"We Wanted to Shake Up Washington"

Today on NPR's 1A radio show, Lamar voiced what I wrote about yesterday on the anniversary of Election day.  He said he voted for the "business man" candidate because he wanted to see Washington shaken up. Lamar said, "I've heard people say they would rather vote for Joe the plumber rather than Hillary because she was an insider.  I just wanted to rattle the cages."  Lamar from Georgia would have been a little more credible if he had not tried to defend the Muslim ban as some administrative function to take care of countries that could not handle vetting their own citizens.  The facts show that terrorists did not come from the countries identified on the first Muslim ban. If this was an administrative ban than Saudi Arabia, who sent the majority of 9/11 terrorists to the United States, would be on the top of the list for a country without the ability to review passports. Also, Somalia, El Salvador, Pakistan and Afghanistan are basically lawless countries and were not on the list of countries that needed extra scrutiny.

So, put aside his willingness to defend the current President no matter how indefensible the position, his main position was still insulting to the rest of the country. Disabled people depend on the executive branch of the United States to stay alive and don't want you to rattle cages thus jeopardizing their disability checks.  There are reporters in war torn sections of the world who want a strong State Department to rescue them if they are captured protecting the first amendment, and they are not going to be comforted that you hired an unqualified leader who refuses to staff the Diplomatic corps.  The children dying in Puerto Rico because they are drinking water from a superfund site look to the mainland for President to lead them through this crisis. There are scientists working on preventing a flu pandemic who do not appreciate you hiring an entry level man child.  Lamar's voting strategy allowed a President to appoint a talk show host as the head of the Agricultural Science Unit which protects us from food borne illness and famine.

Lamar, while you want to shake up Washington, the US Army private standing post in the lawless section South of Kandahar surrounded by Taliban, Pakistan and Al Qaeda does not want some rookie making decisions after 16 years of war.  We appreciate that you have elected awful Representatives and Senators from Georgia for 20 years, but that is on you.  We do not need you taking your frustration over your own poor choices out on the rest of us.  The protection of our nuclear stock pile should not be overseen by a guy who wanted to eliminate that department. We need to be assured that someone is protecting us from identity theft because our credit agency is not keeping their data is secure and if they fall down on the job there is a federal agency that comes down hard on them.  We do not know how many scientific breakthroughs will be lost because you cast your vote for a President who openly mocked science and career federal employees as the "deep state."  The point is that Lamar claimed to be a business man, but would never suggest that the mail room employee should be brought into lead Sears/Kmart to get them back on track.  No one would suggest that Wells Fargo opened fraudulent accounts so they should hire a beat cop from New York City to run the company in order to "shake things up."

Most of us depend on the federal government for our quality of life, and we don't appreciate that millions of Americans felt it was a good idea to test out an intern in the Oval Office.  This is why we are angry and frustrated.  You shoved in our face the Make America Great Again crap, but most us felt that America was a pretty great place that needed some polishing.  You blew up our federal government and we will have to pick up the pieces when it all crumbles.  Thanks, Lamar.

by Brian Davis

One Year Later: Elections Have Consequences

I feel like November 8, 2016 was my last day of innocence.  I worked on the streets of Cleveland so I knew about anger by homeless people and the anger toward people who are different.  I knew about the opioid crisis and the many friends who were dying.  I knew the face of poverty, and understood that the United States had many problems, but  I still thought that most people believed all men were created equal.  I still thought we all had a foundation of the four freedoms, the Kennedy inaugural, and the Great Society. I thought that we were working to fulfill the expressions in the "I have a dream" speech or as Ted Kennedy said, "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society." Then a sizable number of Americans cast their lot with a fraud in 2016 and I had to face the reality that there is a large amount of hate, fear and hypocrisy washing over the country. I really could not comprehend the change. Every rule was broken and every norm was violated, and voters selected a perversion. 

This is me on Nov. 8,  2016

I could not fathom, Donald J. Trump winning the election.  It would be like if person could select any car on the lot for the same price and they selected the Pontiac Aztek because they saw it on Breaking Bad.  My whole world was turned upside down.  People were so angry in the United States that they were willing to turn the keys over to a novice who openly talked about his contempt for government.  Some of my friends warned me (you were correct, Gino), but I dismissed them as just flirting with chaos.  They were saying that some of their Republican friends were embracing this guy because "nothing else had worked."  I guess I should have known because when I was doing voter registration work in 2008 and 2012 no low income person was signing up so they could vote for McCain or Romney.  Then in 2016, I found about 30% of the low income people I registered were saying positive things about a reality star, but again I figured that they were just saying the extreme for kicks.  I took it as an idol threat and the vast majority of people would sober up when they got in the election booth.  I could not imagine throwing away my vote on a charlatan.

I can't even describe how shocked I was with the election of the guy who admitted on a bus that he had no problem grabbing women's vaginas and kissing them without permission.  I had worked since early in the morning driving people to vote until the polls closed.  So, I was exhausted and fell asleep at around 8:30 p.m. on Election night.   All was fine with only early returns.  Nothing out of the ordinary and everything was going as expected with New England blue and the South red.  Then I woke up at around 1:30 a.m on November 9 and things were starting to break apart.  I really felt like Rip Van Winkle who had fallen asleep and woke up decades later.  The hyper active graph guy on MSNBC was madly circling states and Electoral College numbers.  Ohio was lost which was amazing to me.  Our Republican governor and Senator was not voting for the candidate so how could these guys not bring 15 to 20% of their own GOP members with them?

