At the heart of the dis­con­nect between nor­mal peo­ple and the polit­i­cal right, unfor­tu­nate­ly includ­ing the so-called Christian con­ser­v­a­tives, is the lit­tle issue called ‘truth.’
It is tough to have dis­course, much less reach con­sen­sus, if the fun­da­men­tal guardrail called truth is removed, leav­ing an ever-mov­ing goal­post of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion in its wake.
That is where America now finds itself. The stakes of hold­ing onto white suprema­cy and all the priv­i­leges it affords white peo­ple are so great that truth no longer matters.
They stare you in the face and pre­tend that the truth you just point­ed out is incon­se­quen­tial or does­n’t exist.
♦That Donald Trump is a pussy-grab­ber. ♦ That Donald Trump bragged about grab­bing women by the pussy♦ That Donald Trump is a ser­i­al phi­lan­der­er who had sex with hook­ers while his wife was home with their young baby♦ That Donald Trump is a vile racist♦ That Donald Trump is not a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man but an abject fail­ure♦ That Donald Trump does not care about their interest♦That Donald Trump barges in on naked young women and bragged about it♦ That Donald Trump is a crim­i­nal who does not care about their religion♦
On and on, they close their ears to the truth, cre­at­ing what Kelly AnnConway, Trump’s coun­selor, called alter­na­tive facts. A clear indi­ca­tion that as far as Donald Trump was con­cerned, ‘truth’ was out the door; real­i­ty was what they say it was.

Lies cre­ate anx­i­ety; it caus­es depres­sion when peo­ple can­not trust what their gov­ern­ment tells them. The sense of hope­less­ness many peo­ple expressed dur­ing the Trump régime has been pal­pa­ble. The break­down of com­mu­ni­ties along racial and polit­i­cal lines is direct­ly attrib­ut­able to Donald Trump and his acolytes inces­sant lies.
Donald Trump was not suc­cess­ful in destroy­ing the American Democratic exper­i­ment, but the peo­ple who sup­port him are still in pow­er. Trumpism is not dead; assum­ing that Trump’s depar­ture means the end of his insid­i­ous lies and the con­se­quences that emanate from them would be a big mistake.
It will be a heavy lift to remove the stain of Trump when there were a dozen mem­bers of the United States Senate who attached their names to a [lie] to over­turn the results of a ver­i­fi­able fair elec­tion, and by exten­sion, destroy­ing democracy.
Equally appalling is the two-thirds of the House Republican cau­cus who vio­lat­ed their oath to the con­sti­tu­tion and attached their names to the same lies to cur­ry favor with a patho­log­i­cal­ly men­da­cious wannabe strongman.
The stain of lies that now dri­ves the Republican par­ty is rather offen­sive to peo­ple who believe in truth’s morality.
Joni Ernst, the not-so-smart new­ly elect­ed US Senator from the state of Iowa, ignor­ing the truth of events on January 6^th, 2021, in response to Trump’s sec­ond impeach­ment, expressed con­cerns about the sen­ate try­ing crim­i­nal pres­i­dents after they leave office. Quote: So, in the future, can we impeach President Obama?
How damn disin­gen­u­ous is this so-called American Senator? First off, what crimes have President Obama com­mit­ted? Where is the equal pro­tec­tion under the law if pres­i­dents are allowed to break the laws and walk away scot-free?
Secondly, the US Congress did impeach Donald Trump before he left office, so is the nation sup­posed to walk away from a crim­i­nal pres­i­dent because Republicans all of a sud­den wants unity?
Where was the Republican uni­ty dur­ing Trump’s régime?

The stench of trump’s lega­cy will pre­vail long after trump; there is no unring­ing the bell, no get­ting back that sped arrow. Even if Democrats just deci­sion to impeach Trump a sec­ond time fails to win a con­vic­tion, which I believe it will, their cause will be no less just.
Republicans’ refusal to hon­or their oath will be only anoth­er exam­ple of the cor­ro­sive effects of lies. In this case, it will demon­strate that even though they cow­ered in fear at the prospect of los­ing their lives at the hands of Trump’s goons, they are so brain­washed, that they will vote to exon­er­ate the man who ordered the assault against them.
That is the pow­er of inces­sant lies and disinformation.

