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Every day that passes without a criminal indictment for Donald Trump is a day closer to his nomination as the GOP choice for the ’24 Presidential election and serious disaster for the well-being of our country regardless of the outcome. Why that indictment has not been forthcoming is a bit of a mystery, but I suspect it stems from a lack of courage on the part of the prosecutors who are pursuing various investigations of Trump and members of his immediate enablers. Perhaps fear of political repercussions. Perhaps fear of physical violence or death threats against one’s self and family. Perhaps fear of losing the case making Trump more of a pariah than he already is. And perhaps just overly cautious and somewhat passive personalities as is the case with Merrick Garland. We don’t really know why the delays against a man–an ex-President, yes, but still just a citizen–who has obviously committed major crimes over the last few years. In the meantime, Trump continues to campaign and obtain money from his cult following, cults that by nature, stick with their leader to the bitter end. Remember Jim Jones?

So it’s very possible Trump will be the GOP nominee. Best case scenario is that someone else is the nominee and Trump runs as a third party. That will insure victory for the Democratic nominee. But that is unlikely since Trump knows that’s a path to failure in this society. Trump of course is haunted by his father’s caustic voice in his head about never failing.

So the election will probably again be Biden vs. Trump. Know that it’s very difficult to defeat an incumbent President. And Biden has done well in the face of extreme right wing opposition. So it’s likely Biden will win again. However…it’s also likely Trump is planning for this and is already strategizing for a coup by his cult followers, which include current congressmen and women, violent white supremacist groups, and even sympathetic police and military. Some pickle this country is in.

So is there anything we, as individuals, can do about this pickle? For one, we can increase our level of awareness to a sense of urgency. The stresses of modern life tend to benumb us to intense situations such as the war in Ukraine, tensions with China, and lies thrown at us by Fox “news”, Trump, extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, and election meddler Vladimir Putin. It’s just too much and we tend to close down and block out the toxic input to our systems. These are self-preservation mechanisms developed since the end of World War II when the world got very complicated politically, economically, and socially.

So it’s to acknowledge this dynamic within us, and begin to face the denial that comes with it. For denial and apathy are our real enemies. There have always been the Trumps, Greenes, DeSantis’s, Hitlers, Stalins, and Putins in the world–people who need to be opposed at every step along their destructive ways. Once we face those inner enemies, we can better face the external ones and begin to change our denial and apathy into enlightened action.

Take occasional breaks, but stay aware of the current news, making sure your sources are reliable, true, and not self-serving or profit driven. Fox “news”, Newsmax, much of social media, extreme right wing radio talk shows/podcasts, and the like are not good news sources, so eliminate them from your routines. CNN, the Washington Post, the Guardian are much better sources, with excellent non-biased reporters often working from the front lines of war zones and the battlegrounds of Washington D.C.

Conscious consumption, as podcaster and restauranteur Joey Chmiko has coined it, involves being careful of what energy, information, and, of course, food, you allow into your mind and body. That keeps us healthier in mind, body, and spirit. From there, we are in better positions to be proactive in opposing the forces around us who try to wear us down with their misinformation, hoping we swallow their stinking bait hook, line, and sinker.

This sends a powerful message of opposition to those intent on feeding their opioids to the complacent masses, rendering them passive, vulnerable, and easily manipulated. They will stop only when enough of us demand that they stop. That may take protesting, which fortunately we are still allowed to do unlike in Russia, Iran, or Afghanistan, letter writing to state and federal representatives, or speaking truth whenever you hear obvious lies.

It will not be an easy fight. The forces of greed, hatred, and delusion have been with us for centuries and have developed mechanisms of persistence, evasion, and delay. Trump should already be in prison. Greene and Gaetz and Jordan should already be thrown out of Congress, along with Santos. Steve Bannon and Roger Stone should be doing time. White supremacists should be labeled terrorists as they are in Canada. And the purveyors of White Christian Nationalism should be exposed for advancing ideas that drove the Pilgrims out of Europe–essentially ideas that endorse a state-only religion. As for the war criminal Putin, he already needs to very much face the same fate as the Nazis at Nuremberg and join his countryman Stalin as one of the most infamous rulers in history.

