August 30, 2018

Free Parking August 29 2018

http://eureka.news/free-parking-46/

In August 1920, women won the right to vote. By 1970, only one woman was in Congress. This year more than 300 women are running for federal offices and more than 30,000 have shown interest in running for all offices in the country.

The repudiation of women in 2016 by selecting a corrupt man over a fully qualified woman was eye-opening; so eye-opening that millions of women protested and are now campaigning for offices all over the U.S. There will be many victories for these women and some will be life changing. Black women are the most highly educated segment in America and their leadership can only bring a new level of equality and fairness in local, state and federal offices.

more http://eureka.news/free-parking-46|

August 18, 2018

Here's my column on just this topic

Free Parking August 15 2018

http://eureka.news/free-parking-44/

“When the rain comes, it don’t fall on one man’s house.” Bob Marley

Follow me down memory lane to 1996 when the Democratic slogan was Bridge to the 21st Century. Al Gore followed with Prosperity and Progress in 2000. We, as a country, had money in the bank, our debt was paid down and scheduled to be paid in full in a few years, we had lived through a relatively peaceful eight years and were being diligent about our national security.

Gore was intently focused on future technology and education for the new Green Society of solar and wind technologies, phasing out planet-killing coal and oil. Yes, we were going to avert the climate crisis we are now experiencing, and keep building a society that would provide prosperity for all.

But here we are today, speeding down the Highway to Hell. A stolen election here, a stolen election there and pretty soon you have a fascist government run for the benefit of corporate owners and their cronies, demanding the rest of us grovel and fight for scraps dropped on the ground.

please click on the link for the rest of the story...I get little eyeball clicks as a reward.

July 26, 2018

Free Parking July 25 2018 Are Americans being brainwashed?

http://eureka.news/free-parking-41/

Are Americans being brainwashed? The latest Department of Justice indictment charges 12 high-ranking military officers in Russia’s elite cyber-war unit with psychologically manipulating unsuspecting Americans by way of social media trolls and bots.

More than 100 years ago, Ivan Pavlov discovered that with training and reinforcements, you can teach a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, rather than salivate at the sight of the food itself. After Pavlov’s death, a psychologist named Watson expanded this research to include human experiments, showing that various behaviors can be induced in people in the same way dogs can be trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.

The “bells” rung by the Russian military and Donald Trump are racism, bigotry and misogyny; promising “red meat” of violence and power over others to those who are inclined to violent, deplorable behavior and speech. The “bells” incessantly rung by Fox News are Nazi, white supremacist code words; consequently, we are seeing increasing incidents of white people harassing or murdering people of color, LGBTQ, women, refugees and various immigrants.

The results sought by these destroyers of democracy aren’t just increased violence and chaos; ultimately they want to rob and plunder our treasury and land, then rule by any means. By pulling constitutional threads apart, the fabric of our glorious Melting Pot of the World will soon be in tatters. These traitorous enemies know that people divided cannot fight the true enemy, tyranny.

Tyranny originally meant “illegitimate” and has come to mean “oppressive and cruel” government. We see despotic governments around the world. Who would have ever thought tyranny would come to America? But here it is, wrapped in the flag.

We do not have to sit idly by and accept this progression from democracy to totalitarianism. We still have a few tools left in our constitutional toolbox.

Our main tool is the ballot box. We must protect our rights to vote and to have our votes accurately counted. The Russian-owned GOP won’t protect us, so we must be hyper-vigilant. Check www.voterview.ar-nova.org to make sure you’re registered. Register others! Vote!

Feel free to click on the link--I get little eyeball click rewards!

July 12, 2018

July 4, 2018 will live in infamy

Free Parking July 11 2018
http://eureka.news/free-parking-39/

“We will take America without firing a shot…we do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.” Nikita Krushchev, Nov. 18, 1956

2018 celebrated one heck of a 4th of July. To celebrate 242 years in existence, nine Republicons traveled, hat in hand, to Russia. Was it to receive their assignments and money wrapped in newspapers? Is there anything left to call the Republicon party but traitors? Their timing can only be construed as spitting in the eye of democracy. The true horror is that while U.S. public media is trying to normalize their abhorrent, aberrant behavior, news media in Russia are mocking those members of Congress as weak.

