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-88289700893711446442022-07-03T21:48:00.001-05:002022-07-03T21:48:21.432-05:00Trump's only defense starts with "I"<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">From what we've learned from the Jan. 6 Committee, Donald Trump may have to deploy a novel defense against the crime of seditious conspiracy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Insanity.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This one must deduce from comments about the hurdle of "state of mind and intent" prosecutors would need to demonstrate to prove criminality.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">To that effect, Trump World should be aggressively changing its tune in reacting to the explosive testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Now, take notes, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson. You're all going to have to be on the same page if you want to keep him out of the clink. All together, now:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Of course, he assaulted a Secret Service agent and attempted to steer the limo to the Jan. 6 melee.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Of course, he threw plates of food at the White House wall.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Of course, he sought to lie and cheat his way back into the presidential residence – our residence -- he so soiled.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Of course. Of course. Of course. Why? Because he is Donald Trump. Does the law even apply to people insane with power lust?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">At the risk of self-promoting, at this point I must return to something I wrote in 2019 about the first impeachable (and removable) thing a red-handed Trump was caught doing.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">When first reports emerged that he sought to extort "a favor" from Ukraine's president to help facilitate a political hatchet job, I wrote this "Question to admirers of Donald Trump":</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"When suspicions first were raised, did the man you helped elect sound like someone who asked the president of a foreign country to investigate the son of a political opponent?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"Ah ha. You nodded your head. Ever so slightly, you did.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"Or maybe you said, 'Hell, yeah.'"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Hell yeah. By now we know him all too well. Trump did what's alleged before the Jan. 6 committee – conspired to defraud the U.S. government (by extension you and me), raged against anything (such as truth) in his way, incited a riot, did nothing to save the lives endangered or lost, or the democracy teetering on the brink. Oh, and he fraudulently raised a lot of money doing it.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">His only defense is insanity.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Tucker, Sean, Laura, "Fox & Friends": Do you want your preferred president to be gobbling up air time with collect calls from federal prison?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Then go with the insanity defense. Of course, he menaced that agent. Of course, the condiments flew.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Per today's Trump World talking point: Trying to deconstruct the case about the man's criminality into whether his fingerprints were on the agent's throat is an artful dodge about the whole mess – the conspiracy, the fraud, the violence – that these hearings are about.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">But if you want to focus on those things, Team, say, "Yeah, the guy was out of his mind. He did it. Patently insane. Not guilty!"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Cassidy Hutchinson is of sound mind, and of eyes and ears. Not only that, she was down the hall. She was a birdie putt away.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Did you hear Trump say he barely knows her? Then he proceeded to rip her like, um, he knows her. Which is it? Do you know her or do you not? Don't bother. Plead state of mind.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What Trump did right there is an element of what prosecutors label "consciousness of guilt." The primary definition is concocting a "false alibi."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Wait? Did you know her? Or did you not?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Don't try to explain what Trump knew. Let the defense team take over:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"He doesn't know anything that can be held against him, your honor. He's out of his mind."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Everything we've learned since Jan. 6 fits exactly what we know of Trump – corrupt, conniving, venal and driven by self-interest, or at least what Vlad Putin deems that to be.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">It's an open-and-shut case of criminality, corruption and treason. Cassidy Hutchinson had to ask, who in his right mind would have even contemplated it? The man down the hall did.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-51420664785806749312022-06-26T22:46:00.001-05:002022-06-26T22:46:53.421-05:00What non-voters have wrought<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Last May, Gallup found eight of 10 Americans supported the right the Supreme Court just tossed in history's waste basket – the right for a woman to choose.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Next to go? Same-sex marriage in states bold enough to abolish it. A person's right to use contraception also is threatened.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What thereafter? Prohibition of interracial marriage? Resegregation of lunch counters?</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Last week's ruling on abortion rights shows no precedent is going to stop Republican appointees from doing what partisans hired them to do.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Such are fruits reaped for leaving the most consequential matters in American history up to chance.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The chance that one justice would die on the cusp of a presidential election.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The chance that a previously pro-choice con man would become president with millions fewer votes than his progressive challenger.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The chance that on any number of matters – gun laws, reproductive rights, voting rights – the nation can and will be governed by a minority of a minority.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">And we aren't just talking of the Cruz Caucus in a filibustered Senate.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In 2016 a lot of Republicans held their noses and voted for the Orange Con. They knew that the essence of the quest was control of the Supreme Court.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Meanwhile a whole bunch of squishy centrists and haven't-given-it much thought progressives, particularly at a tender age of self-induced ignorance, didn't vote.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">They convinced themselves that it didn't matter, that "there's no difference between the parties," or, "Hillary's going to win."</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The local newspaper where I live interviewed collegians wearing "Vote for Nobody" buttons. Hardee har-har.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The Electoral College wasn't the reason behind the con man's gaining the power to populate the courts in 2016. Apathy was.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Four years later sufficient Americans were appalled by the con man that they removed him from office. Too late for what would happen to the Supreme Court.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Three Supreme Court vacancies presented themselves in the four years prior, including one opened up when Senate Republicans denied even a hearing to Barack Obama's nominee.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">So, two points: (1) elections matter; (2) parties matter.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Never in modern history have the two major political parties presented such stark differences – on abortion rights, on LGBTQ rights, on voting rights, on gun laws, on corporate control of lawmaking.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Oh, yes, corporate control. The conservative control of this court is corporate – the result of years of big-money plotting by interests like the Koch dynasty and proxies in the Federalist Society.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This is what we have because too many voters left too much of governing up to chance.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This matter goes back to when another Republican ascended to the presidency with fewer votes than his opponent.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Lest we forget: That man, George W. Bush, appointed Samuel Alito, author of last week's ruling, along with Chief Justice John Roberts.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In 2000 much was made of an already conservative Supreme Court siding with Bush in awarding Florida to him. Much was made of the unfairness of the Electoral College.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">But the Supreme Court didn't award Florida to Bush. Nor did the voters who thought they were voting for Al Gore but were confused by ballots into voting for Patrick Buchanan.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What awarded the presidency to Bush was the thousands of progressive Floridians who cast a protest vote for Ralph Nader, somehow a blow for a greener world.<img width="1" height="1"></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Ironic it was then that Gore -- too squishy for Nader voters –<s> </s>would win the Nobel Peace Prize for heroic efforts to warn the planet about what carbon pollution is doing to it and to us.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The bottom line: People who believe in all of the things Republicans oppose – abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, expanded voting rights, stronger gun laws -- have got to start voting against the those who would put the minority in charge on our highest court.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This is going to happen, in increasing numbers.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Trump himself, while crowing of his anti-choice achievement on Fox News, privately has warned that the Supreme Court's abortion ruling will hurt the GOP at the polls.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Darned right.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The lesson to voters: Stop leaving your government up to chance.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:107%"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-37474270671158263142022-06-19T22:04:00.001-05:002022-06-19T22:04:18.708-05:00Deputized to defend abortion rights<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Rattle, rattle. What's that sound? It's a big-government conservative picking through the garbage of a woman alleged to have been pregnant.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Click, click. That's big-government conservatives hacking into a woman's menstrual cycle app.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">When politicians make a woman's private medical decisions their own, things like this can happen.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Indeed, President Biden this week was pondering several measures, including having the Federal Trade Commission order the makers of apps that track menstrual cycles to warn users that their bodily functions could become prosecutorial fodder.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">I hadn't considered the true ramifications of today's red-state rush to ban abortion until I read a fiery New York Times commentary from Fairfax County, Va., district attorney Steve Descano.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Descano is among a growing group of prosecutors who say they will not go after women or providers impacted by laws that criminalize abortion.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">He wrote of "Orwellian" means tailored to Republican ends, say, if a woman had to prove to the state that a miscarriage was not an abortion.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Anti-abortion zealots will call that an overwrought notion. They won't blink, however, at laws right out of Orwell like deputizing citizens to sue providers and those who aid in abortions after fetal cardiac activity is noted, around six weeks into a pregnancy. The Texas Legislature crafted this bill in its 2021 session.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">It is encouraging to hear of people like Descano and jurisdictions that won't play along with the quest to criminalize a woman's medical decisions.