We Are Getting Tired of Prying Your Guns From Your Cold Dead Hands

What does it say about our “representatives” representing us, when I wrote this article in 2007, and if you change only one word, the name “Bush” to “SCROTUS”, nothing has changed. This was easily written today.

If 33 people were killed by apples instead of guns at Virginia Tech, there wouldn’t be an apple left on the shelves or in the homes of this country until apples could be made safe. Screw your “constitutional right” to have an apple, there is something called the “greater good”, and the good of the country takes precedence over your “interpretation” of any amendment in the now defunct anyway constitution. Just ask the spinach growers, and the people who love to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. And why do you always forget the words, “well regulated militia”?

2500 Children Left Behind

If 2500 children under the age of 17 were felled by apples instead of guns every year in America, there wouldn’t be a congressman or senator left serving who took one penny from the National Apple Association. The shame and admonishment would be too great. And if there were even incremental steps to take to make apples safer, and even they were fought tooth and nail by your blood money National Apple Association, claiming the straw man of the “slippery slope” to “regulation”, America might better see you for the mercenary and shameful organization you truly are.

We are getting tired of prying your guns from your cold dead hands.

Here’s a news flash for you gun waving “real Americans”: It’s not about guns. It’s about money. Follow the money. The NRA raises hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing you they are fighting for your “rights”. Wake up. It’s a business. Just like any other business, except with the help of their bought off representatives, they are the only UNREGULATED consumer product in America. What do they sell? FEAR. Fear, fake patriotism, and fake bravado, just like their commander in chief, President Custer. You’re being played.

With their hundreds of millions of dollars raised on the blood of murdered Americans, they pay themselves, they keep their product manufacturers flush, and they buy their government officials. They exist to convince you you need their product. And when sales slow, they target new markets. They market fear to women, then sell them “feminine little purse guns”. They market to children. The cartoon character Joe Camel is banned, but sure shootin’ Eddie Eagle is alive and well to shit again on Friday. (He teaches children “gun safety”, meaning, he teaches children to use guns.)

We’re Number One!!

The number of children under the age of 17 shot by guns in America every year is greater than the gun-related deaths of children in all the industrialized nations of the world COMBINED.

Here is the population of Japan: 127,463,611.

Here is the number of children killed by guns in Japan every year: 0.

A 2001 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found that in homicides among intimate partners, women are murdered more with guns than with all other means COMBINED.

In 2004, guns were most commonly used by males to murder their female partners.

A 2003 study found women living with a gun in the home were almost three times more likely to be murdered than women with no gun in the home.

“If we ban handguns only criminals will have guns.” Well then let’s not have any laws in America at all. No drug laws, no traffic laws, no laws at all, right? Duh.

“Cars kill people!!” Yes, cars kill people when something goes wrong. And car manufacturers immediately fix any problems and take responsibility. Guns are MADE to kill people. Handguns have one purpose, to kill people.

Stage Rule: If There is a Gun on the Wall in Act I, It Will Go Off in Act II.

A President’s Unmitigated Gall

I watched President Custer speak at the Virginia Tech memorial yesterday. How dare he “express condolences”. How DARE he. Here is how his administration helped kill 33 people at Virginia Tech:

Passage of gun industry immunity bill. That’s right, you can sue every industry in America, except gun manufacturers and dealers. Your family gets murdered by a madman? Tough.

Refusal to aid in renewal of federal assault weapons ban, even though the law had already been eviscerated by the gun industry. Get it? INDUSTRY.

Fighting background checks. The Virginia shooter had been committed to a mental institution. In Virginia that means you can’t buy a gun. Oh yeah? Thank goodness the gun shop owner who sold it to him can’t be sued.

The president does not support the police when citizens can have assault weapons.

The president does not support the police when citizens can have armor piercing bullets. 

The president helps the terrorists when anyone can have a shoulder rocket launcher that can take a plane out of the sky. And I’m taking my shoes off at the airport?

The president helps the terrorists when he supports a ban on release of federal crime tracing data necessary to identify patterns in illegal gun trafficking.

The president helps the terrorists when he requires the ATF to immediately destroy gun sales records previously allowed to be kept for 90 days under Brady Bill background check.

We Found the WMD. They Are Here.