We seem to have slipped down a rabbit hole and ended in an alternate universe where 45 percent of the voting age public disapproves of investigating who tampered in our election both at home and abroad and Republiconned voters approve of Russians more than Democrats.

What happened to our veterans who fought and then lived to tell the tale of their friends’ and strangers’ deaths in war? At one time, they would have risen to stop acts of treason. Now they seem happy to sip on the tears of those who care, using derogatory terms to emphasize their scorn.

Again I am reminded of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The Hutu, the uneducated majority, hated the Tutsi because they perceived them to be “elite” by virtue of education. Hate speech radio was officially sanctioned and the Hutu were armed with machetes provided by greedy weapons makers. The constantly broadcasted hate speech bubbled over motivating brainwashed mobs to kill their next-door neighbors. In only one hundred days 800,000 people were slaughtered, including 75 percent of the Tutsi, and more than one million Hutu were accused of rape and murder during the genocide.

Our country is being ripened for civil war, genocide then oligarch rule. We’re watching the kidnappings of refugee children, NRA condoned school shootings, discriminatory murders and incarceration of black people, and stripping women of the rights to their own bodies and lives.

Melania says she doesn’t care. Do You? Register others! Vote!

June 14, 2018

Free Parking June 13 2018 -- The cost of Trump to the Right AND the shift from democracy to dictator

This week I offered two different columns--most of this stuff just writes itself. So here is the printed version that made it into the paper and then I'll print out what didn't get any ink or cyber time. My mind is working overtime and I am gobsmacked daily by how people/media seem to try and make all this seem normal. Our flag flying next to a murderous human rights criminal's flag is an insult to all who died defending it. But, I digress.

http://eureka.news/free-parking-36/

We Arkansans just got kicked in the teeth by our hero president, Trump. Our state is set to lose almost a half billion dollars income this year because of his beautiful trade war tariffs. Of that money, it’s going to cost us workers $261,000,000 this year. 4,400 Arkansans will be laid off from their jobs and Arkansas unemployment rolls will grow exponentially. Thanks Trump.

Gas prices, the cost of food, medicine and housing continue to rise with no end in sight. Meanwhile Trump’s family, friends and administration are spending our money faster than we can earn it. His cabinet has spent millions upon millions of our hard earned dollars on themselves, while continuing to cut our services, as though the money in the US treasury belonged to them and not us taxpayers. I guess we could call ourselves Trump’s Chumps.

His trade wars are causing prices on everything to rise, costing American jobs and company profits with broad tariffs and counter tariffs. I guess Trump doesn’t know that the Great Depression was deepened by a trade war anymore than he knew the War of 1812 didn’t include Canada.
Please click on the link for the rest of the column--I'm addicted to those little eyeball click numbers
[link:http://eureka.news/free-parking-36/|

Here is the column that was rejected -- I can see why, it is a small town filled with MAGAts.

This has been an emotionally difficult week. Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, both suffering from depression, committed suicide. A refugee father whose child was ripped from his arms at the US/Mexico border committed suicide from horror and despair.

Statistics show US suicide rates are the highest since the Ronald Reagan era. Despair permeates the atmosphere. Republicons have defunded Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); now Trump wants to reinstitute the pre-existing conditions clause to determine insurance accessibility and rates. Many people will die from Trump’s cutting off access to healthcare. The tragedy of this is, insurance needs to broaden to actually include mental health services.

Because our health care system is in disarray, many who suffer self-medicate with opioids, alcohol, prescription drugs and methamphetamines as a way to dull the pain of life.

The tension this administration brings to everyday life is becoming unbearable; doctors note that more and more patients are citing the cause of their mental distress as the uncertainty and chaos produced by the tweets and contradictory statements, the obvious corruption of Trump and his cabinet and the crumbling civility in our society.

