Shots fired.

 I have to be very careful with this post, because the next person I want to see in my Ring Doorbell camera is the Amazon delivery person with my tennis bag, and not a Secret Service agent.  

Anyway,  the felon is always comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, and this past weekend he almost got his wish in ways that I am sure he did not want. For the record, I do not in any way condone political violence. I am a win at the ballot box, not by the bullet kind of guy. I do think it's ironic, though, that the man who has introduced a level of mean spiritedness never before seen in our politics is now the object of our pity.  Also ironic, is the fact that the shooter is not one of the people he likes to demonize, but a young man who looked just like all of his supporters in the crowd. He could have been one of their sons.   

My hero, Malcolm X, would have called Saturday's event in Butler, Pennsylvania, a chickens coming home to roost moment. I call it America's gun culture and politics of hatred and division coming together in a way that was inevitable.  It's sad that one of the felon's supporters had to lose his life. (As of me writing this post, he has still not reached out to personally offer his condolences to the man's family.)  

The felon was lucky this past Saturday. He has hinted that the experience has changed him. That's left to be seen. I suspect that he will be back to business as usual really soon. He will be back to sowing seeds of division, and demonizing all those who are not a part of the MAGA cult.  The cult is already fundraising off the tragic event, and  the felon was more concerned with getting a good picture of himself and making sure that his shoes (can't have the world seeing those lifts) were on in the aftermath of the tragedy. 

In closing, let us all hope that the rest of this political season will be a peaceful one. 

*Pic from AP images  

 

    

The old man and the felon.

 

   I watched what was promoted as a Presidential Debate by CNN Thursday night, and it was painful. The old man, in spite of all his accomplishments, and the obvious successes of his administration, could not convey that to the American people. First, because he is old, and second, he has a stuttering problem. His handlers and the paid DNC consultants should all be charged with political malpractice by the millions of people who support the old man. Whether you think it was because he was out campaigning the day before, or he had a cold, his voice was not ready for prime time. (We could barely hear the poor guy for crying out loud!) And they crammed him with too much information. You could see the information overload freezing his bran in real time. This is not how you win an election and save democracy.

  The felon, on the other hand, was in his wheelhouse. Telling lie after lie unchecked, and having his way with the CNN anchors, the old man, and most importantly, the truth. I was embarrassed for America. When your Presidential Debate is reduced to which one of the candidates has a better golf game, and whether one of the men on stage actually had sex with a porn star while his pregnant wife was at home expecting his child, you might just have a problem. The truth is, the felon should not have been out on that stage in the first place. He should be in jail, just like the sycophants who support him, and are members of his cult. (FYI, Steve Bannon will be reporting for lock up on Monday) But here we are. Oh to be a wealthy powerful white man in America. Just think, you can literally have a bunch of Supreme Court Justices in your pocket, and avoid having to own up to your misdeeds because a Judge you appointed is beholden to you.     

The dems are now in full-blown panic mode, as they should be. The old man's numbers are not good, and they don't seem to be getting any better.  There is talk now of an open convention. "He must be replaced" comes the screams from the talking heads and pundits on television. This, in spite of the fact that his administration is kicking ass by all objective measures. I can understand the fear, though. The thought of giving the felon four more years in the White House is frightening. It's not hyperbole to say that he most likely will end democracy as we know it. It's what he and his Christofascist friends have promised.  You have to take them at their word when they say that they will do something. It's already started. (Google Louisiana and the 10 Commandments, and Project 2025 when you get a chance.)

 The old man has some soul searching to do. Only he knows if he can see this thing through. He sure didn't look like he was up for the job of beating the felon in a debate Thursday night. If he truly believes that the felon is such a threat do democracy, and he has no chance of beating him, he should step aside, and give the dems a shot. That would be the patriotic thing to do. If, on the other hand, he believes that he is up for the job, well then go for it.  Personally, I would vote for a dead turtle before I even consider voting for the felon. The man who said he created more "black jobs" than any other president on Thursday without batting an eye. (Like WTF is a "black job"?)  It just goes to show you who we are dealing with.  If the felon thinks he will win the White House with black votes, he is in for a big surprise. Sadly,  he could very well win it all because of white folks, who don't see the threat because of their shared skin color and the lies. 

Vote!       