Guns are for cowards. You can kill from a distance. You are detached, removed. You don’t get your hands dirty. You don’t feel the life draining out of another human being in an eye to eye struggle, face to face, with your hands squeezing or beating soft, human, flesh, one on one. We had just as many disturbed, sick citizens in America in the last century as we do in this. The difference now is access to weapons of mass destruction. Anyone can have a gun. Anyone. It did not used to be like this. It’s easy to kill now.

The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight

“Two Secret Service officers were injured yesterday after a gun held by another Secret Service officer accidentally fired inside the White House gate. The officers received wounds to face and leg.”

“Vice President Cheney shoots hunting companion in the face.”

So really, what chance do thousands of children a year have?

3,300 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last four years. 120,000 Americans have been shot to death in America in the last four years. Where is the outrage? If we can elect a new congress based on its commitment to end the war overseas, we can elect a congress committed to end the war here at home. End both wars.

Here’s the Punchline

Today the supreme court overturned thirty years of supreme court precedent, and overturned the findings of six federal courts, to declare war on women, their health, their privacy, and their lives, by upholding a ban on dilation and curettage abortion that contains NO exception to preserve the health or SAVE THE LIFE of the woman. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, writing for the four dissenting justices, called the decision “alarming”.

Wait for it…

President Custer – “Today’s decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people’s representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America. This affirms the progress my administration has made to defend the “sanctity of life”.

Shame on our government.  #Vote #VoteBlue #VoteThemOut #OutlawTheNRA #TheNRAisaTerroristOrganization #RevoketheNRAnonprofitStatus #NoFameForMurderers

 


Some sources
:

www.cdc.gov
www.psrla.org/program_gun_violence.htm
www.vpc.org

Worldwide Women March, the Beginning

Here’s a message I just received on facebook. Name not important. I don’t know why she sent this to me, I don’t know her. And she clearly, clearly does not know me.

To Me: 

I am not a “disgrace to women” because I don’t support the women’s march. I do not feel I am a “second class citizen” because I am a woman. I do not feel my voice is “not heard” because I am a woman. I do not feel I am not provided opportunities in this life or in America because I am a woman. I do not feel that I “don’t have control of my body or choices” because I am a woman. I do not feel like I am ” not respected or undermined” because I am a woman. I AM a woman. I can make my own choices. I can speak and be heard. I can VOTE. I can work if I want. I control my body. I can defend myself. I can defend my family. There is nothing stopping me to do anything in this world but MYSELF. I do not blame my circumstances or problems on anything other than my own choices or even that sometimes in life, we don’t always get what we want. I take responsibility for myself. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend. I am not held back in life but only by the walls I choose to not go over which is a personal choice. Quit blaming. Take responsibility. If you want to speak, do so. But do not expect for me, a woman, to take you seriously wearing a pink va-jay-jay hat on your head and screaming profanities and bashing men. If you have beliefs, and speak to me in a kind matter, I will listen. But do not expect for me to change my beliefs to suit yours. Respect goes both ways. If you want to impress me, especially in regards to women, then speak on the real injustices and tragedies that affect women in foreign countries that do not that the opportunity or means to have their voices heard. Saudi Arabia, women can’t drive, no rights and must always be covered. China and India, infantcide of baby girls. Afghanistan, unequal education rights. Democratic Republic of Congo, where rapes are brutal and women are left to die, or HIV infected and left to care for children alone. Mali, where women can not escape the torture of genital mutilation. Pakistan, in tribal areas where women are gang raped to pay for men’s crime. Guatemala, the impoverished female underclass of Guatemala faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages. And that’s just a few examples. So when women get together in AMERICA and whine they don’t have equal rights and march in their clean clothes, after eating a hearty breakfast, and it’s like a vacation away that they have paid for to get there… This WOMAN does not support it.”

My Answer:

Wow, I never use this term because I rarely encounter it, but finally, a dictionary definition of “White Privilege”. Here, it’s actually “Rich White Privilege”. How wonderful you are so secure standing in your own Bruno Maglis that you cannot even see past to women who aren’t you. My friends and I indeed remember the coat hanger desperate abortions of the ’60’s and ’70’s, the horrible conditions for poor women seeking medical help without much money even after Roe V Wade became law. We remember there were no such things as “rape kits”, and the first questions asked by police if you were brave enough to try to report rape was, “What were you wearing? What were you doing there? Are you sure this wasn’t just a fight with your boyfriend?” If you got as far as a courtroom and on the stand, the other side could reduce you to a sexually promiscuous whore who was asking for it. These things changed because women fought and marched.