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Mike writes for thinkers.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

On January 20^th, 2009, Barack Hussien Obama, the Democratic Presidential nom­i­nee, was inau­gu­rat­ed as the 44^th pres­i­dent of the United States of America. Barack Hussien Obama was the first African-American to attain the nation’s high­est exec­u­tive office.
January 2009, Michael Steele, a Republican DC lawyer, was appoint­ed chair­per­son of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Michael Steele just also hap­pened to be a black man. He was the first African-American to be appoint­ed to run the Republican National Committee.
Was the Steel appoint­ment pure­ly coin­ci­den­tal, or was it a well thought-out and strate­gic attempt to put a black face on what would be a no-holes-barred assault against the Obama Administration? You be the judge.
The back­lash against Obama’s pres­i­den­cy was an all-out assault that took on many facets, includ­ing (a) an intran­si­gent (no-cam­paign) by Republicans in the house and Senate who had decid­ed on oppos­ing every­thing the new pres­i­dent pro­posed, even if they had sup­port­ed those pro­pos­als in the past. On its face, the idea, was to make Obama a one-term pres­i­dent, as Mitch McConnell attest­ed, quote; “my only goal is to make Obama a one-term pres­i­dent.”
However, the broad­er goal was to ensure that there would be no leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ment that could be attrib­uted to Obama.

(b) The T‑party’s rise was fund­ed by bil­lion­aire, reac­tionary, right-wing broth­ers, Charles and David Koch. The idea was to cre­ate the sense that the T‑party was a grass­roots upris­ing against the new­ly elect­ed pro­gres­sive pres­i­dent. The truth is that the move­ment was a racist cam­paign intend­ed to ensure that the new pres­i­dent would have no leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ment for four years, after which he would be boot­ed from office as a fail­ure, an exper­i­ment nev­er to be tried again.
(c) An all-out cam­paign against the new pres­i­dent led by right-wing media, aimed at stir­ring up an insur­rec­tion, which it did; across the South and mid­west, the pres­i­den­t’s poli­cies were demo­nized as Socialist/​Communist.
Of course, those tropes have been used unspar­ing­ly by the regres­sive ele­ments in this coun­try when­ev­er they desire to smear some­one they do not like.
Two years after Obama took office, the dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign result­ed in the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. They had no fur­ther use for Michael Steele, he was replaced as head of the RNC by Rience Prebuis.

Today Michael Steele still sees him­self as a Republican even though his words are dia­met­ri­cal­ly dif­fer­ent than it was years ago. In fair­ness to Michael Steele, he was nev­er a flame throw­er, he came from the old guard, which boast­ed African-Americans like Colin Powell, all the way back to Mrtin Luther King junior.
Unfortunately for those Republicans, the par­ty left them by the way­side a long time ago, they just ignored the signs. I have con­sis­tent­ly out­lined in this medi­um why African-Americans can­not sup­port the Republican party.
Republicans want­ed a black face on the RNC after Obama won the pres­i­den­cy. The bile and vir­tri­ol that was unleashed against President Obama and his new admin­is­tra­tion was papered over with the wall­pa­per of a black man’s face.
I called out the racism then, I thought it was despi­ca­ble and cow­ard­ly that they would use Steele against Obama , but they did. As soon as they took the House they were done with Michael Steele, he was replaced.
It is now a decade since Michael Steel was used as a sledge­ham­mer against the first African-American pres­i­dent, Steele is a dif­fer­ent man now, his com­ments and analy­sis is more in line with main­stream thought, bal­anced, intel­li­gent, reasoned.
A decade lat­er the Republican par­ty does not play the hide behind the black guy anymore.