They, and many others like them, are stains on democracy, but somehow use the freedoms of democracy to continue their rants, their racism, and their crimes…with impunity. It’s time that we, along with our Democratic representatives in Congress, demand, in very clear and forceful language, that they stop.

***

Need something positive and healing? Consider my latest book, To Live a Life: 200 Ways to Be the Best Person You Can Be. You can find it, in paperback or ebook, at Amazon. Proceeds go to my own Sacajawea Press where I’ve written and published five books during the pandemic. More at stephenaltschuler.com. Thank you.

Woke. What does it mean? To the Trump GOP? To the sane world? Well, the Buddha was woke, since Buddha in Sanskrit means the awakened one. That’s right, woke signifies one who has woken up to reality. One who is awareness of the truth. One who is sensitive and aware of the needs of others. One who is compassionate and empathetic. One who is kind, generous, and considerate towards others in need. Woke is a positive human trait. But the Republicans have twisted it to mean something negative, something connected with liberals, with democrats, even with Joe Biden (hence the wacko Newsmax reporter who asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a news conference if Biden was woke). Republicans have added “woke” to their culture wars strategy to mask the fact that they have absolutely no other policy proposals besides their very un-woke idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare.

What’s sad is that their distortions are catching on with voters who mainly watch Fox “news” for their daily dose of “information.” What’s sad too is that the propaganda network Fox is the most watched “news network” in America, indicating how far we’ve sunk below the lofty standard of wokeness, a standard which defines a democracy at its core.

That’s right. Democracy requires a level of wokeness, of awareness, of sanity, of openness to obvious truth, of tolerance of others who don’t seemingly fit into the mold of a melting pot nation. For that is what we are and have been right from day one. A place where all men, all people, are created equal. Worldwide, it was a unique concept in 1776. It was a world of kings and queens and their monarchies. It was a world of haves and have nots, of plantation owners and slaves, of landholders and peasants, of men and women/children, of self-righteous missionaries and pagans. Hardly a world where every human being was considered equal, legally and actually.

But Jefferson and the Founders changed that. Even though many of them were also slaveholders, they put forth a document, The Declaration of Independence, that announced a higher, more conscious standard for countries to follow. Obviously, it was not well received by England,the staunchly conservative monarchy that controlled the American colonies at the time. But the Revolutionary War settled that score. The colonists prevailed and formalized Jefferson’s ideas in their Constitution, only adding to that concept over the years with its 26 Amendments.

Lincoln, arguably our greatest President–the President who kept this union of states together–also helped solidify Jefferson’s ideals of “of the people, for the people, and by the people” in his Gettysburg Address. He then freed the slaves and changed the world forever. By doing so, Lincoln was our most woke president.

Personally, I am proud to be woke. I am in favor of acknowledging systemic racism in our present-day society, making amends for it, and reversing it through appropriate reperations and accommodations for Blacks and Native Americans who were cruelly abused and denigrated and demeaned. Imagine plantation owners who for several hundred years greedily rubbed their hands together thinking of how much money they could make with the free labor of slavery. Imagine pioneers who salivated over the free land they could take from the “savage” Indians who had lived on, cared for, and held sacred that land for 21,000 years before the invasion of white Europeans.

Yes, as a woke citizen of the United States, I acknowledge that we owe these oppressed people one hell of a lot of “affirmative actions” to help get them back on their feet towards the equality our Constitution affords them.

Trump Conservatives assuage their guilty consciences with denial and rationalizations that they are not racists, that we are making progress, that we must not live in the past, that we must not teach our young the truths of our history, lest they bear the scars of those realities. They don’t understand that denial and lies only deepen those scars in the long run. Transparency and honesty may be tough to hear, but only facing the truth will heal the wounds of the past. I know this from 40 years of counseling the severely mentally ill. I know this from even more years of my own tendencies to lapse into denial, rationalization, and projection, eventually seeing first hand the advantages of wokeness and the higher level of consciousness that personal honesty, awareness, and truth bring.

