The evan­gel­i­cal move­ment in America (so-called white Christians) sup­ports Israel’s state 🇮🇱 sup­pos­ed­ly on reli­gious grounds, even though Jews do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah from whom the Christian faith is derived.
Here is a more plau­si­ble expla­na­tion, Israel came into exis­tence much the same way America did.
Forced upon the indige­nous peo­ple, sub­ju­ga­tion and dom­i­na­tion of every­one that does not have white skin.
Israel’s Jewish pop­u­la­tion are white Germans who escaped Hitler because of the Jewish faith they adopt­ed around the 4^th cen­tu­ry. Therefore, they have no basis for their claim to the land of Palestine.
Zero!!!!!! On a point of note, Israel and Palestine are on the same land; to the peo­ple occu­py­ing it is Israel, to the real peo­ple of the land, it is Palestine.
Have you ever won­dered why the white Europeans who call them­selves Jews in Palestine refer to them­selves as Israelis instead of Israelites? Israelites would, of course, be more in line with reli­gios­i­ty? But what they are prac­tic­ing in Israel is Zionism, which is anoth­er name for racism, it is a form of fas­cism, so they don’t dare refer to them­selves as Israelites.
White evan­gel­i­cals in the United States sup­port that sys­tem, much like they sup­port­ed the apartheid sys­tem in Southern Africa.
Anyplace out­side the European con­ti­nent that whites dom­i­nate oth­er races is a‑okay with white evan­gel­i­cals in the United States, a‑la Israel, Australia, New Zealand, and as I said pre­vi­ous­ly, on the African continent.

https://​www​.jew​ishvir​tu​al​li​brary​.org/​g​e​r​m​a​n​y​-​v​i​r​t​u​a​l​-​j​e​w​i​s​h​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​t​our

Unfortunately, the lie that they per­pet­u­at­ed has tak­en hold in Black Christians too; many hold the fun­da­men­tal belief that Yeshua (Jesus Christ) will return to earth and that the place he will come to is the land of Israel.
Forgive me, but my under­stand­ing of the Bible’s teach­ings on God’s sup­posed ref­er­ence to his peo­ple Israel is not about a piece of land but his Hebrew peo­ple, his orig­i­nal cre­ation. My bad, maybe I got it wrong .……any­way.
But if you lis­ten to apos­tates like John Hagee, you may emp­ty your bank account and send the mon­ey to Israel, and God will be quite hap­py with you.
Black Pastors, too, have fall­en for the lie; many have tak­en their con­gre­ga­tions to the sup­posed Holy Land, only to run up into the apartheid sys­tem that is very much what Israel practices.

In the minds of the Israelis, the land we now call Israel/​Palestine is con­sid­ered the holy land, despite the unde­ni­able fact that the nation of Israel was cre­at­ed in Palestine in 1948 by the United States and Great Britain. The white cit­i­zens of Israel are Germans who fled Adolph Hitler’s reign of ter­ror. Now in case, you are won­der­ing why I wrote Palestine/​Israel? Remember that I said the two coun­tries are one and the same?
So log­i­cal­ly for them, God will return and scoop up [his cho­sen peo­ple], they, who took lands 73-years ago from the peo­ple who lived on them. Chased them out of their homes and con­fis­cat­ed their prop­er­ty. Since then, they have con­tin­ued to steal more of those lands against inter­na­tion­al laws. Uses dev­as­tat­ing pow­ers of war­fare to oblit­er­ate the peo­ple when they com­plain. Force the con­quered Palestinians to mere­ly exist under their bootheels. Slaughters men, women, and chil­dren with airstrikes in air­planes sup­plied to them by west­ern pow­ers, even though mil­i­taries are not sup­posed to bomb civil­ian targets.
Yes, God will be com­ing back to claim those pow­er­ful jews because they are his cho­sen people.

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

No one is hap­pi­er in Israel for these hos­til­i­ties than the indict­ed felon Benjamin Netanyahu who runs the apartheid state of Israel. If there is any ques­tion among rea­son­able peo­ple that this indict­ed crim­i­nal has a hand in cre­at­ing these hos­til­i­ties maybe you have lost your sense of reason.
The entire lead­er­ship of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel has been one of total dom­i­na­tion & sub­ju­ga­tion of the Palestinian people.
Now that he is an indict­ed felon, is there any won­der that he would want a full-scale war against the large­ly defense­less Palestinians in order to main­tain his hold on power?

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Andy Wells
Andy Wells·Freelance Writer
Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:24 AM

Israel amass­es troops along Gaza as con­flict esca­lates. Israel has massed troops at the Gaza bor­der as ten­sions and vio­lent clash­es with Palestine con­tin­ue to esca­late. Unrest in recent days has seen rock­ets fired from Gaza while Israeli forces have bom­bard­ed the ter­ri­to­ry with airstrikes, in the most seri­ous fight­ing since the 50-day war in 2014. Hamas and oth­er mil­i­tant groups in Gaza, claim­ing to be defend­ing Jerusalem, have fired hun­dreds of rock­ets at Tel Aviv and oth­er cities. Israel’s response has tar­get­ed police and secu­ri­ty instal­la­tions, although the Palestinian author­i­ties said there have been civil­ian casu­al­ties. Pictures released in the past 48 hours high­light the lev­el of destruc­tion wrought by the esca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties in the region.

Israel has pre­pared com­bat troops along the Gaza bor­der and was in var­i­ous stages of prepar­ing ground oper­a­tions”, a mil­i­tary spokesman said, a move that would recall sim­i­lar incur­sions dur­ing Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008 – 2009.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime min­is­ter, has vowed to con­tin­ue act­ing to strike at the mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties of Hamas – which is regard­ed as a ter­ror­ist group by the UK, US, and Israel – and oth­er Gaza groups.
As many as 10 senior Hamas mil­i­tary fig­ures were killed on Wednesday as Israel pressed ahead with a fierce mil­i­tary offen­sive. The death toll in Gaza rose to 69 Palestinians, includ­ing 16 chil­dren and six women, accord­ing to the health min­istry. A total of sev­en peo­ple have been killed in Israel, includ­ing four on Wednesday. Health author­i­ties in Gaza said they were inves­ti­gat­ing the deaths of sev­er­al peo­ple overnight who they said may have inhaled poi­so­nous gas. Samples were being exam­ined and they had yet to draw any final con­clu­sions, they said. With con­cern grow­ing that the vio­lence that flared on Monday could spi­ral out of con­trol, the US is send­ing an envoy, Hady Amr, to the region.

US pres­i­dent Joe Biden said he hoped fight­ing “will be clos­ing down soon­er than lat­er”, while UK min­is­ter for Middle East and North Africa James Cleverly said on Thursday morn­ing that Israel has a “legit­i­mate right to defend itself but must do so pro­por­tion­ate­ly”. Cleverly said Hamas has been fir­ing rock­ets “indis­crim­i­nate­ly” into civil­ian areas, which he called “com­plete­ly unac­cept­able”. Boris Johnson has also called for restraint on both sides as he urged lead­ers to “step back from the brink”, adding that the UK is alarmed at the mount­ing toll of civil­ian casualties.

Israeli sol­diers pay homage to their late fel­low solid­er Omer Tabib, 21, dur­ing his funer­al in Elyakim in north­ern Israel. (AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli pres­i­dent Reuven Rivlin called for an end to “this mad­ness”. He said: “We are endan­gered by rock­ets that are being launched at our cit­i­zens and streets, and we are busy­ing our­selves with a sense­less civ­il war among our­selves. Israel’s domes­tic unrest has been wel­comed by Hamas – with one spokes­men urg­ing Arab cit­i­zens to “rise up” against “our ene­my and yours”.

Ayman Odeh, a senior Israeli Arab law­mak­er, accused Netanyahu’s con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment of inflam­ing eth­nic ten­sions. The lat­est upsurge in vio­lence has been trig­gered by ten­sions in Jerusalem dur­ing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with clash­es at a holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims. Preparations for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim hol­i­day mark­ing the end of a month of day-long fast­ing, have been som­bre in Gaza, as res­i­dents brace them­selves for fur­ther dev­as­ta­tion and unrest.(Adapted from yahoo​.com)

All pol­i­tics is local; that is a giv­en. So it is under­stand­able that Democrat, Independent or Republican, can­di­dates must cater to the needs of their con­stituents or face expul­sion by the voters.
So we cringe at can­di­dates who are elect­ed as Democrats but seem to be any­thing but when we look at their vot­ing records.
Mark Kelly, Christen Sinema, and Joe Manchin are three that read­i­ly come to mind. All three are Democratic US Senators; Kelly and Sinema were elect­ed in Arizona, a state that nar­row­ly went to Joe Biden in 2020 but has been a Republican strong­hold for decades. Both Senators now hold seats that Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake recent­ly held.
On the oth­er hand, Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, did I say West Virginia Democrat? That sound­ed real­ly off, an oxy­moron even.… any­way, Manchin still man­ages to win statewide in West Virginia, one of the red­dest states still in the ide­o­log­i­cal clutch­es of the Republican right.
In a state like West Virginia that vot­ed by over 40% points for Donald Trump, a Democrat in statewide office is a rar­i­ty, but Manchin, a son of the state, is well known.
He has been on the grind polit­i­cal­ly for decades and is known per­son­al­ly by almost all West Virginians. So they con­tin­ue to vote for the for­mer gov­er­nor, turned US Senator.
In the greater scheme of things, Joe Manchin is a self-serv­ing polit­i­cal hus­tler who thinks of Joe Manchin.
Not telling the whole truth (IS) lying. Pretending to cher­ish or crave bipar­ti­san­ship with­out cre­dence to Republicans’ efforts to destroy vot­ing rights is a duplic­i­tous and trans­par­ent lie by Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is not a man of hon­or; he is a rapa­cious and schem­ing Wolf in sheep clothing.
Manchin must be called out for what he is; an ene­my to the rights or peo­ple of col­or to vote.
Nevertheless, despite Manchin’s treach­ery, at least to the left of the Democratic Party, the par­ty can­not ignore the real­i­ty that if there were no Joe Manchin from West Virginia, there would be no Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer.
And so the par­ty is forced to play ball with Manchin, a con­ser­v­a­tive Republican pre­tend­ing to be a Democrat. There is no Democrat major­i­ty with­out Joe Manchin, the Democrays in the Senate knows it ‚but no one knows it more than Manchin. And so Manchin is going to exact his pound if flesh with­out wor­ry about the spilled blood. In the mean­time Dems can only grin and wave.