Gilead

It's been a minute. I hope that all of you field hands are doing well and thriving while doing your best to survive in this moment that we are living in.  These are crazy times.  America, as we have come to know her, is no more.  And that my friends, is not hyperbole. 

Personally, I have never believed that this is such a perfect union, and I have always suspected that the American experiment is flawed. But I always hoped that the American people were so proud of their country and the idea of its ideals, that they would not allow dark and sinister forces to hijack the perception of the world's greatest democracy. My hope is fading. Amend that. It has faded.  I didn't see America becoming the Republic of Gilead from the Handmaid's Tale.

What really brought it home to me was the knowledge that a Justice on the Supreme Court of America was willing to openly declare that he is a Christofascist who endorsed the actions of the January 6th insurrectionists. Now I am not naive enough to believe that judges aren't political, they all are. They are appointed by presidents who check their political loyalties before selecting them. But in the past they would at least pretend to be impartial and do their best to follow the law, even if they would twist it to suit their own political ideology.  No more. The actions of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas should scare us all. We should have seen this coming when Alito gave his bitter, resentful, and grievance filled speech to the Federalist Society in November of 2020.  As one writer put it: " Alito's speech is marked by the sense of bitter resentment and grievance of white Christian men that runs through the whole Trumpist fascist movement."  Now, emboldened by the actions of Trump and his allies, the push for a Christofascist takeover is in full effect. Roe v. Wade was just a start. The legislature in Louisiana, for instance, just passed a bill to make abortion pills a controlled substance. Let that sink in for a minute. Soon, there will be laws banning the teachings of certain things in schools and  pushing a far-right version of Christianity down the throats of school children. Wait.. they are already doing that. I see you Texas and Florida. 

There will be more to come.  America will keep going deeper down this right-wing rabbit hole, and when we realize what we have become it will be too late. We will be living out a dystopian Handmaid's Tale, and only mega church preachers and white nationalists will be happy. It's almost here. Google Project 2025 when you get a chance, and make yourself a stiff drink before you read it, you will need one. America will need a  dictatorship style form of government and leader in order to make the new Christian white nationalist nation a reality.  And here is the shocker: almost fifty percent of the voters seem to be cool with that.   

It's scary to think that the only thing standing in the way of all this happening is a shaky 81 year old man with a woman of color on his ticket. (Nothing against Kamala, but no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: the thought that Uncle Joe could  check out at any minute and  his successor would be a...gasp! Black woman.) Throw in the fact that I have zero confidence in the DNC and their so called campaign experts, and you see where this is going.  Project 2025 could well become a reality. 

The perfect storm is brewing.  Pack your rain gear and batten down the hatches. We are in for a rough ride. 

Cricket deserved better.

Every now and then a member of the MAGA crowd shows you who they really are. Take the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, for instance. It recently came to light, by way of her hastily penned book, that she murdered her family puppy, Cricket.  She did it because she could not control its behavior, and in her own words, she "hated" the dog. 

I am sure she thought that this revelation would bring her closer to the rest of her MAGA friends and put her in the driver's seat to be Donald Trump's VP pick, but it backfired. She has been living in a MAGA bubble where being cruel to poor and underrepresented people was fashionable, so she thought that this mentality would translate to animals as well.   

Sadly for her, and her political career,  her calculation was way off. She forgot how much American's love their pets, especially their dogs. (I could have told her. I wrote about this very thing years ago.) Now,  Americans are united in their outrage at her actions. I mean seriously, who murders a puppy?! She tried to rationalize away her actions by saying that she lived on a farm, and that farmers have to make  tough choices between life and death when it comes to their animals. But no one is buying it. We are talking about a puppy for crying out loud. The thing is, the man she has been auditioning for would have probably done the same thing. Cruelty to animals is a known trait of sociopaths. Donald Trump hates dogs, and Kristi Noem knows that.  This little blurb from her book was to  him and the rest of the MAGA base. These folks, after all, believe that cruelty is sexy. The cruelty is the point with them. 

This, though, was a bridge too far. And Noem knows it. Her political career is over. If Trump wins he might reward her with a  position in his cabinet, but that's the best she can hope for. 

Americans will forgive her cheating on her husband with a known scumbag, but not killing a puppy.  

RIP Cricket.   

The Field Negro poll.

