Political Issues

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Dangerous “Information” Sources

Are you getting your information from any of these sites?  You might be shocked to find out who is writing/sponsoring some of the articles showing up on your social media pages. I try to keep my Facebook page non-political – but I do have a few news sources that show up daily.  They are liberal sources, so the fact that articles from the following extreme right-leaning sources even showed up, indicates how ubiquitous they must be.  I suspect they might show up even more fequently on the pages of political conservatives.

The Epoch Times 

From Wikipedia: “The Epoch Times is a multi-language newspaper and media extension of the Falun Gong new religious movement.[4][5] The newspaper is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD).[6] For its articles, the publication draws from a network within China, as well as staff living in the West.[7][8][9]

RT (TV Network)

From Wikipedia: RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian government-funded international television network.[5][6] It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

The Washington Times

From Wikipedia: The Washington Times was founded on May 17, 1982, by Unification movement leader Sun Myung Moon and owned until 2010 by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate founded by Moon. It is currently owned by Operations Holdings, which is owned by the Unification movement.[4][5]

OANN – One America News Network

From Wikipedia: The OAN channel originally debuted in partnership with The Washington Times.[15] (see above. The Washington Times was founded by Sun Myung Moon – founder of The Unifaction Church) ….. OAN is known for downplaying threats posed to the United States by Russia. According to a former OAN producer, on his first day at OAN he was told, “Yeah, we like Russia here.”[8][59] One of OAN’s reporters, Kristian Brunovich Rouz, simultaneously works for the Russian propaganda outlet and news agency Sputnik, which is state-owned; when Rouz runs segments on OAN that relate to Russia, OAN does not disclose that he also works for Sputnik.[11]

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Government by Laser Tag

We laugh about his stupidity. It is really dangerous to laugh. I am convinced twitler is NOT stupid. Ignorant, but not stupid. He has a plan. His comments are aimed at encouraging his racist base. His antics are carefully designed to remove our focus from one divisive move to the next outrageous stunt. He is using a laser pointer and laughing at all the “cute kittens” falling over themselves to chase the red dot.  He is removing as many department heads as possible to gain power. He has a plan folks. He is not stupid. He is ignorant, divisive and EVIL. 

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Give trump a chance?

To those of you who are telling us “libtards” to “get over it” or (a little more kindly) to “give him a chance”, I suspect the same things were said about Hitler.

After the first few days of abject terror and sadness, I HAVE tried to make peace with this election result.  I have pleaded with my trump supporting friends to give me some good reasons to NOT be afraid.  I have gotten ABSOLUTELY NOTHING  other than the “holy trinity”: 1) He is NOT Hillary 2) He is against any kind of gun control  3) He says what he means (the most frightening of them all).

So – here is what a “wait and see” attitude has gotten us so far – and he has not even been sworn in yet.

Former Goldman Sachs Partner lined up as head of the Treasury Department…

Betsy DeVos set to be head of the Department of Education.  She wants to shift money away from public schools…. she who has neither attended nor sent her children to a public school….

David Patraeus might be in the running for Secretary of State. I guess being CONVICTED of giving classified docs to his lover does not disqualify him for the job. What is trump thinking? Oh…I get it.  Womanizers (aka p…y grabbers) tend to stick together. And of course, this was much more forgivable than careless emailing.

He has attacked the first amendment by threatening the press and proposing a law to make flag burning a punishable offense.  I get it.  Flag burning is horrible.  I think all protesters who wish to have their concerns addressed should show respect for our flag. But – freedom of speech is our first amendment right for a reason. In trump world, gun rights apparently “trump” everyone’s freedom to disagree with midnight tweets.

Not much hope that the Obamacare will be replaced with “something terrific” given Tom Price as trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Isn’t that special?

Still waiting to feel better, but I suspect that sick feeling in my stomach that I wake up with every morning will only get worse.

