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PatrickforB

PatrickforB's Journal
PatrickforB's Journal
February 18, 2017

When people begin fleeing OUR country so they can be free, there's something really

wrong and really unAmerican going on. When I saw this picture of Canadian Mounties rescuing people who were fleeing from ICE, I felt really bad inside.

Here's the article:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/18/1635256/-I-ve-been-angry-I-ve-been-sad-I-ve-been-disappointed-But-I-ve-never-been-ashamed-until-now

Here's the picture:
?1487436103

CURSE FUCKING TRUMP AND HIS NAZI ASSHOLES. WE'RE ABOUT TO GO INTO ANOTHER HOLOCAUST. RESIST.

February 17, 2017

Trump Administration May Mobilize National Guard Troops To Round Up Unauthorized Immigrants - HP

This is absolutely chilling. Shit.

The roundups are about to begin.

Here's the link to the article, excerpt below: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-national-guard-immigrants_us_58a71356e4b037d17d271bcb?

President Donald Trump’s administration is considering mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, according to a draft copy of an order obtained by The Associated Press on Friday. Though the AP reported that the memo was written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, the White House quickly denied that the report was true. The AP reports an 11-page draft memo shows the Trump administration is considering an unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans.

Governors in the affected states would have final approval on whether troops under their control participate, according to the AP. Millions of the people who would be affected live nowhere near the U.S.-Mexico border. During the 2016 campaign, Trump talked at various times about implementing a “deportation force” to conduct raids on undocumented immigrants. In August, during a high-profile speech in Arizona, he pledged to “triple the number of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] deportation officers” and “create a new special deportation task force focused on identifying and quickly removing the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in America who have evaded justice.”






February 15, 2017

Letter I just sent to US Representative Ken Buck

I thought you'd like to see, and I urge you all to write your own representatives about voting the Resolution of Inquiry presently making its way through committee.

Dear Rep. Buck,
I am deeply concerned that we may have elected a madman to serve as our president. His behavior and the behavior of his senior staff since he took office has been far outside the pale of normal. Yes, I can understand differences in politics, in ideology, but this man Trump seems to have little intelligence, poor decision making skills and very few boundaries. Take the recent Mar-a-Lago incident where he had an impromptu foreign policy strategy session in a restaurant in front of people who had no security clearance, and lit his documents with someone's cell phone flashlight. How many of those sensitive documents, we must wonder, were photographed?

In addition, it appears Trump is making money off several of his executive orders, particularly the oil pipeline one in ND. He has tweeted support for his daughter's clothing line - an act bordering on illegal, and his spokesperson Kelly Ann Conway openly marketed his wife's clothing line on national television. How is this even acceptable?

Now, we find that the entire administration, from Trump on down, seems to have been in contact with Russia throughout his campaign. His National Security Advisor was forced to resign due to this illegal contact, and now it appears that both Trump and Pence knew all along. What kind of a circus is this?

Again, Representative Buck, you and I haven't always seen eye to eye on policy, but I respect you and your office. Now I'm asking, no IMPLORING you to do something about this horror. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of NY has introduced a Resolution of Inquiry.

When this Resolution of Inquiry comes up for a House vote in a few days, I formally ask that you, Representative Buck, vote for inquiry. It is clear to me that our president is unfit for office. Let's take care of this now, as the Constitution allows, before this administration lurches into some disaster we cannot so easily clean up.

Sincerely, etc.

February 5, 2017

Letter urging my Senators not to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

I thought I'd share this with you all. It was one of those Daily Kos petitions. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Senators Gardner and Bennet,

I urge both of you, on behalf of the people of Colorado and the Constitution you've both sworn to protect, NOT to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court.

Here's the problem. President Obama, as was his duty under the US Constitution, forwarded a nominee, Merrick Garland, to the Senate for confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, you in the Senate did NOT do your duty under the Constitution and confirm Garland.