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The Austin City Council would effectively decriminalize abortion with a resolution putting it the very bottom of law enforcement priorities. Other cities like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are considering similar measures.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Now it's time for all in the majority of Americans who support a woman's right to act on that feeling.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Consider yourselves deputized.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Joe Biden is doing it by considering options to preserve women's control of their own bodies.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">One is to declare a national health emergency should the Supreme Court overturn Roe vs. Wade. Another would be to use federal authority to prevent states from prohibiting out-of-state travel to obtain health services.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Another would assert federal preeminence over state bans of abortion medication obtained across state lines.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">To that end, on behalf of all deputized to defend reproductive rights, let me share this web site: <a href="http://shareabortionpill.info/" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">shareabortionpill.info</span></a></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">It holds the key to obtaining abortion medication in a state that prohibits it, along with support from the growing number of entities.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Be a supporter.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Lend a hand, financially and vocally, to Planned Parenthood and organizations that do so much heavy lifting to help women control their own reproductive destinies.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">No, we aren't just talking about abortion, though that's all the anti-choice right wants to talk about.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The anti-choice right, and scandalously, the leadership of the Republican Party, not only is a sworn enemy of Roe but also of contraception and its providers.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The Republican vendetta against Planned Parenthood is a disgrace – and indefensible – considering that no entity does more to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies and, by logical extension, the abortion dilemma.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">To any big-government conservative who says, "How dare police and district attorneys not enforce an abortion ban" – what have you been saying when sheriffs in rural counties have refused to enforce red flag and other gun measures? Likely you've applauded them. Great Americans. Supporters of freedom.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Yes, freedom. Freedom to consult one's doctor. Freedom to decide how many mouths to feed.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">With a Supreme Court ruling imminent, we are at the juncture where the dog that chased the car – the religious right with the Republican Party its master – catches the car and gets a bumper smack in the grill. The GOP will not prosper politically from this.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">All deputized to defend reproductive rights must make sure the GOP feels the bite at the polls.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-52112840255028834762022-06-12T22:42:00.001-05:002022-06-12T22:42:38.926-05:00The lie is what these hearings are about<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The polls say Liz Cheney will get scorched in August's Wyoming primary.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">No surprise there. Donald Trump is The Man in a state where carbon is god and carbines are currency.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Wyoming's ruling majority embodies Trump's boast: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Or he could sit on his hands during a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Or revel at chants about executing his vice president.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Or piece together a political conspiracy to flush this democracy down the drain.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The horrors portrayed by the Jan. 6 committee will not penetrate enough consciences in Cheney's state to reward her own acts of conscience.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">But Cheney won the evening – and assured herself a role in history's retelling -- when she said of her many Republican cohorts, "There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The Fox News crowd can ignore them. The hearings will pierce enough consciences to further wound Trump and the party that continues to look the other way at his crimes and conniving.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In advance of the hearings, I was concerned that Day 1 mostly would be a chronology of the Capitol riot, a "seen it" matter for those not inclined to relive it.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">To my immense pleasure, the first night did a masterful job of interweaving two crimes: the terrorist attack and the Big Lie that underpinned it.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Wow. What a testimony in the widened my-dad's-a-serial-liar eyes of Ivanka Trump.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">What a testimony in the shrug of Jared Kushner, that the threatened resignations of those Trump put atop the Justice Department team were just "whining."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">"Whining." I imagine that's what Kushner had to say about Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards who told of getting bear-sprayed, tear-gassed and crushed under a big-bellied mob.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">All of this suffering. All of this trauma. All because of a lie and a liar. The most skilled and practiced liar in American history.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">As former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC, Donald Trump "embraced immoral lying all his life and thought he could get away with the ultimate lie of all."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">A lie? Tucker Carlson says the whole Jan. 6 narrative is one of those. "It wasn't an insurrection," he hyperventilated as the committee convened. Tucker is going to play the semantics game. The terrorists were playing a head-cracking game.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The good thing about where these hearings appear headed is that the lie is the thing.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Ah, but, "Trump was just exercising his right to free speech at the Ellipse." "He couldn't know a riot would emanate." "There's no evidence he conspired directly with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers." </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The fact is, all of these matters are immaterial. This is all about the lie and the conspiracy to make it into reality.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The lie was why the rioters were there. Co-conspirators like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Mike Lee, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are central to why rioters were ready for war.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Trump continues to prosecute that lie, continues to raise money to advance the lie. This is not good for the party that has sworn allegiance to him.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">What becomes of Liz Cheney after conscience-less voters vote her out? Here is my fondest wish:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Cheney should run as a third-party candidate for president. Former GOP chairman Michael Steele asserts there's a growing political segment called "accountability Republicans" who would cringe to vote Democrat but don't want another Trump presidency.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">It would also mean that at every debate, and every step of Trump's candidacy, she would be there, reminding voters of what he is all about.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Cheney as an option on the ticket would be the death knell for the Trump phenomenon.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Then Trump truly will be gone, leaving in office only those whose dishonor will remain.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-36201889438457219252022-06-05T22:03:00.001-05:002022-06-05T22:03:23.979-05:00Big Lie hearings will make memories<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">I wonder if anyone else my age thinks of Watergate as a bonding experience. I certainly do.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">I was home from college. My father and I watched every second of the congressional hearings, he on his olive-green recliner, me on the floor, sometimes gripping the tan ottoman as we watched the Nixon administration unravel in a cavalcade of lies.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">A similar opportunity awaits with public hearings on Jan. 6 and the Big Lie, starting Thursday evening June 9.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Pull up an ottoman.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Not to equate Jan. 6 and Watergate. They don't compare. In scope and intent, Donald Trump's effort to subvert democracy is Hurricane Katrina, and Watergate is but a spring mist.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Back in '73 we got to know the names: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson, Liddy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Crooks they were, con men, serving a man who said he wasn't one of those.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Ah, memories.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Now let Americans be reminded of those who not only helped organize an insurrection but conspired in the shadows to literally wrench democracy from the voters' hands.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Let Americans know about Trump's role.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">For a long time, the issue seemed to be that while rioters were overtaking the Capitol, Trump was silent. Now we know that he was celebrating it, even the urgings of his trained goons to hang his vice president.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Let's hear about that.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Let's hear about the parade of people who urged Trump to show a thimble full of conscience and express his outrage. Instead, his message to the terrorists was, "We love you."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">There's so much more for Americans to know. We deserve to know more about the fake electors lined up to make it so the 2020 election never happened. A Georgia grand jury right now is hearing about that abomination.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">We deserve to know more about the war-room strategy of Trump toadies in Congress to stop the count in hopes that Mike Pence would throw out what the people did. Of course, he had no such power. He said so. Then Trump issued a statement saying Pence said just the opposite.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">As a liar, Trump makes Richard Nixon look like Nathan Hale. Hale had only one life to give for his country. What a sucker. To hold power, Trump would let his country die.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The truth about the Big Lie is that it wasn't precipitated by anything that happened on Election Day 2020. Trump telegraphed his claims of a rigged election long before the voters said, "Out."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The morning after his 3 million-vote drubbing, Trump strode to the mike and delivered, what Jonathan Karl, in his book "Betrayal," calls "perhaps the most dangerous speech by a president ever."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">That's where the Big Lie was born -- Trump saying he had won, and won by a lot, calling the results of the election a "fraud on the American public."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The seeds of insurrection had been sown.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">At this point, more than 150 people who broke the law Jan. 6 have been convicted. One law-breaker is at the fifth tee right now.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">There's a useless discussion about whether the Jan. 6 hearings will change minds. For those who subscribe to the disinformation of Fox News talkers, no way.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">But a lot of people, the independent voters who don't hang on Sean Hannity's every word, will be listening and be reminded, some forewarned in detailed fashion, of the threat Donald Trump and his Republican Party present to our nation.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Those memories will linger.