Yes, wokeness is a virtue and very much not the demon Trump Republicans are trying to paint it. Don’t fall for their lies and deceptions and misinformation. They have far more regard for power over people.

At the State of the Union we saw a Joe Biden we really hadn’t seen before. His speech had great energy, was challenging, and was “right on target, so direct” to quote a Bob Dylan lyric. Republican extremists on the other hand acted pretty much as expected. “Lier!” shouted Marjorie Taylor Greene, with cupped hands while draped in a rather obnoxious fur coat or cape that looked like something out of a 1955 newsreel. She proved to be the idiot I always pegged her to be, a representative from a Georgia district that also must be rife with idiots…and probable white supremacists, as is she.

The highlight of the speech was when Joe turned the mirror back on the over the top House hecklers. These MAGA Trumpsters have for the past year, issued veiled, and not so veiled, threats to dismantle both Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. When Biden pointed this out, the hooting and hollering began from the peanut gallery. Liar? Hardly. Sen. Tim Scott of Florida was quite explicit in proposing exactly this in the only Republican economic platform declared to date. And others, like Greene and Boebert, chimed and chirped in behind him in agreement.

Nonplussed, President Biden deftly kept his cool, figuratively wearing his signature Aviators, and somehow–I’m still not sure how–got the extremists to agree, with the rest of this political cult, with a commitment not to cut these programs one penny. And once he had them cornered and committed, he dug and twisted his political knife even deeper to finish the job. Not a hoot or a holler was heard as he concluded, “Folks — so folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They’re not to be — all right. We’ve got unanimity.

“Social Security and Medicare are a lifeline for millions of seniors. Americans have to pay into them from the very first paycheck they started.

“So tonight, let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare.

Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it.”

Masterful. Don’t mess with Joe on his turf. He’s been there longer than before some of these extremists clowns were born. He caught them with their pants…and fur coats…down.

This speech, I believe, was the start of Joe Biden’s bid for a second term in ’24. And he needed such a bang to counteract the 62% of the American public who don’t believe he’s accomplished much in these last two years. Apparently, these folks are so burnt out they’ve put their political heads in the sand and haven’t seen the bills this man has gotten through despite almost total opposition from the Republican side along with two naysayers from the Democrat side in the Senate. Infrastructure, deficit reduction, jobs growth, unemployment decline, drug price decline, Affordable Care Act increase in enrollment, women safety, inflation reduction, wage increases, union participation, gun safety, crime reduction, vaccinations and Covid death reduction. There’s more, but that 62% is apparently either not listening or is listening but is so distrustful of what they hear or are hopelessly enamored by the lies and distortions of Fox “News.” I suspect it’s the latter.

As the ’24 campaign gets underway, Biden and his supporters must do better to overcome the misinformation campaign the Republicans are so good at. Whether it’s Trump, DeSantis, Halley, Pompeo–whoever they run–they will depend not on policy, for they really have none, but on culture wars and vitriol to accomplish their goal of not “finishing the job” as Biden pleaded several times in his speech, but finishing off Biden and the progress the Democrats have brought since Trump made America Hate Again.

Brace yourselves: This ’24 campaign will be ugly, for sure. Our country is deeply polarized and ripe for continued Russian and Chinese intervention in our political process. People are numb with conspiracy theories and still liable to being swayed and misled into believing even the most bizarre among them.

We are at a point of inflection where Democracy hangs in the balance. Yes, we’ve been there before and have survived. Ultimately we do rise to the occasion and remember the principles on which we started and fought for.

Will we survive this time? I sure as hell hope so. Keep up that energy and vitality you displayed last night, Joe! Keep it going.

* A Chinese weather/maybe-spy balloon over America! Mobilize the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, screamed the right wing extremists! We’re under attack! Why doesn’t Biden do something? Our borders have been breached. Trump would’ve already acted, sayth MAGA spokeswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well the fact is Trump had three such incidents and he failed to act on any of them. And the fact is to shoot down such a contraption over land would endanger civilians on the ground with shrapnel falling about randomly. And the fact is we need to talk to these people before we drift further to a Hot War that could turn into a World War. Yes, it finally was shot down over the ocean where the military has safely retrieved some of it and is studying the device. The operation was done safely and effectively under Joe Biden’s administration. Supposed strongman Trump, again, did nothing when he was confronted with three similar incidents.