This is my problem with Gorsuch. He is not Garland. It was Obama's duty; Obama's turn to nominate and you should have confirmed his choice Merrick Garland.

Do not compound this miserable failure of the US Senate in fulfilling its BASIC JOB by confirming Gorsuch. Bring back Garland and confirm him instead.

Sincerely, and respectfully,


PS. I posted another set of letters to these US Senators on the same topic and as yet neither have answered. I urge all of you to write your US Senators about this. Because, hey, as long is the Supreme Court nominee is NOT Merrick Garland, then s/he should NOT be confirmed.

February 2, 2017

I just sent this letter to one of my Senators, Cory Gardner. I thought I'd share.

Dear Sen. Gardner,

I watched for 8 years as Republicans in the Senate and House steadfastly OPPOSED EVERYTHING Obama said or did. So, here's the deal. I'm among hundreds of thousands pressuring Democrats in the Senate to filibuster ANY Supreme Court nomination Trump EVER puts out. Because our president, Obama, forwarded Merrick Garland to you in the Senate for confirmation, and you did NOTHING. So, you know what - what goes around comes around. Be advised Democrats like me will urge our elected officials to oppose everything Trump comes up with or forwards - fight tooth and nail against everything you try to do. You want gridlock??? Great. You got it. That is if I can have anything to do with it. Yes, we are THAT divided. Trump isn't MY president and in my opinion is NOT a legitimate president. Clinton got 2.7 million more votes than Trump but the electoral college, which was created in the first place to help us avoid electing an unstable and amoral man such as Trump, did not vote as they should have.

Though I know you will disregard my letter because you have plenty of hard right people on the eastern plains so you can feel safe ignoring me, I am asking on my behalf as one of your constituents that you NOT vote to confirm the Trump nominee. Not because he's good or bad, but because you FAILED to uphold your constitutional duty to confirm Obama's pick, so you should not get to put anyone on the bench.

On other issues:
- DON'T allow the EPA to be undermined. Climate change is an existential threat to our species.
- If Trump finances his border wall with a tariff on Mexican goods, the American people will end up paying for it through higher prices charged for those goods; you DO know that, don't you?
- Why is the WH Chief of Staff, Bannon, allowed in high level security meetings, and the people who SHOULD be attending these meetings are partially barred?
- Why won't Trump release his taxes, and why aren't you alarmed about his many conflicts of interest, the nepotism and him allowing Bannon to attend high level security briefings?

I was born here in the USA. I've lived nearly 60 years here, and I am appalled that the people who supposedly represent my interests in DC have allowed this great nation to fall so far, so fast.

Regards,

January 31, 2017

Barbara Hale, the indomitable Della Street, has died at age 94.

Barbara brought a lot of joy into a lot of lives with her talent.

Rest in peace, Barbara Hale.

January 29, 2017

Maybe Trump was right. This image could explain why inauguration attendance was

underreported. It's simple folks, open the link below and look at the image the author has supplied. You will see a closeup that clearly explains all that white!

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/23/1624076/-Maybe-Trump-was-right-This-image-could-explain-why-inauguration-attendance-was-underreported?



January 21, 2017

Night has fallen.

“There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.” - Elie Wiesel, Night

“Like a tornado swirling around you, you are the eye of the storm. A front row seat to the destruction of everything you worked so hard to build. But like all tornadoes, the rain will halt and the winds will calm. The pieces that remain from the cataclysmic destruction of your former self, will soon dissolve and you will find that the only thing that was destroyed was the illusion, the attachment. Allowing for you to rebuild a new, a stronger, a more mature, and spiritually evolved you, that you didn’t even know existed. So have faith, this too shall pass.”
― L.J. Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis

January 19, 2017

The DNC Contenders Are Not Interested In Your Populist Moment (Huffpo)

Rank and file voters are angry, but nobody told the candidates. Candidates couldn’t even acknowledge the DNC had botched the 2016 process. When asked whether the DNC “put its thumb on the scale” in favor of Hillary Clinton, no candidate would agree. “That’s a gotcha question,” Idaho Democratic Party Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown said. “I’m not going to answer.” The contentious 2016 primary between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) exposed major fissures in the party. But the candidates studiously avoided emphasizing those divisions. Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, called the idea of the DNC race as a proxy battle between the Sanders and Clinton wings of the party a “false choice.”