Joe Manchin is a man who plays the polit­i­cal game in a way that oth­ers can’t because his very polit­i­cal sur­vival hinges on it.

REPUBLICANS DUMP LIZ CHENEY FROM LEADERSHIP ROLE
The Republican cau­cus on Wednesday dumped Wyoming right-wing con­gress­woman Liz Cheney from her num­ber three spot in lead­er­ship as con­fer­ence chairperson.
Cheney com­mit­ted the car­di­nal sin of hav­ing spo­ken the truth that Donald Trump inspired and egged on the January 6^th insur­rec­tion that invad­ed the US capi­tol build­ing. She also rub­bished the Trump claim that the elec­tion was stolen from him and that the elec­tions of 2020 were rigged.
Liz Cheney also vot­ed to impeach Donald Trump for his actions the sec­ond time around and has since spo­ken out, includ­ing in an op-ed where she called out her par­ty for its con­tin­ued alle­giance to Trump.
Her oust­ing came as no sur­prise as the Republican Party under Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell’s lead­er­ship has become the par­ty of Trump.
South Carolina US Senator Lindsay Graham lays it bare, argu­ing that the bulk of Republican vot­ers are with Trump, and so the par­ty [can­not] move on with­out him.
But the quag­mire in which the par­ty found itself was not its only option; the par­ty had the option of build­ing out its base of sup­port by becom­ing more inclu­sive and wel­com­ing of all Americans.
President George W Bush attract­ed a size­able chunk of the Hispanic vote and some African-Americans in his sec­ond term.
Donald Trump had oth­er ideas, push the par­ty to become a fas­cist par­ty of white peo­ple and turn out that block. The thing that bog­gles the mind is that Republicans find Trump’s strat­e­gy appeal­ing despite evi­dence that the Russians aid­ed his ascen­den­cy to the pres­i­den­cy in 2016. Since then, they lost the House, the Senate, Governorships, and oth­er local leg­isla­tive seats. The part also saw Arizona and Georgi flip to blue under Trump, and Democrats take over four US Senate seats in Arizona & Georgia. Additionally, Trump now has the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of being the only pres­i­dent to be impeached twice.….…… Did I men­tion that he was a one-term president?

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​i​m​e​-​f​o​r​-​t​h​e​-​l​i​n​c​o​l​n​-​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​-​t​o​-​b​e​c​o​m​e​-​a​-​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​p​a​r​ty/

Ever since the Republican par­ty chose the Trump option over expand­ing its appeal to the American elec­torate„ I have held the belief that the time has come for the for­ma­tion of a third polit­i­cal par­ty, one that may be cen­ter-right, just not anoth­er place for white racists to congregate.
I even argued that the Lincoln Project should be that group which splits the Republican par­ty into two groups ren­der­ing it irrel­e­vant, how­ev­er the LinconlnProject has had some prob­lems of it’s own that may have ren­dered it not so appealing.
There are now new rum­blings that a group of for­mer Republicans may be think­ing of form­ing an explorato­ry com­mit­tee that would look at he fea­si­bil­i­ty of form­ing a thrid polit­i­cal party.
Reuters report­ed that the ear­ly stage dis­cus­sions include for­mer elect­ed Republicans, for­mer offi­cials in the Republican admin­is­tra­tions of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambas­sadors and Republican strate­gists, the peo­ple involved say. More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to dis­cuss the break­away group, which would run on a plat­form of “prin­ci­pled con­ser­vatism,” includ­ing adher­ence to the Constitution and the rule of law — ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.
My per­son­al belief is that this is an idea whose time has come, sure­ly a Democracy requires two polit­i­cal par­ties that believes the exist­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al order.
The Republican par­ty no longer believes in that order, the par­ty is now a grave dan­ger to the American con­sti­tu­tion and the rule of law.
I can­not wait for a new polit­i­cal par­ty that will restore some sem­blance of respect for Democracy and the rule of law..

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

Despite its many faults, The United States of America has served as a tem­plate in many instances to a kind of world order that has arguably served the peace and tran­quil­i­ty of the plan­et to some degree.
Sure, America’s poli­cies under dif­fer­ent admin­is­tra­tions have arguably also been anti­thet­i­cal to the said peace and tran­quil­i­ty as well.
For exam­ple, in recent times, America’s ill-advised for­ay into the nation of Iraq, its pol­i­cy of prop­ping up the Shah of Iran, its com­i­cal inva­sion of Grenada, the con­tin­ued embar­go against the Cuban nation, and its sup­port for the apartheid sys­tems in South Africa and Israel are only a few of the poli­cies that run counter to America’s stat­ed goals of peace through the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.

On the oth­er hand, I don’t believe that free­dom-lov­ing peo­ple any­where would have a prob­lem with America’s entry into the sec­ond world war or its stance against the bur­geon­ing Soviet threat before the even­tu­al fall of the Soviet empire.
The long and short of this debate is that the US is the longest stand­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic nation, one that many small­er, more vul­ner­a­ble nations looked to for sup­port to remain out of the clutch­es of despo­tism and dictatorship.
It is for those rea­sons that what the Republican par­ty is doing to the American demo­c­ra­t­ic process is so horrifying.
Changing racial dynam­ics has forced the Republican par­ty to become a fas­cist par­ty with no inter­est in gov­ern­ing. Instead, the par­ty is sole­ly focused on find­ing ways to rig the elec­toral process to gain an unfair advantage.
They have decid­ed to attack vot­ing rights on all fronts; of course, the United States Supreme Court Republican major­i­ty made that pos­si­bil­i­ty a lot eas­i­er in its 2013 deci­sion in Shelby County Alabama Vs. Holder in which the court stripped away sec­tion 4 (B), a major por­tion of the land­mark 1965 vot­ing rights act.

The court’s actions opened up a new wave of vot­er sup­pres­sion leg­is­la­tion by the Republican leg­is­la­tures, pri­mar­i­ly in Republican-run states.
The new vot­er restric­tions are so egre­gious that it is a crim­i­nal offense to give some­one stand­ing in a vot­ing line a drink of water in Georgia. But, of course, the oth­er side of that coin is that the same laws remove drop box­es, close most polling places in heav­i­ly African-American com­mu­ni­ties, lessen vot­ing by mail, demands strict ID’s at polling places, lim­its vot­ing on Sunday, a day African-Americans have tra­di­tion­al­ly used to vote after Church, and a slew of oth­er vot­er intim­i­da­tion meth­ods aimed laser-like at Black and brown peo­ple, includ­ing hav­ing aggres­sive poll-watch­ers close to peo­ple of col­or cast­ing the votes.
Many in the civ­il rights com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Stacy Abrams, have dubbed the new laws Jim crow 2.0, in ref­er­ence to the jim crow laws passed after recon­struc­tion. Those laws lit­er­al­ly sub­ject­ed the new­ly lib­er­at­ed African-American pop­u­la­tion to anoth­er iter­a­tion of enslavement.

But the vot­er sup­pres­sion laws are only a small part of it; the Republican attacks are aimed at immi­gra­tion as well as abor­tion, long-held cul­tur­al issues that the Republican par­ty attached itself to but can­not artic­u­late a sane rea­son for.
Republicans cham­pi­on an anti-abor­tion plat­form, but the truth is that as far as the par­ty and its Lilly white vot­er base are con­cerned, they do no care a rats ass about black and brown babies.
In fact, the par­ty hopes that few­er black and brown babies are born. Their posi­tion on offer­ing SNAP and oth­er ben­e­fits to needy moth­ers’ of those babies of col­or as soon as they are born gives cre­dence to the fact that they do not care about babies of color.
The posi­tion of the Republican’s anti-abor­tion cru­sade is best summed up in the words of for­mer Iowa Republican con­gress­man Steve King, “we can­not build our civ­i­liza­tion with oth­er peo­ple’s babies.”
The idea is to over­turn Roe V Wade and force more white women to have babies… in their minds, the white race faces extinc­tion because not enough white babies are being born; addi­tion­al­ly, the co-min­gling of the races is seen as an exten­sion­al threat to the puri­ty of the Caucasian race… These are the dark crevass­es in which the Republican par­ty resides today.

Limiting and, if pos­si­ble, end­ing immi­gra­tion is self-explana­to­ry; as Donald Trump said, “why do we need these peo­ple from these shit-hole coun­tries,” speak­ing of black coun­tries, “why can’t we get peo­ple from Norway”?
Norway’s pop­u­la­tion is over­whelm­ing­ly white.
After Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights and the 1965 Voting Rights acts into law, the unmis­tak­able mad dash by whites to the Republican par­ty is a well-doc­u­ment­ed part of American history.
Fifty-six (56) years after the vot­ing rights act became law, the American South is still rock-sol­id Republican, with parts of the mid­west and moun­tain states fol­low­ing suit.
Republicans run­ning for President can bank on win­ning all of the south­ern states before a sin­gle vote is cast. Republican trick­le-down eco­nom­ic poli­cies have kept cit­i­zens in those states impov­er­ished; as have been proven, all but one of the fif­teen poor­est states in the union are run by Republicans, yet the vot­ers in those states vote on wedge issues like immi­gra­tion and abor­tion decade after decade then claim that they are vic­tims because immi­grants are tak­ing their jobs.

In the 92 Presidential elec­tions, Democrat Bill Clinton won his home state of Arkansas. In 2000 Al Gore Clinton’s vice pres­i­dent won his home state of Tennessee; he would go on to lose the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion to George Bush, the Republican, in a con­tro­ver­sial elec­tion in which the United States Supreme Courts stopped the recount in the state of Florida and declared Bush the winner.
George Bush’s broth­er Jeb Bush was the Republican gov­er­nor of Florida at the time.…..Democracy is work­ing for you!
In the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions between the Russian agent Donald Trump and Joe Biden, for­mer vice pres­i­dent to President Barack Obama, vot­er turnout was historic.
Trump’s MAGA crowd con­vinced that he was some (mes­si­ah) sent by their god, turned out in droves, no Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date before Trump man­aged to turn out 75 mil­lion to the polls.