How I felt on November 9, 2016

Michigan was lost, Florida was lost, Pennsylvania was lost, Wisconsin was lost and all that was left was the concession speech.  At 3 a.m. I saw the celebration by this vile, arrogant, narcissistic liar.  What the hell was his young son doing up still?  And by the way, what kind of 70 year old guy has such a young son?  I immediately went outside to throw away my Hillary Clinton yard sign in disgust for what a bad campaign she had run.  I had no idea how many things she was fighting while sulking at 3 a.m.  I had no idea about Russia and the Facebook/Twitter campaign.  I had no idea how many sexist voters there were in America.  I could not imagine the whisper campaign that was going on from the right wing media and fringe web based outlets. The lack of enthusiasm among progressives and the number of minority members of our society who sat at home were all working against Clinton.

I went to work, but hardly spoke.  I think I left early and cancelled any appointments.  I could not think about anything but the disrespect for a Prisoner of War who spent five years in a cage in Vietnam.  How to wrap your head around attacking a Gold Star family?  How could the United States install a leader who turns against the Muslim religion?  It is impossible that a racist who makes fun of those with a disability could take control of the nuclear football.  It just seemed inconceivable that a hate-filled person who was so disgraceful to his political opponent would now be responsible for picking federal judges.

I knew that the world had changed and that I could no longer do my job in advocacy.  I knew within a day of the election in 2016 that the federal government was going to dramatically change and the federal government was responsible for 80% of the funds going to address homelessness in Cleveland.  I knew that I could not go on seeing the despair and pain that was ahead.  Elections have consequences and I knew that America was fundamentally different November 10, 2016.

By Brian Davis

Random Thoughts for Halloween

Does Sarah Huckabee Sanders have any threat to face indictment by the Mueller investigation for lying to the American people with her daily briefings? "It has nothing to do with the campaign's activities," she said of Papadopoulos' plea. "He asked to do things, he was basically pushed back or not responded to in any way," Sanders said of Papadopoulos' efforts within the campaign, which included sending out emails that offered to set up "a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump." These are both demonstratively false statements from the document that Mr. Papadopoulos signed as part of his plea deal.  Can she be prosecuted as a paid government employee and is routinely lying about Russia attempting to provide information to the Republican Campaign for President?

Someone needs to ask SHS? Did Mr. Papadopoulos have a Trmp issued campaign e-mail account and were those turned over to the FBI?  Did the campaign turn over Papadopoulos' e-mails or because he was a low level coffee boy did he use his own e-mail to try to set up these meetings with Putin's niece and other Russians?

Finally, on Ms. Huckabee Sanders, you reporters need to stop using the word "collusion." Huckleberry tried to define it today and failed and it has no basis in law.  Try using "conspire against America" or how about "interfering with the right of a person to vote" when discussing these crimes.  Collusion means nothing to the average American. Oh, we miss you Spicey!

John Kelly really disgraced himself on Fox yesterday.  So many false and horrible things that he said in a short period of time, he really needs to retire. If he is the adult in the daycare, we now know who is giving 45 his morning sugar rush that causes the daily tweetstroms.   He studied at the National War College in the 1990s and graduated. How is that possible?  What are they teaching there about treason at the WAR College?  If you take up arms against the United States that is the very definition of treason as stated in the Constitution Article 3 section 3.  Robert E. Lee led the armed insurrection against the United States in 1861.  One day he is a decorated Colonel in the US Army and the next he is in charge of the Virginia militia fighting against his old comrades. He put state over country and was in no way "honorable" as Kelly said.  If a treasonous Colonel can be honorable, can a terrorist who takes up arms against his own soldiers while declaring holy war?  The terrorist put religion before his country while Lee put his state before his country. Then he went on to provide an excuse for slavery as being a failure to compromise, which is just stupid and debunked by most historians.   Finally, he indicated that he would not apologize to a sitting duly elected member of the House of Representatives who he defamed with false statements. 

I am watching MSNBC and they regularly talk to Richard Painter. He is great on TV and I mostly agree with what he says, but it brings up a bunch of questions.  First, since we know that George W Bush loves to crack jokes (see the speech by Bill Clinton with Bush cracking Obama up in Houston) it seems to me that he was constantly making fun of Mr. Painter in the Oval Office.  Second, I really find it hard to believe that Bush had an ethics lawyer (see Iraq War, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, etc). Finally, is Mr. Painter the first example of the work of the Blue Fairy to animate a robot?  He is a wonderful advocate for ethics, but he really seems like they found him at the Disney's "Mark Twain's Riverboat" exhibit and supercharged him for TV.

This is a really stupid costume...a skeleton would not be caught alive with a bright red hat on that has words written on it.  Kids today.

Is it true that Boston was not going to bring electricity back until all of Puerto Rico is restored?

I really liked the twitter post from Prof. Joe Mead, the panhandler slayer of Ohio, about tonight being "begger's night" the one night a year that children are allowed to go out and beg for food for fun for something that police arrest adults for doing the rest of the year.

4. Joe Mead‏ @JosephWMead 4h4 hours ago
Ah, "beggar's night:" unlicensed door-to-door solicitation of candy is fine; we only arrest people when they actually need the food.
0 replies 4 retweets 5 likes 


by Brian Davis