Even though Roe v Wade is still the law of the land, over 30 states now make abortion impossible, so again you need to be rich to travel, wait out the waiting periods (though not for a gun), and hope your husband (or your stepfather who impregnated you, or your mother’s boyfriend who impregnated you) doesn’t try to stop you. In many states, you will need their written permission to terminate. Good luck getting that, as it would then implicate them in your molestation. Some states have “paternal rights” laws, meaning your rapist has visitation rights to your child for eighteen years, if you carry the rapists’ child to term and keep it. By the way, public taxpayer money has never been used for abortions, and so-called “Christian” companies like Hobby Lobby can refuse to pay for birth control in their employees’ health care plans. Yet all cover the cost of Viagra. Planned Parenthood is the primary care center for millions of women in America. They use no taxpayer money for abortions. Nevertheless, your new vice president, Mike Pence, cut their funding in 2011, causing the worst HIV outbreak in Indiana state history.  It also caused breast cancer rates to skyrocket as women lost their affordable access to cancer screening. His number one goal in office now is to completely shut them down, as he has tried with six previous bills.

You’ve clearly never tried to make your way up the ladder of what was thought to be only a “man’s profession”. Even now, our female athletes, even when better than our men’s soccer team, are woefully behind in salary and winning purses. Women, not for lack of trying, hard work and competency, are in very few boardrooms of major companies. Women in the US still make less than men for the same work, a travesty when you consider how many women are the breadwinners for their families. White women make 80 cents to the dollar earned by white males.  African-American women are paid 60 cents for every dollar white men earn, while Hispanic women make only 55 cents. Title IX, signed into law in 1972 to give female students access to sports and equal opportunity in schools, barely survived the GOP grand effort to repeal it under President Obama. Without it, there would have been no Olympic Gold in 2016 for Women’s Gymnastics; no Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, Aly Raisman. It survived because women rallied and actively held our representatives to task.

So we march. We march because the republicans now rule the house, senate and executive branch. We march to let them know we are here, we are watching, we are not going backwards and we are active. We will drown you in phone calls, emails, articles, petitions and most importantly, WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT. You work for us. You do not rule us. You will not set us back to when we had to “let boys win”. You have won your last, we are here now and we are watching you. We are committed and we are angry. A sexual predator, who bragged about it, is the president of the United States, not Saudi Arabia and not Guatemala. He, and his supporters, are creating a very dangerous climate for women. This comes at a time when our rights to control our own bodies are one vote away from being overturned. When health insurance for women and families is being overturned and will leave us out in the cold. We have a vice president who actually coined the term “forcible rape”. “Forcible” rape. As opposed to.. the 1950’s courtroom version? While you whined about a fake war on Christmas we suffered under an actual War on Women. And we know what’s coming, from the tiny- minded, petty, self-serving, ignorant, narcissistic, archaic, hubristic, hateful, homophobic, mysogynistic boys club up on lobbyists hill. We know and we are ready. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Now let me ask you a question, dear letter writer: (and when you say you “can vote”, you know it’s because women marched, were beaten, arrested, taunted, jailed, for DECADES, to get you that right, right?) You mention your concern for women brutalized, and more deserving of a march, in countries like Mali, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, Africa. In how many of those countries in which you voiced extreme concern for women have you marched, advocated, helped, supported, or done anything for women or people in need? The new republican playbook is “false equivalency”, trying to throw the spotlight off the real issues affecting us by pointing out something shiny!!! elsewhere!!! Look!!! They treat women badly ten thousand miles away, so why are you protesting in America??!! That game doesn’t work here. It’s a specious argument at best and an ignorant one at worst. “Hey, people in South Africa don’t have clean water, so why are you protesting about Flint, huh?? Huh??” The Huckabee talking points are wearing thin, thin enough to be totally transparent.