But Trump’s MAGA army in all its fas­cist dis­plays, with flags, and oth­er sym­bols of [idol­a­try] was no match for the silent major­i­ty that turned out to repu­di­ate the Russian plant and make Joe Biden the 46^th pres­i­dent of the United States.
Russian plant?
You damn right, Donald Trump has done every­thing that Putin want­ed him to do. He has used the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy to advance every wish on Putin’s list to desta­bi­lize the United States, and the world, start­ing with tok­ing racial divi­sions in the United States, which his han­der Putin knows weak­ens America. not make America great.
Here is a list com­piled by CNN on what Donald Trump meant to Vladimir Putin.

(1) Trump has repeat­ed­ly praised Putin.
(2)Trump hired Manafort to run his campaign.
(3)Trump sug­gest­ed Russia can keep Crimea.
(4) Trump aides soft­ened the GOP plat­form on Ukraine.
(5) Trump made light of Russian hacking.
(6)Trump cap­i­tal­ized on Russian med­dling to win.
(7)Trump denied that Russia inter­fered in 2016.
(8) Trump’s tran­si­tion under­mined Russian sanctions.
(9)Trump was open to lift­ing Russian sanctions.
(10)Trump refused to say Putin is a killer.
(11)Trump mulled return­ing spy bases to Russia.
(12)Trump gave Russia clas­si­fied intelligence.
(13)Trump crit­i­cized and alien­at­ed NATO allies.
(14)Trump was reluc­tant to sign Russian sanctions.
(15)Trump pro­posed a cyber unit with Russia.
(16) Trump pro­posed a cyber unit with Russia.
(17)Trump thanked Putin for expelling US diplomats.
(18)Trump eased sanc­tions on Deripaska.
(19)Trump con­grat­u­lat­ed Putin on his sham election.
(20)Trump balked at sanc­tions for Skripal poisoning.
(21)Trump nixed US state­ment about Russian war.
(22Trump praised pro-Russian lead­ers in Europe.
(23)Trump did­n’t pub­licly con­demn the Russian attack.
(24 Trump defend­ed Soviet inva­sion of Afghanistan.
(25Trump asked allies to let Russia back in the G7.
(26)Trump’s Syria with­draw­al gave Putin a boost.
(27)Trump repeat­ed Kremlin talk­ing points on ISIS.
(28Trump spread Russian myths about Ukraine.
(29)Trump tem­porar­i­ly froze US aid for Ukraine.
(30)Trump smeared US ambas­sador to Ukraine
(31)Trump con­sid­ered vis­it­ing Putin on Russian soil.
(32)Trump gave Putin a PR vic­to­ry on Covid-19.
(33Trump invit­ed Russia to the 2020 G7 summit.
(34) Trump direct­ed the CIA to share intel with Russia.
(35)Trump ignored warn­ings of Russian bounties.
(36)Trump called the Russian boun­ty sto­ry a ‘hoax’.
(37)Trump nev­er raised Russian boun­ties with Putin.
(38)Trump ordered US troops out of Germany.

Yes, he is a Russian Agent, if it walks like and duck and quacks like a duck it is a .….. Russian agent, that is what he is and has been, the Muller inves­ti­ga­tions nev­er fer­ret­ed out that truth so that the trai­tor could be unearthed and exposed in full view for the American peo­ple to see. So he gets to con­tin­ue his illic­it and trea­so­nous cam­paign against the United States in order to enrich himself.
Unfortunately, the entire Republican par­ty is will­ing to destroy the repub­lic because Donald Trump is able to gal­va­nize a sol­id forty per­cent 40% of the white pop­u­lace in a way that no oth­er Republican since Ronald Reagan has been able to do.
In his usu­al bum­bling, inart­ful, style Lindsay Graham said it; ” the Republican Party can­not con­tin­ue with­out for­mer President Donald Trump’. Simply put, they believe they need that block of white griev­ance to win elections.
They would rather tear down over two hun­dred years of demo­c­ra­t­ic rule and replace it with despo­tism facil­i­tat­ed by a half-baked idiot who could­n’t even make it big despite his dad­dy’s millions.
It is all about retain­ing white hege­mon­ic control.

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

Every now and then a few writ­ers get it right. We see events occur and peo­ple jump on the band­wag­on cre­at­ing false nar­ra­tive for the pub­lic that exists only in the minds of the writer or commentator.
The feud between Liz Chaney and the Republican Party is being sold to the gen­er­al pub­lic as an indi­ca­tion that Chaney is a paragon of virtue and conscience.
I wrote a short blog push­ing back against this notion, since then a few writ­ers have begun to come to the same con­clu­sion. My short com­men­tary was not one that had a run­ning nar­ra­tive of proof as to why Liz Chaney’s fall­out with the racist Republican sedi­tion­ist cau­cus should not be seen as an indi­ca­tion that she is vir­tu­ous. I sim­ply want­ed to debunk that the­o­ry period.

»»»»»»»»>

By John Nichols.

Just because she’s not get­ting along with Trump and Kevin McCarthy doesn’t make the cur­rent Cheney any less of a vit­ri­ol-spew­ing extrem­ist. She’s a rigid­ly right-wing Republican who got on the wrong side of a pow­er strug­gle with her fel­low rigid­ly right-wing Republicans.
The House Republican Conference chair is tus­sling with for­mer President Donald Trump, and that is now all but cer­tain to get her tossed from the num­ber three posi­tion in the party’s clown show of a cau­cus. The expla­na­tion for her per­ilous cir­cum­stance is sim­ple enough: What was once a par­ty where the name “Cheney” had a lot of sway is now a par­ty where the only name that has any sway is “Trump.”

The fact the Cheney’s not get­ting along with Trump and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has some lib­er­als think­ing rather too gen­er­ous­ly about the rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Wyoming.

All of a sud­den, com­men­ta­tors are giv­ing Cheney props. Headlines tell us, “Liz Cheney choos­es truth over pow­er — a lone­ly path in Trump’s GOP,” and “The effort to dump Liz Cheney is the con­se­quence of a par­ty that lost its way.” President Biden fist-bumped with her on the night of his address to Congress. House Democrats are chok­ing out com­pli­ments for Cheney.

Hold up, people!
Read the sto­ry at the Nation(https://​www​.then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​l​i​z​-​c​h​e​n​e​y​-​t​r​u​mp/

By Chauncey Devega

There’s no seri­ous con­flict with­in the Republican Party. Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are being purged for disloyalty

The hope ped­dlers, stenog­ra­phers of cur­rent events, pro­fes­sion­al cen­trists, and too many oth­er mem­bers of the main­stream American news media have a new obses­sion. They keep telling the American peo­ple that the Republican Party is in the midst of a “civ­il war,” is in “dis­ar­ray,” is “tear­ing itself apart” or expe­ri­enc­ing a “cri­sis of mean­ing” and fight­ing for its so-called soul. Unfortunately, none of that is true. These are com­fort­ing and self-grat­i­fy­ing sto­ries, fueled by a des­per­ate desire for a return to sup­posed polit­i­cal nor­mal­cy and busi­ness as usu­al. Such fables are also col­ored by no small amount of lib­er­al schaden­freude and a desire to give the American peo­ple — espe­cial­ly the mil­lions who vot­ed Donald Trump out of office — a sense of reward and accomplishment

Joe Biden is pres­i­dent of the United States. The Democrats also have con­trol of Congress — by a ten­u­ous and razor-thin mar­gin. But the Republican Party and the larg­er right-wing move­ment remain large­ly uni­fied in their effort to over­throw America’s mul­tira­cial democracy.

It’s true that Sen. Mitt Romney was booed last week at the Republican state con­ven­tion in Utah. It’s also true that Rep. Liz Cheney and oth­er Republicans who vot­ed to impeach Trump for his crimes against the United States are being cen­sured and oth­er­wise attacked by mem­bers of their own par­ty. But those are not illus­tra­tions of frat­ri­cide or dis­ar­ray with­in the Republican Party. Instead, they are exam­ples of the way right-wing and oth­er extrem­ist polit­i­cal move­ments con­sol­i­date pow­er by purg­ing dis­sent­ing voic­es with­in their ranks.
Read the sto­ry at Salon. https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​1​/​0​5​/​0​6​/​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​a​r​e​-​n​o​t​-​i​n​-​d​i​s​a​r​r​a​y​-​t​h​e​y​r​e​-​u​n​i​t​e​d​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​a​s​s​a​u​l​t​-​o​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​cy/

SO MUCH FOR ROBERTS ’ BALLS AND STRIKES’, THE COURT THAT BEARS HIS NAME IS A RIGHT-WING RUBBER-STAMP THAT NEEDS TO BE BALANCED OUT.

Some pro­gres­sives made a case for adding jus­tices to the Supreme Court even before the 2020 elec­tions. The log­ic being that in 2016 after right-wing con­ser­v­a­tive jurist Antonin Scalia tran­si­tioned and President Barack Obama nom­i­nat­ed then appeals court Merrick Garland, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked Garland’s advance­ment to the high­est court.
Before Scalia’s pass­ing, the court’s make­up was slant­ed Republican, by virtue of the pres­i­dent who nom­i­nat­ed them to the court.
Conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts. Clarence Thomas. Samuel Alito. Anthony Kennedy. Antonin Scalia Conservative.
Liberals, Stephen Breyer. Sonia Sotomayor. Elena Kagan. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Replacing Antonin Scalia with a mod­er­ate like the now Attorney General Merrick Garland would have tilt­ed the courts 5 – 4 major­i­ty to the Democrats, some­thing Mitch McConnell would do any­thing to stop. And so he refused to meet with judge Garland, refused to hold hear­ings to move Garland’s nom­i­na­tion for­ward, and sub­se­quent­ly, judge Garland was denied an up or down vote, as is the rule in the advice and con­sent role of the United States Senate.

Bitch McConnell claimed that it was an elec­tion year, and the vot­ers should decide which pres­i­dent chose Scalia’s replacement.
That was not a rule; it was a McConnell rule. Donald Trump found his way into the Presidency, and he placed Neil Gorsuch on the court instead of Judge Garland. Kennedy then retired (how con­ve­nient), and he report­ed­ly rec­om­mend­ed that Brett Kavanaugh be his replace­ment. Kavanaugh was on the court.
And then some­thing hap­pened that lib­er­als, Democrats, and even inde­pen­dents feared; on September 18^th, 2020, at age 87, Ruth Bader Ginsburg transitioned.
The Presidential elec­tions were to be held on November 3, 2020; nev­er­the­less, despite less than two months from the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Mitch McConnell changed the rules again and decid­ed that he would ram through Amey Coney Barrett, and placed her on the court.
The call from some Progressive quar­ters to place four addi­tion­al jus­tices on the court to bal­ance what Mitch McConnell has done is not only moral­ly jus­ti­fied; it is legal­ly permissible.
President Biden did not promise to add jus­tices to the court; he said in typ­i­cal wishy-washy Democratic fash­ion, how­ev­er, that he would con­vene a com­mis­sion to study the issue.