The candidates almost universally agreed that lobbyists should be allowed to keep giving money to the DNC. President Barack Obama banned lobbyist contributions to the party in 2008, a ban then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz quietly lifted in the 2016 election.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dnc-debate-courage-opposition_us_58803552e4b02c1837e9bf7f

sigh...

January 11, 2017

'Waiting for Trump' a poem by Hilton Obenzinger, Dec. 30, 2016

I sit in one of the greasy truck stops on Interstate 5, near Red Bluff, dizzy and scared.
Decades of hope seem suddenly to turn to bullshit.
Dread and rage swirl around the country, but the lunch counter is quiet with snoozing baseball caps tipping into coffee cups.
Fox is on the TV, yet no one needs to watch the news.
They already know the news.
Something bubbles in the kitchen, like death.
Soon we will have to eat those French fries.

On the frozen plains, in howling snow, Indians come to stop the Black Snake.
They stand to block the way, whether the Iron Horse or the Black Snake, waiting as the new president takes his seat.
We all wait.
Perhaps the ghosts will return and not the cavalry.

Tonight the deeper darkness comes, darker than before.
Spies denounce the spying of other spies.
The Kremlin carries the paralyzing kryptonite, as hulking cyber armies gather in the night.
Menacing men rip scarves from the heads of women.
Kids scrawl ugly slogans on school walls.
Burning crosses dance in the eyes of White Nationalists like the sugarplum fairies of the shopping season.
And we wait.

Cops who are honest worry what they may be called to do.
And those who are not touch their holsters, assured that they may impose order and nature’s law at will, and they wait to pursue someone’s happiness because they fear for their lives.
Farm workers, hunching over the entire Sacramento Valley, tear plants up by the roots, and fear for their lives.
Violence has found its season.

Tired truckers stretch out in the rear of their cabs, about a dozen rigs lined up in the dark along the shoulder of the freeway, and they get some shuteye.
I rearrange the eggs and bacon on my plate and wonder what those men think.
Perhaps they believe that everything will be great again when they open their eyes and find themselves back on the road.
They were given a promise.
Perhaps they will really pay off all their credit cards because they work hard and they’re white.

We wait for robot drivers to fly up and down the Central Valley, picking up apricots and dropping off tractor parts, with no need to shit at the truck stops, no need to sip the chicken noodle soup.
And the day the robots begin to drive, the dreaming truckers will sleep in the back seat of their old Chevrolets, their steering wheels taken from their hands, waiting for the promise.

We wait for everything and for nothing.
There is no singularity, no instant wide horizons, no ironic lights, but a grim stupor, as the tycoon casts a long shadow from his golden tower, lumbers to the White House to take possession of one more property, while delirious settlers really do slouch towards Bethlehem.

The Great Man holds court.
His loyal children seek his hand, the great and the rich, the powerful and the ridiculous float up the elevator shaft to meet the wizard king. Generals, CEOS, moral monsters, angry souls, fools of exceptional quality, celebrities, they all rise up to the tower, taken to the penthouse to bend before the greater fool.

We wait.
There is a pervasive sense of dread before the beast takes the oath, before the Republic becomes a wholly owned subsidiary.
Ordinary life goes on, and we wonder.

We must love one another and die.
Our danger is great, and we must love one another or die.
Is it love and die?
Or is it love or die?
Do we have a choice?

What’s on TV?

******

You can find this, as well as many thoughtful articles on current events at: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/ which is Rabbi Michael Lerner's website.

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About PatrickforB

Counselor, economist and public servant.
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