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Right now, adherents of the Big Liar are drawing up plans to subvert all elections with the goal of gaslighting voters in the next presidential election to re-install their guy as president. Where possible, they are installing election deniers to administer voting --foxes salivating in the hen house.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Nothing Richard Nixon ever conceived matched what Donald Trump tried and his supporters continue to try.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Another key distinction: When Nixon's connivers and conspirators were sent on their penal ways, they were done.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><img width="1" height="1"></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Trump and his conspirators are not done.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-76271284001250108582022-05-29T23:26:00.000-05:002022-05-29T23:27:03.998-05:00'Warning signs'? How about at point of purchase?<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">As Donald Trump butchered the names of the 21 Uvalde dead, a ghoulish gong chimed for each.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">That's not what was heard by those he addressed at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Each gong was a "ka-ching."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"Ka-ching" for gun sales to come, for appliances of death to fly off shelves, for profits to swell. They always do after a major mass shooting, you know.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">So, too, with campaign funds.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Trump got a standing O. Ted Cruz, too. That's some courage. A group pays you gobs of campaign stash to do something. You do it. People stand, applaud, and donate more.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">This is a simple transaction.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Transactions – riches exchanged for the power to kill -- are what this is all about, not the Constitution. The gun lobby's (and the GOP's) interpretation of the Second Amendment, said Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Republican appointee, was "one of the biggest pieces of fraud on the American people by special interest groups."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Recently Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted to chide Texans at figures showing California tops in gun sales and Texas No 2.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Let's keep that hardware flowing. The better to fund our campaigns.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"Arm teachers," say Cruz and fellow NRA marionettes. Texas has allowed this for some time. Few teachers are willing. All of them should be affronted that they are asked to do what Ted Cruz won't – step forward and do something to save lives.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What a high-caliber canard from the Thoughts and Prayers Caucus.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"Arm teachers" ignores the other venues where heavily armed and armored individuals have laid innocents low with weapons of war – which is just about anywhere.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Except at NRA pow-wows – no guns allowed there.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">'Warning signs" are things we contemplate, and about which news services report, when things like this happen. Mostly we read about messages on social media from young maniacal males telegraphing their deeds. Rarely do they make it a secret.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Everyone should take those words seriously. But the most acute "warning sign" is when that young man plunks down money for an assault weapon, a truckload of ammo and tactical gear.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Whoever sells it to him has blood on his hands.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The Constitution does not convey the right of anyone to buy any weapon imaginable. The assault weapons ban that a Republican majority in Congress allowed to lapse in 2004 was upheld by the courts. "To bear arms" doesn't mean "any and all arms."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Those who say such restrictions don't do a thing are ignorant of the facts.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In the first four and half years of that ban on the sale and importation of specified weapons, signed by President Clinton in 1994, the nation had no – zero – mass shootings.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The fact that so many AR and AK weapons are in circulation should be noted as wholly irrelevant. The objective should be to put up official roadblocks at every step and start to curb their rush into human hands.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">As to another canard – that there's no such thing as an "assault weapon" – the answer should be: An assault weapon is whatever we, the people, say it is.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Similar logic should apply to high-capacity magazines. How much is too much firepower? It should be what we, the people, deem it to be.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The National Rifle Association should not write our laws. Those are our laws. This land is our land.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Gun violence is the greatest crisis this country has ever faced. Last year alone 17,555 Americans died at the end of a gun.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">That toll being just shy of six 9/11 catastrophes, we should have precautions that are six times as stringent.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">That would mean a ban on the sale of assault weapons, universal background checks, FBI probes for social media threats or the purchase of excessive ammunition or Kevlar vests. And that should just be the beginning.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">At the NRA meeting ("No time to politicize these things") Trump ended his purely political appeal to friends and donors with what one report called a "cha-cha dance."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">So solemn, so respectful in the face of tragedy. But then, the media had misreported. He was actually doing the "ka-ching" dance.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-49774364017964395642022-05-23T22:01:00.001-05:002022-05-23T22:01:42.091-05:00'Replacement theory' is designer ignorance<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:12pt"> Dear Fox News viewer: Whatever you might think about "critical race theory," one thing it hasn't done is kill anyone.</span><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Not like the "replacement theory" Tucker Carlson can't stop talking about, the "great replacement" that drove a man many miles to a grocery store in Buffalo to shoot Black people.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> The same idea, Tucker's pet talking point, motivated a gunman to kill 23 brown-skinned people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> It's the same idea that has been so politically profitable for a certain political demagogue who won the presidency in 2016. Find your constituents. Scare your constituents.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Hear Cynthia Miller-Idriss, senior fellow with the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> "Rhetoric that uses the word 'replace' definitely legitimizes and reinforces the idea of a 'great replacement.' Language like 'invasion,' 'incursion,' 'defense,' all reinforce the idea of a threat."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Throw in "caravan." All are preferred terms of Donald Trump and MAGA zealots.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Of course, if we understand American history, we realize that the forefathers of MAGA were marginalized and terrorized.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> The Irish. The Germans. The Italians. "Coming to replace us."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> What were Protestants protesting, anyway? Repression at the hands of the majority. They were the "others" across the ocean.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> The root of the Baptist denomination was the oppression of a tyrannical sectarian majority and the imperative of separating church and state.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> This is American history. It is fascinating that people who spread fear and distrust keep these truths at education's margins, and put myths about Manifest Destiny front and center.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> That brings us to what candidates seeking to appeal to aggrieved whites (aggrieved about . . .?) have chosen as the boogieman of the moment: "critical race theory."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Rather than attempt to dissect what exactly the term means, let's just say that what opponents fear is too much truth.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Too much truth can make you think.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Here are some truths:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> The vast majority of Black soldiers who fought and died for freedom overseas in World War II were excluded from the GI Bill of Rights.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> This is because lawmakers in the South made sure the federal program was administered by states, putting Jim Crow segregationists in charge of the many benefits returning soldiers expected and white soldiers enjoyed.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> That may be the clearest example of how institutional racism is part of this nation's DNA. And I know that if the preceding words were in a textbook in Texas, Florida and a host of states run by social censors, they would never see the light of day. If the state didn't censor them, the teacher would, in order to keep a job increasingly in peril.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin shamelessly campaigned for governor on the supposed threat posed by critical race theory. In victory, he issued an executive order banning it, whatever the term means.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In practice, for instance,I presume it means Virginia school children have no chance of learning that Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924, which, in prohibiting interracial marriage and otherwise legitimizing segregation, defined a white person as having "no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Institutional racism? A scurrilous claim!</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if the Buffalo shooter had repeatedly seen the truth about America's history of racial exclusion and the hysteria historically aimed at the "others," he would possess a shred of life-sparing empathy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Jim Crow was at the height of his glory, the Ku Klux Klan ruling many statehouses, when in a speech to the Urban League in 1946, Albert Einstein said the truth about America's racist underpinnings must never be obscured:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> "The taboo 'let's-not-talk-about-it' must be broken. It must be pointed out time and time again," saying the treatment of people of color was "a slap in the face of the Constitution."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> This treatment of "the other" is the story of all of us. People who know it are far more prone to understand those of us who still feel the weight of yesterday's oppression.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Education saves lives. Designer ignorance kills.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-79111168714682229482022-05-15T23:45:00.001-05:002022-05-15T23:45:55.650-05:00To serve his country, not a conniving president<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In his book about testifying in Donald Trump's first impeachment inquiry, Alexander Vindman recounts a heated argument with his Russian immigrant father.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> "Support the president," his father shouted. "Do whatever the president wants."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> But Vindman, a decorated Army lieutenant colonel, knew his obligation was to his country, not to a corrupt and conniving leader.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> And so Vindman testified against Trump, his commander in chief. Then he felt the wrath of right-wing barkers and a cast of reality TV players posing as public servants.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In his memoir, "Here, Right Matters," Vindman writes that the urgings of his father, a Trump supporter, were conditioned by a Soviet system in which acceding to power and to "backroom corruption" was the only way to survive.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In that way the elder was right. Vindman was committing career suicide.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> But Vindman voices not a shred of regret.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> It was his job to observe the infamous 2019 call between Trump and Ukraine's leader in which Trump tried to use U.S. tax dollars as a lever toward a political dirty deed.