Hannah Arendt, a survivor of the Holocaust, watched her country slip from chaos to authoritarianism to brutal, murderous dictatorship in only a few short years. She wrote that because the changes seem gradual, it’s important to publicize the changes.

I’m sure the people of 1934 Germany felt the same tension and fear that permeates our society today. Trump generates chaos as a distraction from his real intentions. He doesn’t want to be president; he wants to be a dictator.

The latest debacle at the G-7 summit is so deeply concerning that I am reminded to publicly note the latest alarming change. Donald Trump has cut us off from our friends and allies and is aligning with the malignant dictator of Russia and the madman dictator of North Korea. If Trump has his way, we’ll become Russia’s satellite in George Bush’s “Axis of Evil.”

Like Cassandra at Troy, I am sounding the alarm. We are moving rapidly from a democracy to a dictatorship. Does anyone care?

June 1, 2018

Free Parking May 31 2018 -- 61% don't know about indictments

http://eureka.news/free-parking-34/

snip

Sixty-one percent of American adults are so ill-informed they don’t know there have been any criminal indictments in the Russian affair, much less 19 indictments and five guilty pleas. One perpetrator is already in prison and George Papadopolous is awaiting sentencing for conspiratorial and treasonous actions. Paul Manafort’s first trial is scheduled for July 24 and evidence of the many Trump cabal crimes could be exposed.

Memorial Day has come and gone; basically now a three-day weekend with mattress and car sales. A stunning number of Americans have little knowledge of WWII, that the Holocaust occurred, that millions of people were heinously murdered by Nazis and that millions more died stopping them.

In Germany, where the Holocaust occurred, it is a felony to deny the horror inflicted by their fellow citizens. What Holocaust memory remains in the US is the perverted, hated Nazi symbol proudly displayed by ignorant, hate-filled people.

Germany’s 1934 descent into inhumanity began much like our current depraved slide; blatant lies, demonizing the press, ritualized dehumanization and cruelty toward minority groups. In Rwanda, the 1993 genocide began with hate speech radio, imported machetes by hate-mongers and it ended with 800,000 Tutsi being hacked to death by their next-door Hutu neighbors.



Please do click on the link to my column! Feel free to make comments there, no account needed!

March 21, 2018

In the company of famous slip and falls this week - Free Parking

http://eureka.news/
http://eureka.news/free-parking-25/

I was in famous company in the slip and fall category this week. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter died after falling in her bathroom at home. Her family and friends and constituents are mourning her death. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke her wrist in a hotel bathroom in India. I’m sure the hotel took great care and paid all the bills and probably apologized a thousand times. I slipped in a shower in a city facility and because of torte immunity laws I was treated with unconcealed boredom by the staff after I fell and broke my foot.

I am so grateful to have Medicare! Without insurance I would have had to pay for the hospital emergency room visit, medical equipment along with treatment from my personal physician. While Medicare is not free, it is great insurance and it’s a comfort during convalescence to know that I only have to heal my body without worrying about all the medical bills.

Paul Ryan, along with our congress critter Steve Womack, is once again attacking our fragile healthcare system with new plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid; Arkansas now has a work requirement to receive healthcare. Of course, you and I pay for Congressional members’ most excellent insurance.

Behind the mental whiplash that Trump’s daily multiple lies produces, Republicons in both Houses of Congress scheme to steal the rest of our money through more banking deregulation, tax “reform” scams and exploding the national debt to $21TRILLION.

The chaos unleashed by our unhinged president conveniently provides cover for massive corruption by him and his cronies; and in their insatiable greed, Republicons may also destroy our children’s futures and our planet by deregulating industries that exacerbate the climate crisis.

I hope we join together and use our voices to change the way our government is being run and we use our votes to elect people who will represent us all, not just the oligarchs.

I fear that like that frog jumping into warm water that turns hot and then boils to death, our complacency will keep us from noticing the water is getting hotter.

March 20, 2018

Here's my 9/15/17 column - Free Parking

http://eureka.news/free-parking-9/


As the tale of betrayal and treason inundating the Trump White House spiral in an ever widening gyre, we add more names in this saga: DeVos and Zuckerberg.

