Tag: freedom

Tuesday’s Political Thoughts

TL/DR: The Trump/Vance mass deportation plan is morally abhorrent and fiscally disastrous, and Jamie Bouie has a column that effectively explains why.

Mr. Bouie’s column several days ago, Oct. 4, 2024, was The One Thing Not Named Trump That Trump Cares About. He captured what I’d been thinking about and addressing with friends and relatives. Jamie Bouie did it with a style and insightfulness which I lack.

The column begins, “The centerpiece of Donald Trump’s second-term domestic agenda is the mass deportation of what he and his campaign say are 20 million or even 25 million undocumented immigrants.”

JD Vance — and the GOP — are in lockstep with this policy. Mr. Bouie pulls together the disparate segments about the topic of mass deportation: what it would do to our economy in terms of labor and labor costs in different industries; and what it would mean to actually carry out such a project in concrete terms of those important elements of time, energy, and money. Citing information from a new American Immigration Council repot, Mr. Bouie brings the details:

“… a mass deportation plan designed to expel 13.3 million undocumented immigrants over about 10 years would crash the economy, immiserate millions of Americans and siphon nearly $1 trillion from the federal government.”

“To deport one million immigrants per year, the report says, “would incur an annual cost of $88 billion, with the majority of that cost going toward building detention camps.” Even assuming some measure of “self-deportation,” the federal government would have to build “hundreds to thousands of new detention facilities to arrest, detain, process and remove” all targeted immigrants, at an estimated cost of $66 billion per year.

“On top of that, the government would need to spend $7 billion per year to conduct the arrests, $12.6 billion per year to carry out legal processing for arrestees and an average of $2.1 billion to remove these immigrants from the country. None of this includes the cost of personnel, which could raise the overall price tag quite a bit. “Even carrying out one million at-large arrests per year,” the report says, “would require ICE to hire over 30,000 new law enforcement agents and staff, instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government.” Assuming an average annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent, this deportation program would cost at least $967.9 billion over 10 years.“

I added the emphasis about the $1 trillion price tag. The GOP speaks with gusto about being financially responsible. Just recently, many Republicans in Congress voted against more funding for FEMA as hurricane season continues because of their concerns over the debt. Adding $1 trillion to our commitments must have them in a tizzy, right? They plan to lower taxes, so how are they planning to raise the cash to pay for their deportation wet dream while not incurring debt?

It’s critical to address this because this is typical of the lack of responsibility, increasing duplicity, and outright mendacity the GOP demonstrates under Trump. Lots of grand promises built on whipped cream pillars.

The American Immigration Council report notes:

  • “The construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers, while in hospitality, about one in 14 workers would be deported due to their undocumented status.”
  • …”mass deportation would remove “more than 30 percent of the workers in major construction trades,” nearly “28 percent of graders and sorters of agriculture products” and “a fourth of all housekeeping cleaners.” 
  • “The federal government would lose tens of billions of dollars in federal taxes, including contributions to Social Security and Medicare. States and localities would lose more than $29 billion in tax revenue.”
  • “Overall, the American Immigration Council concludes, “mass deportation would lead to a loss of 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent of annual U.S. G.D.P., or $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion in 2022 dollars.” For comparison’s sake, the country’s G.D.P. shrank by 4.3 percent during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.”

Beyond the economic and business impact, Jaimie Bouie brings up a more critical aspect about the morality of such a move like mass deportation.

“I’ve been discussing mass deportation as if it’s actual policy — as if it’s just one option among many for tackling the nation’s many challenges. But that’s absurd. Whether or not it works to fix the problems at hand, and it doesn’t, the mass deportation of 20 million to 25 million people — which is to say the forced detention and relocation of about 6 percent to 8 percent of the current U.S. population — is a human rights abuse. It would make the United States a pariah state. And it would violate the fundamental principles of the American creed, the core belief that “all men are created equal,” that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Bingo. This is exactly why Trump is such a threat to U.S. democracy and freedom. To achieve his political ambitions, he’s willing to promote abdicating multiple basic tenets of our nation’s foundations.

And it’s so grindingly typical of the modern GOP. They’re employing doublespeak. Those of us fervently following the election campaigns and Project 2025 read of their intentions and see that they’re suggesting that to go forward, we must go backwards; to be free, we must imprison others; to follow the path set out by our nation’s founders, we must turn our backs on them.

Voting for Trump and this platform makes no sense unless you are backward, narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, and sexist, and lack critical thinking skills. Or you’re a one-issue voter, supporting, for example, ‘lower taxes’. So, tell me, or great thinker, how will the GOP accomplish their goals of mass deportation with lower taxes while reducing the debt?

