Day: June 18, 2020

State Flag Is Gone!

Closing Thought–18Jun20

My city of Gulfport has voted to take down the state flag and replace it with the original flag……

Outside Gulfport City Hall, the Mississippi flag is nowhere to be found, but the Magnolia Flag is. On Tuesday afternoon, Gulfport city leaders decided to take down the flag in a seven-to-zero vote.

Top is old flag— bottom the new flag…called the Magnolia Flag…..

Republican lawmaker proposes a two-flag solution in Mississippi ...

That alone is a big move but I would like for you to read the comments…..

Gary L Lee
·6h ago
I think it is a disgrace and a dishonor and very offensive to our founding fathers that they would even think of removing the state flag if that is the case they need to remove the Martin Luther King holiday because all he had was a dream at least our founding fathers took action and made our nation what it is this is not for every race it is for the ones that cares nothing for nation that wants to destroy it
Joe Cruthirds
·7h ago
That looks like a Christmas tree with bad lights. Or could it be a cotton bush? It also looks like it belongs in a cartoon movie. They need to just leave the flag like it is.
Painman 58
·15h ago
You should read history of confederates/civil war before you comment. And Mr. Choctaw, did you know the Texas Rangers were formed to hunt down and slaughter Mexicans, and Indians?
 
Painman 58
·15h ago
The confederates should fly a white flag, after all they lost & funky Lee surrendered on 04/09/1865 @ Appomattox.
 
Susan Bridgman
·15h ago
leave the flag alone what is it hurting anyone my goodness.
User from MS
·16h ago
This is Bull Shit & no I not a southerner I was born and raised in Pennsylvania! The US Navy Brought me to Mississippi in 1985 & I’m still here 23 years of Military Service & I still can’t believe what I helped fight too protect our History & our Future freedoms are being manipulated like it is!! That’s all I got to say about that. 🇺🇸✌🏻😎
 
Danielle Hampton
·16h ago
That’s an ugly flag, surely they can do better than that
 
Frankie Moran
·17h ago
you have got to be joking city leaders want to promote black heritage but the hell with everyone else’s heritage no I am not a white supremacists I am Choctaw
These are interesting and illustrate a couple of things….one most of the commenters need to return to school and learn some Mississippi history….and two the heritage thing….true cover for a racists that is too cowardly to admit they hate.
 
My choice was the flag called the Bonnie Blue Flag….
 
Bonnie Blue Flag
 
Why this one?
 
It is the flag I fly at my residence.
 
Gulfport is within the boundaries of the short lived Republic of West Florida….In 1810, a small group of Americans living below the thirty-first parallel in Spanish Florida rebelled against Spain and established the Republic of West Florida. The flag adopted by that short-lived republic was a field of blue with one white star, an emblem that would later be heralded in song and verse as The Bonnie Blue Flag. The Republic of West Florida was eventually annexed by the United States and its territory was divided between Mississippi and Louisiana.
 
If interested I have written about the Republic previously….https://lobotero.com/2012/09/22/the-republic-of-west-florida/
 
“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And Criminal Justice

The president has issued an EO on police reform….the Dems have introduced a bill on police reform….the GOP is lagging behind but have said it is coming….

In November we will be asked to vote (if it is allowed) for either Trump or Biden…..and Biden seems to be in an early lead…..so let’s take a look at Biden’s campaign promises and thoughts on criminal justice…..

This from his website for the campaign…..

The Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice is based on several core principles:

  • We can and must reduce the number of people incarcerated in this country while also reducing crime. No one should be incarcerated for drug use alone. Instead, they should be diverted to drug courts and treatment. Reducing the number of incarcerated individuals will reduce federal spending on incarceration. These savings should be reinvested in the communities impacted by mass incarceration.
  • Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day. Additionally, women and children are uniquely impacted by the criminal justice system, and the system needs to address their unique needs.
  • Our criminal justice system must be focused on redemption and rehabilitation. Making sure formerly incarcerated individuals have the opportunity to be productive members of our society is not only the right thing to do, it will also grow our economy.

No one should be profiteering off of our criminal justice system.

https://joebiden.com/justice/

Just a quick look at his policy proposals….

I do think he should take some time with all that is happening today and adjust his policies to reflect the demands of the people in the streets….the people that will be voting come November.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump On Screwing The People

Even if you are an ardent supporter of Donald the Orange you are about to be bent over and hammered hard by the Trump administration…..

First, those people that are collecting unemployment benefits……

White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow made clear that the Trump administration will not allow an extension of emergency jobless aid to workers laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re paying people not to work,” the former Wall Street executive declared. “Almost all businesses,” he said, understand that the additional unemployment benefit “is, in effect, a disincentive” for people to get back to work.

Three months ago, Congress passed the CARES Act. While handing vast sums to big business, it included a $600-per-week emergency payment by the federal government to supplement the far lower state unemployment benefits, which are, for example, capped in Michigan at approximately $350 per week.

More than 20 percent of the US workforce—some 36.5 million people—have been thrown out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/16/pers-j16.html

On the retirement front…..how many of my readers will depend on a 401(k) for their retirement?

If you do then you had better read this and understand what will happen to your retirement fund……

With the American public’s attention consumed by the Covid-19 pandemic and mass protests against police brutality, the U.S. Labor Department earlier this month quietly gave corporate sponsors of retirement plans something they’ve been agitating over for years: a government green light to invest workers’ savings into funds managed by notoriously predatory private equity firms.

The move, announced on June 3 by Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, allows large managers of 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) to put workers’ retirement savings into private equity investments that offer the possibility of huge returns—and devastating losses.

U.S. workers “have socked away $6.2 trillion in 401(k) accounts and another $2.5 trillion in IRA accounts.”

“If just 5 percent of the money in these retirement funds were available to private equity,” wrote Appelbaum, “it would be a windfall of $435 billion—real money even to private equity millionaires and billionaires.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/16/leading-us-retirees-lambs-slaughter-trump-labor-dept-quietly-offers-401k-plans

While retirees are pissing and moaning about being locked down and they cannot get a haircut….Donald the Orange and his thieves are being permitted to rape your retirement fund.

And yet he still has some undying support….I question their mental process….as a wise man once said….”you can’t fix stupid” or maybe I should say “stupid is as stupid does”…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Just A Few “Bad Apples”

I know you have heard the term “bad apples” referring to those cops that are caught beating and abusing the public and why should all cops be punished for the acts of a few “bad apples”?

There seems to have been 85,000 investigations of police wrong doing…in the past decade…..

At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.

Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.

Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.

The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.

Reporters from USA TODAY, its affiliated newsrooms across the country and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.

Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/24/usa-today-revealing-misconduct-records-police-cops/3223984002/

Sorry but those numbers stated in the article are a bit more than a “few bad apples”…..

But not to worry…all politicians are jumping on the bandwagon of reform…..not of which will actually change anything.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”