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Vindman courageously reported Trump's attempt to extort the struggling nation for petty political purposes.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Agreeing to testify in the hearings about Trump's actions, he was electronically crucified on cable TV. Then the White House stripped him of his foreign-service duties.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> In 2019, with Russia menacing the country, our president was blocking the very sustenance keeping Ukraine from being consumed by Vladimir Putin's forces.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Trump freed up the aid to Ukraine only after reports about his plot broke in the press and Democrats in Congress demanded answers.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Vindman, the National Security Council point man on Ukraine, watched with horror as assistance to Ukraine hung in the balance over what he calls "sleazy domestic political considerations."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Any so-called public servant who looked the other way in the face of this wasn't interested in serving the country but his or her own partisan skin – Soviet-style.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Vindman's four-word reaction to his treatment by Republican inquisitors in his hearings summed it up: "Truth was their enemy."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> As for the transcript of the notorious "do us a favor" call, Vindman confirms it was doctored so as not to show how explicit Trump was about the anti-Joe Biden claims he wanted to plant in Zelensky's ear.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> What we know now is that apart from an actual investigation of spurious allegations, Trump wanted a statement from Zelensky that his government was investigating Biden, whether it did or not. This was a staggering abuse of presidential power. Trump shouldn't have served one more day in office.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Even without actions that launched the third impeachment trial in American history -- with another to come before Trump was ousted – Vindman writes that he saw enough to consider Trump unfit.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Vindman writes that he observed "inattention to any policy, much less foreign policy."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Because Trump "never provided any policy guidance," Vindman writes, "nobody in responsible circles took his remarks seriously on policy direction."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> One direction was clear, however, writes Vindman: an alarming stance of "accommodation and appeasement toward Russia," paired with an "inexplicable hostility toward Ukraine."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Americans should cringe when Republican enablers express their concern for the security of the country Trump tried to screw. This includes lawmakers who authorized that aid in 2019 and watched Trump dangle it like a ball of yarn.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> To read what Vindman's experienced, including his dismissal from his job and his unplanned retirement from the military, is to feel his loneliness in dealing with people who not only excuse but embrace one man's ruthlessness and criminality.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Rather than the "traitor" Fox News squawkers called him, Vindman is a true patriot who believes in a nation of shared interests and fundamental principles like service over self.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> One can be excused, however, in reading his memoir and seeing ours as not one nation indivisible but as dueling tribes that have lost any sense of commonality.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-82107863608378679512022-05-09T09:19:00.001-05:002022-05-09T09:19:17.992-05:00Silent squires of suffering without Roe<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> This is not about Alito, or Kavanaugh, or Gorsuch, or the Federalist Society, our now de facto judicial branch.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> This is about Olivia. She's 16. A beauty. A waitress. She met a guy. Dreamy. Twenty-two. Great car. Said he loved her. Then an EPT changed his tune. He lost that loving feeling. He's gone.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> A little romance, and a little statutory rape. To the Republicans who rule Olivia's state, it doesn't matter. Nor does any other contingency that would face a woman when a pregnancy brings lawmakers, mostly male, into her life.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Her body, her privacy, her medical decision, is not hers. It is theirs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Again, this is about Olivia. The smooth-talking sire will bear no penalty. Men in good suits will bear no penalty, will never know inconvenience.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Or maybe on Election Day they will. This election and the next. Maybe the majority of Americans consistently supporting abortion rights will rise up and be counted.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> No more apathy, no more assumptions that a woman's reproductive decisions, and Americans' privacy rights, will be protected by the Constitution.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> That majority must make Republican lawmakers defend their choice, over and over.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Does anyone remember when it was hard to tell between Democrats and Republicans? I do. Kennedy and Nixon had so little that distinguished each other that their only true disagreement in their televised debates came down to the disposition of Quemoy and Matsu.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Don't bother to look them up.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Now, the GOP has become a party of raw oppression. Democrats, or at least the vast majority holding public office, are the defenders of the oppressed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Roe vs. Wade was so "egregiously" decided that 50 years of courts upheld it over and over and over.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> But then, across that half century, justices were presumed to be about the law, and precedent, not what might tip a primary election.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> And so here we are. Republicans and Fox News commentators want to talk about who leaked the fact that this court is about to dynamite Roe. They don't dare talk about what this will do to women.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Not a word. Like Olivia's boyfriend, they are mute, assuming they are immune to the consequences of what they've done. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> It is all sobering and scandalous: Like a con man ascending to the presidency with a million fewer votes than his opponent. Like a Senate refusing to have hearings for one Supreme Court nominee and rushing to have hearings for another.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> This is not majority rule. This is a few having their way over the rest of a nation, and over the Constitution.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The tendency is to say, "These things happen." That's a cop-out.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The right to abortion hung in the balance going into the 2016 presidential election. Republicans knew what the stakes were. A lot of people who are aghast at what the Supreme Court is poised to do didn't think things through. They stayed home that Election Day.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> A lot of people want to blame the Electoral College for this development. Others want to blame the filibuster. Neither is correct.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The reason this happened was because of apathy – apathy that bequeathed us the Trump presidency, apathy that ceded the bullet points of this discussion to "pro-life" propagandists.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The demise of Roe will be a national tragedy. But now the battle lines are clear. They are in each state and each legislature.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> No one running for statehouse should be allowed to waltz onto a stage without a succinct explanation of his or her stance on empowering the state to order a woman to gestate to term.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> No one running for Congress or the statehouse should be allowed to wink away what happens when a woman is victimized by rape, incest or faces a life-threating pregnancy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Alito, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will never have to face what Olivia now must. But we must make every lawmaker face the ramifications of what these justices decide.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-5495618177043168162022-05-01T23:49:00.001-05:002022-05-01T23:49:35.498-05:00Staggering toll of willful negligence<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> With an American death toll soon to reach 1 million from COVID-19, Crede Bailey is a whole other statistic.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> It didn't kill him. It only took his leg and ruined his lungs.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> I wouldn't know of Bailey's suffering had I not read about his boss's staggering negligence in Jonathan Karl's "Betrayal."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Bailey was director of Donald Trump's security office. As such he was one of many victims of what Karl calls "almost total disregard for COVID protocols" in the early stages of the pandemic.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Bailey was hospitalized for three months, ultimately suffering permanent damage to his lungs and amputation of the lower part of his right leg.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> This from an illness that Trump said at a campaign rally "affects virtually no one at all." </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Karl's book has drawn most of its attention for describing the events of Jan. 6 and Trump's efforts to nullify his rejection by voters.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> However, its depiction on how the Trump White House behaved during the pandemic is every bit as scandalous.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> People continue to die from the pandemic Trump so brazenly dismissed.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> No employer would have been allowed to endanger his employees like Trump did -- and by extension, the people he swore to defend and protect.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Chris Christie spent a week in intensive care battling the disease after attending a super-spreader event at the White House staged for TV and the introduction of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> He had dodged a bullet earlier when, in helping prep Trump for a debate, he was in close contact with Trump aide Hope Hicks, who was infected.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Unlike any responsible entity in the midst of a deadly pandemic, the White House didn't inform Christie or others that they might be infected. He found that out from a CNN reporter who told him of Hicks' illness and asked how he was.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Trump apparently couldn't care less.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> There was the deadly cover-up about Trump's blowing off COVID testing as he prepared to join Joe Biden on a stage in Cleveland.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> When Trump got the virus and was himself in ICU, it became a lie-filled TV extravaganza, with white-coated props sent out to dismiss what later was shown to have been a very serious situation.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Did we say extravaganza? That certainly was the case when Trump returned to the White House for a diva moment on the balcony. It could have been even more outrageous. Aides told Karl that Trump had talked to them about wearing a Superman shirt under his suit and ripping off his dress shirt to reveal his "S."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> It was all a joke to the man, or at least he wanted to downplay the threat at every turn.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Meanwhile, people died.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Last week documents from the Centers for Disease Control revealed how the White House shot down recommendations that churches begin hosting services remotely or with drive-through services rather than spread the virus through singing, hugging and prayer.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Interestingly, the White House lawyer who prepared the memo, found reason for a yuck: "I will say that if I was old and vulnerable (I do feel old and vulnerable), drive-through services would sound welcome."