Well, we know what will happen. The GOP will lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations, cause they’re the ‘wealth creators’ (a wholly disproven and laughable position). And they’ll raise taxes on the poor and middle class through service fees and local taxes. See Ohio as an example of how this works out.

The third and fourth reasons you might still vote for Trump is that ‘you like him’ (which, to me, goes back to being narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, and sexist), or as we’ve witnessing with too many voters these days, you’re not paying attention.

Read all of Jamie Bouie’s column please. And vote blue in this election cycle.

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The Full Agenda

Project 2025 has been on display enough that the gist has been assimilated.  Led by wealthy individuals and the Heritage Foundation, they pursue a theocracy dominated by white men. Women’s rights will be diminished, if not outright stripped. Black men will be tolerated as long as they toe the white line. If you think you’re something other than male or female as it says on your paperwork when born, forget about it. Your shall be male or female, as their god intended.

Under Project 2025, remember, too, that work is good. As they sit in homes and offices fantasizing about the American world, they want children back in the factories. Women, however, should be at home, giving birth, sexually gratifying their man, keeping the house clean and cooking and baking up a storm, cuz that’s what Jesus wanted.

Because, besides being about money, power, and their rights, it’s about forwarding their religion, even if they don’t practice it. They’ve gone from practicing what would Jesus do to what would Donald Trump do?

That’s what they pursue if Donald J. Trump is elected as POTUS this year.

What’s interesting about this is the cosmic political background.

On a Quora post, someone answered the question about whether Trump will win by pointing out that the conservative base is elderly, and they’re dying. The conservative base is also rural, and the rural population is shrinking. The young are leaving those small towns and agribusiness zones because the future is less than bright. They want adventure, education, or more meaningful jobs than what’s being offered in those little towns.

Bottom line for the conservatives, i.e., the GOP, that their potential base is getting smaller.

They’ve recognized this. They’ve countered by first, gerrymandering to favor conservative voters. Second, by making it harder to vote. Like Musk and Trump, they push the fallacy that mail-in voting is fraught with fraud. They insist the only safe solution is paper ballots with in-person voting with people presenting their government issued identification.

In doing so, Trump, Musk, and the GOP ignore the facts. That’s nothing new for them. They loathe facts. Facts often show how backward their thinking is.

But going on now, took, are several pincer movements to make Project 2025 feasible. The GOP has been attacking public education for some time. They’ve been doing this mostly through voucher programs but also by making it more difficult for teachers to teach. They challenge them wherever and whenever possible. Back in the early Tea Party days, the GOP went after the history and science textbooks. Advances and positive contributions by anyone but conservative whites, mostly men, was systemically removed from what was being taught.

See, the GOP knew their elderly, rural, uneducated base was shrinking. The answer, of course, is to re-establish that base. To do that, they politically divide the country. That’s what keeps Trump propped up in the current movement: he is really good at spewing hate and threatening the Democrats. It’s been taken to the point where MAGAts have been quoted as trusting a Russian more than they trust a Democrat. Shit is made up and thrown on liberals, progressives, and Democrats. If something sticks, than that becomes the attack mode.

We’ve seen this in action before. “Shows us the birth certificate.” “Lock her up.” “Biden is too old and feeble.” Now Trump et al is hunting for the handle to attack Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for POTUS, and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz. They’re trying everything, hoping to find something that sticks.

Meanwhile, the GOP is also working hard to get books removed from schools and libraries, along with any curriculum that teaches anything negative about white people or the history of the United States. Their goal is clear.

When young people currently graduate, they tend to be liberal. So, while the conservative base is declining – death, rural population shrinking, people growing more educated and capable – the liberal base is growing.

Therefore, the GOP must undercut education in order to stop young people from learning. Their goal is to increase young conservative voters, people who will reliably toe the conservative line.

Conservative leadership, abetted by a conservative base, are an insidious group. They do not care about the concept of the United States as a bastion of freedom, justice, and equality. That’s just for the propaganda brochures and videos. They want a power base with themselves in charge, encouraging ‘good old-fashioned hard work’ for slave labor wages while the wealthy grows wealthier. That’s how they see the United States: a grand revenue stream with low taxes for the wealthy.

It’s an old, old story. They’re just adding fiendish twists to it. Just as they knew they couldn’t legitimately overturn Roe v. Wade, with Mitch McConnell’s ‘leadership’, they denied President Obama’s SCOTUS nominees and packed the court with Trump conservative appointees. The greatest issue with that is how those nominees danced around what they would do with Roe v. Wade and then overturned it with the flimsiest possible reasoning as soon as the opportunity arose.