* The classified documents cases against Biden and Trump are very different and cannot be compared. Trump lied, deceived, and covered up, choosing not to cooperate with the authorities. Biden fully cooperated, instructing his attorneys to act with complete transparency. Biden: Case closed. Trump: Indictment now.

* DeSantis and his Florida Fascist state legislators are requiring menstrual data from pubescent girls, in minute detail. I assume this is a stealth attack on transgender kids, as DeSantis is a stealth version of Donald Trump, but even Donald wouldn’t venture that far right.

* Representative Omar has been kicked off the House foreign affairs committee by Speaker McCarthy for her anti-semitic remarks which she has apologized for. Meanwhile avowed anti-semite and racist Marjorie Taylor Greene has been rewarded with key committee assignments after Democrats removed her from such assignments in the last session for irresponsible public statements she has not apologized for. The House is now essentially an institution of retribution and revenge instead of the People’s House, assigned to work for the benefit of all via productive legislation.

* Putin continues his war crimes by targeting apartment buildings and other civilian structures in the Ukraine, killing and maiming innocents in his insane war of genocide and cultural destruction. His propaganda machine has the majority of the Russian population duped into either supporting the war or remaining silent for fear of imprisonment. Russia, have you no shame? Have you no decency? Have you no brains?

* The Scorpion Police Unit in Memphis was designed to terrorize and intimidate the community supposedly to dissuade criminals from committing crime. The unit ultimately beat an innocent man to death after stopping him on a routine traffic violation. When police are trained to treat the community as the enemy and then assume they have the power of life and death over its citizens, something is terribly wrong. Most police are honest, hard-working people, but it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel. Police reform is needed throughout this country. The Scorpion Unit has been disbanded in Memphis and the violent officers have been dismissed and are now under indictment for murder. Good riddance.

* If our great country is to evolve and move forward to the goals professed in our original documents, we must own our history and face not only our successes and accomplishments but our failures and transgressions. For hundreds of years we deceived and mistreated the original inhabitants of our country, breaking treaties, stealing their land without compensation, and practicing a form of genocide against the American Native population. For 400 years we supported the transportation and enslavement of Africans, and when that was banned, we bred more slaves and sold them “down the river” to willing plantation owners in the South. It took the bloodiest and most destructive war in our history, and one courageous President, to stop this horrid crime against humanity. Now Republican politicians rant and rave against “wokeness” and reparations and Black history in classrooms and the 1619 Project and prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory in schools, which includes a specific prohibition, in Florida, on use of materials from the 1619 Project. Hiding our heads in the history’s sands will lead to the destruction of democracy itself. The lessons enumerated in novel 1984 loom even today in the first quarter of the 21st century.

* And finally, after all the crimes, all the fraud, all the lies, all commissions by omission, all the deaths threats he encourages, all the attacks on our democratic form of governing, Donald Trump still walks freely. When will we either put this criminal behind bars where he belongs or at least ban him from ever running for public office again? When?

***

I’ve a new book out that offers some positivity, some order, some hope to the discourse. It is To Live a Life: 200 Ways to be the best person you can be. Each chapter is a lesson to be learned, to be reflected upon, to be used as grist for the evolutional mill. It can be found at Amazon in ebook or paperback format. Please check it out and if you like it, spread the word. Thanks.

My grandparents, on both sides, were immigrants to America in the early 20th century. They were looking for a better life. They were escaping tyranny and persecution. They were human beings doing what human beings have done for millennia. Originally, in Africa, where our species began, there was famine, drought, danger from wild animals, raids from violent neighbors who wanted more of what they already had, catastrophic climate change: the same reasons people migrate today. They heard through the grapevine things were better elsewhere–more food, more water, better weather, less fighting, greener pastures, fewer dangerous animals. So they got together and talked about how they’d get out, where’d they go, and how they’d get there. Much like today. They were tired, frustrated, angry, scared for their kids who were looking sad and underfed. Just like today. They had no money, no maps, no guarantees. Just someone’s finger pointing north or west or up to a star to follow. Just like today. They packed whatever belongings that would fit on their backs or their mules or their carts, and when the day was right, with the courage of great warriors, set off on foot in the direction of that trusted finger. And they continued, with their children, their elders, their dogs, whatever and whoever were capable of the unknowns that lie ahead–forests, jungles, deserts, raging rivers, vast bodies of water, fierce predators, heat, cold, storm, mountains, valleys, unfriendly people. Just like today.