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Still not seeing any hope…

So far I have not seen any reason to hope for anything good  from trump on any of the issues I care about.  I have received sympathy from friends on my feelings of devastation.  I have heard encouraging words about what he will do for our economy – none of which I believe will come to pass.  Mostly, I feel that his election is a total rejection of everything I hold dear. I wrote an email expressing my thoughts, and I am posting it here.  I hope that I can retract much of this in the future – but I doubt it. I DO appreciate the efforts of my friends.  Those efforts have made me feel appreciated. But nothing is assuaging my deep sorrow and fear. Below is part of my reply to one of these good friends.

I am ABSOLUTELY opposed to violence in demonstrations. I am from a police family and understand the danger they are in. On the other hand there have been blatant abuses. Like the man in Staten Island who was suffocated after being approached for an extremely minor offense, tackled by multiple police, and ultimately killed by that tackle in spite of the man pleading over and over, ” I can’t breathe”.

I DO feel the pain of the demonstrators acutely. I have seen many examples of some trump supporters who feel empowered now to do vicious things. Rainbow flags are being burned here in Rochester, students in a high school calling other students niggers and cotton pickers and more. I am close friends with several of my LGBT former students and a relative who is a gay man planning to marry the man he loves. They are devastated and afraid.  Meanwhile I have no words to comfort them except perhaps to tell them to channel their pain, anger and understandable fear into positive and peaceful action by joining respected and supportive activist groups. But I cannot deny their fear. As a woman I feel that fear and pain myself. As I said in my blog, the thing that hurts my heart the most is that we now have a president who thinks of me and my daughter as lesser beings.

I keep reaching out to ask for specific things that trump might do to better the lives of minorities, the disabled, LGBT people, poor people struggling with medical bills, and women….not to mention our first amendment rights which I feel are at great risk. But I have not received any answers. None of these things will be his priority. I understand the immigration problems. Really. I even defended trump early on when he said he would call a halt to immigration. Why?  Because he was not quoted fully. He finished the statement by saying he  is calling for a moratorium until we could fully examine our policies. We DO need to be cautious. Of course we do.  When he examines our policy with regard to legal immigration he will find that it takes an average of one year for immigrants to be vetted. But again I do not object to caution and an effective process.

All that said, I feel he and the people who surround him do not care even the tiniest bit about any of the issues that concern me. And it terrifies me that all three branches of government  will soon be under the total control of one party. People were so upset with Obama, but he had much opposition. Going forward, we will have a leader who has unfettered power.

I understand the discontent of the average blue color workers who supported trump as their savior. But I do not think trump cares about them either. He has proved that in numerous ways throughout his career. Manufacturing jobs are not going to come back. Technology will see to that. I predict that the economy will go down under trump, hopefully not as far back as 2008 when the Dow Jones stood at around 7,000 as opposed to the last few years when it has been at 17,000 to 18,000 plus.

Obviously I could go on forever here. I will spare you. I will never support or condone violent demonstrations. I will support a peaceful transfer of power, holding my nose throughout the process. I will do so partly because I will follow Hillary’s gracious bidding in her wonderful concession speech. And then I will do whatever I possibly can to ensure that this bad man has only four years to walk all over the already downtrodden. I hope I am wrong about him….but I don’t think I am.

Thank you for listening to this lament from a woman who feels that this election has spit upon everything I have held dear all my life.

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Is Voting a Duty?

I really like Mike Rowe. However, I have to STENUOUSLY disagree with him when he recently wrote “Voting is a right, not a duty, and not a moral obligation.”

It is both – a right AND a duty. Along with that comes the responsibility of reading many points of view and FACT CHECKING. There are LOTS of fact checking sites out there that are dependable. Read widely. Know the party and candidates platforms. Vote for whomever is most closely aligned with your own political viewpoints…even if that person is from a third party. Even if they have no chance, the numbers will be a message to Washington. We all have a DUTY to RESEARCH, THINK and VOTE.

To quote Edmund Burke:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.  Edmund Burke