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Things are definitely crazy

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I’m still alive y’all. I’ve been going through some things lately, and I’ve been trying to heed the advice from the women in my life to protect my job.

That said, a lot of shit happened this week that seriously needs to be discussed. I know you’ve already talked about it in t he comments, but there needs to be an official thread.

I’m posting this video for discussion if you haven’t already seen it. We’re definitely living in dangerous times (at least for some of us). Stay safe and expect my thoughts on this week soon.

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Enemies of the Constitution

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This is a sitting US senator being handcuffed by federal officers. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was briefly detained by federal officers during a press conference being held by DHS Secretary Noem in California in regard to the protests of ICE arrests going on there.

Do you remember when the arrest or detaining of sitting members of national governments only occurred in shithole countries? I do. I can recall the smugness many Americans had when looking at or down on other countries where autocrats or dictators had taken control and inflicted their idea of governance on the citizens of their country. There were even cases where actions or policies of the US directly or indirectly led to the authoritarian taking control of their government.

After watching things that have happened in this country since January 20th, I can honestly say that America’s chickens have come home to roost. This is a problem that could have been avoided had America dealt with its original sin long ago. However, much of the white population of this country refuses to address their own biases and how those collective biases have steered us to this day and time.

I have been asking a question on social media, and nobody has been able or willing to answer it. It is a simple question, and yet, the inability or unwillingness to answer it shows how truly fucked this country is.

When does someone become an enemy to/of the Constitution?

As you can see, it is not a very difficult question. There should be some defining point or a line of demarcation where actions come with consequences. The Constitution lays out the limitations the government has when it comes to respecting the rights of the people. Even with the Constitutional limits in place, our government and courts have continued to trample the rights of the individual. Now, we have a government in place that doesn’t follow the law at all. They do as they choose with no consequences.

Government workers, from the president to the military all take an oath of office that includes protecting the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. It’s always been easy to determine foreign enemies of the Constitution, and we have always formed a defense against them. The effort to uphold the oath in respect to foreign enemies has never been in question, nor has there ever been any problems with the idea of upholding the oath in that aspect.

America’s unwillingness to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies will be its downfall. Nobody wants to be the one to declare a fellow citizen to be an enemy, but we must be ready and willing to do so if or when that time comes. Failure to do so will allow a zealot to use the Constitution itself to destroy America. If you doubt this is possible, remember that Adolf Hitler used Germany’s Constitution to destroy it within months of taking office.

We are witnessing unlawful acts being conducted by people who took an oath to uphold the law. The courts and the majority party in Congress appear to be okay with the unlawful actions of this administration because it’s all about the ideology. Imagine the bullshit we’d hear from Fox, OAN, or other right wing news outlets if any of these same actions occurred under Obama or Biden and were directed at conservatives. They lost their shit over the IRS targeting when the targeted groups were obvious political groups trying to register as non-political nonprofit organizations.

I promised my wife and my mom that I would tone down my online speech, and that’s part of the reason why this is only my 4th post of the year. That said, I’ll leave with this historical reminder.

An autocrat never runs out of people to target. Once the brown people are gone, guess who’s next? If you don’t figure out who is a domestic enemy to the Constitution and deal with them as such, you won’t have a Constitution for much longer.

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Open Post

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My apologies for not having a new post up in ages. There’s been a lot to talk about, and I’m definitely not without thought on most of this crap. I’ll put up this open post to allow conversations to continue until I can get something worthwhile on paper. Or on screen…

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Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025

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Eighty years ago today, Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. In remembrance of that event, January 27th has become recognized as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day as designated by the United Nations in 2005. From that liberation and others, we learned of the depth of the horrors inflicted upon the Jewish population by Nazi Germany.

Given all that’s happened over the last week, I have had a lot on my mind with plenty of material to post. At the same time, I’ve gotten what I consider to be sage advice from a trusted person to temper my posts here for a while. The idea of this coming around the same time we remember a period when people were silent instead of speaking out of horrors doesn’t come across as a coincidence to me either.