The Republican par­ty is now a Fascist orga­ni­za­tion that does not believe in democ­ra­cy. Over the last twelve years, aid­ed by Supreme Court’s Shelby County Alabama Vs. Holder deci­sion, they have employed every mea­sure pos­si­ble to over­turn the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.
Outrageous ger­ry­man­der­ing, archa­ic vot­er sup­pres­sion laws, vot­er intim­i­da­tion, acts intend­ed to pre­vent peo­ple from vot­ing, purg­ing vot­ers lists, Russian-style dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, and a raft of oth­er anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic steps designed to sup­press the black vote.
As revolt­ing as those actions are, they have demon­strat­ed that they will stop at noth­ing to gain and hold onto pow­er, even if it means destroy­ing the American democ­ra­cy. Even if it means throw­ing out mil­lions of votes cast by entire cities of large­ly African-American voters.
When that failed, they went fur­ther, they trease­nous­ly incit­ed a rab­ble to storm the capi­tol and do what­ev­er they will with the entire leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship of the nation.
If that action had suc­ced­ed, Donald Trump would have been pres­i­dent for as long as he want­ed and there would be no one to stop him.
American as we know it would have exist­ed no longer.

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Mike writes for thinkers.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

It is anoth­er cel­e­bra­tion of the birth of Doctor Martin Luther King. As February approach­es we will also be cel­e­brat­ing Black Histor month.
Every year we go through this rou­tine of com­mem­o­rat­ing his birth, and cor­rect­ly so, and yes we cel­e­brate Black Histor Month.
Nevertheless, we run the risk of sim­ply pass­ing time, if we fail to rec­og­nize that each gen­er­a­tion must fight the fights that those who went before us fought.
Today, the sons and daugh­ters, grand­sons and grand­daugh­ters of those who fought like hell to keep our ances­tors in sub­juc­ta­tion, are fight­ing like hell to estab­lish that they are the right­ful heirs of this land that have been drenched with the blood of enslaved Africans who were forced to toild for hun­dreds of years with­out compensation.
On that basis, African-American women have stepped for­ward, not just to rep­re­sent, but to save this frag­ile democ­ra­cy from the rav­ages of those who claim to be patri­ots but are indeed trai­tors to America’s ideals.

Through vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, get­ting peo­ple to the polls, black women like Stacy Abrams have changed the tide of his­to­ry, and repo­si­tioned America away from destruc­tive abyss of autocracy.
It start­ed in South Carolina where African-American women stepped up and made sure that America would have a can­di­date that could defeat tyranny.
Black peo­ple vot­ed in droves to make sure that Donald Trump does not turn America into a banana repub­lic. he attacks against black vot­ing rights will be intense in the future. it is up to every black American to ensure that their efforts to turn back the clock will not happen.
It will hap­pen at the state lev­els in states in which Republicans have con­trol of state hous­es. They will pass laws that makes it even more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to vote. They will try to reduce and do away with ear­ly vot­ing, they will elim­i­nate drop=boxes on elec­tion dates, they will engage in purg­ing vot­ers names from vot­ers lists.
And they will do worse.
The Democrats will have the white House , the Senate, and the House, they must forth­with pass leg­is­la­tion to shore up the Voting Right Act that was unnec­es­sar­i­ly evis­cer­at­ed by the Republican Supreme court.

Doctor King did not die a cel­e­brat­ed man; his meth­ods put many peo­ple off. They thought his non-vio­lent meth­ods weren’t work­ing. However, even as Doctor King preached non-vio­lence, White mur­der­ers were mur­der­ing Black men and women across America; despite all this, the nation remained com­plete­ly disinterested.
They blew up four lit­tle girls at the 16^th street Baptist Church in Burningham, Alabama, on a Sunday morn­ing. Ask your­selves, “who kills babies”?
Do you con­sid­er those who devised the idea of blow­ing up peo­ple in a church human beings?
How do you appeal to the bet­ter Angels of demons who blew up lit­tle girls in Sunday school?
If we move past the killings of the peri­od in which white ter­ror­ists mur­dered Medger Evers, Dr. King, and all of the stal­warts not a great deal has changed.