Some made it. Some didn’t. Still they left what they didn’t like to seek a better place for themselves and their families. Just like today.

We hear a lot of negatives about immigration here in America and throughout Europe these days. Republicans here and right wing politicians in Europe have paved a path to power on how much fear they can generate by presenting immigrants as the enemy: people who are coming to take something away from the settled citizens of their cities and countrysides. The con man Trump ranted about rapists and drug dealing Mexicans who were sweeping across the border like invading Mongol hordes on the steepes of Europe in much earlier times. His campaign strategy was to frighten, to alarm, to deceive, to warn, to mesmerize his flock like an evangelical preacher does with the Devil and sin and salvation. We get reports of Abbott from Texas and DeSantis from Florida shipping migrants to Blue states to score political points and weaponize simple, innocent people to show their base how they deal with immigrants,slurring and smearing the word like it was something dirty, something dangerous, something disgusting, until their congregations, their constituents began almost tasting these people, as they might a foul piece of meat.

In 1910, my grandfather, a poor, but proud baker from the Ukraine, which at that time was part of the vast Pale of Settlement–you know the expression “beyond the Pale”–decided there had to be a better way than poverty and pogroms and the Czar’s crazy decrees and laws confining Jews to a harsh and hopeless way of life that was going nowhere but to hell. He knew of others in his area who had fled to America, had found decent work, relative safety, and finally, a future.

That was it: There was no future in his Ukrainian life. And a human being needs to have the possibility of a future to make the present palatable enough to find moments of contentment and happiness. So, with the courage of a warrior, he left and began a journey on foot to find a future. It is not unlike what the migrant of today, from Nicaragua, from Venezuela, from Syria, from Sudan, from Mexico, from China, from Russia, from El Salvadore, from Guatamala, from Morocco, seeks. A future.

My maternal grandfather got settled, saved his money and sent for my grandmother. He worked hard through the depression as a baker, raised a family, who eventually raised families and became hard working members of society. My father, the son of immigrants from Germany, was a builder and contractor who built houses after World War II for returning GIs and others who saw our country grow and flourish. We live in a country built by immigrants and the children of immigrants. We are a true melting pot and proof that a melting pot can provide a fine-flavored stew.

Just as in ancient times, the world is pregnant with oppressed and often impoverished people. And just as in ancient times, those people want a future and will risk any means to find it. This force to find a hopeful future cannot be stopped by repressive laws or border walls or disengenuous, self-serving politicians. It cannot be stopped by white supremacists or bigots or racists or fascists or communists. Eventually, the walls erected to stop the hopes of people looking for a future will crumble as did the Tower of Babel of Bibical times, as did the Berlin Wall, as did the Iron Curtain, as did Rome, as did the Confederate South, as did the racist indigenous schools of Canada and the U.S., as did the KKK, as did Hitler and the Third Reich, as did the Pale of Settlement.

Today we have our own examples of efforts to stop immigration: Brexit in Britain; Rule 42 being misused in America; Orban in Hungary; Le Pen in France, Un in North Korea, Xi in China, Putin in Russia, the military in Myanmar, Castro in Cuba, and the Republican Party in the United States. These are all racist at heart, for most welcome immigration from white, prosperous countries.If we are to learn anything from the past, immigration cannot be stopped. It can be fairly controlled but cannot be stopped.

Why? Because people who do not have a future, feel they deserve a future. And they are right! Every human being deserves a chance at a hopeful future, and governments and institutions that try to deny them of that are doomed to failure. Over time, the migrants will find a way to cross the English Channel, to float across the Mediterranean, to breach America’s southern border. Damn, there’s even people who’ve hidden in the landing gear of planes or the rudders of huge ships to get out of the horrors of their own country!