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> And now we have a million dead Americans – many of whom are dead because the leader they venerated executed his official duties so callously. Tragically, many of his followers comported themselves the very same way.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> The disease Trump said would cause so little suffering – no worse than the flu – over the last two years was the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Another staggering number: an estimated 200,000 American children have lost one or both parents to the disease.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Now vaccines stunt its devastation. But before vaccines, an ounce of prevention would have saved lives, and at least one man's lungs and limb.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-81534749157120291262022-04-24T19:41:00.001-05:002022-04-24T19:41:42.700-05:00Of legal weed and monkeys on the wing<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Why did Texas Gov. Greg Abbott back down and revoke the wrench he threw into truck traffic at the border?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Because it caused produce to rot and manufacturers to gasp for precious parts?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Because it broke the law – trade and borders being Congress' responsibility?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Because it was the biggest black eye since policy makers had to admit Texas was not impervious to winter?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> All are theories. Here's mine: New Mexico just legalized marijuana.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> That's right. And you know what that means: Texas has some arresting to do. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> So, summon all flying monkeys. Get the dungeons ready.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> On the subject of trade, New Mexico is about to have a harvest. Texas will show though steely resolve that incarceration is its most important product.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> New Mexico is acknowledging that pot shops are a ton better for public health than people behind bars.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Colorado came to realize this 10 years ago with legalization – voters making an end run on the Legislature with a referendum.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> No doubt New Mexicans observed the amazing commercial revival of Trinidad, Colo., the first Colorado city to its north on I-25.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The better times are about more than weed, but it is the most obvious jolt, as any visitor will see with all the refreshed storefronts there.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> So, get ready for better times, Clayton, N.M. Get ready, Tucumcari, Clovis and Hobbs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> And get ready, Texas penal industrial complex.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> A lot of Americans are aghast at what has happened to Texas' own Brittney Griner, the Baylor star locked in limbo in Russia for alleged possession of hash oil.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> What say, Texans? How about you, Arizonans and Oklahomans?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The fact is, what she now endures differs only by degree from what happens in the Land of the Free.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> A few years ago, I interviewed an Oklahoma man who was sentenced to 93 years in federal prison in Texas for growing marijuana in his basement for medicinal purposes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> His hands had grown purplish and gnarled from rheumatoid arthritis. He didn't want to be amped up on opioids to deal with it. That didn't matter to prosecutors.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> A judge finally reduced his sentence. Yet his horrible crime cost him four years of his life. How ridiculous.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Colorado recently expunged wholesale a mass of arrests and incarcerations for crimes involving pot. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> What a waste of taxpayers' money. What a waste of human potential.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> The people who fought legalization have not been able to convince Coloradans that they made a mistake in 2012. Meanwhile, the industry produced a windfall that helped the state balance its books and pay for schools.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Yes, legalization is good for the economy, not just because of the new business it generates but also because of the wasted law enforcement and corrections costs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Generations of hypocrisy have trailed the prohibition on pot, with alcohol causing far more human destruction.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> It is particularly outrageous for anyone to have a criminal record for an act that now is legal in 18 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Back to Texas embarrassment at the Mexico border.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> It was highly reminiscent of Greg Abbott's quest as attorney general to demonstrate that his state was awash with illegal voting. No, it wasn't.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> This time a pointless, showboating Abbott's caused trucks to stack up for miles but found zero drugs, no contraband, no illegal entrants. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Rats! So, send the winged hordes up to Texline, to Farwell, to Pine Springs and all Texas points along the New Mexico state line. Surely someone smelling funny can get hauled into headquarters and Texans can be made to feel safer. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-28843402736185614512022-04-17T22:50:00.001-05:002022-04-17T22:50:42.395-05:00The shrinking tent of Trump's GOP<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> "Big Tent Party." The words still ring in my ears.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> It was the 1992 GOP National Convention, which I covered at the Houston Astrodome, and the party wanted us all to know it welcomed all sorts.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Thirty years later, the party has become, without apology, a closed society.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The '92 convention didn't look like a big-tent affair. Almost no people of color, and ringing denunciations of the "gay agenda. But at least it had a platform that conventioneers could debate.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The 2020 platform featured no debate and no troubling details. Whatever Donald Trump wanted, that was it.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Speaking of discourse, the GOP just walked away from the Commission on Presidential Debates.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The message: Anything that doesn't comport with Trump-style confirmation bias is unacceptable.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The GOP complained about biased moderators (Chris Wallace? Martha Raddatz?). By its standards, the only acceptable journalists would be members of the Fox News toady brigade.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Trump said the commission sided with Joe Biden when it decided to mute candidates to prevent them (meaning Trump) from interrupting each other.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Speaking as a commission member, former senator John Danforth, a Republican, quipped that if he wanted to aid Biden, "the last thing I would have wanted" would be to prevent Trump from further embarrassing himself.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> On the closed-society front, Republicans in many states have set out to block or challenge open primaries by which independents might have a say in who gets the GOP nomination.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Clearly this is meant to benefit the hardest-core Trumpites, the ones most devoted to the Big Lie and right-wing conspiracy theories.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The party is doing everything possible to purge or marginalize anyone who does not proclaim "the election was stolen."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> With</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> its authoritarian tactics and with a Big Lie as its foundation, Trump's party has become a mirror image of Putin's party. The media is the enemy? Truth is the enemy.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><img width="1" height="1"></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an interview about Russian disinformation with Peter Pomerantsev, author of the 2019 book "This Is Not Propaganda" would make anyone think of Trump.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> He said that Putin's modern-day approach to controlling the narrative in his land wasn't just to lie about what he does but to confuse commoners with claims of "they're out to get you" conspiracies. Translation: Paranoia is the friend of despots.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Pomerantsev pointed to a "strategic message" – a "sort of cynicism that makes you dependent" on a strongman leader.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> He was speaking of Putin, but most clearly such messaging translates well in the MAGA world.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Only Trump speaks the truth. Anyone who questions him is the enemy. Foremost are the media and all those fact-checkers.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Trump, as with Putin, has established among his partisans that he owns truth, in essence to change reality.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> "It's a very old thing," says Pomerantsev. "By saying, 'I have power over reality,' he's saying, 'I have true power.'"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> The author is referring to Putin there, but the parallels with that other guy are most pronounced.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Back to that Astrodome gathering where conventioneers indulged insurgent Pat Buchanan's Trump-like "culture war" rant and embraced incumbent George H.W. Bush and GOP tradition.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> After the nomination, the extended Bush family bathed in confetti, a sitting president and one to come.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Today those still here from that '92 Bush family portrait detest Trump as one who has flouted norms and alliances, and who fomented a riot to nullify a lawful election. Their acknowledgement of these truths makes them "RINOs." Trump's party spits on them.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> In 2022 the GOP tent isn't big enough even for them.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(42,42,42)"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(80,0,80)"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-89128419634568018332022-04-10T23:02:00.001-05:002022-04-10T23:02:22.368-05:00I pledge allegiance to her right to sit<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Mari Oliver is my hero. Me and Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Abe Lincoln and so many people of consequence.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Much more consequence than, say, responsible figures at her school who harassed her because she would not recite the Pledge of Allegiance as Texas requires classes to do.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Much more consequence than the lawmakers who made it the law for her to stand and say something she didn't believe.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Theodore Roosevelt once called the questioning of authority "the first responsibility of every citizen." The high school senior did that in refusing to stand for the pledge, though slings and arrows flew.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Last week a court awarded her $90,000 for the grief she endured at Klein Oak High in Spring, Texas, when she refused to stand for the pledge.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Oliver said she refused because she doesn't believe this country guarantees "liberty and justice for all."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">She also objected to "under God," as this nation isn't founded "under God." It is founded under a constitution that gives no special prerogative to believers vs. non-believers.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">What the high-schooler did may make your molars ache, like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. But as Abe Lincoln wrote, "If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Texas also makes public school students recite the "Texas pledge" – 17 words including "under God." Never did that recitation make anyone more godly -- as if that ever were the state's function.