Some say we are in uncharted times in this country, but I disagree. The times are not unprecedented either. We’ve seen this pathway play out several times over the course of American history. Each time, the pathway leads us back to this very spot because we keep choosing the wrong path each time.

Don’t let things overwhelm you as that’s exactly what this offensive is designed to do. There are more than 300 million of us in this country. We don’t all need to fight the same exact battle, but we do need to pick a battle to fight. We are more effective fighting for democracy and freedom as a group than we are as individuals.

At the same time, find an avenue or means of decompressing yourself mentally and physically from the daily grind. Discover museums, nature walks, or just go find a park and enjoy a day outside. There’s even an upcoming concert this weekend (Catfight! 30th Anniversary Show w/Token Hearts and The Brower Sisters Band) where you can get started with this.  This isn’t going to be an easy time period in this country, but we have been here before and survived.

I’ll end this post with this:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live
as long as God Himself.
Never.

Never Shall I Forget from Night by Elie Wiesel.

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Welcome to 2025

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Photo via ABC News. I claim no rights to this image.

I had made up my mind last week to avoid doing a cheesy New Years’s post. Then, I had convinced myself to take a day of rest on Jan 1st to begin my mental preparation for 2025. Instead, I woke up to news of a terror attack in the French Quarters in New Orleans. Since then, my social media feeds have been inundated with both information and bullshit about terror and terrorism. So, I guess I’ll join the fray to point out bullshit and offer a bit of insight to those seeking such.

At this time, the attacker’s identity has been released, and the investigation into the attack continues. The FBI is the lead investigating agency as this has all the hallmarks of an inspired terrorist attack. We will undoubtedly hear more information as the investigation continues. As more becomes public knowledge, I may offer additional posts as well.

So, let’s examine some of the fecal matter.

These images are screenshots from a sitting member of Congress. The screenshots were taken at 3:44pm EST. At that time, the tweets were still up and active. This is the definition of pushing misinformation as the identity of the attacker and the fact that he was a US citizen was known when the screenshots were taken. There had been ample time to either delete or update the information, and she chose neither option. This is what conservatives choose to represent them on the world stage. Then, they get mad whenever someone calls them names. Well, when you choose an idiot to be your representative, what image does that give about you?

Not to be outdone, here’s another one.

So, what would we get by grilling Secretary Mayorkas? If this guy wasn’t on anyone’s radar, then what would testimony from the outgoing DHS Secretary offer? Now, if Sen. Hawley is serious about getting informative testimony from someone, then why doesn’t he call for former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to come before Congress?

If you remember, DHS put out a series of reports in 2009 about the increasing threat of terrorism in the US. If you’re a conservative, then I know you remember them because they all howled like hit dogs when information leaked about a report on right-wing terrorism (link to pdf of report here). Never mind that DHS had compiled a report on the increasing threat of both left- and right-wing terrorism.

Along with those warnings about the increasing threat of terrorism, DHS also warned about the increasing chances of military veterans returning from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan being susceptible to being recruited by domestic terrorist groups or being radicalized and committing acts themselves. Before the 2009 report, America was familiar with both Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph. After the report was issued, we became familiar with Christopher Dorner and Micah Johnson.

So, it’s safe to assume the DHS report wasn’t some nefarious attempt to demean conservatives or military veterans. It was an unbiased report, assembled by seasoned intelligence analysists, and compiled to give America advance warning of what we potentially faced. In true fashion, Republicans shit the bed and turned sensible intelligence into a partisan billy club, leaving America unprepared and unsecured to future attacks.

If this is Day One of 2025, I don’t think we’re remotely prepared for what this year or beyond has loaded up for us. Given that we’re about to turn the government over to a group of people who are more likely to pad their personal incomes than do anything to actually protect America, we are likely in store for one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

So, instead of some meaningless, cheesy New Year’s message, I seriously wish everyone a very safe, secure, and healthy year. If you’re the praying type, then pray for the best while preparing for the worst. If you’re not the praying type, then just prepare yourself accordingly.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025 everyone.