P is for People over Politics

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. 

People	Politics
Human beings Friends     Neighbors Kinship	Government     Policy     Political opinion     Affairs of state

Taking funding away from important programs like the Affordable Health Care Plan or Medicare so that the wealthy can have a huge tax break does not sound like putting people over politics. I understand that there are concerns about wasteful spending but to just arbitrarily defund programs doesn't make sense to me. Have you seen the depositions of those two guys who were working with DOGE? They were being asked about the cancellation of things because of "DEI" and they couldn't even articulate what DEI was! They used ChatGPT to help them identify programs to cut.  Another one was asked if he felt sorry for pulling the grants away from people who were doing important research. He said he did not feel sorry for them, he was trying to reduce the deficit. When asked if the deficit had been reduced, he said no. 

This is a clip from a news report: 

The smug look on their faces just tells it all. The full depositions I'm sure can be found on YouTube if you want to see them. 

Still a little under the weather so this is the best I can do for now.

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.

O is for Opportunity over Obstruction

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. 

Opportunity	Obstruction
Choice Getting a chance to do something A favorable situation A way to move forward	Block Hindrance Obstacle Interference

Putting this here as a place holder. Unfortunately I got COVID and I am drained! Talk about an obstacle!

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. 

N is for Normalcy over Negativity

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. 

Normalcy	Negativity
Business as usual Typical Expected Standard	Criticism Gloom Lying Complaining

You know at this point I don't ever think we will get back to "normal" here in the United States. Too many things have been changed by this administration to ever put back into place. It may, however, give us the opportunity to create a new "normal," one that has truth, decency, compassion, innovation, gentility, love at its core.

First we have to get rid of the negativity and hate that is being spewed on a daily basis from that guy. The way he talks to the reporters he doesn't like, especially the women, should absolutely have people in more of an uproar than they are. When he starts on his rampage of spite and tells all those lies the press should get up and walk out as a whole. At the very least they should be calling out the untruths.

All of his constant complaining is so exhausting. I guess that's the point though, to make us so tired of it all that we just give up. Well sorry bud, that's not happening. The protests are getting bigger and bigger and the overturn of Orban in Hungary last weekend should give us all hope. Not to go back to "normal" but to take the best parts of what we used to be and build on them. We can do it!

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. 

M is for Maturity over Mar-a-Lago

 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. 

Maturity	Mar-a-Lago
Responsibility. Addressing what is going on in the world. Ability to admit when you are wrong.	Play Gatsby parties Golfing Inability to accept when you are wrong

I cannot think of any president who took the responsibilities of the job less seriously than #47 does. I mean, there are serious things going on in the world, mostly of his doing, that need his attention more than the golf course does. Almost every weekend since he was elected! And he used to make disparaging remarks when Biden went to Delaware once in a while. 

And how selfish is it of him to throw these lavish Gatsby type parties when the rest of the country is struggling to put food on the table.

He's just a spoiled child and unfortunately he has surrounded himself with people who like to play just as much as he does. I mean, how many times has the government been shut down because the Republican controlled congress can't get it together. Seems like they take vacations or recess at the drop of a hat as well. 

I can't wait until November when we can elect some mature (and I don't mean old) folks to get this country back on track. 

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. 

L is for Liberty over Limitations

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. 

Liberty	Limitation
Being free from oppressive restrictions. Able to make your own choices.	Unreasonable restrictions Laws Constraints

The Constitution of the United States guarantees its citizens the right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness, not life, LIMITATIONS, and the pursuit of happiness. Patrick Henry said, "Give me LIBERTY, or give me death," not "Give me LIMITATIONS or give me death."

Now clearly there have to be some LIMITATIONS and laws regarding the safety of others. You can't just take a gun and start shooting people for no good reason (oh wait, we DON'T have good restrictions regarding that, do we?)

Women should have the LIBERTY to decide whether or not to have a baby and should be protected against rape and incest. People should be able to love who they want and have the ability to feel comfortable in their own skin (oh wait, we DO have restrictions on that, don't we!)

Seems like we have gotten a few things backward. Time to make some changes!

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. 

K is for Knowledge over Kangaroo Court

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. 

Knowledge	Kangaroo Court
Knowing something through experience or association. The body of truth. Being aware of something.	Finding someone guilty without good evidence. Ignores recognized standard of law.

They say "knowledge is power" but in this day and age finding the truth is getting more and more difficult. We used to have a thing called the "Fairness Doctrine" where both sides of a situation needed to be presented equally so that people could make informed decisions. From Wikipedia:

"The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of political polarization in the United States."

In 1987 the Fairness Doctrine was repealed because critics argued that it violated the first amendment rights. That paved the way for broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh to get a foothold and now as we can see Fox Entertainment doesn't care whether they report the truth or not, yet many people rely on them for as their news source.

This in turn led to the kangaroo court (think Hilary's emails, Hunter's laptop, etc) and also to the investigations into such people as Leticia James, Mark Kelly and Jack Smith to name a few.

So what are we to do now? I think if we want to have the knowledge to make informed decisions we need to listen to more than one news outlet. We need to do our own research to make sure we are getting the actual facts. That's why I like Heather Cox Richardson so much. When she writes she includes the sources for all of her facts and encourages us to check her statements.

Here in California we have a situation where our frontrunner for Democratic governor of our state, Eric Swalwell, has been accused of sexual assault by a few of his staffers (I think 4 so far). Because of this he has removed himself from the race. Some folks are claiming that it is horrible for him to be judged before the case has had its day in court but at the same time, there is a lot at stake in our race because California has what they call a jungle primary and the two top vote getters move on to the general election. That could mean that two republicans could win. We can't take the chance of having no democrat on the ticket. If, in fact, the allegations are not true, Swalwell could run again in a few years if he wants.

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. 

J is for Justice over Judicial Overreach

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. 

Justice	Judicial Overreach
Impartial adjustment of conflicting claims Fair Conforming to truth Using the law to punish crimes	Court acting beyond its authority. Making decisions that intrude into the Legislative or Executive branch. Excessive and without substance.

I think this is one of the comparisons that bothers me the most. Using the law to punish crimes! Should be pretty simple, right? In my opinion part of the reason we are in the predicament we are in now is that the judicial system failed us right after the insurrection of January 6, 2021. It took WAY too long for criminal charges to be brought against #47 and his cronies. And even now, there are laws against many of the things that he is doing and yet congress is too slow to act.

On the flip side, those judges who are beholden to that guy for their positions have overstepped their boundaries when making rulings regarding things he has done. I'm specifically thinking of Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida who has made several decisions favorable to him even though they don't always follow the rule of law. She has even gotten reprimanded by the circuit judges stating that her rulings were inconsistent but nothing has been done about that either. Don't even get me started on the "supreme" court.

As with yesterday's mention of Heather Cox Richardson as someone I routinely follow, Attorney Mark Elias of Democracy Docket and Glenn Kirschner with Justice Matters. I find their explanations and insights very helpful as truthfully this whole mess is very confusing. I will admit that before now I took our democracy for granted. We can't do that anymore.

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.