In a November 22, 2016 Forbes article, Jared Kushner bragged about his “Stealth Data Machine” that won the White House for Donald Trump. In an article dated October 31, 2016, Slate magazine reported on the connections in Kushner’s “Machine.”

For months during the election cycle, reporters noted constant Internet data traffic between Trump Towers servers and Russian Alfa Bank’s servers. Now we learn of a third leg in those data transmissions.

Spectrum Health, a DeVos family (of Amway pyramid-scheme wealth) company’s computer servers appear to have been receiving, replicating and updating hacked voter records with more complete data gleaned from their voluminous patient records. Then after being updated and replicated, that data was transmitted to Trump Tower servers, Alfa Bank servers, and finally to the Kremlin for weaponization based on targeted voter information.

Confirming these allegations, computer data scientists recently published Meta data from their IP addresses and noted consistent lengths of time for each transmission and period of rest.

Intelligence shows Russia’s GRU hacked both DNC voter rolls and voter registration systems throughout the 2016 election cycle. While no data was stolen, deleted or changed, it was replicated.

Zuckerberg’s Facebook recently admitted taking illegal ad money from Russian companies. Whether Zuckerberg’s company is complicit is undetermined. But the reported $100,000 ad buys placed a lot of political ads on Facebook . Those ads aimed to destroy the opposition: Hillary Clinton.

Betsy DeVos, now part of the Trump cabinet, is turning our public school system into private charter and alternative (religious) schools.

Her brother, Eric Prince, owner of infamous Blackwater private military, is lobbying for his new “logistics” company, Frontier Resource Group, to replace our military in Afghanistan. So far, our generals have managed to squash that plan.

Now under cover of devastating fires and hurricanes, Trump and the Republicons are stacking the courts. Fascism is edging ever closer. All I can say is, “Hurry up! Robert Mueller! Those clanging bells signal a 10-alarm fire!”

March 8, 2018

Papa Doc for Life! --- Free Parking 3/7/2018

http://eureka.news/free-parking-23/

What a week. Putin threatened the entire world with nuclear strikes and it barely caused a murmur on the news.

Trump declared a trade war and already the blowback is affecting our economy; Mexico buys corn from Brazil instead of the US, a major appliance manufacturer has stopped plans to build a quarter of a billion dollar plant in the U.S., and the EU has placed 100% tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

But there were some winners, too. Trump’s advisor Carl Icahn saved millions by serendipitously divesting from steel and his Russian friend (handler?) Oleg Deripaska jumped from aluminum to nickel and palladium right before Trump announced those steel and aluminum tariffs. Lucky them! You and I, however, are going to pay as inflation hits like a ton of bricks since everything is going to cost more from cars to beer. Lucky us!

Republicon Senate leader Mitch McConnell is bent on teaching those whippersnapper kids who is boss; he shelved gun control debate and moved to banking reform. That of course, means removing regulations that keep banks from stealing our money.

Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness again as their fragile electric grid collapsed, and there is no relief in sight for their misery.

At 405 days into his presidency, Trump spent his 100th day at Mar-a-Lago at our expense; so far to the tune of about a $100 million dollars. Ben Carson spent $31,000 on a dining room set after cutting $6 billion from housing for those in need.

Meanwhile, we find that Trump’s chief advisor, son-in-law Jared, has been using his office to reward countries who favor him with money and to punish those who do not. His other trusted advisor, daughter Ivanka, is being investigated for illegal money laundering in Panama, and the understaffed White House is still shedding personnel like a dog sheds fur in summer.

Crises abound the world over that requires a United State president who is a true leader; instead we have a man consumed with his hair, FOX teevee and celebrity Twitter fights; now he wants to be our Papa Doc for Life.

March 3, 2018

I just tried to go onto Craigslist

and this is the message I got

This IP has been automatically blocked.
If you have questions, please email: blocks-b1520093394857277@craigslist.org

Why have they been taken down? Anyone know?