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The oath says, "honor the Texas flag," something which also isn't within the state's authority. It's within Vladimir Putin's authority. It's within Kim Jung-un's authority and whichever mullah is running Iran.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that the state – a case involving Texas, nonetheless -- had no say in how Americans comport themselves around the U.S. flag. The ruling protected the most unpopular protest one could make: burning the flag.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Not only did the court protect the act, it elevated the status of its protection, as it is speech in protest of the government.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Some like Donald Trump have said we should nuke that constitutional protection. The funny thing is that the "official" ceremonial means of retiring a flag is to burn it in the hands of a veterans organization. Yeah, try writing <i>that </i>into the Constitution.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Those who can't stand provocative statements like Kaepernick's, like Mari Oliver's, like those of Black Lives Matter, bring to mind what Frederick Douglass said about those who "profess to favor freedom yet depreciate agitation."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">The whole effort to use the Constitution to scratch an authoritative itch, like banning flag burning or institutionalizing school prayer, suggests people who don't value freedom at all. They don't believe in human rights. They believe in the power of a social majority to inflict its will.<img width="1" height="1"></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">We see this increasingly in the assaults on libraries and public schools that seek to meet the needs of diverse student populations.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Those institutions are brick-and-mortar embodiments of the pluralism the founders intended.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">In the recriminations faced by Mari Oliver and protesters of police brutality, we see what Harry Truman had in mind when he said, "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Kaepernick was assailed for hating his country and disrespecting our fighting forces. Yeah, right.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">We'll give the last word to one of the great warriors for civil justice and activism, author James Baldwin:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">"I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:black">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-42755566304589161032022-04-04T13:18:00.001-05:002022-04-04T13:18:35.724-05:00So, GOP, now lying is disqualifying?<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The purpose here is not to defend Madison Cawthorn.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Madison Cawthorn is indefensible</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">With Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert and Paul Gosar, he's a member in good standing of the Congressional National Embarrassment Caucus.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The Republican from North Carolina is 26 but acts a decade younger. This tendency got him in trouble with Republican leaders when he claimed he was invited to orgies by fellow partisans in Congress. He also threw in that they did cocaine.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Later he admitted to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy this was a lie. Said untrustworthiness caused McCarthy and other key GOP leaders to denounce him.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">As stated, I'm not here to defend Cawthorn. But why penalize him for lying?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">We are talking of a party that has built itself around a lie, the biggest lie in American history -- religiously, devoutly, without shame.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">This is a party built to the specifications of the disgraced, twice-impeached ex-president who continues to promote the Big Lie with each sunrise.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Not only does he promote the Big Lie in word, he did so in deed Jan. 6 as the Capitol was terrorized over his calculated falsehoods.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I invite anyone who takes these matters lightly to read "Betrayal" by Jonathan Karl, who covered the Trump White House for ABC News. By the way, "Betrayal" isn't Karl's term alone. It also comes from William Barr, Trump's man at Justice once upon a time, who said that Trump's comportment Jan. 6 was "a betrayal of his office and supporters." </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">You want to punish someone for lying? After Mike Pence told Trump a vice president had no power to reject electors, Trump issued a statement saying Pence said the opposite, that he agreed the VP had that power.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">What is beyond "beyond the pale"? That is what Donald Trump did to stay in power.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">No American has committed a worse offense against this nation than to (1) convince millions the election was stolen, and (2) actively seek to subvert the people's will.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Back to young Congressman Cawthorn, who, heart and soul, completely bought into the Big Lie and spoke at the Jan. 6 rally. Isn't that a sufficient merit badge to lie about something else and stay in Republican good graces?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Cawthorn even went out and claimed that the Jan. 6 riot was instigated by Antifa. Hey, GOP. This guy has worked to gain your trust.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Then there's the oddly unfortunate case of Mo Brooks. The Alabama congressman was one stand-up dude at the Jan. 6 rally, calling on MAGA faithful to "start taking down names and kicking ass."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">That ought to be enough to earn him a free lifetime pass in any GOP primary.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">However, recently Brooks, seeking to become Alabama's U.S. senator, made the horrifying error of implying at a rally that Republicans should put the 2020 election behind them (!!!) and focus on elections to come.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Enraged, Trump pulled his endorsement.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Come on, man. Mo Brooks was a wholly committed Big Liar. He not only put on his camo cap and did his darnedest to incite violence. He assigned some of his own staff to help organize the rally.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">So, set us straight, GOP: Who among your ranks gets shunned for lying these days? Who gets a free pass – other than the greatest liar ever to flush documents down a White House toilet?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I'd like to ask rank-and-file Republicans to name one falsehood Liz Cheney has uttered since she decided that she could not remain silent in the face of Trump's corruption and the events of Jan. 6.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Cheney is dead to the Wyoming Republican Party for one reason alone: She won't lie.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">So we return to the dilemma of Madison Cawthorn and the question he needs to ask of his party leaders: Since when are y'all interested in truth?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-55426376810430351452022-03-27T22:42:00.000-05:002022-03-27T22:45:37.637-05:00OK, Senator: Let's play, "Rate My Faithfulness"<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> When it comes to courage under fire, the pithiest sayings all seem masculine. As in, "Bigger man than I," or, "That's some cajones."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> None of course apply to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> From her forbearance amid a withering Republican offensive in her confirmation, let's just say the lady's got some ovaries.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So brainless and insidious were some of the questions, if I were the nominee I'd have stormed out of my hearing long before, say, Lindsey Graham did.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> I'd have a major problem, confirmation-wise, in that I would have been more inclined to throw questions back at GOP senators than indulge them in their made-for-Fox News theatrics.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> If Ted Cruz, for instance, asked me, "Do you agree that babies are born racist?" I wouldn't have paused for a thoughtful answer as Brown did. I would have responded, "Not sure, Ted. At what age did your racism set in?"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> When Sen. Josh Hawley asked me if I was soft on terrorists, I would have said, "It depends, Senator. Are we talking al-Qaida or the terrorists you fist-bumped at the Capitol?"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> But what would have caused me to pick up my papers and hit the exit would have been the inanity Lindsey Graham asked of Jackson: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are, in terms of religion?"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> My response wouldn't be hers, which was thoughtful, personal, and – yeah, religious.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> My response would have been, "None of your business, Senator. Since when do we apply religious tests to functions of our democracy? Since never. You irk my soul."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> However, before heading to the exit, having blown up my confirmation chances but also realizing I still had the microphone, I would add:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Funny you should bring up religion as a criteria for high office, Senator."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "What's your position on adultery? Where does that rank on your scale of faithfulness?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How many demerits would I get for bedding a porn star and then paying her hush money?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How many points off for going to the extent of establishing 'catch and kill' arrangements about one's sexual exploits with a national tabloid?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How many deductions for mocking disabled people? How about people from other nations, and calling their homelands 'shithole' countries?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Any points off for inflating the value of your properties to gain pricey loans, and at the same time deflating those same property values to avoid taxes and your insurance bills?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "To what extent is basic hypocrisy a drag on one's 'scale of faithfulness'?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How about railing against undocumented workers while exploiting their work?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How about offering one's self as a voice of the working man and then stiffing contractors who work for you?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How about expressing almost no interest in religion most of one's adult life until it becomes politically profitable?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How many demerits for, in a position of extreme power, dangling military aid for a country that is on the edge of extinction for the purpose of political dirty tricks?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "How many points off for attempting to subvert the world's oldest democracy after the voters have had their say about who shall lead them?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Is there any penalty at all for exhorting a crowd that turns into a mob and, though you're the only person who could stop the mob, you do nothing?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "On a scale of one to 10, how does that all calculate?"</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Those would be my last words in my confirmation hearings for my Supreme Court nomination. Maybe Sen. Graham and I could discuss our respective faiths further in the stairwell.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He was being slyly deferential when he said to Judge Jackson, when asking of her faith, how often she attended church, mentioning that he only managed a few church services a year.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> I know a lot of Americans who have never darkened a church door and who show more fealty to moral standards and basic decency than those who attend religiously.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> For some, Senator, religion is just show biz.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 5pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-81449837741658354352022-03-20T22:32:00.000-05:002022-03-20T22:35:21.622-05:00This is what passes for GOP leadership<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One would think Ken Paxton had sufficient issues unto himself.