I didn’t provide any links to my claims, but I can find them if needed. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Freshfree

Thursday has trundled in, soft of foot and full of grace, delivering smoke in our space, and pleasing night air on our face.

It’s Thursday, 8/8/24, or 24/8/8.

Our smoke has risen into the unhealthy zone. Don’t know which fire is our source. We have many to select from. None too close but valleys channel it in. It looks like crap out there. Can’t see the mountains for the smoke, and the blue sky has been squirted into smoggy tones. 65 F outside my house today, we’re expecting a thirty degree rise to the high. No wind is blowing, so a sort of still deadness rules. I expect zombies to start emerging from the smoke at any moment.

We’ve been spoiled by the peaches acquired at the growers market in the last two visits. Both times we returned with the sweetest, tastiest, most perfectly ripe peaches. Sooo juicy. The blackberries were found wanting. Plump and juicy, yes, but only one out of four is sweet. We’re of the school that blacberries should be sweet and not sour, and the sour blackberries aren’t sitting well on my tongue. Besides those fruits, we picked up green onions — my wife is a fiend for ’em — and greens. Good stuff: local and organic. Non-GMO.

I posted something about Gov Walz the other day. A right wing friend commented, “He put tampons in the boys room.” I reacted, oh, no! How terrible! How tragic! Must cost billions of dollars. Such a waste, such a waste.

Well, no, I didn’t write all that. I thought it. I wasn’t going to write it because the issue doesn’t deserve any oxygen. As Joey from Friends said, “It’s something a cow would say. It’s a moo point.”

My wife has an ongoing thing with spiders in the bath. I use the shower stall, so this doesn’t involve me, but whenever she heads to the tub, she must clear out several spiders. We don’t kill spiders and these are all of the daddy longlegs variations. She plugs up the drain with a cloth to keep them from climbing up through there and removes them by means of a rolled, stiff piece of paper. She calls this her spider catcher. It’s actually an old invoice for blinds. We pulled it out a month ago to see when we purchased our blinds. It hasn’t been refiled because it’s now my wife’s spider catcher. She gives me a summary — “There were three spiders in there. I don’t know they’re coming from. They seem to get stuck. Stupid spiders. I move them and they go right back in there.”

With freedom still my theme this week, The Neurons are channeling Bread’s 1971 song, “Mother Freedom” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark discounted). My older sister had this album so I knew the song. I met my wife later that year. Her sister had the album on 8-track and regularly played it. It’s tres fam. God song for freedom week, though.

Freedom, keep walkin’
Keep on your toesand don’t stop talkin’ ’bout
Freedom, get goin’
Lots to be learned and lots to be known ’bout
People gotta reach ’em
Sit ’em right down and then you gotta teach ’em ’bout
Freedom, gotta win it
Gotta put yourself smack dab in it

Hey tomorrow
Now don’t you go away
‘Cause freedom
Just might come your way

Freedom, keep tryin’
People stay alive and people keep dyin’ for
Freedom, so don’t lose it
Ya gotta understand ya just can’t abuse it
Freedom, get movin’
Never gonna stop till everybody’s groovin’ on
Love for – one another
Callin’ some friend and callin’ some brother

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Just 89 days until the elections. Stay fresh, be strong, and remain postive. Vote Blue. Coffee has found its way into a cup and on into my systems, so all systems are go. Here’s the music video. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Coffeefried

We’re in the middle of the week — Wednesday — and on August’s 7th day in 2024.

Ashlandia’s air is clear this morning — praise be! That makes the cats happy. They were already pleased to sign the flooftition endorsing Gov. Walz to be Vice President of the United States, and are purring over the idea of a Kamala Harris administration.

Yesterday, we saw the temperatures go from 93 F in the late afternoon to 58 this morning. We’re in the mid sixties now under spot free blue skies, and we’ll be churning up to 97 F.

I’m still on the freedom theme. The Neurons have popped Richie Havens playing “Freedom” at Woodstock in 1969 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark still free). I heard this when I was thirteen and the intensity made me pause and listen more closely. And afterward, there’s a release, just a *whew* and a half minute of thoughtful silence about what was heard. The song still strikes me that way today.

I’d like to let freedom roll over us like a good long blast of fresh cold mountain air.