Blacks con­tin­ue to believe in turn­ing the oth­er cheek to the most stri­dent racists. We wel­come them into our most sacred places of wor­ship, pray with them and com­fort them, only to have them turn right around and mur­der us.
On February 6^th, oper­at­ing on a lie, throngs of those same kinds of demons who mur­dered Dr. King and bombed lit­tle chil­dren, over­ran the nation’s cap­i­tal with their flags of hate. Their message?
Overturn the results of fair elec­tions, kill law­ful­ly elect­ed offi­cials, includ­ing the vice pres­i­dent, and install a fraud­u­lent and demon­ic socio­path­ic wannabe King.
We even believe that God sanc­tions the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery because of course, there are vers­es in the Bible extolling the virtues of slaves required def­er­ence to their enslavers. One right-wing for­mer mil­i­tary leader told racial arson­ist Glen Beck, that in the South [where he is], (Junior and Bubba) are get­ting tired of what’s hap­pen­ing in their coun­try, that what we saw in the Capitol on January 6^th, was Junior and Bubba stand­ing up. Yes this came from a for­mer General.
At a time when the nation is about to swear in a new pres­i­dent, at a time when the FBI is try­ing belat­ed­ly to vet mem­bers of the National Guard that are sup­posed to secure the inau­gu­ra­tion, that kind of arro­gant mind­set sums up where we are.
This coun­try con­tin­ues to be on edge because one group of peo­ple in the believe they have the right to deter­mine and dic­tate the rules of the game.

Let us stop pre­tend­ing that the peo­ple who invaved the halls of Congress are patri­ots.
Let us stop pre­tend­ing that Josh Hawley , Ted Cruz and the oth­ers who sup­port­ed this das­tard­ly act of insur­rec­tion against the United States Government are any­thing but trai­tors to America.
Any [per­son who par­tip­i­at­ed in any way, includ­ing to give aid and com­fort to those who engaged in the acts of ter­ror­ism on January 6^th, are no less cul­pa­ble than those who broke the doors down, beat and killed a police offi­cer , defe­cat­ed in the halls of our democ­ra­cy in an effort to over­turn the ver­i­fi­able clean and fair elec­tion of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Anyone can claim to be a patri­ot, it is hard­ly what one says, it is what they do.
How long are we going to pre­tend that those peo­ple who broke down doors , shat­tered win­dows , killed a cop, and beat oth­ers in a venge­ful quest to com­mit even more mur­ders are patriots?
When will these destruc­tive ele­ments be seen for what they tru­ly are?
Those who sup­port an insur­rec­tion against the legit­i­mate gov­ern­ment of their own coun­try are not patri­ots, they are trai­tors and terrorists.
White nean­derthal insur­rec­tion­ists against the gov­ern­ment deserves no def­er­ence , nei­ther by law or moral­i­ty. They are regres­sive ele­ments of a time gone by that should nev­er be allowed to return.

The Trump move­ment must be seen for what it is a clear and unequovi­cal attempt to turn back the clock through vot­er sup­pres­sion, vot­er intim­i­da­tion, and final­ly through insurrection.
Make no mis­take about it, none of this was about eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety. The cor­po­rate media fed the nation that non­sense dur­ing the racist t‑party upris­ing under the pres­i­den­cy of Barack Obama, we knew that it had noth­ing to do with any of that. Obama took cau­tious steps to bring the econ­o­my back from the brink. Republicans did every­thing in their pow­er to sobatage his efforts in a scorched earth approach that led to slow­er than nec­es­sary econ­o­my recovery.
As soon as the demogog­ic Trump was elect­ed they signed on to his tax give­aways to the very rich in fur­ther­ance of the failed the­o­ry of trick­le down economics.
The fail­ures that con­tin­ue to set this great nation back is not of immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties but of peo­ple who refuse to be trans­formed to a pluras­tic soci­ety in which all peo­ple have a fair shot.
That is the America that John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan spoke about. That America is with­in reach and all of us should ensure that she gets there.

