E is for Economic Opportunity Over Extremism

My theme for this year's A to Z is democracy. This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

E is for Economic Opportunity Over Extremism 

Economic Opportunity	Extremism
Education Employment Financial Resources Health Federal Assistance	Uncompromising Outside the mainstream attitudes of society Zealous Out of control

I don't have to do much research on this one. A simple look at the stock market lately will show you that Economic Opportunity is rapidly diminishing in our country. Opportunity Economy was one of the cornerstones of Kamala Harris' platform when she was running for president. Her vision of assisting new businesses to get started, a tax break for first time homebuyers and cancelling out of control student debt would certainly lead to a better future for most people. 

I have been very fortunate to be able to work from home for the last 28 years and being able to claim a home office deduction on my taxes has been a huge help. The sale of the stock we had through my husband's employer allowed us to get the downpayment for our home. Because he was subsequently disabled, the loans we had to take for our daughter to go to college were forgiven by the Department of Education. All of those things have really made a difference in our lives.

And now look at the extreme plunge the stock market has taken in the last week, the overzealous use of tariffs with no actual planning or foresight, the uncompromising situation in the Republican controlled congress that is allowing the unqualified cabinet members to be appointed and the insistence that the tax breaks for the extremely wealthy are necessary.

Our retirement is in question, general prices are continuing to rise and #47 is off playing golf saying that he "doesn't care" about the situation. Great. 

Today is a day where there are going to be protests all over the country. Will that make a difference? Let's hope so.

As always, thanks to Speaker Hakeem Jeffries for giving me the basis for this year's challenge. 

Tomorrow is a day off. I am grateful for that. These posts are heavy. See you next week. 

D is for Democracy Over Demogogues

My theme for this year's A to Z challenge is the A to Z of Democracy. This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

D is for Democracy Over Demogogue

Democracy	Demagogue
Power in the hands of the people Guaranteed civil liberties and human rights. Free and fair elections.	Political leader who seeks support by manipulating and appealing to the prejudices of others. One man has power.

  

One of the ways that man gained power again was by telling everyone lies, lies and more lies. He manipulated the truth so many times and was never called on it. He also railed and railed about things like immigration, which admittedly needs to be reformed and adjusted but by no means is it as bad as he made it out to be. People were not eating dogs. He made big promises about deporting people who were in this country illegally and that appealed to the prejudices of a lot of folks. However, as we can see now, he is not doing the deportations in a democratic way. There has been no due process and a few US citizens have been taken from their homes and families unlawfully. 

He (I refuse to write his name, you all know who I'm talking about) had said several times on the campaign trail that he didn't need votes or only "vote this one last time and you won't need to vote again." Now he is talking about running for a third term, which is against the constitution. He believes the rules do not apply to him.

I want to live in a country where I can vote and have a say in who our leaders are and I want there to be secure guidelines about what those leaders can and cannot do. I am lucky, for now, that I am a white woman and there is less of a chance that immigration officers will come knocking at my door. Who knows if those rules will change at the drop of a golf club? Maybe someone will see these posts and think I need to be silenced. (LOL I wish I had that readership). 

As always, credit goes to Speaker Hakeem Jeffries who gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the 218th congress. 

One more post this week and then we have Sunday off. I am trying to get to visit other folks who are participating as best I can. It is beginning of baseball season and my Giants are doing well plus I have had a fair amount of transcription lately which is my "real" job so time is precious. Thanks for stopping by!

C is for Constitution Over Cult

Welcome to my A to Z this year where I am covering the theme of democracy.This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

C is for Constitution over Cult

Constitution	Cult
We the People Freedom Rights Rule of Law Separation of powers	Great devotion to a person or idea. Worship Extreme Beliefs Psychological Manipulation Brainwashing

 

It is true that our constitution was written many years ago and has had to have a few revisions over time but the basic principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have always been at the core. We the People is a powerful phrase. It signifies that we work together as a collective and not just blindly following one person or ideal. We have a say in what those changes need to be and we vote to make them happen. 

If there is any question about whether a cult has now invaded the country, these words from Representative Troy Nehls shortly after Trump won reelection are pretty cult-like. He said, "If Donald Trump says jump 3-feet high and scratch your head, we should all jump 3-feet high and scratch our head."

I don't think there will be too many pictures in this A to Z but I did come across something last night that I think perfectly fits here. I was on my way to visit my daughter who lives in the area around the Facebook/Meta buildings. This is one of the street signs:

I know which direction I'm going.  

If you want to see Speaker Hakeem Jeffries' speech which is where I got the idea for this year's challenge, you can see it here. Also make sure to visit some of the other participants in this alphabetical endeavor. See you tomorrow!

B is for Benevolence over Bigotry

This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

B is for Benevolence over Bigotry.

Benevolence	Bigotry
Kindness Good Will Charity Compassion Volunteering Social Conscience Generosity	Narrow Mindedness Prejudice Injustice Intolerance Racism Homophobia Discrimination

Now I am not saying that ALL Democrats are perfect.  And I am not saying that All Republicans are bigots. Let me make that clear. It just seems to me that the policies and laws that each party wants to make are so vastly different. 

Take the new budget. Why in heaven would you want to take away funding from cancer research or giving food to children? 

Does the color of one's skin or the fact that two men or women love each other change the fact that they are human beings?  

Is it so hard to care about someone other than yourself? I just don't get it. 

The basis for this year's A to Z has been taken from the speech that Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, delivered on the opening of the 218th congress, which was the least productive congress in history up to that time. I'm not sure what's going to happen this year but we are not off to a good start!