Since we are so inundated with polls leading up to this November's election, I figured I would conduct my own internal polling on the subject. 

Here goes: 

Who will you be voting for this November?  

1. Joe Biden

2. Donald Trump.

3. RFK Jr.

4. Cornel West

5. None of the above. 

Please explain why you are voting the way you are.

Much appreciated. 

If the sneakers don't get them maybe some fake photos can.

Age is more than just a number for one candidate but not the other.

 

Joe Biden is old, and he looks and acts his age.  There is no getting around that fact. Americans believe it, and so, I am sure, does his handlers. He jumbles his words at times, and his memory is not what it should be. Donald trump is also old. And contrary to what MAGA world believes (and his gold mirror tells him) he looks and acts his age as well. Maybe even more so than Joe Biden. But, the American media being what it is, a narrative must be spun, and that narrative is that Joe Biden is the older, less capable, and more senile of the two men. 

The thing is, though, no matter how old and senile Joe Biden is, we know that his head and heart is in the right place when it comes to what's best for America. We can look back on the past three years of his administration and marvel at their accomplishments. Bringing us out of the dark chapter of our history known as the time of COVID-19, could not have been easy.  And now, looks at us, we are almost back to "normal".  Almost.

The other guy, on the other hand, does not have his heart in the right place. He does not care about what's best for America. He only cares about himself. He is a declared authoritarian and fascist who will govern like one, and he has vowed to get revenge on his perceived enemies.  The presidency is a get out of jail free card for him, and he will do whatever it takes to get it. The scary thing is, with the help and complicity of the corporate American media machine, he is well on his way to getting his wish. The old guy who has done a masterful public relations job of not seeming to be old, might very well beat the old guy who is not quite as adept and not making public perception his reality. 

Joe Biden held a  press conference this past week where he angrily denounced the latest Special Counsel report which exonerated him but added some Comeyesque editorializing for cheap political points. During that press conference he made a mistake by mixing up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. It was a never ending story in both right and left wing media for days. (CNN might be still running it as their lead story as I type this.) The other guy mumbles and bumbles his way through endless seemingly adderall induced speeches, and I don't think that they are mentioned even once in the main stream media.  

Sadly, this is the new normal for the American press: They are riding the horse that makes them the most money.  In this case that horse is the one with the jockey wearing the bright red MAGA silks.    

 

Caption this.

 

 

Name the title of this movie. 

And please don't give me pejorative remarks or inflammatory words like, See Tim Jig, or Uncle Tom's Candidate. 

Let's be respectful.....    

Nikki and the S word.

It's easy to come up with the answers to certain historical questions in life. Who was the first president of the United States? What is the name of the country that attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor? What was the date of the terrorist attack on the United States orchestrated by Osama bin Laden?  If you guessed George Washington, Japan, and September 11, 2001, move to the head of the class. (If you guessed John Hanson for the first question you're just a history snob, and you probably have better things to do than read this post.)  And of course there is this gimmie: What was the cause of the Civil War between the states? These would all be easy questions for any typical school aged child in the United States. If you are running for president of the United States, and you are the former governor of a Southern state and high ranking government official, you shouldn't have to even think about it. But that's what Nikki Haley did when she  attempted to answer this question asked by a gentleman she considered a "democrat" plant.  

Nikki went all pretzel with her attempt to answer the question because she did not want to offend republican voters. Particularly those MAGA loyalist who she is still trying to court. In the world of half of republican voters, and most MAGA loyalists, the Civil War was more about good Americans just wanting to hold on to their property without the government telling them what to do, than it was about enslaving and cruelly treating  fellow human beings. This part of American history has been completely whitewashed by the American right, and Nikki Haley knows this. So rather than show some courage and speak the truth about the real reason for the Civil War (or as they call it in the South: 'The War of Northern Aggression') Nikki chose to dodge and obfuscate. It was painful to watch this Indian American daughter of immigrants, as she tried not to offend republican voters, explaining away the Civil War as some government overreach gone bad. 

Nikki Haley might or might not win the republican nomination to be president. Right now it's not looking good for her, but things could change. The thing is, she was gaining momentum. She did it by being a typical double-speaking politician who tried to be all things to all people. Shifting positions and giving nuanced takes to not get locked into a box that she couldn't talk her way out of later on. 

