The week was dominated by two stories, the Republican tax cut efforts; and the variations on the sexual harassment theme by men in positions of power.
Letâs talk about sexual predation by men. We shouldnât be pushing all predators to the front of the same firing squad. Without diminishing or excusing what any of these scumbag politicians have done (Al Franken, Bill Clinton) pedophiles are in a detestable class all by themselves. We are now in the middle of a teachable moment, where publicizing how badly men have treated women in our society might bring about real behavioral change. This is solely due to those many, if not most, women who are saying that they arenât going to take it anymore. This tsunami of accusations and personal testimony will bring down some of the worst of the predators. In this case, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
The GOP wrote the bill. Now, weâll see who votes for it:
The elephant will always protect his best constituents:
Using the Pot/Kettle meme brings risk:
Mitch has selective beliefs when women tell their truth:
The sexual predator issue focuses the thinking of Republicans:
Trump chose Jeff Sessions for Attorney General in part because Alabama would be a lock to elect another Republican. Weâll see in 3 weeks if that works out as planned.
Bonus Republican hypocrisy: Do these people ever hear themselves?
Sunrise at Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Itâs Saturday, and the dominant issue should be the Republicansâ efforts to enact a tax cut, now that the House has passed its version of the legislation. The plan distills Republican economic philosophy perfectly: Take lots of money and give it to the people at the top, while pretending that doing so will help everyone else.
This plan is for the middle-class families in this country who deserve a break. It is for the families who are out there living paycheck to paycheck, who just keep getting squeezed… The Tax Cut and Jobs Act will deliver real relief for people in the middle, people who are also striving to get there.
Amazingly, the bill…would increase taxes, on net, for families that have at least one child and make less than $100,000. That conclusion comes from a rigorous independent analysis of the bill, released yesterday afternoon by the Tax Policy Center.
The elevator version of the Republican plan is to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit in order to give permanent tax cuts to corporations. Since that sounds terrible, the GOP proposes holding down the billâs total cost by raising taxes on middle-class and poor families. More from Leonhardt:
A big reason is that personal exemptions â the $4,000 in income, per person, that families can write off â would disappear. The bill would increase standard deductions that all taxpayers can take, but the increase isnât large enough for many families to make up for the disappearance of per-person exemptions…
OTOH, households making at least $5 million would receive an ANNUAL tax cut of almost $300,000 once the bill is fully phased in.
The cynicism is spectacular: Congressional leaders want to raise taxes on most of the middle and lower classes, while claiming that the bill does just the opposite. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, said:
At the end of the day, nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase.
Worse, if the GOP tax bill becomes law, and we look a few moves ahead, we know that Republicans will once again pose as deficit hawks and look to gut Medicare and Medicaid.
On our backs. Happy Thanksgiving!
Our Republican friends plan to fund a permanent tax cut for their beloved constituents, American corporations. For decades Americans have been against increased taxes. We bought the idea that cutting taxes would give people an incentive to work harder and thus make the American economy flourish. The GOP tells us this as they try to roll back corporate taxes, as they plan to eliminate the estate tax, and as they continually work to prevent the government from taking action against offshore tax havens.
We endure potholes, we live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders want their special constituents to have more. Our kids sit in underfunded schools so that a handful of wealthy individuals can sit in gated communities or on their own private beaches.
Think of what we might do with the sums we will lose to this GOP âtax reformâ over our lifetimes. Think about the crumbling infrastructure that could be fixed. Think of all the young people saddled with student-loan debt: We could make that unnecessary, rather than give more to corporations by denying students the deductibility of the interest on their loans. Think of the drug-addicted people all over America: With these tax cuts, we will never help them.
Until the words “discredited trickle down tax plan” come out of the mouth of every single Democratic politician, we wonât have a great chance of killing the Republicanâs tax plan.
Enough! Itâs Saturday, and time to let the mind wander. So grab a Vente cup of Unionâs Hand-Roasted Coffee, Brewerâs El Topacio Microlot, El Salvador (just ÂŁ8 for 200g). Now sit near a big window and watch the last days of fall, while listening to Beethovenâs âViolin Concerto in D major Op, 61â here performed in 1959 by violinist David Oistrakh with the French National Radio Orchestra, directed by Andre Cluytens.