In the mean­time, the lop­sided 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive court has steadi­ly gone about dis­man­tling set­tled laws. Even as far back as 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts joined Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy in strik­ing down sec­tion 4(b) of the land­mark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
As a Reagan Administration aide John Roberts was long opposed to the rights of African-Americans to vote. John Roberts knew that by strik­ing down the vot­ing rights act, he was open­ing the door for a mas­sive Republican assault on the vot­ing rights of African-Americans. But this was one of the life­long goals of John Roberts.
Roberts claimed that there are no Republican or Democratic Judges; they only call balls and strikes Roberts said, smil­ing. Isn’t it fun­ny how these guys are con­fi­dent that they are vast­ly intel­lec­tu­al­ly supe­ri­or to every­one else?
The sad real­i­ty is that most of the court’s deci­sions under John Roberts have been 5 – 4 deci­sions straight par­ty lines. So much for balls and strikes.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote scathing dis­sents against the Republica major­i­ty’s rul­ings while she was alive, so too has jus­tice Elena Kagan, but jus­tice Sonia Sotomayor an Obama nom­i­nee, has been point­ed in her dis­sent­ing opin­ions, and she did not hold back in her dis­sent to the deci­sion writ­ten by none oth­er than Brett Kavanaugh in the case Mississippi Vs. Jones.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it eas­i­er for states to impose sen­tences of life in prison with­out parole on juve­nile offend­ers, rul­ing against a Mississippi man con­vict­ed of killing his grand­fa­ther at age 15 in a case test­ing the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cru­el and unusu­al punishment.

In a 6 – 3 rul­ing, the jus­tices reject­ed argu­ments by the inmate, Brett Jones, that his sen­tence of life in prison with no chance of parole vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment because the judge in his tri­al had not made a sep­a­rate find­ing that he was per­ma­nent­ly incor­ri­gi­ble. The court’s six con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices were in the major­i­ty, with the three lib­er­al mem­bers dissenting.
So there you have it, balls and strikes; all of the con­ser­v­a­tives cow­ards lined up and decid­ed that it is per­fect­ly okay for kids who com­mit crimes as chil­dren should have no recourse to redemp­tion regard­less of what they have accom­plished in rehabilitation.
Kavanaugh, whose very exis­tence on the court was made pos­si­ble because the indis­cre­tions he was alleged to have com­mit­ted as a young­ster in col­lege, were not allowed by Trump to be inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI, was the man who penned the deci­sion of the majority.
I guess only young white men are [enti­tled] to redemp­tion? Oh, come on, Mike, is this new to you?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dis­sent­ing opin­ion for the three lib­er­als on the court.
Below is an extract from that opinion.

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

How many of you know what the Leahy Law is? You’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard about it before today. Still, in the con­text in which I will frame this com­men­tary, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er the Leahy law and what has been hap­pen­ing in the United States on the racial jus­tice front.

1. What is the Leahy law?

• (1) The term “Leahy law” refers to two statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions pro­hibit­ing the U.S. Government from using funds for assis­tance to units of for­eign secu­ri­ty forces where there is cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion impli­cat­ing that unit in the com­mis­sion of gross vio­la­tions of human rights (GVHR). One statu­to­ry pro­vi­sion applies to the State Department, and the oth­er applies to the Department of Defense. The State Department Leahy law was made per­ma­nent under sec­tion 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378^d. The U.S. gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers tor­ture, extra­ju­di­cial killing, enforced dis­ap­pear­ance, and rape under the col­or of law as GVHRs when imple­ment­ing the Leahy law. Incidents are exam­ined on a fact-spe­cif­ic basis. The State Department Leahy law includes an excep­tion per­mit­ting the resump­tion of assis­tance to a unit if the Secretary of State deter­mines and reports to Congress that the gov­ern­ment of the coun­try is tak­ing effec­tive steps to bring the respon­si­ble mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces unit to justice.

• The DoD Leahy law is sim­i­lar to the State Leahy law. Since 1999, Congress has includ­ed the DoD Leahy law in its annu­al appro­pri­a­tions act. The DoD Leahy law is now per­ma­nent in Section 362 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code. It requires that DoD-appro­pri­at­ed funds not be used for any train­ing, equip­ment, or oth­er assis­tance for a for­eign secu­ri­ty force unit if the Secretary of Defense has cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion that such a unit has com­mit­ted a GVHR. The law allows for two excep­tions to this restric­tion. The first in cas­es where the Secretary of Defense (after con­sul­ta­tion with the Secretary of State) deter­mines that the coun­try’s gov­ern­ment has tak­en all nec­es­sary cor­rec­tive steps. This first excep­tion is also known as “reme­di­a­tion.” A sec­ond excep­tion exists if U.S. equip­ment or oth­er assis­tance is nec­es­sary to assist in dis­as­ter relief oper­a­tions or oth­er human­i­tar­i­an or nation­al secu­ri­ty emergencies.
• The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2015 autho­rizes DoD to con­duct train­ing to pro­mote respect for the rule of law and human rights, includ­ing for oth­er­wise Leahy-inel­i­gi­ble units under cer­tain cir­cum­stances. This train­ing may be con­duct­ed with the con­cur­rence of the Secretary of State and is with­held from any indi­vid­ual of a unit when there is cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion that such indi­vid­ual has com­mit­ted GVHR (or has com­mand­ed a unit that has com­mit­ted a GVHR).

  

The law was named after Vermont’s US Senator Patrick Leahy(D), the prin­ci­pal spon­sor of the leg­is­la­tion. The leg­is­la­tion as it was craft­ed seemed to make a world of sense. After all, the American peo­ple should have clear stip­u­la­tions on how their tax dol­lars are being spent; one would not want tax dol­lars fund­ing rogue regimes in despot­ic banana republics, you know, in the shit-hole coun­tries. Just ensure that we send bil­lions and bil­lions each year to the only democ­ra­cy in the mid­dle east, Israel(sic).
That aside, let us con­sid­er that many mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) had their US visas and green cards revoked and their names dragged through the mud. This is the leg­is­la­tion that made all of that possible.
The law stip­u­lates that assis­tance may be pro­hib­it­ed to units of for­eign secu­ri­ty forces where cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion impli­cates that unit in the com­mis­sion of gross vio­la­tions of human rights.
It also stip­u­lates the con­di­tions under which the Department of State would access the infor­ma­tion as laid out in sec­tion (2) above.

The U.S. gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers tor­ture, extra­ju­di­cial killing, enforced dis­ap­pear­ance, and rape under the col­or of law as GVHRs when imple­ment­ing the Leahy law.
For those of you who have toiled in Jamaica as a mem­ber of the JCF or the JDF, and if you were pay­ing atten­tion, you would recall that the US Government used this law to pun­ish the JCF using the slant­ed, inflam­ma­to­ry lies ped­dled by the now-dis­graced baby doc­tor Carolyn Gomes as proof of extra­ju­di­cial killings by the secu­ri­ty forces.
No one should be delud­ed into think­ing that there have not remained rogue ele­ments with­in the Jamaican secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus. They exist in all secu­ri­ty orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing over 18,000 police agen­cies oper­at­ing across the United States.
It is also impor­tant to under­stand that Jamaica is one of the most vio­lent nations on the plan­et; it also has one of the world’s low­est offi­cers’ cit­i­zen ratio. In con­clud­ing that Jamaica’s Police use of lethal force led up to puni­tive actions by the United States against Jamaica, one must con­sid­er all of the facts. It includes decou­pling each police-relat­ed killing from the chain called [extra­ju­di­cial killings] and exam­ine each case based on the evidence.
As American police con­tin­ue to kill.….….mind you, unarmed hand­cuffed African-Americans, we hear the con­stant refrain that we must con­sid­er the evi­dence of each case individually.
Smaller, less pow­er­ful gov­ern­ments do not receive that def­er­ence from the United States when alle­ga­tions are made against their secu­ri­ty forces, usu­al­ly by actors with spe­cif­ic agen­das anti­thet­i­cal to their own coun­try’s inter­est, à la Carolyn Gomes and Jamaicans for jus­tice.

The hypocrisy inher­ent in the way the Leahy Law has been applied, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Jamaica, is in the qual­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion or should I say the lack there­of, on which the Jamaican Government was forced to shut down effec­tive units of the secu­ri­ty forces, includ­ing the Mobile reserve out of fear that the crumbs would imme­di­ate­ly dry up from America’s table.
Ironically, the shut­ting down of those units has inevitably led the coun­try clos­er to becom­ing a failed state. Jamaica is now unable to deal with its worst actors effectively.
This results from years of sub­ver­sive activ­i­ties orches­trat­ed by Jamaicans for Justice and Carolyn Gomes, its chief architect.
As African-Americans and con­sci­en­tious peo­ple of all col­or in the United States and across the plan­et await with bat­ed breath, to see if final­ly, just once, America can get it right on jus­tice; it has been the police that brought us to this point.
American cops!!
America has nev­er done what’s right for African-Americans. Not at the Federal lev­el. Not at the state lev­el. Not at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. There is no basis, not a sin­gle prece­dent that would cause me to believe that even at this the most basic lev­el, a lev­el of only a few white peo­ple on a jury, we will not have a hung jury. But I hope for the peace of the coun­try that I am wrong this time. That even with the most heinous of mur­ders com­mit­ted, as we watched in shocked dis­be­lief, a mur­der that trau­ma­tized and gal­va­nized the entire world, that a hand­ful of white peo­ple will have that small­est shred of basic human­i­ty and decen­cy to do the right thing.

.

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

Chad’s long­time leader has died of wounds suf­fered dur­ing a vis­it to front-line troops bat­tling a lit­tle-known rebel group, the mil­i­tary announced Tuesday, just hours after he was declared the win­ner of an elec­tion that would have giv­en him anoth­er six years in power.

The mil­i­tary quick­ly announced President Idriss Deby Itno’s son as the cen­tral African nation’s inter­im leader, suc­ceed­ing his 68-year-old father who ruled for more than three decades.