The answer? In our country, Congress needs to rewrite the rules that allow some in and reject others. Republicans want nothing of rewriting such rules, as they continue to weaponize migrants in order to gain votes and put Democrats, dedicated to a fair approach and realizing the importance immigrants have played in building this country, on the defensive. But Democrats must seek out and find reasonable Republicans in Congress who will defy their intransigent leadership and work with Dems to find a reasonable solution to the immigrant crisis we now face. This is vital to our moving forward as a democracy.

Three years after my grandfather arrived, he saved enough money to send for his wife, my beloved grandmother. And she then made the dangerous journey on foot out of the Pale to a ship in Germany to Philadelphia where most of my family settled. If they hadn’t, or had been rejected at their port of entry, for lack of funds or their religion or their inability to speak English, I would not be here now writing this screed.

We need immigrants. And they desperately need us. Contact your representatives in Congress in this new year–particularly your Republican reps–and urge them to find reasonable and fair ways to accept immigrants. Personally, hire legal immigrants when possible. Patronize their businesses. They are no different from you and I in wanting a future and having a secure present.

***

May your New Year be full of hope, of good health, of prosperity, of compassion and kindness, and of love. Be well, my friends.

1. First, Happy Christmas to all!
2. Since Jesus was Jewish–and he was never not Jewish–why the anti-Semitism and all the hatred against Jews around the world? Why the unfair scapegoating of Jews by the far right for all the world’s problems? Have they not read what Jesus said and practiced to treat others as you would like to be treated; and love thy neighbor; and worry not for morrow?
3. Why is more not written about Putin’s Nazi leanings and actions? His attacks on Ukraine rival Hitler in their cruelty and insanity. They are war crimes of the basest order. World leaders and the press should be exposing Putin and those who influence him as Timothy Snyder does in his book The Road to Unfreedom, which I highly recommend.
4. Trump is also part of Putin’s strategy. He is too busy bilking his cult with worthless NFTs of him in various Ubermench outfits to make any criticisms of Putin and his war crimes in Ukraine. Not a word from Trump–the probable, and most despicable, GOP nominee for the 2024 election.
5. Why has Trump not already been charged and prosecuted for any of his many obvious crimes? I hope I’m wrong but it seems President Biden and Atty Gen. Garland are protecting this charlatan and con man. The prosecution and conviction of Donald Trump are crucial to the maintenance of our democracy. Otherwise, there will be others on the far right like him, even after he is gone, who think our system is ripe for an autocratic coup.
6. Why do fervent Christians, like evangelicals, support Trump? He is morally bankrupt. He is an unscrupulous businessman. He is a cult leader, extracting fidelity from his followers by any means, including condoning death threats against opponents and their families regardless of party affiliation. Have evangelicals no decency for such support of this man of such low consciousness?
7. Why does the GOP continue to oppose President Biden and his constructive policies to get this country back on its economic and moral feet? It’s a party that seems to be ironically allied with Russia’s Putin. A few scant years ago, the GOP was accusing Democrats for complicity with the USSR. Now, there are rumblings of diluting aid to Ukraine, of ignoring Russia’s influence on our elections, of denying some of our citizens of their rights on moral terms, as Putin does as well, and of continuing to vote against anything the Dems and Biden put forth, no matter how worthy and beneficial to Main Street America.

There’s more, certainly. But it is Christmas Day and I hate to be a grinch with all my questionings. I’ve just been watching a couple squirrels cavorting in a lovely birch beside our place. The birds are back flying after a couple days of ice on trees via freezing rain, cold, and power outages. And the roads are slushy but passable enough for us to get out and about, via car or foot. Life goes on.

8. And finally why is there not, after all these years of human evolution, Peace on Earth, Good will towards all? Wishing it were so, now, and forever more.

Bowing deeply, with love.