Listen to the sound of a Stradivarius played by one of the giants on 20th Century violin:
Tuxedo, Ms. Oh So Rightâs favorite dog â 2008 photo by Wrongo
There has been a decided absence of columns this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right have been preoccupied with the health of our Havanese dog Tuxedo, pictured above. Now nearly 15, Tux has congestive heart failure (CHF), and is nowhere near the robust dog he was in 2008.
This week, we have had to visit both the vet and the doggie cardiologist. We have added a new med, Sildenafil, to his list. Sildenafil is the generic name for Viagra, but Tux has no need for its intended use in humans. Like some other drugs, Sildenafil has value in other areas. For dogs with CHF, it helps with pulmonary hypertension. Viagra is covered for most humans, including those in the US military. But the uninsured rack rate for a one-month supply for Tux was $770.00 at our local CVS. By using an affiliation marketing company that makes deals with pharmacies, we were able to reduce that cost to just $35.
Poor Tux now takes five different meds either two, or three times a day. As with humans, getting that many pills into the body is a challenge that requires some ingenuity, particularly when the dog has limited appetite, even for his favorite foods. So far, Tux is sticking to his meds schedule.
Our primary objective is to preserve his quality of life for as long as possible. There is no question that perceptions of quality of life can differ, so we are monitoring Tux using pet oncologist Dr. Alice Villalobosâs 5 Hâs + 2 Mâs scale. The five Hâs stand for Hurt, Hunger, Hydration, Hygiene and Happiness, while the two Mâs stand for Mobility and More good days than bad. If you need the scale, it is available for download here.
And so far, Tux is doing reasonably well on the Villalobos yardstick, but with CHF, the primary decision rule is, can the dog breathe properly? If not, the other rules donât really matter. Tux is weak, but heâs still breathing reasonably well, and is able to take short walks with the family.
The questions regarding how and when to euthanize a pet are very difficult to answer, and are certainly in our future. If the dog is euthanized too late, it suffers mightily. If euthanized too soon, itâs the humans who suffer from the guilt of putting their interests ahead of their petâs.
At this time of the year, it is natural to hope your pet will be with you for Thanksgiving or the Christmas holidays. But holidays have no meaning to Tux. What is important to him is avoiding visits to the vetâs office, where he gets extremely anxious. So when the time comes to make that terrible decision, we will try to ensure that the vet can make a house call to help keep his anxiety under control.
So this week, Tuxâs health, his willingness to eat, and his ability to live life in a way that is consistent with the past 14+ years has been our familyâs priority.
While not the happiest week, Wrongo has enjoyed a few days away from thinking about the House and Senate tax cut debates, the dangers in the Middle East, and the Roy Moore fiasco, while focusing on the health struggles of the most intelligent dog in our little pack.
Remember when conservatives said “activist judges” were a bad thing? Sure you do. Well, last Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, 11-9, approved 36 year-old Brett J. Talley, a right-wing activist, for consideration by the Senate to be a federal judge in Alabama.
Talley has never tried a case. He was unanimously rated ânot qualifiedâ by the American Bar Associationâs judicial rating committee. Since 1989, only four people have been ranked not qualified to be federal judges by the ABA, and two of these ratings have taken place under Trump.
Talley has practiced law for only three years, and while blogging last year, he denounced âHillary Rotten Clintonâ and pledged his support for the NRA. Talley said on his blog that he:
Agree[d] completely with a reader’s âthoughtful responseâ which stated…We will have to resort to arms when our other rights â of speech, press, assembly, representative government â fail to yield the desired results…
BTW, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), that proud beacon of conservative sanity, and the lamenter-in-chief of the current sorry state of the GOP, voted to approve him.
Talley is not without some qualifications. He earned his BA in philosophy and history, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Alabama, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He got his law degree from Harvard, where he served as an articles editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
In his brief legal career, Talley served as an associate in the DC, offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He was a law clerk for Judge Joel F. Dubina on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and was also a law clerk to Judge L. Scott Coogler of the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He served as the Deputy Solicitor General in the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. Earlier, Talley was a speechwriter for Senator Rob Portman and as a senior writer for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
Dianne Feinstein asked Talley how many times he had appeared in a federal district court. This was his reply:
To my recollection, during my time as Alabamaâs deputy solicitor general, I participated as part of the legal team in one hearing in federal district court in the Middle District of Alabama…
So, while we were distracted by Trumpâs Asia trip and the Judge Roy Moore disaster, a rabidly partisan 36-year-old attack dog with scant legal experience was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary.