Some observers imme­di­ate­ly ques­tioned the chain of events lead­ing up to Tuesday’s stun­ning announce­ment on nation­al radio and television.

Ayo Sogunro, a Nigerian lawyer and fel­low at the South Africa-based Center for Human Rights, said that under Chadian law the term of an incum­bent pres­i­dent who dies is com­plet­ed not by fam­i­ly mem­bers but by the National Assembly.

“The army seiz­ing pow­er and con­fer­ring it on the son of the pres­i­dent … is a coup and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” Sogunro tweet­ed Tuesday, call­ing for the African Union to con­demn the trans­fer of power.

Deby’s 37-year-old son, Mahamat, is best known as a top com­man­der of the Chadian forces aid­ing a U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in north­ern Mali. The mil­i­tary said Tuesday he now will head an 18-month tran­si­tion­al coun­cil fol­low­ing his father’s death.

The mil­i­tary called for calm, insti­tut­ing a 6 p.m. cur­few and clos­ing the country’s land and air bor­ders as pan­ic kept many inside their homes in the cap­i­tal, N’Djamena.

“In the face of this wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion, the peo­ple of Chad must show their com­mit­ment to peace, to sta­bil­i­ty, and to nation­al cohe­sion,” Gen. Azem Bermandoa Agouma said. Read more here.https://​apnews​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​c​h​a​d​-​p​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​-​i​d​r​i​s​s​-​d​e​b​y​-​i​t​n​o​-​d​e​a​d​-​f​f​d​9​a​f​d​c​2​3​e​7​3​3​1​c​a​3​2​7​6​5​f​f​6​9​3​d​b​6d6

No oth­er indi­vid­ual has harmed the coun­try and its insti­tu­tions a‑la the US Senate, The US Supreme Court, civil­i­ty and hon­esty, than Mitch McConnell, the US Senator from Kentucky.
The truth is that Mitch McConnell was nev­er close to being bet­ter than Trent Lott or any oth­er Republican that ever held the office of Senate Majority/​Minority leader.
Mitch McConnell is, in fact, an old racist rel­ic of the old order, noth­ing more, noth­ing less.
And so here we are with Mitch McConnell, the old cur­mud­geon warn­ing cor­po­rate lead­ers to quote, ‘Stay out of pol­i­tics or there will be consequences.
His threats were aimed at cor­po­rate lead­ers who spoke out in oppo­si­tion to the state of Georgia Republican roll-out of Jim Crow 2.0 in new leg­is­la­tions after they lost the state to Joe Biden and lost the two US Senate seats to the Democrats.
Can’t win?
Cheat!!!

Cheating is some­thing Mitch McConnell has no prob­lem with; you know, nine months before the 2016 Presidential elec­tions was too close for President Obama to appoint Merrick Garland to the US Supreme Court, but 30-days out from the 2020 elec­tions was just fine to ram Amy Coney Barret through.….
The idea that this despi­ca­bly rep­re­hen­si­ble indi­vid­ual would dare to threat­en cor­po­rate lead­ers as if he is a King,or that the pow­er he wields comes from him­self and not them is galling.
But Mitch McConnell loves to issue threats… he issues them to the Democratic par­ty as a mat­ter of course.
“You try to reform the Senate fil­i­buster, and when we return to pow­er, we will ram through our racist agen­da, and you will have no say in the matter.
Mitch McConnell’s galling arro­gance is a clas­sic white male attitude,they believe the coun­try is theirs and theirs to rule the way they see fit.
Take it or leave it.
Who does this guy think he is? Here is a guy that spent all his life on the pub­lic’s pay­roll that he now thinks he is some king or some­thing, to tell peo­ple what they are allowed to do and not do.
Coca-Cola Co-Chief Executive James Quincey called the law “unac­cept­able” and a “step backward.”
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said: “The entire ratio­nale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was wide­spread vot­er fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election.”
Major League Baseball pulled the 2021 All-Star Game out of the state over the law strength­en­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments for absen­tee bal­lots and mak­ing it a crime to offer food or water to vot­ers wait­ing in line.
“Corporations will invite seri­ous con­se­quences if they become a vehi­cle for far-left mobs to hijack our coun­try from out­side the con­sti­tu­tion­al order,” McConnell told a news con­fer­ence in his home state of Kentucky.
Someone should tell old tur­tle face that decent, intel­li­gent peo­ple, includ­ing com­pa­ny exec­u­tives, will not sit idly by while old racist nean­derthals like him and his kind take us back to the George Wallace Bull O’Connor era.
These old crus­taceans, includ­ing Donald Trump, their dear leader, would like noth­ing bet­ter than to send Black peo­ple back to the cot­ton fields.
It will not hap­pen; he can bet on it.

Does any­body remem­ber this guy?
If you don’t, let me refresh your mem­o­ry a bit.
This is Greg Gianforte, a Trump-lov­ing, Trump-sup­port­ing Republican for­mer con­gress­man and now Governor of Montana.
This guy was elect­ed Governor of his state in November of last year, but before we get to that, here was Greg Gianforte attack­ing a reporter in this youtube video below.

After the WWF-type encounter in which he bodys­lammed the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs to the ground and shout­ed “Get the hell out of here” at him.
Gianfore was charged with mis­de­meanor assault.
Gianforte was con­vict­ed of assault in state court in June 2017 stem­ming from his elec­tion-eve body-slam­ming attack on The Guardian polit­i­cal reporter Ben Jacobs in May 2017.  He was fined and sen­tenced to com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and anger man­age­ment therapy.
Despite this vio­lent attack on a mem­ber of the Press, a vio­lent attack which would have land­ed any­one, not a Republican polit­i­cal thug or a cop in prison, this thug was vot­ed into the state’s high­est office after receiv­ing a slap on the wrist.
But this was not his first brush with the law; in 2000, Gianforte ille­gal­ly killed an elk and was issued a $70 tick­et by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.
Again anoth­er tap on the wrist; the ques­tion is, what oth­er crimes has this moron com­mit­ted that has been swept under the carpet?
The Republican Party seems to be a haven for crim­i­nals of all stripes, from the very top to the dog-catch­ers. Yet, these frauds are the very first to demo­nize oth­ers for mak­ing mistakes…

But that is not all; Greg Gianforte is back in the news, and why not?
Since he sits atop the food chain and there are no real penal­ties for the crimes he com­mits, why would he care about fol­low­ing the state’s laws?
According to the Associated Press, Gianforte vio­lat­ed a state hunt­ing require­ment last month when he trapped and killed a wolf near Yellowstone National Park with­out first tak­ing a man­dat­ed trap­per edu­ca­tion course, state offi­cials said Tuesday.
Gianforte, who has a license to hunt wolves, received a writ­ten warn­ing for the vio­la­tion, accord­ing to Greg Lemon, a spokesper­son for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. “We’ve treat­ed this as we would any­body” in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, he said.
Ya!!!
“It’s impor­tant to us the integri­ty of our process, no mat­ter who we’re deal­ing with, is main­tained.” Gianforte trapped and shot an adult black wolf on Feb. 15 near Yellowstone National Park, Boise State Public Radio report­ed Tuesday. Morgan Warthin, a spokesper­son for Yellowstone National Park, said the wolf, No. 1155, was born in the park, was esti­mat­ed to be 6 or 7 years old, and was col­lared by park biol­o­gists in 2018.

Deeper than this, punk’s arro­gance runs the famil­iar thread that char­ac­ter­izes most white men; ‘they own the plan­et, it is theirs to plun­der. What use­ful pur­pose is served by killing wolves liv­ing in the deep woods? They do not both­er anyone.
Why are these ene­mies of the plan­et issued licens­es to slaugh­ter rare ani­mals that threat­en the plan­et’s del­i­cate bal­ance to sat­is­fy their frag­ile egos?
Gianforte ran his Gubernatorial cam­paign argu­ing, “Trapping is part of our Montana way of life,” Gianforte said at the time, News Talk KGVO report­ed. “Make no mis­take; the effort to stop trap­ping in Montana is an attack on our her­itage.”
Ha, so there is that word, “Heritage,” a word that pops up when­ev­er white men want to lay claim to all they sur­vey and took.
Heritage is the buzz­word that comes up when they seek to jus­ti­fy the atroc­i­ties they thus far got away with for hun­dreds of years.
Heritage makes it okay to fly the racist con­fed­er­ate bat­tle flag; it makes it okay for the stat­ues of Confederate trai­tors who waged war against America to stay in our faces in pub­lic spaces.
Heritage makes it a‑okay for the likes of Greg Gianforte to slaugh­ter the plan­et’s rarest crea­tures chang­ing the plan­et for the worse for gen­er­a­tions yet unborn.
Those are the ben­e­fits of white skin added to mon­ey and polit­i­cal pow­er. Welcome to the land of the free, home of the brave.
Oh, for you Black dri­vers, please, for the love of God, do not make a turn with­out first indi­cat­ing from the des­ig­nat­ed dis­tance away, for that [you] will get mur­dered by a cop.
Rest in peace, Sandra Bland.

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

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Tue, March 16, 2021, 3:00 AM

The FBI is fac­ing new scruti­ny for its 2018 back­ground check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court jus­tice, after a law­mak­er sug­gest­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tion may have been “fake”.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic sen­a­tor and for­mer pros­e­cu­tor who serves on the judi­cia­ry com­mit­tee, is call­ing on the new­ly-con­firmed attor­ney gen­er­al, Merrick Garland, to help facil­i­tate “prop­er over­sight” by the Senate into ques­tions about how thor­ough­ly the FBI inves­ti­gat­ed Kavanaugh dur­ing his con­fir­ma­tion hearing.
The supreme court jus­tice was accused of sex­u­al assault by Christine Blasey Ford and faced sev­er­al oth­er alle­ga­tions of mis­con­duct fol­low­ing Ford’s har­row­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of an alleged assault when she and Kavanaugh were in high school.