Women yesterday weren’t “blaming” or “whining”. We were marching. Marching IS taking responsibility. We are responsible for our freedoms and our rights, and we are going to make sure we keep them. I am happy you have a wonderful life. I am happy my generation’s marching and fighting gave you the right to be anything you wanted, even oblivious if that’s your choice. If everyone else who had a wonderful life didn’t care about anybody else’s life, we’d never have gotten the vote. Continued carefree success to you.

 

 

You’re “Not Excited” About Hillary? Here’s Some Excitement

So young millennial women “aren’t excited by” Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, and may not vote?  Well here’s real excitement: standing on a dark street corner with a red carnation pinned on so the stranger driving the car can find you. He will then blindfold you and take you to a butcher of a “doctor” to end your accidental pregnancy, if you have enough cash. If you don’t die on the table, you will probably develop an infection a few hours later, or hemorrhage and have to go to a hospital where you “will be punished in some way”, for having an abortion. Most likely, you will never have children due to the negligent damage done to you, which you can do nothing about because you broke the law. Don’t believe me? Here:

Trump: “You go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places. But you have to ban it. There has to be some form of punishment.” Then forced by handlers to deflect in order to get elected, Trump re-calculated: “The doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.” (Make America great again. No thanks.)

The Supreme Court is already only one vote away from repealing Roe v Wade, and if a Republican gets elected and appoints the next Supreme Court judge, make no mistake, Roe v Wade, and your freedom to control your own body, will be overturned. You can’t imagine that, can you? And you don’t believe that it really was and will again be that bad, do you? Because you grew up so entitled, so lucky, so free to enjoy everything we older women fought and yes, died for. And you can’t imagine it could ever be any other way. Well, it can be and it will be. How you doing? Excited yet?

Maybe you think you’ll just take the “Morning After Pill” and have no worries. Do you know how many years it took us, and Planned Parenthood, and every women’s group, and the politics and lawsuits, to even get RU486 to market in America? It was available to women in France in 1987, then the UK, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and finally, finally! as a prescription drug, with age and consent restrictions, in the U.S. in the year 2000. Thirteen years after French women could safely control their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes, American women were still fighting to legally swallow a pill with a glass of water in their own kitchens. Think that pill can’t go away instantly once the anti-woman, anti-choice, anti sex education (figure that one out, anti-choice and anti sex education. Why don’t they just sell cars without brakes?) republicans get in power? Here are five drugs that used to be legal which are now illegal: Cocaine, LSD, MDMA, Meth, and Heroin. Exciting, isn’t it?

The U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team kicked ass in Brazil this year, didn’t they? Do you know what that was directly attributable to? Title IX, a law that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving any type of federal financial aid. It was passed in 1972. It opened the floodgates for women in sports and education. Do you know who has tried recently to repeal Title IX? Your Republican congress. You think women fighting for your rights isn’t exciting? It’s stupefying.

Hillary Clinton fought through the wars of discrimination waged against smart, professional women at a time when it  truly was a war. We all had to be ten times better than any man to get any job. She was a warrior, and she did it all. We had nowhere to run, nowhere to complain, nobody to sue. We put on our big-girl panties and fought our way through. You don’t use the word “feminist” any more? I do. I am a feminist. My definition is: equality for all. I want everybody to be happy. But not at the expense of anybody else. A true feminist is a humanist. So I am happy we made it possible for you to be free to do anything you want; post pictures of your dinners on Instagram, count your “likes”,  do whatever makes you happy, but I would ask one thing in return. Vote for Hillary Clinton on November 8th.

A twenty-year-old woman said to me the other day, “I don’t like either one”. I said, “What’s your problem with Hillary?” She replied, “The emails”. I said, “What about the emails?” She said, “You know, the emails”. I said “No. I don’t know. What about the emails?” All she could say was “The emails”. The empty talking point, the fake emergency, had been burned into her brain by endless repetition by our diseased media. I asked her, “Did anything go wrong because of the emails? Were we attacked? Were government secrets given to the enemy? Was there one ‘classified’ email that caused America even one problem in its dealings around the world or at home?” Of course not.