This is another example of how the Republican Party has lost its moral and ethical bearings. They also spent the weekend rallying around their other prize Alabamian, Roy Moore, the sanctimonious candidate for the US Senate, who is accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old adolescent girl.
A brief meditation about on-the-job experience: A person who lacks significant job experience will always be a poor problem-solver. Job knowledge is a prerequisite to solving problems in your occupation. There are things that you just canât learn in the classroom, or by reading a textbook. Does anyone want a first year medical student performing surgery on them? If Talley had sat as second chair for 10+ jury trials, he would have had experience equivalent to a doctor’s residency.
How can this guy be turned loose to run an appeals court courtroom?
This is one area where the GOP is just willing to win. Seemingly, they have a killer/competitive instinct that the left lacks. “Holding your nose” isnât necessary for the GOP. Standards be damned, this Talley guy can be counted on to vote correctly on the key social issues of concern to the Republican base.
Time to wake up America! Trump will fill nearly 100 judgeships that were vacant when Obama left office, thanks to a slowdown engineered by Mitch McConnell during the final two years of Obamaâs term.
Now, not all of them will be lightweight, right-wing ideologues like Brett Talley. So, itâs time for America to beat on the heads of Republican senators whenever an awful nominee is put forward. We have to hope that not all Republican senators will march in lock-step, and appoint all of the Brett Talleyâs that the GOP can find.
To help you wake up, here is the J. Geils Band with their 1974 cover of âFunky Judgeâ, originally by Bull & the Matadors:
While on the subject of judges and music, Stephen S. Trott, a justice of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was a member of the folk group, The Highwaymen.
We live in the greatest country ever. Our elected leaders wonât even admit to global warming, much less try to fix it. They only offer tax cuts for corporations and rich guys. They donât even want gays to have wedding cakes. And then, thereâs Roy Moore.
President Trump wanted to call it the Cut Cut Cut Act. Congressional Republicans settled on the less catchy and less descriptive Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What the legislation actually does is sharply reduce taxes for business while rearranging the personal income tax with a mix of cuts and increases. Whatâs needed is to throw out the tax code as we know it. The Paradise Papers show us where to find the changes we need.
Suzan DelBene (D-WA) demonstrated how corporations have successfully reconfigured government of, by, and for the people to prioritize the need and wants of business over those of the living and breathing. DelBene questioned Thomas Barthold, chief of staff for Congressâ Joint Committee on Taxation on the proposed GOP tax overhaul:
Will a teacher in my district who buys pens, pencils paper, for his students be able to deduct these costs from his tax return under this plan?
Simple answer: No.
Will a corporation that buys pens, pencils, and papers for its workers be able to deduct those costs from its tax returns under this plan?
Simple answer: Yes.
Will a firefighter from my district be able to deduct the state and local sales taxes that she pays from her tax returns under this plan?
Simple answer: No.
And will a corporation be able to deduct sales taxes on business purchases under this plan?
Simple answer: Yes.
Will a homeowner in my district be able to deduct more than $10,000 in property taxes under this plan?
Simple answer: No.
Will a corporation be able to deduct more than $10,000 in property taxes under the plan?
Simple answer: Yes.
And if a worker in my district had to move because his employer is forcing him to relocate his family or potentially lose his job, can he deduct his moving expenses under this plan?
Simple answer: No.
But if a company, a corporation, decides to close its facilities in my district, fire its workers, and move its operation to China, say, can it deduct associated moving expenses under this plan? Or stated another way: Can a corporation under this plan deduct outsourcing expenses incurred relocating a U.S. business outside of the United States?
Simple answer: Yes.
Rep. DelBene told you all you need to know. Now, go tell your Congress critter to block whatâs coming. On to this weekâs target-rich cartoon environment:
Trumpâs Chy-na visit showed who could out-negotiate whom:
Roy Moore defenders display GOP hypocrisy
Words to live by:
The Demâs election results in VA and NJ show Trumpâs pickup lines donât work for the Elephant:
Wrongo served in the US Army during the Vietnam era, although not in-country. Wrongoâs dad served in the Army in France and Germany in WWII. Wrongoâs Grandfather served in the Navy in WWI, captaining a small boat on the east coast of the US. It is not clear exactly how he earned the nickname âCaptain Sandbarâ, that story is lost to history.
So today, letâs remember all of those who have served in the military.