It's been working for her so far, and even her slavery misstep might not hurt her in the long run. I just wonder how she lives with herself.   

"The first thing I should have said was slavery," Haley said on "Cavuto Live" Saturday. "I completely agree with that. When you grow up in the South, slavery is a given. Like when you think of the Civil War, you know it was about slavery. That's never been in question."

Sure Nikki. Until the next time you're in front of a right-wing crowd.  If only you had the moral clarity to speak the truth. That would have been so refreshing.   

Season's greetings.

Happy holidays to you and your families, field hands! 

Let's enjoy these freedoms while we can. With the 2024 elections looming, and a strong possibility that the Scrooge might be our leader, we don't know how much longer we will be able to enjoy these freedoms. 

Peace on earth and goodwill to all. 

Five-alarm warning.

 I'm getting tired of sounding the alarm.  Mr. Trump told America in no uncertain terms, that if he is reelected he will be a dictator from "day one".  And still, incredibly,  there are folks out there who don't believe that he poses a serious threat to this country and everything we stand for. (I see you Chris Cuomo and Mitt Romney.)  Just imagine, almost fifty percent of the people who will vote will no doubt vote for this guy, and there is a really good chance that he could win. His surrogates are already plotting how to get revenge on his perceived enemies, and those enemies include members of the press.  Yikes!

I am going to post an excellent article I read recently about this very subject, it was written by Marc Elias writing for Democracy Docket.  After you read it I would love to hear your thoughts. 

Here goes: 

"Donald Trump is plotting to overthrow American democracy. It is not a secret, and he is not subtle. The only question is whether enough people will care enough to stop it.

Trump is not hiding his intentions for a second term. Echoing Hitler’s rise to power, he has called his political enemies “vermin” and promised his supporters that, if elected, he would be their “retribution.”

Trump’s enablers have outlined a plan for him to replace tens of thousands of career civil servants with MAGA loyalists and to take personal control of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute his political rivals. He is almost certain to use an old law — the Insurrection Act — to convert the military into his personal domestic police force.

Since his power comes from a bottomless capacity to lie, he has contempt for the free press, which he calls the “enemy of the people.” He recently suggested that the government should censor or shut down media platforms he dislikes.

His most brazen attacks on democracy manifested in the aftermath of 2020. Since his loss to President Joe Biden, Trump has advocated for discarding lawful ballots, tampering with election certification and throwing out entire states’ results. 

He supports voter intimidation and voter suppression, often with a racist dimension. Recently, he unveiled a new “guard the vote” strategy, urging his supporters to monitor the vote-counting process in blue cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia. If Trump regains power, these abuses would just be the beginning.

Though state laws generally govern elections, Trump would assuredly use the federal government to seize voting machines and ballots. Anyone who thinks that a re-elected President Trump would not insist on controlling ballot counting and certification has simply not been paying attention.

Trump’s attack on the legal system would not be confined to spurious criminal prosecutions of others. He would also use it to personally benefit himself and his most violent supporters. 

He would almost certainly pardon all the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Worse, he would abuse his office to block his own criminal prosecutions. 

Regardless of the law, he would immediately take steps to fire all the prosecutors in the two federal cases against him. Who would dare stop him? The DOJ and the military would become a weapon to end all four criminal cases in which he is a defendant, while initiating retaliatory criminal investigations against others

If all of this sounds terrifying, it is. If this sounds unrealistic, then you have learned little from history of how democracies are replaced by despotic regimes. Hitler did not come to power in a coup, but rather from democratic elections. The same is true with many of the authoritarians today.

Even if you doubt that this is correct, it is not a risk worth taking.

Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician, is responsible for the foundation of modern risk theory. In his famous “wager” he argues that even non believers should live a life as if God exists. If God does not exist, the downside of living a pious life is relatively small; but, if God does exist, the consequences of living a lavish life are infinitely bad. The lesson: measuring risk requires one to consider not only the likelihood that an event will occur but also the consequences if it does.

Trump will do anything to win in 2024 and the Republican Party will aid and abet him at every turn.

You may believe that the likelihood of Trump destroying democracy is low. You may think he will lose the election, or that our system of checks and balances will hold him back.

But what if you are wrong? " {More here} 

Maybe things aren't so bad after all. I am not alone in sounding the alarm. Hopefully a lot more people will hear it.