Stay positive and be strong. Lean forward and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has been brewed up. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sympcoffeeco

Tuesday, August 6, 2024, greets you. It’s a cool 70 F in Ashlandia, where the sidewalks are cracked and irregular. We expect a low 90s F high, something like 93. The air has grown mostly, partially clear; nostrils only sometimes smart, eyes only sporadically sting, the throat is but moderately dry and sore, and the sinuses are just mildly congested. So, we good.

Vice President Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate. I’ll say now, not my choice, but I support her and him. Ultimately, like many of my friends and relatives, I would have loved Pete Buttigieg. But I know the American political psyche would have fractured with a Black woman of mixed descent and a gay guy, no matter his skin color, driving the ship known as the United States. My second choice was Andy Beshear out of Kentucky. But I get it: Vice President Harris met with the candidates and made the choice based on her needs. Governor Walz has many fine attributes and has done nothing that I’ve read or heard about that caused a gag reflex. Admittedly, I haven’t read a whole lot about him. He does have the cachet of being the first politician who dubbed Don Old Trump as weird. Many of us outside of politics have been calling Don Old Trump weird since at least his ‘reality’ show. But Walz did it aloud on television and has made it stick. I hope that Mr. Walz simple midwestern approach will draw more voters toward trusting in and voting for the 2024 Democratic ticket.

I’m continuing the freedom theme with my theme music. Today’s choice is a sop to The Neurons. As soon as I began thinking of freedom songs, they began plying the morning mental music stream (Trademark free) with it. The group is Cream, the year is 1966, and the song is “I Feel Free”. As a ten year old hearing that song my rock senses went off and I was all giddy with the song’s generally relaxed and positive approach. The song never ascended the charts in the U.S. Nor did the several covers by others which followed later, but it’s a me sort of melody. Yes, I know, technically this is ‘free’ and not ‘freedom’. Close enough.

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, I feel free. [x8]

Feel when I dance with you,
We move like the sea.
You, you’re all I want to know.
I feel free, I feel free, I feel free.

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue for Harris-Walz in 2024. Coffee and I are sympatico once again. Here’s the video, and away we go. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: Mondayitis

Here we go, another week begins. It’s Monday, August 5, 2024. Cool in Ashlandia at 68 F, we expect a high of 96 F. Our air quality is moderate today, with the winds favoring us enough to keep major smoke from barreling into our existence. Knock wood, the fires we experienced this year locally have been small and contained fast, thanks to our diligent fire-fighting crews in multiple communities.

Yesterday, the weather treated us to a sunny rain shower. Big silver streaks of water bolted down. A little petrichor rose up. Sunshine lorded over it all. It was over within a minute. Reminded me of a book which should be written, The One-Minute Shower. It’s all about efficiency.

Just what I needed to wake up to, a stock market sell-off based on fears that the U.S. economy is cooling. Economic news traditionally has a butterfly effect in U.S. politics. That’ll be an interesting new sidebar to August.

I’m continuing the theme of freedom in music. I rejected “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John. It’s about a tennis team, and I know that, so I can’t use it. Kris Kristofferson’s song, “Me and Bobby McKee” came up but that line, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” is too cynical for me right now. I think I’m going something upbeat in the form of George Michael and the 1990 song, “Freedom! 90”.

And yes, I know the song is about fame and his relationship to fame and music as a superstar but the lyrics fit well enough for me to take it in a political direction. Please, I like that piano.

All we have to see
Is that I don’t belong to you
And you don’t belong to me (Yeah, Yeah!)
Freedom!
I won’t let you down (Freedom!)
I will not give you up (Freedom!)
Gotta have some faith in the sound
(You got to give what you take)
It’s the one good thing that I’ve got, (Freedom!)
I won’t let you down (Freedom!)
So please don’t give me up (Freedom!)
Cause I would really, really love to stick around (You got to give what you take)

h/t to Genius.com

The political aspect becomes really flimy if you listen to all the words and think about them too much, so just sing out the vibrant freedom parts, if you will.

Be strong, remain positive, and lean forward. Let’s Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has made its entrance. Here’s the music video. Let’s go. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sundaysated

Welcome, fellow voyagers, to Sunday, August 4, 2024. It’s August’s first Sunday this year, so let’s hope it goes well.

Here in Ashlandia, we’re at 73 F but we’re expecting a high of 98 F. Clouds are roaming the sky and there is a chance of showers. A duplicate of yesterday isn’t expected. Showers occupied us into the early afternoon. As the showers faded, the heat came on. The 86 F high seemed hugely muggy. We chilled in the evening but lost all breezes so the overall effect was, ‘meh’.

Musically, The Neurons liked Beyoncé’s “Freedom” yesterday, and developed a penchant for songs of the freedom variety. Today has The Isley Brothers singing “Freedom” from 1970 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark free).

I think the song projects an element of freedom that’s gone from our era. When people dress differently now, we ask each other, “Why are they dressed like that?” They announce their pronouns, and people mutter, “Why are they doing that?” Different food or drink is consumed and other inquire, “Why are they eating that? Who are they? Where are they from?

“Can I trust them?”

Freedom, this is what I call freedom

Well, I wanna say, I wanna tell you
I wanna say when you can do what you wanna do
And go where you wanna go
And live where you wanna live
And love who you wanna love

And be what you wanna be
Join what you wanna join
Well, well, well, that’s freedom
Yeah, yeah, freedom, yes sir

When you can learn what you wanna learn
And read what you wanna read
(Free, free, free)

And write what you wanna write
(Free, free, free)
Do what you feel is right
(Free, free, free)

Hey, hey, hey, hey, freedom, freedom
Oh yeah, freedom, freedom, freedom
Oh yeah, freedom, oh that’s freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, oh yeah

When you can eat what you wanna eat
And sleep where you wanna sleep
And say what you wanna say
I like the children play what they wanna play

And work when you wanna work
Flirt when you wanna flirt
Oh, that’s freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom

When you can laugh when you wanna laugh
And cry when you wanna cry
(Free, free, free)

And don’t have to feel ashamed
(Free, free, free)
Sing the song you wanna sing
(Free, free, free)

When you can buy what you wanna buy
(Free, free, free)
When no one to ask you why
(Free, free, free)

I’m doing my coffee thing. Stay postive, be free, be strong, and Vote Blue n 2024. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: rainlifted

Start the coffee. Saturday has landed on us in Ashlandia, where the students are young and the population is old.

A light rain fell this morning. After the smoke cleared to moderate levels last night, I opened windows with dreams of cooling the house. As we slept, the smoke returned. I awoke congested at just before six. Heading to the bathroom to spray saline up my nose and blow it out, my ears captured the ping ping of rain on the exhaust fan hood. Checking it out, I discovered Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) out on the patio, watching a mild rain descending. Papi was not far away but showed less interest in the rain.

It’s August 3, 2024. 94 days until the 2024 elections. 71 F here at this point, today’s high should stop short of the upper eighties. With this rain has come mouldering gray clouds. Smoke still obscures the mountains. We’re skewing toward moderately unhealthy air from wildfire smoke at the moment.

Today’s music will be “Freedom” by Beyonce. Reading that Vice President Kamala Harris is rolling it out as her campaign’s theme music, The Neurons and I agreed that it would be good theme music for today. I admit that I’m not overly familiar with the song. Released in 2016, I saw her perform it duing the Superbowl halftime show one year. There is no doubt the powerful, energetic song and its lyrics fit the fighting spirit VP Harris needs to win. It’s also a fitting album for a year in which the GOP is cutting back women’s rights and shackling their freedom. Hell, JD Vance even suggested making it a requirement that women have papers for traveling between states.

Freedom! Freedom! I can’t move
Freedom, cut me loose! Yeah
Freedom! Freedom! Where are you?
‘Cause I need freedom, too!
I break chains all by myself
Won’t let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I’ma keep running
‘Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive and be strong. Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has arrived. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Coffeetriotic

Welcome to Independence Day in America! Yes, it’s Thursday, which is always a day of Independence, isn’t it? Well, as free as most days, anyway. Your level of freedom will vary by state and local government and may not include all freedoms desired and experienced by others. I’m not dipping much into politics and the nation’s direction this morning. The web will be full of it today without my contribution.

Today is July 4, 2024. It’s 60 and sunny. Gonna be hot here in Ashlandia, where the town parade begins with the flyover at 10:45 AM, 102 F or so. The blue sky is unchallenged by anything resembling a cloud in every direction. No smoke, either, knock wood. We’re watching three fires, with most eyes on the Thompson Fire around Oroville down in California. It grew fast and doesn’t promise any happy endings.

The Neurons have Sting singing “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” from 1985 (Trademark free). It’s a natural for Les Neurons. They like the idea of setting someone free instead of stamping them in one homogenized image of religion, color, gender, name, thinking, and philosphy. Diversity strengthens us and only fools deny it.

I hope you’re in circumstances where you can enjoy a safe and happy holiday in the U.S. If you’re in other than the U.S., I still hope for you to have a safe and happy day, and that all of us are free and equal. Coffee is seducing my taste buds as I write. Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music. We’re heading to the parade. Cheers

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