And hereâs a wish that those who are in positions of political power, those chicken hawks who get to decide where and when Americans serve, become much better at making those decisions.
Our military is worn down after more than 16 years of multiple deployments, fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq â and to a lesser extent, in Syria. They are spread thin, providing defense for our allies in Europe and Asia, along with being stationed in about 800 locations around the world.
The problem isnât that the US military is too small. Our politicians keep asking the military to do too much. And worse, they ask it to do things it shouldnât do, like regime change and nation-building.
Letâs hope that our political leaders stop thinking of the military as a shiny toy that they can take out and play with whenever some tin-pot mocks General Tiny Hands.
Here is some beautiful (and meditative) music for your Saturday, the Adagio in G Minor attributed to Tomaso Albinoni, but actually composed by 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto, purportedly based on the discovery of a manuscript fragment by Albinoni. Albinoni died in 1751, and Giazotto obtained a copyright for the Adagio in 1958.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Georgian Sheep returning for the winter from the high mountains. Mixed among the sheep are Georgian Shepherd dogs who are the same size and color, who protect the flocks from wolves – photo by Amos Chapple
Donald Trump is in China for a two-day visit, and North Korea (NK) is certainly on the agenda. While in Seoul, Trump urged “responsible nations” to unite and stop supporting NK:
You cannot support, you cannot supply, you cannot accept…every nation, including China and Russia [must] fully implement recent UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea.
Trump praised China for taking some steps against NK, but urged them to do more, as administration officials believe the border between China and NK still remains a trade corridor. From Trump:
I want to just say that President Xi — where we will be tomorrow, China — has been very helpful. We’ll find out how helpful soon…But he really has been very, very helpful. So China is out trying very hard to solve the problem with North Korea.
What Trump and his administration need to figure out is a new strategy for NK. It is doubtful that China would cut off NK, because it fears that if the Kim regime collapses, millions of NK refugees will stream across the border into China.
Trump has mortgaged the whole US-China relationship to get the Chinese on board with the North Korea plan…He is now coming at it from a position of weakness.
North Korea is unlikely to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. However, if North Korea retains its nuclear weapons, it is likely to lead South Korea, Japan, and possibly Taiwan, Australia and Vietnam to go nuclear themselves. From the Chinese perspective, that would be a strategic catastrophe.
He makes the point that China has never sought world domination, in fact, it wants to maintain strategic distance from its neighbors. However, maintaining that distance requires a buffer zone around China, which historically China has sought, and is seeking now in the South China Sea.
Lind suggests that if the states on Chinaâs periphery had nuclear weapons, China would be unable to keep a buffer zone of weak neighbors that it can dominate. Even Vietnam could stop China cold if they had nukes. The states bordering China, instead of serving as a buffer, could become existential threats sitting right on her frontier.
Lindâs idea is that Trump should make the case about the need to restrain North Koreaâs nuclear program, but instead of threatening with trade or sanctions if China refuses, he should say:
If North Korea retains its nukes and delivery systems, we can no longer advise our allies in Asia not to go nuclear.
However, that would be a transformational change in the bedrock US principle of nuclear non-proliferation.
Lind explains that while Beijing does not care about the threat NK nukes pose to the US, they fully understand the strategic threat of nuclear weapons pose in the hands of America’s regional allies.
Wrongo doesnât have much time for Mr. Lind, who has advocated that police in the US carry rocket-propelled grenades, and who has said that the “next real war we fight is likely to be on American soil.â
The idea of proposing doubling the membership in the nuclear club goes against American values, despite its source, might give the US some additional leverage with China.
But, China already knows all of this, so would it achieve much?
What China can do is push North Korea to the negotiating table. But, President Trump has not only to be willing to negotiate, he has to give a carrot to China. That would be to partner with them in a South Asia trade deal. China canât be bullied by Mr. Trump into bullying NK. Trump will need âstrategic patience” to get a deal that involves China, Russia, Japan, and, of course, both North and South Korea.
There may be a “deal” to be made, but does the Deal-maker-in-Chief has the ability to make it?
Chalk Pyramids, Oakley Kansas – photo by Marlon Flores
(Wrongo is writing this on Election Day, and will not know any national or local results before you read the column on Wednesday. Two years ago, Wrongoâs hometown turned out 20+ years of Republican control in a deeply Republican county. The subsequent efforts by local Republicans to block change mirrors exactly what we have seen on a national level. Despite that, much was accomplished. Weâll know on Wednesday if vision or blockage controls the townâs next two years.)