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Mike writes for thinkers

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin was griev­ing on the morn­ing of Jan. 6, hav­ing just expe­ri­enced the most painful of tragedies: bury­ing his 25 year-old-son, Tommy, a gift­ed stu­dent at Harvard Law School, who had tak­en his own life on New Year’s Eve after a bout of deep depression.

But this was the day Congress was to offi­cial­ly cer­ti­fy Joe Biden’s Electoral College vic­to­ry — and with scores of Republican law­mak­ers vow­ing to object, Raskin, a con­sti­tu­tion­al law pro­fes­sor, had a job to do: He had been slat­ed to help lead the Democratic response in a cri­sis that threat­ened to upend American democracy.

“Daddy, don’t go. I want you to stay home,” his daugh­ter, Tabitha, plead­ed, fear­ing pos­si­ble vio­lence. Raskin was insis­tent. “I swore a con­sti­tu­tion­al oath,” he told his daugh­ter. “I’ve got to go.” He invit­ed Tabitha to come with him. “We want­ed to be togeth­er,” Raskin said in an inter­view on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” pod­cast. “I want­ed to be close to her, and she want­ed to be close to me.”

Raskin’s courage was test­ed that day when a furi­ous mob of Trump sup­port­ers assault­ed the U.S. Capitol, break­ing through bar­ri­ers and smash­ing win­dows. A Capitol police offi­cer was killed, and mem­bers of Congress and staffers, hud­dled togeth­er for hours in win­dow­less rooms, were exposed to COVID-19 by Republican col­leagues who refused entreaties to wear masks; at least five House mem­bers have since test­ed positive.
Read the full sto­ry here: https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​m​a​r​y​l​a​n​d​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​-​j​a​m​i​e​-​r​a​s​k​i​n​-​t​u​r​n​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​h​i​s​-​s​o​n​s​-​f​u​n​e​r​a​l​-​t​o​-​m​a​n​a​g​i​n​g​-​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​i​m​p​e​a​c​h​m​e​n​t​-​2​2​2​9​0​7​7​8​5​.​h​tml

Where is Missouri’s über ambi­tious US Senator today? Where is Texas’ dumb junior US Senator Raphael Cruz?
Where are the oth­er ten Republican US sen­a­tors, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Oklahoma’s James Lankford, Montana’s Steve Daines, Louisiana’s John Kennedy, Tennesee’s Marsha Blackburn, Indiana’s Mike Braun, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Tennessee’s’ Bill Hagerty, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville?

How will the United States Government have any cred­i­bil­i­ty in the future, I ask, if these mer­chants of sedi­tion and insur­rec­tion are allowed to remain in the so-called world’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body?
Are we sup­posed to move along and for­get what they did in the spir­it of kum­baya? Are Americans, the major­i­ty of the nation, not the igno­rant sedi­tion­ists, sup­posed to go along with those lead­ers of the sedi­tion­ists cult still embed­ded in the US Government? Should they con­tin­ue to make and pass laws, know­ing that they are ene­mies of democracy?

That is a seri­ous indict­ment on the Republican party.
It now means that not only is it impos­si­ble for the nation to trust the Republican par­ty, but the par­ty is also a threat to nation­al security.
I con­tin­ue to say that there is no Federal Domestic Terrorism statute because it would ensnare white men.
It is now time for the incom­ing Democratic Administration, and the ful­ly Democratic Congress, to enact a Domestic Terrorism Statute.
After ⁹⁄₁₁ attacks on the nation, Republican President George W Bush pro­posed leg­is­la­tion now known as the Patriot Act.
Republican Officials did not waste time pass­ing the patri­ot act, and with good rea­son, they got almost all of the Democrats on record, they were told either you sup­port the leg­is­la­tion, or sup­port the terrorists.
Now is the time to draft a Domestic Terrorism bill and sell it to the American people.
Then get the Republican Seditionists in both cham­bers of the Congress to vote against it.