Forty Democrats in the House have submitted a bill that would, by means of the 14th Amendment, make it impossible for Donald Trump to ever run for public office again. The 14th Amendment clearly states that if anyone who has sworn an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Government is involved in the overthrow of our government, attempted or otherwise, he or she will be banned from ever running for office again. Donald Trump swore such an oath upon his inauguration as President in January 2017 and in 2021 was involved in the planning and action to overthrow the government and steal a fair and legal election. Congress is empowered to enforce the 14th Amendment, and upon passage in the House, the bill will then be sent to the Senate for their vote. If passed by a majority vote in the Senate, it will be sent to President Biden for his signature. That will effectively block Donald Trump from ever running for public office again. This could be accomplished within the final term of this lame-duck Congress. If not, the Republican majority in the House, slated to start January 3, 2023, will more than likely vote down the bill.

Unfortunately, the GOP has morphed into a party almost soley dedicated to blocking anything and everything the Democrats are trying to achieve to help this country get back on track since the brunt of the pandemic is over. And by still aligning itself with Donald Trump it has essentially become a party associated with and beholden to a white supremacist racist. Yes, the GOP is a party that espouses racism, bigotry, discrimination, anti-semitism, anti-abortion, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQI, anti-alternative energy, and climate denial. Those are strong words, I know, but strong words are needed to break the toxic direction this mainstream party has embarked upon–a direction that at its core, dating back to the Civil War, is also anti-democracy and anti-US Constitution. We the people, the Constitution begins. All men/people are created equal concludes the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Of the people, for the people, and by the people said Lincoln at Gettysburg. The Bill of Rights does not discriminate as to who is entitled to those rights. They are meant for all citizens and legal immigrants. Courts have upheld this basic principle for decades.

And back to that crucial bill upholding the 14th Amendment to ban Trump from ever running for public office again, I beseech you to call your U.S.congressperson and senator and urge them to vote in favor of this initiative. Trump is a scoundrel and hooligan who must be stopped via appropriate legislation and court action.

Thank you.

***

I am only a concerned citizen, beholden to and paid for by no one but myself. I am against any individual or organization who is against democracy and in favor of fascism, racism, and white supremacy. I am extremely alarmed that Donald Trump and his Republican Party have fallen into the latter category.

High School Reunions by an unknown author

Every five years, as summertime nears,
An announcement arrives in the mail,
“A reunion is planned; it’ll be really grand;
Make plans to attend without fail.”

I’ll never forget the first time we met;
We tried so hard to impress.
We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,
And wore our most elegant dress.

It was quite an affair; the whole class was there.
It was held at a fancy hotel.
We wined and we dined and we acted refined,
And everyone thought it was swell.

The men all conversed about who had been first
To achieve great fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their spouses described their fine houses
And how beautiful their children became.

The homecoming queen, who once had been lean,
Now weighed in at one-ninety-six.
The jocks who were there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders could no more do kicks.

No one had heard about the class nerd
Who’d guided a spacecraft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who’d always been plain;
She married a shipping tycoon.

The boy we’d decreed “most apt to succeed”
Was serving ten years in the pen,
While the one voted “least” now was a priest;
Shows you can be wrong now and then.

They awarded a prize to one of the guys
Who seemed to have aged the least.
Another was given to the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend the feast.

They took a class picture, a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts and wide ties.
Tall, short or skinny, the style was the mini;
You never saw so many thighs.

At our next get-together, no one cared whether
They impressed their classmates or not.
The mood was informal, a whole lot more normal;
By this time we’d all gone to pot.

It was held out-of-doors, at the lake shores;
We ate hamburgers, coleslaw and beans.
Then most of us lay around in the shade,
In our comfortable T-shirts and jeans.

By the fortieth year, it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely over the hill.
Those who weren’t dead had to crawl out of bed,
And be home in time for their pill.

And now I can’t wait; they’ve just set the date;
Our 60th is coming, I’m told.
It should be a ball, they’ve rented a hall
At the shady Rest Home for the old.

Repairs have been made on my hearing aid;
My pacemaker’s been turned up on high.
My wheelchair is oiled, my teeth have been boiled;
And I’ve bought a new wig and glass eye.

I’m feeling quite hearty, I’m ready to party;
I’ll dance ’til the dawn’s early light.
It’ll be lots of fun; I just hope there’s one
Other person who gets there that night.