We are one year into the Trump administration. Many of us are still dealing with the reality that the country elected someone who is incapable of empathy, who has very little understanding of how the world works. Someone who treats women, minorities, and people who disagree with him so appallingly.
The worst thing is how bad behavior (by Trump and many in his administration) has become normalized in the eyes of the press and the people. It started immediately with the administration lying about the size of Trumpâs inaugural crowd. Martin Longman took a look back and sums it up perfectly:
Looking back a year later, itâs a struggle not to succumb to a well-earned cynicism. We donât like to repeat our mistakes, which makes it tempting to over-correct for them.
There were…times when President Obama stood up and told the American people that weâre better than this, that we can do better and be better. Itâs not a good feeling to know that the response [by voters in 2016] was, âNo, weâre not, and no we canât.â
…But one giant mistake doesnât condemn us in perpetuity. I actually find comfort and a cause for optimism that so many people were unable to imagine a Trump victory. It means that I wasnât alone in having some standards or in believing that we can be better than this. Itâs just going to be harder and take longer than I was willing to imagine.
Wrongo thinks Martin is too optimistic, and we shouldnât expect any real change in his lifetime. Why? One reason is that the Democrats canât stop playing inside baseball long enough to have a winning vision for the country. The Donna Brazile kerfuffle tells all we need to know: There is no leadership in the Democratic Party.
So, no leadership and no vision. The Dems are like your kids fighting in the back seat of the SUV. While the GOP is a well-oiled machine, staying on message, even when they donât agree with whatever it is that the Donald just did.
The Democratic Party leadership has to go, we canât stand by them, not even for another election cycle. Mike Allen at Axios suggests we look to mayors for the next Democratic leaders:
Here’s something unusual and refreshing: There are two highly ambitious Democrats who don’t even bother hiding their strong desire to run [for president] in 2020 â and to reshape the party: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, president of the US Conference of Mayors.
Allen thinks that Democrats could be led back from the wilderness by a mayor:
Garcetti: “We’re too busy talking to ourselves, and about ourselves…People don’t care about our inner workings, or even our inner leadership battles…We’ve got to get back to speaking plain English. We are so inside baseball right now…Are you a Bernie person? Are you a Hillary person?”
Landrieu, speaking about the bipartisanship of the Conference of Mayors: “The one thing we never do in any of our meetings is think about what the Democratic caucus or the Republican caucus in Washington, DC, is doing. It never enters our mind…People in America are feeling unbalanced right now.”
Allen asked top Dem donors and operatives about possible candidates like Garcetti and Landrieu, and heard that they think DC experience is a vulnerability not an asset for a presidential candidate.
Wrongo agrees. Americaâs mayors actually do things, and getting things done energizes them. Wrongo has seen this from up close in his hometown. Mayors don’t talk like DC pols, they seem to love their jobs.
And it’s a level of government where Democrats have a deep bench.
The GOPâs goal is to destroy the New Deal, the environmental legislation passed during the Nixon administration and all of Johnson’s domestic achievements.
We wonât defeat their goals without a new message and a new messenger.
Floating Village in Lan Ha Bay, North Vietnam – photo by Son Tong
Nobody knows what the final shape of the GOP tax plan will be, but we can see the financial implications of the current bill. Jill Schlesinger has a handy quick and dirty look at who benefits from the proposed cuts posted on her web site. Of the expected $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, only 15.2% will be for individuals. Schlesingerâs conclusion is that Republicans mainly want to help corporations:
$1 trillion will accrue to Corporations and Pass-through businesses
$228 billion accrues to Individuals
$172 billion accrues to Estates
Of the GOPâs $1.5 trillion government handout, corporations get two-thirds. Pass-through businesses are S-Corporations, LLCs, partnerships and sole proprietors. About 95% of businesses fall into this category. Many of these are professional service organizations (lawyers, doctors, accountants, consultants and architects) who otherwise are wealthy individuals, and those infamous hedge funds.
Think about that: 5000 individuals will split up $172 billion in tax relief due to Trumpâs largesse!! In 2000, 52,000 estates had to pay the tax. Now it is down to 5,000.
Households with annual incomes over $1 million would see their after-tax incomes increase by 3.2%, 16 times the percentage increase for any income group in the bottom half of the income distribution. . . . (The disparity in average tax cuts measured in dollars would be even larger.)