Kavanaugh denied the claims.
The FBI was called to inves­ti­gate the alle­ga­tions dur­ing the Senate con­fir­ma­tion process but was lat­er accused by some Democratic sen­a­tors of con­duct­ing an incom­plete back­ground check. For exam­ple, two key wit­ness­es – Ford and Kavanaugh – were nev­er inter­viewed as part of the inquiry.
Among the con­cerns list­ed in Whitehouse’s let­ter to Garland are alle­ga­tions that some wit­ness­es who want­ed to share their accounts with the FBI could not find any­one at the bureau who would accept their tes­ti­mo­ny and that it had not assigned any indi­vid­ual to accept or gath­er evidence.
“This was unique behav­ior in my expe­ri­ence, as the Bureau is usu­al­ly amenable to infor­ma­tion and evi­dence; but in this mat­ter the shut­ters were closed, the draw­bridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which mem­bers of the pub­lic or Congress could pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.
Read the full sto­ry here; https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​f​b​i​-​f​a​c​i​n​g​-​a​l​l​e​g​a​t​i​o​n​-​2​0​1​8​-​b​a​c​k​g​r​o​u​n​d​-​0​7​0​0​1​7​5​0​7​.​h​tml

The America Recovery Act, President Biden’s first $1.9 tril­lion US COVID-19 stim­u­lus pack­age, will face much the same response President Barack Obama’s Recovery Act did by Republicans.
Zero support.
The Bill is sched­uled to be vot­ed out of the US House today, after which it will find its way to the President’s desk to become law.
As has been the case for Democrats, Bill Clinton,& Barack Obama, Joe Biden was elect­ed after Republican [Plutocrats] cre­at­ed a mess, leav­ing the coun­try in a tailspin.
The last one was far worse than the two pre­vi­ous Republicans to occu­py the exec­u­tive man­sion. He left the econ­o­my in a tail­spin, race-rela­tions near civ­il-war stages, and an unat­tend­ed and rag­ing pan­dem­ic that took hun­dreds of thou­sands of lives on his watch.

It fol­lows a sim­i­lar pat­tern, Democrats gen­er­ate pos­i­tive econ­o­my-growth, using a bot­tom-up strat­e­gy that empow­ers every­one. Republicans take over; they pass laws giv­ing tax-cuts to the rich­est one per­cent of Americans who have no use for the mon­ey. The tax cuts do not get plowed back into the econ­o­my, so it gen­er­ates zero pos­i­tive growth.
In the end, the poor­est Americans are left hold­ing the bag to pay for their reck­less ret­ro­grade policies.
How can peo­ple see this and con­tin­ue to vote against their own inter­ests, when the results are so clear?
I will address that but first, let us see what’s in the Biden Bill that we learned was just approved in the House and head­ed for the President’s sig­na­ture on Friday, March 12^th.

• The bill pro­vides direct pay­ments to indi­vid­ual US cit­i­zens, tax cred­its for fam­i­lies with chil­dren, and hun­dreds of bil­lions in bailouts for state and local gov­ern­ments, pen­sion funds, small busi­ness­es, pub­lic schools, and health­care providers.
• The bill pro­vides an esti­mat­ed $225bn in one-time, direct pay­ments of up to $1,400 for mid­dle and low­er-income Americans. Eligibility was nar­rowed for the cheques to lim­it indi­vid­ual tax­pay­ers mak­ing $80,000 a year or less.
• The bill includes $350bn for finan­cial aid to states and cities, and trib­al gov­ern­ments to cov­er extra costs and rev­enue short­falls incurred dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. The revised Senate bill seeks to lim­it how the funds are used, pro­hibits bailouts of pub­lic pen­sion funds, and assures small­er states will get their fair share of the funding.
• The bill pro­vides $130bn in fund­ing for pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary pub­lic schools across the next three years to begin to reopen and recov­er from shut­downs that have caused US stu­dents to lose up to a year of their education.
• The bill seeks to reduce child pover­ty, which had wors­ened dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, by expand­ing the fed­er­al child tax cred­it. The cred­it is avail­able for tax­pay­ers earn­ing up to $200,000 a year who have a child liv­ing in their house­hold for at least half the year. The bill increas­es the child tax cred­it to $3,000 from $2,000 and allows it to be paid by the IRS in cash dur­ing the sec­ond half of the year.
• The bill does not include an increase in the fed­er­al min­i­mum wage of $7.25 an hour last set in 2009. The min­i­mum wage varies from state to state but must at least equal the fed­er­al stan­dard. The US House of Representatives had approved an increase in the fed­er­al min­i­mum wage to $15 an hour. Still, the pro­vi­sion lacked suf­fi­cient sup­port in the Senate to over­come pro­ce­dur­al hur­dles and was removed.
• The bill includes sub­si­dies for health insur­ance for peo­ple who have lost jobs. Under exist­ing US law, those who lose their jobs can remain on their company’s health plan for up to 18 months. The COVID-19 relief bill would pro­vide those peo­ple a 100-per­cent month­ly sub­sidy through the end of September. It also expands the avail­abil­i­ty of health insur­ance plans on the gov­ern­ment-man­dat­ed exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.*The leg­is­la­tion includes $14bn for dis­tri­b­u­tion and sup­plies of vac­cines as the Biden admin­is­tra­tion push­es to get every US adult vac­ci­nat­ed by the end of May. It also includes $8.5bn for rur­al health­care providers, $45bn in rental and mort­gage assis­tance and extends a fed­er­al mora­to­ri­um on evic­tions through September, and $30bn for pub­lic tran­sit agencies.*The leg­is­la­tion also pro­vides con­tin­u­ing fund­ing for the fed­er­al government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which gives sub­si­dies to small busi­ness­es that pledge to keep employ­ees on their payroll.

One does not need to be an econ­o­mist to see the ben­e­fits to the American peo­ple in this bit of leg­is­la­tion that is to become law with­out a sin­gle Republican vote in either the House or the Senate.
Republicans in both cham­bers, will go back to their states and dis­tricts where their con­stituents are suf­fer­ing from one, or sev­er­al of the issues addressed in this recov­ery pack­age, know­ing that they did not lift a fin­ger to help them receive a sin­gle ben­e­fit to off­set their woes.
How can they get away with vot­ing against a pack­age that has 61% approval with the American peo­ple, and is pop­u­lar with their own vot­ers, and is not con­cerned about their intransigence?
When it comes time to vote, they undoubt­ed­ly will vote for them, as a block in state after state, even after receiv­ing the ben­e­fits their rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sen­a­tors vot­ed against.
In Red states, Republican sup­port­ers will vote for their white­ness instead of their interests.
They will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Republican par­ty that no longer believes in democ­ra­cy, is will­ing to com­mit insur­rec­tion to over­throw the process, and set up a plu­toc­ra­cy that does not ben­e­fit them.

It is a mind­set born out of the four-hun­dred-plus years of racial supe­ri­or­i­ty that has been plant­ed in their heads by rich planters. The rich and pow­er­ful planters and busi­ness inter­ests sep­a­rat­ed them from Blacks based on race in order to main­tain con­trol of poor whites.
Out of fear for the bur­geon­ing num­bers of enslaved Africans and poor whites, the need to cre­ate space between the two groups became paramount.
Even though many were poor and des­ti­tute, and even though they resent­ed the rich’s incred­i­ble opu­lence, whites liked the idea of hav­ing some­one to feel supe­ri­or to.
Hundreds of years lat­er, like a cow­boy’s horse left unteth­ered; they remain unhitched while the cow­boy enjoys him­self in the salon.
They become use­ful again when the cow­boy needs to ride like hell to get away from the trou­ble he start­ed in the salon. Today they are need­ed when it becomes time to vote.
Hundreds of gen­er­a­tions lat­er, many of them are no far­ther along eco­nom­i­cal­ly, because they are still teth­ered to the sense that their white­ness is currency.
Their Representatives and Senators fear no blow­back from them. They know that their vot­ers would rather have no relief for them­selves, than relief for all Americans in need, regard­less of race.
Republicans in the House and Senate know that their vot­ers would rather drain the pool than share it.

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

Former War-Hero and Arizona US Senator John McCain will for­ev­er be remem­bered for his valiant vote to keep health care for mil­lions of Americans in need.
The late Senator was a Republican, and so I did not share his polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy. Nevertheless, I respect­ed the hell out of the man. He was a man who demon­strat­ed char­ac­ter, and courage, not just as a POW in Vietnam, but as a Senator who stood on prin­ci­ple as a Presidential can­di­date who ran a clean cam­paign before Sarah Palin was brought in sup­pos­ed­ly to save his cam­paign and brought with her the raw uncut Racism that is evi­dent in the coun­try today.

This is Arizona US Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, reg­is­ter­ing her ‘NO’ vote in a style rem­i­nis­cent of John Mccain’s no vote against the skin­ny repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
A US Senator makes about $174 000, in salary; they are ser­vants of the peo­ple. A $15-per hour for the peo­ple at the bot­tom would essen­tial­ly mean an annu­al salary of rough­ly $31,000 annually.
Even if the $15 per hour were passed, it would be phased in over a four-year peri­od, max­ing out in 2024.
By the time work­ers at that lev­el receive the $15-per hour, infla­tion will have already eat­en away the increase.
The Federal min­i­mum wage has not been increased since 2009.
Yet, here is a pub­lic ser­vant who is earn­ing $174,000 at tax-pay­ers expense, in tone-deaf Marie Antionette fash­ion, flip­pant­ly gives the thumbs down to an increase that over four years would give peo­ple strug­gling to pay rent and buy food a $31,000 annu­al salary.
And she did so while decked out in the lat­est couture.

Former Massassachutes Democratic Senator, the late Ted Kennedy once asked Republicans in an impas­sioned out­burst of anger, “what is it about poor peo­ple that you hate so much”?
Sadly, if Senator Kennedy were here, he would have to ask Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Jean Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Jon Tester, Tom Carper, Chris Coons, (Angus King, inde­pen­dent ) the same question.
With Democrats like these, where do pro­gres­sives go to get par­i­ty in a coun­try that long ceased being a Democracy, and has for all intents been a plutocracy?

The con­sen­sus for vot­ing against rais­ing the min­i­mum wage is that busi­ness­es can­not pay the increased wages; there is no cred­i­ble data that proves that busi­ness­es would suf­fer; in fact, there is evi­dence to the contrary.
Like Republicans, the (DINO) Democrats threw their sup­port to busi­ness, effec­tive­ly telling tens of mil­lions of Americans strug­gling to pay rent and feed their fam­i­lies, ‘go to hell’.

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

This is a rather inter­est­ing sto­ry. After the sec­ond world war, the new Germany need­ed a new Constitution. One that would pre­vent the return of Nazism.
Guess who had a hand in writ­ing that new Constitution?
This makes me won­der, at a time like this when the Republican par­ty is dead set on anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic actions, includ­ing storm­ing the Capitol to kill leg­isla­tive mem­bers and install Trump king, why are the intel­li­gence agen­cies pre­clud­ed from stop­ping these actions?