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Securities fraud for one. At least a grand jury thought so. For two, allegations of abuse of office and bribery. So assert some of his former staffers. And then there's the issue of conspiring to nullify 81 million votes on Jan. 6, 2020.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So why would a busy Texas attorney general, which we assume Paxton to be, arise on a lovely morning in March – my favorite Texas month – and make the birth gender of Rachel Levine an issue?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Why? Well, of course, Ken Paxton felt the need to oppress someone.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> I say "of course" because this is what Paxton and his party do.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Levine, U.S. assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, is transgender. Last week she was named one of USA Today's women of the year.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Between his coffee and his OJ, this caused Paxton to flex the same Twitter finger that would scratch Donald Trump's itch.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Rachel Levine is a man," Paxton tweeted.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> This is what stands for leadership in today's Texas Republican Party.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Nice tweet. It's sort of like, say, in 1947, a dismayed reader finding Jackie Robinson's picture on the sports page and sending the clip to the editor with the words, "This man's skin is a swim in melanin."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Yes, once upon a time, dignifying a person born with that pigment was something the dignified did not do, especially in the South.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Things changed, and whole industries of indignation sprouted forth when "they" made headlines with their marches and alarming orators.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> The voice of the oppressor could be heard as well – loudly and clearly, his path lit by wooden crosses.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And don't you know politicians lent an ear. Or what's a Southern Strategy for?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> What's this got to do with Rachel Levine and Ken Paxton's itchy Twitter finger?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> It has to do with the Republican Party playbook and the success it has had in making "others" objects of fear, derision and wedge politics.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One thing about the GOP playbook is that it's a loose-leaf binder. The party itself might be narrow, but inside is ample room for "others" to use as wedge concerns.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> There were brown people who didn't speak "our language." There were black "welfare mothers" driving their Cadillacs. There was the "gay agenda." There were Muslims plotting "sharia law" for all.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Any strategist will acknowledge a problem when a political playbook grows yellow and weathered. Fortunately for the GOP, the 21<sup>st</sup> century discovery of transgender people in our midst provides for newly Xeroxed strategies on crisp, white paper.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Did we say "industry of indignation"? To judge by actions in Republican-controlled legislatures, one would think that no greater threat exists than a transgender individual in a bathroom stall.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Of course, it is no threat at all – no more so than the "threat" posed by gay teachers or gay office supervisors, or gay soldiers or sailors or Marines, or governors.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> But it certainly makes for fresh wedge politics to appeal to those dismayed by equal treatment of "others."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And so, a rash of do-something legislation. Bills to keep trans athletes in their place. Measures to treat transitioning as child abuse. And let's not talk about gender issues in school, though some Republican policy makers can't stop talking about them.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So there's little mystery as to why Texas' attorney general would think a March day is a good day to mock a transgender person.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He's running for re-election and has a stout opponent in a GOP run-off.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He doesn't want Republican voters to think about securities fraud allegations or alleged professional misconduct or his role in attempting to overthrow a lawful election.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And they won't if he can change the subject – say to one woman's gender.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>. </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-85643139612927893552022-03-13T22:48:00.000-05:002022-03-13T22:51:22.296-05:00It's all about you, Gov. DeSantis<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Question: Since when did acting like an oaf become an audition for higher office?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Ooh, ooh. I know that answer.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> It was when a candidate mocked women, mocked disabled people, bartered in crass comments about foreigners and people of color. And then that candidate, to America's shame, ascended to its highest office.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> That explains Ron DeSantis.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Recently in a foul-tempered photo op, the Florida governor was in full oaf.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He impatiently told high-schoolers who had been lined up to be part of his photo backdrop to take off their masks.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "It's not doing anything," he said. </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:12pt">It's time to stop "this COVID theater."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:12pt"> Then he sighed like he was surrounded by toddlers. What I saw was a governor embarrassing teen-agers to make a point. On some of them, it worked. But a few kept their masks on. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Geeze, Mr. Governor. Those who have worn face coverings amid a deadly pandemic didn't do it for kicks.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> DeSantis has made petulance in a pandemic one of his defining qualities.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He's decided that fighting Anthony Fauci is more important than fighting the disease. Talk about theater.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He's mocked the CDC. He's fined school districts that required masks. He hired a surgeon general whom one can infer is unvaccinated. He won't say. What the man says, as pediatricians everywhere cringe, is young children shouldn't be.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> While most of the country was taking the pandemic seriously and limiting gatherings, DeSantis made Florida the world's largest super-spreader.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Not surprisingly, it ranks No. 7 in the nation per capita for COVID deaths, according the Beckers Hospital Review.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One would think Florida would be extra-cautious with its immense senior population.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> But this is all about Ron.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And it's about a strain of humanity less concerned about the greater good than about fun, profit and self-interest.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> We're seeing the same type of behavior in the so-called Freedom Convoy – valiant truckers who have gummed up North American highways to protest life-saving measures: vaccines, masks.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> This co-opting of "freedom" reminds one of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' statement, "Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Your nose: pathway of pathogens.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> If COVID-19 were plainly symptomatic in all instances, the case for masks would be easier to understand. It isn't.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> But of course, this isn't just about masks. It's about self-interest vs. community interest, whatever the need might be.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> The interesting thing is that those most possessed of self-interest state most loudly they worship a savior who said selflessness should guide every action.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Not for a second are these principles guiding Ron DeSantis or his role model at Mar-a-Lago.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Sometime during this fraught period, with people's annoyance thresholds no higher than their kneecaps, a term was birthed to describe a certain kind of person -- a "Karen."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> She's ever-aggrieved, pathologically privileged, besieged by inconvenience. She has a smartphone and isn't afraid to use it.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One problem with this – aside from broad-brushing all Karens – is that we have no male equivalent.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Since I haven't heard any nominations for this, let me enter "Ron" as the man who has all of "Karen's" characteristics.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Rons are full of grievances, but a few really grate at the moment.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Rons will vote in the next school board election based on one issue alone: their irritation with face coverings.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Rons think the whole pandemic thing was overblown and/or likely a Chinese plot. And if it wasn't a Chinese plot, the Chinese and Dr. Fauci are up to something.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Rons think Fauci has "politicized the pandemic," as opposed to, say, politicians who know as much about epidemiology as the average first-grader.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> By the way, to their great credit, some of the students DeSantis upbraided kept their masks on. The better to not contract whatever he has.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-37611040427501762232022-03-06T22:32:00.000-06:002022-03-06T22:35:19.781-06:00Trump and Putin: more than mutual admiration<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Forever logged in video history:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Walter Cronkite sitting a nation down to report the death of a president.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Edward R. Murrow standing up a Red Scare demagogue.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And now:</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Tucker Carlson checking off reasons not to hate a warring madman.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> You might not have seen that, but your grandchildren will. Rest assured, a whole lot of Russians already have.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Well, ahem -- apparently there was a course correction at Fox News after "Rootin' for Putin" by all appearances was atop the talking heads' white board. But Tucker Carlson can never take back what he said.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Someday he will shake his wavy head at what possessed him. Of course, it's no mystery.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> His guy – Donald Trump, the man for whom Fox News' propaganda brigade has cast its lot for five devoted years – owns Tucker. He is, in the words of George Will, one of Trump's "poodles."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And so his cue for this frightening moment in human history was from the con man who from his Mar-A-Lago hideout called Putin's invasion "genius."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Trump's assessment is fully explainable as well. In Putin, Trump has always had a friend in need.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> The day after the invasion began, based on blatantly concocted pretenses, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations unblinkingly stated that in the United States, the "legitimately elected president of the country was overthrown."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Wait. Is that the Russian Federation speaking or the Republican National Committee?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Right now, rest assured, Russia's Internet Research Agency is calculating how Trump's newborn Truth Social web site can help get its message, through pure propaganda or fake news, to the American masses.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> At the same time Putin's internet army is configuring the next offensive by which it seeks to return Trump to power.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Putin, being one to take the long view, knows that "Trump Jr.: 2028," looks like a worthy investment as well.