About 45% of cost of the billâs tax cuts would go to households with incomes above $500,000 (fewer than 1% of filers). About 38% of the billâs cost would go to tax cuts for households with incomes over $1 million (about 3 out of every 1,000 filers).
What should the response of Democrats be? Democrats are correct in saying that the Republican plan is tilted too much toward the ultra-wealthy. They propose tilting it more toward the middle class.
Bruce Bartlett was a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official under George H. W. Bush. Bartlett says that Dems:
Should counter with a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan and no tax cuts for anyone.
Bartlett points out that since the Clinton administration, Dems have tried to show fiscal responsibility, supporting tax increases and spending cuts. Meanwhile, Republicans abandoned any pretense of concern for the deficit, as their new budget shows.
Bartlett argues that a big infrastructure program will provide a payback for decades to come, just as Eisenhowerâs highway program did. Importantly, he points out that building infrastructure will create vastly more jobs than any kind of tax cut, especially given the Republican proposal that largely benefits the wealthy, while providing no incentives for job creation or investment.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has routinely provided estimates to Congress showing that direct spending by government on infrastructure has a bigger multiplier effect on economic growth than any tax cut. Their February 2015 report showed that purchases of goods and services by the federal government raises GDP by as much as $2.50 for every $1 spent.
The report also says that a temporary tax cut for the wealthy, such as Republicans are now proposing, would create at most 60 cents of GDP for every $1 of foregone revenue. Corporate tax cuts are the worst, creating 40 cents of GDP for every $1 of revenue loss.
Our government is starved for revenue. This is not the time to even consider a tax cut for the wealthiest.
A true conservative tax policy would raise taxes to balance the budget, reduce deficits and debt, while investing in basic infrastructure, education, job training, research, technology and other drivers of growth.
That is the kind of conservatism we should get behind.
Balloon Festival, Armenia. In the background is Mt Ararat – photo by Karen Minasyan
As bad as you think it is in Trumpland, itâs actually worse.
Itâs likely that you missed the letter that 84 members of Congress sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions last Monday. The letter suggests to Sessions that those engaged in activism disrupting or damaging pipeline operations should face criminal prosecution as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act.
The letterâs broad definition of terrorism, if adopted, would allow prosecutors to treat people who chain themselves to pipelines or construction equipment involved in pipeline projects as terrorists. This would treat climate activists in a harsher way than Charleston killer Dylann Roof, or the congressional baseball shooter James Hodgkinson were treated under existing laws.
Interestingly, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a victim of Hodgkinsonâs attack, co-signed the pipeline terrorism letter.
While the letter cites a series of pipeline-cutting operations by radical environmentalists that occurred last October as its principal motivation, its language would include even the nonviolent resistance tactics employed by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The 80 Republicans who co-signed the letter are from states with significant oil and gas industry activity. Four Texas Democrats also signed the letter.
Two days after the Congressional letter to AG Sessions was published, the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Allianceâs (EEIA) announced the creation of an âEnergy Infrastructure Incident Reporting Center.â The initiative also is a reaction to pipeline protests. Their database initiative says its purpose is tracking:
Incidents of eco-terrorism, sabotage, arson, vandalism, and violence are on the rise as severe actions have become a regular feature of pipeline protests, endangering public safety, the environment, jobs, and leaving taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars…
Annie Leonard, executive director for Greenpeace USA, denounced the database. Leonard told the AP:
Corporations and their governmental enablers are desperate to silence dissent every way they can… [the database is] more fear-mongering by corporate bullies hoping to see what they can get away with in Trumpâs America.
Peaceful protest = terrorism.
Attacking peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and water cannons = law enforcement.
Sentencing peaceful protesters as terrorists = the end of the First Amendment
Should our elected and non-elected co-conspirators be able to say peaceful civil protests against pipelines are an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act?
Time to wake up America! We need to fight to keep our Constitution or face the Orwellian future that Jeff Sessions and Trumplandia want so badly for all of us. To help you wake up, here is Neil Young and Crazy Horse with âRockin in the Free Worldâ from his 1989 album âFreedomâ:
Takeaway Lyric:
There’s colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin’ their feet
People sleepin’ in their shoes
But there’s a warnin’ sign
on the road ahead
There’s a lot of people sayin’
we’d be better off dead
Don’t feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Using the Pot/Kettle meme brings risk:
