Day: April 18, 2024

Closing Thought–18Apr24

It is April and the gov of Mississippi signed a statement that no one told the media about…..when was the last time a governor of any state did not want PR for his ‘good work’?

Tater Reeves just signed a proclamation celebrating the Confederacy and slavery…..

In the year of our lord 2024, the Confederate States of America are still being honored in Mississippi. 

Continuing a decades-old annual tradition, Governor Tate Reeves declared April as “Confederate Heritage Month,” the Beauvoir museum in Biloxi announced on Facebook Friday. The site is the historic home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. 

The tradition dates back to 1993 but isn’t publicized by any Mississippi state official or government agency. The only organization that regularly does so is the Sons of Confederate Veterans, or SCV, who first requested the proclamation 31 years ago.  The SCV owns and operates the Beauvoir museum, promoting the “Lost Cause” myth of the Civil War that downplays the role of slavery and white supremacy in causing the war.

Reeves’s record on race and Civil War history is checkered. As a student at Millsaps College in his youth, Reeves was part of a fraternity that threw Confederate-themed parties where members wore blackface. The governor says he never wore blackface while in the fraternity. 

In 2020, he signed a law retiring Mississippi’s state flag, which honored the Confederate flag, but criticized Black Lives Matter protesters at the same time. And Reeves has also denied the existence of systemic racism in the United States. 

Mississippi is the only state that has dedicated a month to honoring the Confederacy in the last three years, although six other Southern states have done so historically. Mississippi will also recognize Confederate Memorial Day on April 27, as state law requires. But those seeking to protest against these policies will have a tough time: The Supreme Court just effectively abolished protests in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

(newrepublic.com)

There you have it….the New South looks a lot like the Old South….at least in the case of racist Mississippi.

If you hate brown people then Mississippi is the place for you.

A state that pretends that the Civil War was something noble….when in fact it was solely about slavery…..period.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

We Don’t Want No Stinking Dictator

We can say a lot of things about the upcoming election…..for me it is a contest between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dummer….on one side we have a person that spews hatred and bias and on the other we have a spineless tool that makes promises only to work on them just before an election….so for me this election is a lose-lose scenario.

Beyond my personal opinion a dictatorship looms and many Americans say they do not want such and all the while they are helping create the thing they do not want.

Whether a glass is half full or half empty is a matter of perspective. The same can be said about the half of Americans who oppose the idea of allowing presidents to rule unilaterally—an exercise of monarchical power favored by only a fifth of us. I like to look on the bright side, so I take it as a win that those opposing unrestrained executive power far outnumber those who favor it. Still, it would be better if, in a republic established two and a half centuries ago, more than half the population would commit to the proposition that turning the country into a dictatorship would be bad.

“About half of the public think it would be a bad idea if the next president is able to act on important policy issues without the approval of Congress or the courts,” the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reports of the results of a survey of 1,282 adults conducted March 21-25. “Only 21% think it would be a good thing, and about 30% think it’s neither good nor bad.”

In the poll, 48 percent overall oppose unilateral presidential rule, including 58 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans. The 21 percent favoring the idea include 17 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans. Support for unrestrained executive power rises to 39 percent among Democrats in the case of a Biden win in November, and to 57 percent of Republicans if Trump wins.

Interestingly, the AP-NORC results are nearly identical to those found by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics in 2021. At the time, pollsters reported “roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a ‘President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts.'” Among Biden voters, 22 percent strongly agreed with the idea, compared to 19 percent of Trump voters (over 40 percent of both at least “somewhat agreed” with the idea of an unrestrained presidency).

Americans Don’t Want a Dictatorship, but They’re Creating One Anyway

Maybe it is time to take a hard look at your political priorities….the thing that you dislike the most may be the very thing you are helping create.

Just a lowly observation….

Pay Attention!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Speaker Continues To Play With Fire

I see that since the Speaker has saved our home appliances he has decide to cave to the warhawks and piss away more taxpayer cash on these damn wars…..

Here are those all important home appliance bills….

  • Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act

  • Liberty in Laundry Act

  • Clothes Dryers Reliability Act

  • Refrigerator Freedom Act

  • Affordable Air Conditioning Act

  • Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act

I know I feel better knowing this is happening.

Now that all is safe with our home appliances the Speaker decided to chance it and go for the money needed for our proxy wars (arms industry is happy now)…..

Speaker Mike Johnson’s four-pronged foreign aid package has become five bills, and his job could depend on what happens with the reworked legislation. On Wednesday, Johnson told his Republican caucus that the House will stay in session until it votes Saturday evening on the package with stalled aid for Israel and Ukraine as its centerpiece, the New York Times reports. Success is not certain, nor is his continued tenure in the speakership. Two of Johnson’s members have threatened to file a motion to vacate, which could result in his removal, if he puts aid to Ukraine to a floor vote.

Johnson became emotional Wednesday evening when asked about his decision by a reporter, per the Washington Post. “If I operated out of fear over a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job,” Johnson said. “I can make a selfish decision and do something that’s different. But I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing,” he added. Johnson will need Democrats’ support to pass the bills, and he won the backing of the most influential one. President Biden strongly endorsed the package on Wednesday. “I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed,” Biden said.

Here’s how the bills break down:

  • Cost: The total is $95.3 billion, per the AP, same as the Senate approved in February, though the packages aren’t identical; Johnson added some provisions to appeal to GOP opponents of Ukraine aid.
  • Ukraine: More than one-third of the $61 billion would go toward replenishing weapons and ammunition systems for the US military, Republicans said. And $13.8 billion would buy weapons from the US. Johnson’s bill has $9 billion in forgivable loans; the president could set the terms or cancel the loans.
  • Israel: Aid to Israel and humanitarian relief to people in Gaza account for $26 billion, and $4 billion would go to restock Israel’s missile defenses.
  • Indo-Pacific: About $8 billion is intended to deter China’s aggression in the region.
  • Assorted: The fourth bill satisfied a Republican wish list of foreign policy priorities. The final wording wasn’t released yet, per the AP.
  • The border: The fifth piece is intended to satisfy GOP demands to strengthen security at the southern US border. It might not have worked. “Every true conservative America First patriot in the House should vote against the rule for this borrowed foreign aid bill with no border security,” Rep. Bob Good, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, posted on social media.

Did he put his gig as Speaker on the line?

The Freedom idiots will be gunning for him and that should stall anything happening in the House for the rest of the year.

But we will hardly notice for the House does very little actual work….just slapping retaliation on the Dems in this Congress that is.

That tight rope that Johnson is trying to walk is getting a lot of slack in it….will he survive?

This theater of the absurd is just too fascinating to ignore (at least for me).

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”