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Speaking of long views, a basic misconception about Trump's attempt to overthrow the 2020 election is that it was all impulse, not planning.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Much like Putin assembling his forces, Trump telegraphed his intentions long before voters had their say.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Then, like Putin, Trump relied on pliant partisans to do the unthinkable, to rationalize tactics they knew they couldn't.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Illegally, Trump demanded that whole states he didn't win be delivered to him via fake electors. He told Georgia's secretary of state that following the law was a crime.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Disgraced and disgraceful, people Trump twirled around his little finger -- Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley – did his bidding as they attempted to stop the awarding of electors.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> And then came the mob -- Trump's armed forces, taking their bile and the brutality into the halls of our Capitol.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> We are aghast at the assault on Ukraine's capital. Recall, however, that Jan. 6 the same thing on a smaller scale happened in ours, except without missiles.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> It wasn't munitions-free, by the way. For some reason, pipe bombs placed at the headquarters of the major parties have gotten almost no attention.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Today Ukraine's president fears for his life. On Jan. 6 our vice president shared that very problem. And if any lawmaker who dared affirm the people's choice encountered the mob, he or she would have been torn limb from limb.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> In the refusal of either Putin or Trump to listen to what the people say about their respectively dangerous gambits, we see the danger of one person having too much power.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> For those Republicans (That would include Lindsey Graham) who view Putin as a madman, know that a man you respect, Attorney General Bill Barr, came to believe he was dealing with the same specimen when a screaming, red-faced Donald Trump refused to concede to reality about his rejection by the voters. Trump still does.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Now Putin refuses to acknowledge the will of the Ukrainians who created their own democracy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> What a pair – so close: two autocrats living their separate lies.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-33302612563885030432022-02-27T20:31:00.000-06:002022-02-27T20:34:46.834-06:00A plunderer needs a pretext<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Denazification and militarization."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Vladimir Putin cites such reasons in his bid to crush a neighbor nation.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Nazism – those frightened masses cramming the exits to Poland. Militarization – those hunting rifles dusted off to confront invading tanks.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Nazism" in a peaceful democracy with its Jewish president.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> At this point, please forgive me for having taken a mental detour. When I heard "Nazi," for some reason "antifa" came to mind.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Antifa – that menace seeded conspiratorially among the masses cramming American streets demanding racial justice.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Antifa – a superior pretext for pepper balls and rubber bullets in Lafayette Park, for Donald Trump's demand to send enlisted personnel into the streets of America. (Fortunately, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley resisted.)</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Plunderers need a pretext.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Those who rioted in the halls of the U.S. Capitol had one Jan. 6, the biggest lie in American history – a lie so big that history books will assign it capital letters – Big Lie – so big it will need no further explanation.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> How many times did squawk jocks at Fox News sprinkle "antifa" into reports of those horrors without a shred of evidence? Countless. It was TV coverage someone of Vladimir Putin's ilk would love.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So, too, with reports of a deadly brown-skinned caravan assaulting our nation from the south – "terrorists," "anarchists," MS-13 in its ranks. Not penniless, destitute, hopeless. Not mothers and fathers and their little ones.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> As pertains to Ukraine's subjugation, let's just say that Putin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov may well have ceded his role to Fox News' Tucker Carlson and to Trump himself ("genius," "very savvy").</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> A plunderer needs a pretext.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One could say this applies in many red states right now as they roll tanks over voting rights.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> The Brennan Center for Justice calls Republican "ballot security" measures, ratcheted up for years, a "solution in search of a problem."</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Texas Gov. Greg Abbott knows this. As attorney general he attempted to show that voter fraud was rampant. He came up with about as many examples as playoff wins by the Dallas Cowboys this century.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Enter Donald Trump and the Big Lie. Enter Trump's assault on mail ballots. Ah hah! A pretext!</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Pursuant, as governor, Abbott signed a law that has caused massive delays in the delivery of mail ballots for primary elections. It's completely pointless. It's confusing, and it's motivated entirely by a Big Lie.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Among Republican targets in this offensive are those evil things called ballot drop boxes – made of metal, secured from the elements and thievery. Too many of them. Too much convenience. Drive-through voting? Oh, no. Convenience is the devil's playpen. Voting must be more difficult, says the red ministry.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> One lie after another after another.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> As we observe in horror what prevarications and paranoia have wrought from Russia, one must feel for the Russian troops sent in to kill next of kin and to destroy a historic capital city. For what?</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Putin's forces differ only by degrees from the big-bellied rioters who stormed our Capitol, convinced by their leader of the outright theft of an election – a leader who said he'd march with them to the Capitol and then who retreated to his TV room to clap hands and nosh at the buffet table.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> For now we can only hope that in the world's reaction and in the popular resistance, Ukraine becomes, in the words of commentator Max Boot, the "ulcer for Putin" that Afghanistan was for his predecessors.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So, too, should Americans stand up against the Big Lie and its purveyors, and fight like hell whenever the bogus pretext guides public policy.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8397075136346606614.post-65622710660712109212022-02-20T22:35:00.000-06:002022-02-20T22:38:09.306-06:00How we cater to couch commandos<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Adam Lanza just wanted a sporting chance.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He had only so much time to kill once he entered Sandy Hook Elementary. His schedule had been pinched by having just shot his mother dead.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> What's a tormented individual to do?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Remington Arms had the answer: the Bushmaster XM15-E2S .223 caliber AR-15 style killing machine.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Twenty-six dead, including 20 first-graders, in a fleet matter of minutes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> For good measure he'd also brought along a 12-gauge shotgun, a Glock 10mm handgun and a Sig Sauer 9 mm handgun.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> So much killing to do, so little time, before police arrived and he turned a barrel on himself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> He needn't have weighted himself down. As the National Rifle Association will assert approvingly, to get it all done, all he needed was that AR-15-style piece, smartly accompanied by 10 30-round magazines.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> All of this spells good commerce – the American way, the sporting way, the couch commando way.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> "Couch commando" wasn't in my vocabulary until reading reports of the $73 million settlement in the suit by parents and living victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, having sued the maker of the murder weapon.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> In a sly end-run around Republican laws to exempt gun manufacturers from liability, the suit focused on the merchandising of the weapons in question, how the pitch for the weapon wasn't about self-protection (ahem) or even sport (ahem). It was about titillation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> As the plaintiffs demonstrated, it was an appeal to "troubled men," embodied in the Remington slogan, "Consider your man card reissued."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> In recent years we have spent a lot of time dissecting the thoughts of killers for whom a gun in hand completed those thoughts.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> George Zimmerman. Kyle Rittenhouse. The father-son team that killed Ahmaud Arbery.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> These more celebrated cases aside, we now have a growing trove of incidents involving right-wing head cases for whom rage percolates, with arms amassed for just the right time.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> The Anti-Defamation League calls it the growing problem of "troubled perpetrators."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> ADL attributes at least 333 deaths in the U.S. over the last decade to right-wing extremists.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Ah, that he-man license. When investigators studied the online activities of James McLeod, a Colorado man who killed five before police took him down, they found he resided in something called the "manosphere," described as a "toxic masculinity subculture" based on "revenge fantasies."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Then there is Matthew Coleman, a New Mexico QAnon adherent who killed his two children because he was convinced his wife had passed on "serpent DNA" to them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Let's face it. Only a fine line separates that kind of lunacy from that espoused by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and her gun-toting cohort in Congress, Lauren Boebert, both of whom resisted restrictions against packing heat on the House floor.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Not only are our gun laws tailored to the whims of the certifiably deadly, in the Age of Trump the Republican Party has become so dominated by the extreme right that clearly dangerous individuals like these are on our payroll.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Aside from having a gun-themed restaurant where waitresses worked with pistols strapped to their sides, Boebert's only claim to fame before a Republican-dominated district elected her was that she confronted Beto O'Rourke at a campaign rally over his vow to get AKs and AR-15s out of the gun stream.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Beto's cause is righteous. Convenience for couch commandos isn't the intent of the Second Amendment.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> By the way, Remington has taken the Donald Trump route to rehabilitation and to further filthy lucre. It twice filed bankruptcy before reorganizing and announcing plans for a new Georgia factory.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> It doesn't make the Bushmaster anymore, but trust in Remington to always have titillating options when a troubled man comes to call.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: <a href="mailto:jyoungcolumn@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)"><span style="color:windowtext">jyoungcolumn@gmail.com</span></a>. </span></p></div> John Young Columnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04888491583980003895noreply@blogger.com0