»»>

Germany’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency has put the coun­try’s largest oppo­si­tion par­ty under sur­veil­lance as a poten­tial threat to the coun­try’s con­sti­tu­tion, accord­ing to pub­lic broad­cast­er ARD and oth­er media out­lets. The move affects dozens of law­mak­ers who are in the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.

Members of the AfD say the inves­ti­ga­tion is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, aimed at weak­en­ing the par­ty. In January, one par­ty leader accused Chancellor Angela Merkel’s gov­ern­ment of “try­ing to stig­ma­tize us and to real­ly put us in the Nazi corner.”

The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is not com­ment­ing pub­licly on the inves­ti­ga­tion. But the des­ig­na­tion of the AfD as a sus­pect­ed case of anti-con­sti­tu­tion­al activ­i­ty esca­lates the agen­cy’s ongo­ing inquiry, allow­ing it to start a num­ber of sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions, from cul­ti­vat­ing infor­mants and tap­ping phone calls to read­ing emails.
Read more; https://​www​.npr​.org/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​0​3​/​9​7​3​2​7​6​9​5​1​/​g​e​r​m​a​n​y​-​p​l​a​c​e​s​-​r​i​g​h​t​-​w​i​n​g​-​o​p​p​o​s​i​t​i​o​n​-​p​a​r​t​y​-​u​n​d​e​r​-​d​o​m​e​s​t​i​c​-​s​u​r​v​e​i​l​l​a​nce

Jamaicans should find no com­fort in the recent deci­sion of the Office of the Services Commissions (OSC) to deny media request for the con­tract specifics of the Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson, Tax Commissioner Ainsley Powell, and senior mem­bers of the JCF from the rank of assis­tant com­mis­sion­er upwards, and for per­ma­nent secretaries.
Under the Access To Information Act and the sub­se­quent denial, this request must be viewed ulti­mate­ly as a fail­ure of the Act itself to defin­i­tive­ly set out in the clear­est terms pos­si­ble, under what cir­cum­stance such denials may be law­ful under the Act.

In response to the request and explain­ing its deci­sion, the (OSC) respond­ed, “This office is restrained from pro­vid­ing the infor­ma­tion you request­ed.” The (OCS) response cit­ed Section 22 (1) of the ATI Act, which allows an author­i­ty to block access to an offi­cial doc­u­ment, if it involves “unrea­son­able dis­clo­sure” of a person’s pri­vate affairs.
It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine how the Act could have been writ­ten to pro­tect pub­lic employ­ees’ salaries from pub­lic scruti­ny, con­sid­er­ing that the same tax­pay­ers direct­ly pay those salaries and oth­er remunerations.
Various indi­vid­u­als and inter­est groups have come out on either side of the issue, with for­mer Commissioner of Police Owen Wellington com­ing out sup­port­ing the deci­sion, argu­ing that the pri­va­cy issues should be con­sid­ered legit­i­mate rea­sons for the denial.

However, from a prac­ti­cal stand­point, it is incon­ceiv­able to see what pri­va­cy issues could out­weigh the pub­lic’s right to have that infor­ma­tion, again con­sid­er­ing that the pub­lic pays their salaries.
Under what cir­cum­stances would reveal­ing their salaries jeop­ar­dize the pub­lic employ­ee’s pri­va­cy? Have the (OSC) ever heard of redacting?
The ser­vice com­mis­sion is not a body elect­ed by the Jamaican peo­ple, but is appoint­ed by the Governor-General on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Prime min­is­ter, in con­sul­ta­tion with the Leader of the polit­i­cal opposition.
Two (2) of those mem­bers are nom­i­nat­ed by the General Legal Council, none of whom should be active­ly prac­tic­ing Law.
Violent crime con­tin­ues to increase despite the mea­sures the Government has imple­ment­ed. It is curi­ous, to say the least, that the Minister respon­si­ble for National Security would announce that the Police Commissioner’s con­tract would be extend­ed, yet, accord­ing to the (OSC), the peo­ple have no right to know how much they are pay­ing him.

No one should be under any illu­sion that this deci­sion is sole­ly that of the (OSC), or that the Government’s fin­ger­prints aren’t all over it.
It is quite under­stand­able that peo­ple with spe­cial skills are some­times employed on a con­trac­tu­al basis. Based on those skills, they are some­times spe­cial­ly com­pen­sat­ed out­side the norms of what oth­er­wise would have been paid.
However, it is dif­fi­cult to see what those spe­cial skills could be as it relates to the blan­ket refusal by the (OSC).
The media should not relin­quish its pur­suit to retrieve this infor­ma­tion, even if there is no press­ing need for it. Under no cir­cum­stances should pub­lic ser­vants paid with tax dol­lars have any expec­ta­tion of blan­ket pri­va­cy, much less pri­va­cy from the dis­clo­sure of how much they are paid.
Giving in to these bla­tant abus­es by Government is to con­tin­u­al­ly see our rights abridged by the very peo­ple we elect and pay to serve us.
Allowing an unelect­ed enti­ty to stand in the way of infor­ma­tion that ought to be in the pub­lic domain in the first place, is atro­cious and should not be allowed to stand.

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

For those of you who thought pol­i­tics was any­thing but a zero-sum game, guess again. Try fig­ur­ing out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California stand­ing in the house and lay­ing blame on Donald Trump for insti­gat­ing the house insur­rec­tion on January 6^th, only to then turn around just over a day lat­er and say Trump was not respon­si­ble then run to Florida to lick the dust from the de-plat­formed Trump’s shoes.
How about b*∑**h, I mean Mitch McConnell refus­ing to say Joe Biden was the win­ner of the November 2020 elec­tions, at the time he believed that Trump would find a way to hold onto pow­er, then after he real­ized that Biden would be sworn into office he lit into Trump say­ing the fol­low­ing on the floor of the Senate.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​i​n​-​t​h​e​-​c​o​m​p​r​o​m​i​s​e​-​o​f​-​1​8​7​7​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​s​o​l​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​s​-​i​n​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​p​e​r​i​o​d​-​k​n​o​w​s​-​a​s​-​j​i​m​-​c​r​o​we/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​b​u​s​e​-​o​f​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​-​g​r​a​h​a​m​-​h​i​t​-​w​i​t​h​-​f​o​r​m​a​l​-​e​t​h​i​c​s​-​c​o​m​p​l​a​i​n​t​-​a​m​i​d​-​a​l​l​e​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​o​f​-​e​l​e​c​t​i​o​n​-​m​e​d​d​l​i​ng/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​h​i​s​-​t​i​m​e​-​t​h​e​-​e​n​e​m​y​-​i​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​w​i​t​h​i​n​-​t​h​i​s​-​i​s​-​w​h​a​t​-​i​t​-​w​a​s​-​a​l​l​-​a​b​o​ut/
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​w​o​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​-​y​a​h​o​o​s​-​t​r​i​e​d​-​t​o​-​d​o​-​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​b​i​d​d​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​m​i​c​h​i​g​an/

“There’s no ques­tion, none, that President Trump is prac­ti­cal­ly and moral­ly respon­si­ble for pro­vok­ing the events of the day.”
“The peo­ple who stormed this build­ing believed they were act­ing on the wish­es and instruc­tions of their pres­i­dent,” he said, “and hav­ing that belief was a fore­see­able con­se­quence of the grow­ing crescen­do of false state­ments, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, and reck­less hyper­bole which the defeat­ed pres­i­dent kept shout­ing into the largest mega­phone on plan­et Earth.“He did not do his job. He did­n’t take steps so fed­er­al law could be faith­ful­ly exe­cut­ed and order restored.”
The same Mitch McConnell, said Thursday that he would “absolute­ly” sup­port the for­mer pres­i­dent again if he secured the Republican nom­i­na­tion in 2024.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​a​t​-​i​-​d​o​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​s​l​a​v​e​r​y​-​a​n​d​-​t​h​e​-​c​o​l​o​r​e​d​-​r​a​c​e​-​i​-​d​o​-​b​e​c​a​u​s​e​-​i​-​b​e​l​i​e​v​e​-​i​t​-​h​e​l​p​s​-​t​o​-​s​a​v​e​-​t​h​e​-​u​n​i​on/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​s​-​a​-​l​y​i​n​g​-​u​n​i​n​t​e​l​l​i​g​e​n​t​-​w​a​n​n​a​b​e​-​d​i​c​t​a​t​o​r​-​b​u​t​-​t​h​e​r​e​-​a​r​e​-​o​t​h​e​r​s​-​j​u​s​t​-​a​s​-​b​a​d​-​o​r​-​w​o​r​s​e​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​h​ds/

I won’t both­er ref­er­enc­ing Lindsay Graham much, suf­fic­ing to say that the South Carolina (water-boy), I meant Senator, has man­aged to make ser­vil­i­ty take on a new and even more degrad­ing meaning.
I would rather die than degrade myself the way Lindsay Graham debased him­self in servi­tude to Donald Trump; it is nauseating.
So exact­ly what’s at stake for these major play­ers in the Republican Party that have caused them to con­tort them­selves into bet­ter pret­zels swirls to remain in Trump’s goof grace?
As said with­out giv­ing too much oxy­gen to Graham, the dude talked about going to Florida to talk to Trump like he is a lit­tle dog unable to wait to see his mas­ter. Dude, where is your self-respect? Where are your pride and dignity?

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​i​n​-​a​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​c​y​-​w​h​e​r​e​-​u​n​-​i​n​d​i​c​t​e​d​-​c​o​-​c​o​n​s​p​i​r​a​t​o​r​s​-​s​e​r​v​e​-​a​s​-​j​u​r​o​rs/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​r​e​a​l​-​n​e​w​-​y​o​r​k​e​r​s​-​k​n​e​w​-​a​-​f​a​k​e​-​w​h​e​n​-​t​h​e​y​-​s​a​w​-​i​t​-​f​u​h​g​e​d​d​a​b​o​u​d​it/

We always knew that the right-wing of the Republican par­ty in the house con­sist­ed of Jim Jordon, Steve Scalise, Mo Brooks, and the oth­er nean­derthals like Marjorie Taylor Green, Bobert, Matt Gaetz, and oth­ers were straight-up white supremacists.
If you are pay­ing atten­tion, you can­not miss that; those clowns aren’t even try­ing to hide it.
We knew that in the Senate, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Texas’s [Raphael] Cruz, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, that wist­ed face car­ni­val clown, John Kennedy and the oth­er Cuban, Florida’s lit­tle pup­py-dog Marco were will­ing tools to be used by Trump, but what is McConnell and McCarthy’s story?
You know the Republican par­ty is a shit-show when Liz Chaney is the ratio­nal; voice.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​-​d​o​e​s​-​n​o​t​-​h​o​l​d​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​t​o​-​r​a​n​s​o​m​-​t​h​e​y​-​n​e​e​d​-​h​i​m​-​t​o​-​g​a​l​v​a​n​i​z​e​-​h​a​t​e​-​i​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​ca/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​m​s​-​w​i​l​l​-​s​u​p​e​r​s​e​d​e​-​h​i​s​-​d​e​s​i​r​e​-​t​o​-​r​u​n​-​a​g​a​in/

Between the men and women who walked away from the Republican par­ty and those who stayed and ca[itualted to Trumpism is a les­son to be learned on how total­i­tar­i­an­ism takes root in once-thriv­ing nations.
The cow­ardice is pal­pa­ble; the lack of spine and intesti­nal for­ti­tude to stand up to an igno­rant wannabe despot breaks down the guardrails and empow­ers the despot to push the enve­lope further.
That the Republican par­ty would com­plete­ly cede its pow­er to Donald Trump, who man­aged to lose the US House, the White House & Senate, all with­in a sin­gle pres­i­den­tial term, is remarkable.
Not only is Trump a los­er, but he is also a trai­tor who insti­gat­ed a mass insur­rec­tion against the United States after he lost the elec­tions. The results were cer­ti­fied by each state in the Union.
That is the per­son the Republicans in the house and the Senate decid­ed to turn the par­ty over to, along with his children.
It bears men­tion­ing just how close America came to be just anoth­er banana repub­lic in which insur­rec­tion­ists act­ing on the dic­tates of a tin-pan moron over­threw the government.
The whole coun­try watched as Donald Trump decap­i­tat­ed the Justice, Defense, and oth­er depart­ments’ senior lead­er­ship, even after los­ing the elections.
Those moves were designed to put in place lack­eys who would do his bid­ding after his mob mas­sa­cred the entire leg­isla­tive branch along with his own vice pres­i­dent, whom he had soured on for not fol­low­ing his orders.

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​e​t​h​e​r​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​r​e​m​a​i​n​-​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​a​l​l​y​-​v​i​a​b​l​e​-​m​a​y​-​r​e​s​t​-​w​i​t​h​-​h​o​w​-​w​e​-​u​n​d​e​r​s​t​a​n​d​-​h​i​s​-​v​o​t​e​rs/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​f​i​g​u​r​e​d​-​o​u​t​-​h​o​w​-​t​o​-​s​t​a​l​l​-​b​i​d​e​n​s​-​a​g​e​n​d​a​-​j​o​e​-​m​a​n​c​h​in/

The fact that Senate Republicans did not vote to con­vict Donald Trump after the sec­ond impeach­ment gives rise to the most fun­da­men­tal aspect of what’s at play here.
A con­vic­tion on the sin­gle charge of insti­gat­ing an insur­rec­tion against the United States gov­ern­ment, would have effec­tive­ly blocked Donald Trump from hold­ing fed­er­al office ever again.
So why did they not remove Trump even when he was first impeached? After all of the things, Trump had done, Republican Senators had ample oppor­tu­ni­ties to remove him from office, so why did­n’t they? Was it that they were afraid of his vot­ers? Were they afraid of being pri­maried? No, not even close!
By the time the sec­ond impeach­ment unfold­ed, Donald Trump was out of the White House; he was de-plat­formed by Twitter and Facebook, mak­ing him inel­i­gi­ble to run or hold office would have effec­tive­ly ren­dered Donald Trump irrel­e­vant. At the very best, Trump would have been reduced to a dimin­ish­ing blovi­at­ing failed wind­bag whose star had dimmed.
So why did Republicans miss that gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to act?
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​s​e​c​o​n​d​-​i​m​p​e​a​c​h​m​e​n​t​-​a​n​o​t​h​e​r​-​i​t​e​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​o​f​-​h​a​r​m​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​w​i​l​l​-​i​n​f​l​i​c​t​-​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​n​a​t​i​on/
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​e​n​-​t​h​e​-​w​o​r​l​d​s​-​o​l​d​e​s​t​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​c​y​-​i​s​-​n​o​-​l​o​n​g​e​r​-​t​h​e​-​s​t​a​n​d​a​r​d​-​b​e​a​r​e​r​-​o​f​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​cy/

They did not act because they under­stand that the fight is no longer polit­i­cal. The fight is racial. As we watch more and more white men run toward the Republican par­ty, and even those who win under the “D” ban­ner, act like Republicans, speak­ing of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. They under­stand that what’s ulti­mate­ly at stake is the dis­so­lu­tion of some of the pow­er that white men have held for hun­dreds of years.
Demographic changes, already a black pres­i­dent, a black vice-pres­i­dent, their racist dem­a­gogue vot­ed out of office on blacks’ strength and vot­ing pow­er in large urban cen­ters, and the insur­rec­tion of January 6^th, 2021 was unavoid­ably foreseeable.
In the end, the Republican men and women who vot­ed to retain Trump as the head of their par­ty, (yes by not con­vict­ing him that’s what they did) are all white men and women except, of course, the two Cubans and the Ore Cookie that no one both­ered to send a memo.
The Biden appointees fac­ing con­for­ma­tion obsta­cles from Joe Manchin and Republicans in the Senate are all peo­ple of col­or. Deb Haaland is native-American, Neera Tanden is Indian-American, Xavier Becerra, is Mexican-American, you get the picture?
White men have nev­er had to com­pete for any­thing on a lev­el play­ing field. Having to con­tend with intel­li­gent, edu­cat­ed peo­ple of col­or for the most pow­er­ful jobs, and to be beat­en by them is gut-wrench­ing for them.
This is what’s at the heart of the bad blood in American pol­i­tics at the moment. The tox­i­c­i­ty of it all will con­tin­ue to play out in the years to come. How America deals with it will deter­mine its demise or survival.

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

For the last five years, one word has dom­i­nat­ed the nation­al psy­che, “TRUMP,” the guy’s actions lit­er­al­ly dom­i­nate every news cycle, and finds their way into almost every conversation.
Now he is gone from office, but is he real­ly gone? On Thursday, February 25^th, CNN report­ed that the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has in his pos­ses­sion the tax returns of the 45^th pres­i­dent of the United States, some­thing he fought tooth-and-nail to keep out of the hands of Vance and every­one else, until the Supreme Court was forced to rule on them just days ago.
This is a mat­ter that the court would have ruled on ear­li­er, (speak­ing on whether they should’ve hand­ed over the returns to Vance); the rul­ing delay by the high court caused raised eye­brows, and prompt­ed ques­tions from astute Journalists like Rachael Maddow, she both­ered to ask the tough ques­tions,” like what exact­ly is behind the long delay in hand­ing down a rul­ing on this matter”?
It almost appeared that the high court was wait­ing to see whether Donald Trump would some­how find a way to remain in office, before hand­ing down a rul­ing, but that is a con­ver­sa­tion for anoth­er day.

Despite the Biden win, America is indeed at a cross­roads polit­i­cal­ly, racial­ly, and prob­a­bly existentially.
At issue is the raw pow­er that Donald Trump com­mands as the per­son who best speaks to America’s white pop­u­la­tion that views the rise of pre­vi­ous­ly con­strained minor­i­ty groups as a threat to it’s sur­vival. Juxtapose that fear with their old fear that Blacks, in par­tic­u­lar, will rec­i­p­ro­cate what they met­ed out to them for hun­dreds of years, and the pal­pa­bil­i­ty of those irra­tional fears is man­i­fest­ed cumu­la­tive­ly in what occurred on January 6^th, 2021.
In fair­ness, it does not mean that all of the peo­ple who fol­low Trump are despi­ca­ble racists; at the very least, we must under­stand the fears many peo­ple har­bor through their reli­gious beliefs that tak­ing the COVID vac­cine, wear­ing masks and oth­er Government direc­tives leads inex­orably to fur­ther gov­ern­ment con­trol of their lives, some­thing they will not stand for.
Those fears have not always been unfound­ed; the Government has main­ly oper­at­ed on the notion that no tragedy should go unexploited.

Americans saw their rights and free­doms seri­ous­ly abridged after the Terror Attacks of September 11^th, 2001, by the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act. Bush and his cronies knew exact­ly what they were doing when they named the law the “PATRIOT” Act; they mar­ket­ed the law along the lines, ” either you are with us, or you are against us.” Democratic Senators who received the tran­scripts in the dead of night, mere hours before they were forced to vote on it, had no time to read what was in it.
Without read­ing what was in it, and death­ly afraid of being labeled, ‘unpa­tri­ot­ic,’ they vot­ed for a bill they did not read.
Some of these very cit­i­zens fear the gov­ern­ment will imme­di­ate­ly insist on a lit­mus test; if you have not tak­en the vac­cine, you will not be able to enter a restau­rant, not be able to board a flight, not be able to enter pub­lic buildings.
People equate that with Biblical prophe­cy; it would be arro­gant to insist that they are fool­ish when they hold these beliefs. The gov­ern­ment has a his­to­ry of engag­ing in such activities.

There is a legit­i­mate con­ver­sa­tion to be had on whether the trust they place in Donald Trump is mis­placed. Those of us who stand in the mid­dle look­ing at both sides, may be able to see that Trump ignored the virus as part of his own cal­cu­la­tion on how it would impact his polit­i­cal fortunes.
However, the say­ing ’ a drown­ing man grasps at straws’ may be appro­pri­ate in describ­ing some of these vot­ers; by refus­ing to do any­thing, as COVID raged, Trump was not forc­ing them into any gov­ern­ment man­date; as a con­se­quence, they see him as an ally to their cause.
Understanding that not every cri­sis should result in a slew of gov­ern­ment man­dates, may well help Joe Biden to nav­i­gate the dif­fi­cult polit­i­cal waters that lay ahead.
Understanding these nuances may well impact whether Trump remains viable as a can­di­date for 2024, or becomes a foot­note on his­to­ry’s dust heap.

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