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Mike writes for thinkers

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Senator James Lankford (R‑OK) has issued an apol­o­gy to some of his Black con­stituents in Tulsa, Oklahoma for his inten­tion to object to some Electoral College results on January 6. Lankford had planned to object to President-elect Joe Biden’s win but changed his mind fol­low­ing the riot at the Capitol that left five peo­ple dead. He sent a let­ter to “My friends in North Tulsa” on Thursday.

The let­ter said the sen­a­tor’s actions “caused a firestorm of sus­pi­cion among many of my friends, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Black com­mu­ni­ties around the state. I was com­plete­ly blind­sided, but I also found a blind spot.”

“What I did not real­ize was all of the nation­al con­ver­sa­tions about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as cast­ing doubt on the valid­i­ty of votes com­ing out of pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black com­mu­ni­ties like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” Lankford’s let­ter went on.“After decades of fight­ing for vot­ing rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to mat­ter, and even a belief that their votes made an elec­tion in our coun­try illegitimate.”
“I can assure you my intent to give a voice to Oklahomans who had ques­tions was nev­er also an intent to dimin­ish the voice of any Black American,” he said.

“I should have rec­og­nized how what I said and what I did could be inter­pret­ed by many of you,” Lankford wrote. “I deeply regret my blind­ness to that per­cep­tion, and for that I am sorry.”

Lankford has faced calls to resign from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission because of his ini­tial inten­tion to oppose cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, accord­ing to Tulsa World.
On Wednesday, Lankford told Public Radio Tulsa that he bore no respon­si­bil­i­ty for the vio­lence at the Capitol but he had­n’t ruled out vot­ing in favor of impeach­ing President Donald Trump.

“And while I’m very aware that there were peo­ple there that were caught up and were say­ing that there were prob­lems [with the elec­tion], I’m also very aware that when I talk to peo­ple one-on-one and I say, ‘Hey, do you think that there are some peo­ple that vot­ed twice? That there are peo­ple that vot­ed who were dead? That there are peo­ple that vot­ed in two dif­fer­ent states?’ the typ­i­cal response I hear back is, ‘Yes, but that hap­pens in every elec­tion.’ The prob­lem is we’ve heard that for so long that we’ve become accus­tomed to [it],” Lankford said.

“We’ve got to actu­al­ly seek answers to ques­tions, and peo­ple can seek to accept truth or not accept truth, but you’ve got to be able to get answers to questions.”

Lankford accept­ed that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were the legit­i­mate win­ners of the election.

The United States Secret Service agents assigned to guard first daugh­ter Ivanka Trump and hus­band Jared Kushner were forced to use a $3,000-per-month rental toi­let after the cou­ple barred them from using any of the six bath­rooms in their house.
The Washington Post reports that Secret Service agents were strict­ly for­bid­den from using any of the toi­lets in Jared and Ivanka’s house locat­ed in the élite Kalorama neigh­bor­hood in Washington D.C
This forced agents to find cre­ative ways to prop­er­ly relieve them­selves, includ­ing trips to for­mer President Barack Obama’s house, which is locat­ed in the same neigh­bor­hood, as well as rent­ing a porta-potty.
The agents final­ly found a per­ma­nent restroom when the gov­ern­ment spent $3,000 a month to rent out a base­ment stu­dio from one of Jared and Ivanka’s neighbors.
So far, the gov­ern­ment has spent more than $100,000 just to rent out the bathroom“A White House spokesper­son denied that Trump and Kushner restrict­ed agents from their 5,000-square-foot home, with its six bed­rooms and 6.5 bath­rooms, and assert­ed that it was the Secret Service’s deci­sion not to allow the pro­tec­tive detail inside,” the Post writes. “That account is dis­put­ed by a law enforce­ment offi­cial famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, who said the agents were kept out at the fam­i­ly’s request.”