When a creature like Donald Trump is so flawed, with a new scandal every day; bankrupting yet another small business that expected to be paid for its work for him, faking having a NYC charity, then illegally misusing the donated money, when he talks of women like garbage to be sexually abused, when he leaves wife after wife and makes them sign draconian contracts to get divorce settlements, when he makes full use of all of America’s services to its citizens yet pays not one penny of tax to support them, when he is the first candidate in half a century to hide his tax returns, and on, and on, and on, the problem is this: There is so much shit on his plate, it just keeps rolling on through. But by him, and his party, simply saying “Emails” for a year and a half, that’s what sticks. If we could have just chosen only one of Trump’s egregious actions, and repeated it for a year and a half, the election might have been a referendum on, say: child rape vs emails, or fake charity scamming vs emails, or fake university fleecing of the poor vs emails, or tax evasion vs emails, or molesting women vs emails, or five bankruptcies vs emails, or lying about re-opening obsolete coal mines vs emails, or having absolutely no policy plans whatsoever vs emails, or claiming to support paid maternity leave when none of his companies has paid maternity leave, vs emails, or bringing manufacturing to America again when all of his, and his family’s products, are made overseas, vs emails, or overturning women’s rights vs emails, or reversing gains made by the LGBT community vs emails, or voter suppression in black and latino areas vs emails, or running fake ads telling Americans they can vote for Hillary by text, thus making them think they actually voted when they didn’t, vs emails, or lying every time he opens his mouth vs emails. But we can’t, because he is so steeped in shit there is no one talking point we can stick to long enough before the next heinous revelation comes to light.

Hillary Clinton, and every great woman I know, came up in a patriarchal, male-ruled society. They didn’t do rape kits because they didn’t believe us when we said we were raped. They didn’t respect us. They didn’t want to work with us and they didn’t want to pay us. And we made them. Because we didn’t give up and we knew we had the right to happy fulfilling lives and were willing to work for that. Pundits telling Hillary to “smile more” during the debates were the echo of every construction worker taunting female passersby, “Hey baby! Ya can’t give me a smile, sweetie??” A replica of every sexist boss and customer saying, “How ’bout a little smile, honey?” Why didn’t anybody tell that miserable male face in the debates to “smile more”? He didn’t smile at all, and he could have used it. All of this diversion nonsense about Hillary “not being likable” is a wink and a nod to the old sexism game. Who ever, ever, mentioned a male presidential candidate being likable as a thing. Donald Trump is a seventy year old throwback to steaks and cigars and broads, grabbing the waitress’ ass while smirking with his buddies drinking scotch, saying “I could get her”. He’s a bully and a failure of the worst kind; the kind who takes his off the top and leaves the little guy holding the bag, to go under. He’s a “white males first and best” kind of spoiled rich boy, taking credit for success where not only isn’t there true success, only a numbers game he can manipulate to come out on top on paper, but if there was, the credit goes not to him, but to all the small companies he used and destroyed, all the laws he twisted to serve his own grasping purpose. He’s small, he’s mean. He’s against all the people who think differently than he does, who want a better life but didn’t have a rich father, who weren’t born here but made their way here to give their children what his father gave him; a leg up, an in, a chance, and fourteen million dollars.

You still don’t see a difference? You “don’t like either one of them”? You weren’t outraged by Trump’s disrespectful treatment of Hillary during the debates? She came out classy and beautiful, prepared (oh right, that’s a negative. Explain that to me, will you?) She explained her policies, her plans, with intelligence. She treated him with respect. He couldn’t speak in full sentences, he had no answers, no policies, so he attacked her for ninety minutes at a time. That didn’t enrage you? Then you need better boyfriends. For years I’ve supported WRRAP, which is in essence the “underground railroad” for poor women needing abortions in one of the ten states that have already banned abortion completely, or one of the forty one states that make it almost impossible. But I’m done fighting the fight. Why should I help any more? I can’t get pregnant, and you can’t even be bothered to vote, yawn yawn. We’ve given you all this; freedom and choices and opportunity and the whole world, and sometimes we didn’t smile and weren’t likable doing it. Too bad. But you need to protect and cherish it now, and make your futures even better. You need to vote for Hillary Clinton on November 8th, for a million and one great reasons, and for the future of America and the world. Not because she is a woman. Because she is a great, brilliant, capable woman, and the best man for the job.

 

 

 

Let ‘Em Eat Lead. Guns and Bread.

“Let ‘Em Eat Lead” may as well be the rallying cry of the Republican party. No longer the party of Lincoln, it’s now the Party of Marie Antoinette.

While it’s legal in Ohio to carry guns openly or concealed, the Cleveland police union urged Ohio’s Governor Kasich to suspend the law during the Republican convention. While Kasich couldn’t quite do that, the RNC banned guns inside the convention center and in a large zone around the building. Think about that for a minute. While the republicans, the political party responsible for enabling the laws that made possible the shooting of ninety two people, 12 fatally, in Cleveland the month of their convention there, they sat safe and free from gun violence inside Quicken Loans Arena.

Why? If the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, as they love telling us while fattening their bank accounts with NRA blood money, didn’t they want to assure their safety with as many guns as possible inside and outside the arena? Did you know that guns were also banned at the RNC in Tampa in 2012? One hundred and thirty thousand ordinary Americans have been shot in the U.S. since 2012. But the republican elite again sat smug and safe from gun violence inside Tampa’s Amalie Arena. The absolute height of republican hypocrisy is their “Let ’em eat cake” lawmaking. Only nobody ever died from cake. The republicans were safe from guns while in Cleveland. Meanwhile in Cleveland, a two year old girl in her mother’s arms was shot in the head, and an eleven year old girl was shot while watching tv in her living room. Too bad they too couldn’t have been safe inside Quicken Loans Arena.

Dear Bernie Supporters, Undecideds, Swing Voters, Everyone who doesn’t see the difference between the two parties; no party is perfect. Politics is compromise, and it’s painful and often not pretty. Some of you are angry the DNC erected a fence around the convention. With terrorism and gun nuts, of course they did. But they didn’t exclude themselves from living by the laws they passed for us to live by. The DNC has passed laws to benefit the environment, children, the aged, labor, women, minorities, and improve health care. Their convention wasn’t a fracking barbecue over coals with oil lamps. They didn’t dine on endangered species while being waited on by non- union eight year old immigrants without Pre-k or health care, while their leadership burned down a women’s clinic. They’re with us. And #imwithher.

Yes, the DNC put a fence around its convention for safety. But hey, guess what? The RNC took away your guns.

There IS a DIFFERENCE. Let’s vote the Democrats back into our government.

Dear Bernie Supporters

Dear Bernie Supporters,

It is inspirational to see so much passion and idealism in politics again. Many of us remember feeling that exhilarating hope and joyous promise when Bill Clinton took office, and Hillary Clinton renewed the standard for how inspiring a role model a First Lady of the United States could be. I remember watching in awe in 1993 as Mrs. Clinton spoke to congress, without notes, for over two hours, outlining the new president’s health care proposal. She was smart, beautiful, classy, involved; the promise of how far women could now aspire to go.

I worked for Bill Clinton’s election, and then Al Gore’s, and I know your pain is as great as what we all felt when in 2000, the Supreme Court, to the great detriment of our constitution, threw the presidential election to George W. Bush.

When Al Gore said it was time to come together and support our new president (Bush), we were outraged, depressed, sick to our stomachs, and having none of it. NEVER! I cried. A lot. I’m sure my head would have exploded if the election had been ongoing, and Al Gore had asked us to actually VOTE FOR George W. Bush. I know I wouldn’t have.

But here is the difference in what we went through then and what is at stake today. George W. Bush was the political opposite of Al Gore. George W. Bush opposed every good policy and plan for America’s future that Al Gore embraced. George W. Bush was unqualified to be the president of the United States; intellectually, temperamentally, and in his lack of experience and vision. George W. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, was/is a war profiteer and an architect of murder and destruction. I will never understand why Al Gore didn’t keep fighting.
Today: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have voted together ninety three percent of the time. Think about that. Bernie and Hillary have worked together to support the issues and legislation that matter to all of us, ninety three percent of the time. Hillary’s vice presidential pick, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, received a ninety percent positive rating in the liberal Americans for Democratic Action rating of 2014 Senate votes.

I love Bernie Sanders. I am so grateful that the Bernie Revolution forced the Democratic party’s platform even further to the left than it was, and it was already progressive (LGBTQ rights, choice for women, civil rights, minimum wage hikes, fixing the social safety net, education, financial regulation, supporting science and the environment, etc. etc.) You did that. That is what I call a successful revolution, and yes, of course it must continue. I understand the impulse to throw it all away in anger and frustration. I beg you not to. I am respectfully asking you to look at Hillary’s lifetime, true, successful record in fighting for all of us; all the people Bernie fights for. The right has so brainwashed the willing into seeing Hillary Clinton as the devil, it is shameful that we need to point out the incredible work for America this woman has devoted her life to for decades. I am not going to go down the list of what she has been subjected to by a partisan congress and partisan news outlets. Suffice to say, she has shown up every time, publicly put it all on the line, done her best, taken the heat, answered and answered and answered, without rancor or complaint. Donald Trump won’t even release his tax returns. (The first presidential candidate in fifty years, by the way, to hide his tax returns. Where is the press and congress now?)

I know. You are so angry you’d rather see Donald Trump elected, just for spite. I get it. I am the best grudge holder in the history of my family; Jews with 25 Olympic Gold Medals in Grudge Holding and Cutting Off Our Noses to Spite Our Faces. But listen, after you get past that natural instinct of rebellion, you must see what is at stake for the future survival, yes survival, of life as we know it. Donald Trump is the least qualified person to ever run for the highest office in the land. He makes George W. Bush look like Carl Sagan. Make no mistake, Trump is a danger to America, the world, and the future of both. I have nothing against him personally, he simply has zero qualifications for this job. Hillary Clinton is not “the lesser of two evils”. Hillary Clinton is one of the most qualified people to ever run for president of the United States. In forty years of public service, there are going to be some corners cut, some deals made, some less than idealistically perfect votes, some political manipulation. That’s politics, that’s life. That’s how things get done at all in the real world. Joan Rivers would say, “Oh, grow up”. I’m not minimizing actions of Hillary’s that offend you, I’m not dismissing your feelings. But nobody’s perfect. Life isn’t perfect. Politics is the least perfect place of all.

Bernie hasn’t given up. He knows the only way he can continue his revolution and have a powerful voice in our government is in a Clinton administration. You love him, you trust him, you support him. Then trust he is asking you to do the right thing for the right reason when he asks you to vote for Hillary. For our country. For the revolution.

Senate Passes on Passing Gun Bills, Pass the Buck

The senate did NOT pass the four hardly- even -not- so- much- but- still- something- better- than- nothing gun “control” bills today. Possible terrorists on the “No Fly” list can still buy guns. They’re not on the “No Airport” list though, so they can still ruin your vacation, if boarding in Group 4 hasn’t already done so. There will still be no background checks at gun shows. So use those three days waiting for an abortion to buy something that lets you murder an already born, no doubt about it actual person. No counseling necessary! Senate Majority Bleeder Mitch Unconscionable said the Democratic measures were “ineffective” and “Democrats were not sincere in their effort”. He could tell they weren’t sincere because they tried to pass a gun control bill. If they were sincere, they would have shot up the senate.

He then squeezed his buttocks and coughed up another hairball: “Republican senators are pursuing real solutions that can help keep Americans safer from the threat of terrorism.” I assume these include:

 Background checks for falafel purchases.
No “Muhammad” or “Amir” on Coke cans.
Getting the greeting card industry to make “Happy Hajj!!” cards, then hiding behind display to see who buys them.
Passing a senate resolution to outlaw the word “AiAiAi”. (Includes no more I Love Lucy reruns.)
No radio play for any songs containing words that rhyme with “Ramadan”. (Includes Rama Lama Ding Dong.)
Staring really hard at anyone eating hummus (I see you!)
Banning the sale of rugs under five feet long.
Banning all people in the U.S. with beards from facing East.
Banning the sale of “Korans For Dummies”.
 
Congress has not passed new gun restrictions since 2007. Ten years, about three hundred thousand people in America dead from guns. If 300,000 people had died from apples since 2007, they would not keep making those Snow White movies. Senators in the pocket of the NRA have enough cash to physically weave it into thick bullet proof vests to keep themselves safe, while the rest of us play Fatal Weekend Roulette. 
“If you see something, say something.” Fine. Something. Something‘s rotten in Denmark. Doing something is better than doing nothing. I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed. To give real service you must add something that cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity, and integrity. Do something!!!!!!!
Trudy the Bag Lady, from the mind of the great Lily Tomlin says, “When I was young I wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific”. We need to be more specific. Say something to your senators who voted against these bills. Say it with your vote in November. Say good-bye.

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