And We're Off...Blogging from A to Z 2025 A is for American Values over Autocracy

First of all let me get this out of the way...I am a Democrat but MORE IMPORTANTLY, I am a firm believer in democracy and the rule of law. If there was a Republican who was doing something good for our country, stood for something closer to my beliefs than a Democrat running for the same office, I might vote for the Republican. So far I am not seeing any of that. With the exception of Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger who both chose country over party, I can't think of another Republican who was willing to turn his back on the dysfunctional group we have in control right now. 

That being said, this is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It's my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

Here we go then. 

American Values	Autocracy
Community Independence Right to make our own choices Equality Rule of Law	Centralized power Strict control Unquestioning obedience Limited participation One person rule

It seems like common sense to me that a person would want to be able to make their own choices and live their life without having someone tell them what to do every step of the way or restricting access to things. Other than when raising a child, and even then most of the time it is a shared experience, I can't think of any reason for one person to have total control over someone else. Even with parenting there comes a point where the child should be able to make some of their own choices, as long as it will not hurt them or others. I can remember letting my daughter choose her own outfits for school even though a) they were not things that I felt would go together or b) she was without a jacket when I thought it was a little chilly. If it made her feel good to dress this way then she would be more apt to able to focus on learning.   

We should be able to question the people governing us and to express our opinions without fear of being retaliated against. We should have the ability to choose our leaders and hold them accountable when their decisions are detrimental to our country and safety. We should be able to read whatever books we want, practice religion or not and love who we want. 

Live and let live is my core value. It is not my business to tell you how to live your life and no one's business to tell me how to live mine. I believe we can be stronger as a community if we share our ideas and cooperate together. We may have different beliefs or ideas but mine are not necessarily better than yours and vice versa. Our uniqueness is what gives us strength when we work together.   

As I said in my theme reveal, these contrasts have been taken from the speech given by House Representative Hakeem Jeffries when opening the 218th congress in 2023. 

One down, 25 to go.  Happy April Fool's Day!

A to Z Dilemma

Hey folks, it's Sunday March 23 and we will be starting the A to Z Challenge in a little over a week. As you know, my theme this year is going to be the A to Z of Democracy as voiced by Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have had quite a few positive comments regarding my choice of topics which has been encouraging. However, I did receive a comment from a blogger that I no longer follow since I realized when #47 was #45 that they had a different perspective than mine about the state of affairs in our country. Even though we had some other things in common, I just could not read a blog defending what was going on at that time.

This morning, while starting to prep for the upcoming challenge I took a look at my "comments" section here and on WP to see if there had been any recent ones that inadvertently ended up in the spam or pending file as will sometimes happen. I did find some, including a few of my own replies, which I rescued. However, I did also see one that was in my trash from the blogger mentioned above. 

Turns out they still hold the same devotion to the person currently in the WH and voiced their disapproval of my chosen topic. They proceeded to tell me that they are tired of people bashing their favorite fellow and dividing our country. They informed me that I should probably do better research because my facts were incorrect and "he really cares about" us. 

And herein lies my dilemma. This comment was already in the trash so I automatically emptied it, deleting the comment. And then I thought about it. If my intention is to showcase the differences between democracy and authoritarianism, oligarchy or whatever it is that we are in the middle of, shouldn't I be open to listening to other opinions? I could have responded to this comment by saying something like, "I'm sorry you don't like my topic so maybe you shouldn't follow me this year," or "I disagree with your assessment of what is happening now and maybe you should read my reasons for this during the challenge." Instead, I had a visceral reaction to just get rid of that person's words so I wouldn't have to look at them. It has been my experience with those folks who are devotees of that man that no amount of "facts" will change their opinions. I mean, I haven't even talked to my sister or her family in months because she defended her "beloved Donald." 

So moving forward, I am torn between continuing to just delete those comments that are from people who drank the kool-aid because I know there is no way to bring them out of their delusional state or to leave them there and use one of the phrases above in response. What would you do? 

Happy Sunday Folks

There is a little less than two weeks to go until the big A to Z Blogging Challenge. I am getting my letters together and hopefully I'll finish at least the drafts in time. I found the last few years when I had my draft posts made it was a lot easier for me to keep up. I am going to try to get over to visit a few more people this year too. 

In the meantime, I am SO EXCITED because I get to teach a class at our local RAC (Recreation and Aquatic Center). I have been trying to hold a class for the last several months but sadly not enough people signed up. The RAC requires five people minimum and I've only had one or two so the classes were cancelled. This month I have five thanks to some friends. I'll be showing them how to make card sets like this from Creative Memories.

If you are interested, you can get the sets from my Creative Memories site and make some too or you can get the ones that I already made from my Etsy shop. I also got approved to do some classes during the next season about making vision cards and dreamboards. Crossing fingers there will be some interest in that. 

And along the lines of my A to Z theme, I also mailed out some cards as part of a project through the Card Campaign, a group I found during the election last year. I printed and mailed 40 postcards to old Dumpy in the White House. 

The idea was to have everyone send in their postcards on the same day (yesterday the 15th) so that it floods the White House mail. It may not do any good but I have to say that writing those messages was great for my mental health. The return address is the Superior Court Building so there is no way to trace it back to me, although honestly it is free speech so I'm not worried. I said nothing that wasn't true and nothing that hasn't been said before by millions of people. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. It is not one of the holidays I celebrate much for some reason -- mainly I'm not Irish LOL. See you again soon!