This past Veteran's Day, as every day for me, I remembered my father's sacrifice during WWII.
As a member of the 80th Infantry Division, Third Army, Dad fought nearly constant combat from Omaha Beach and into Germany. Twice wounded and nearly frozen during the Battle of the Bulge, Dad learned first hand the evils of Hitler's Nazi war machine and the horrendous cost that was required to defeat it.
Mr. Trump's reprise of the Nazi propaganda that unleased evil on the world during the 1930s-40s is a clear statement of his intentions if elected in 2024. God save us if we allow that to happen.
For me 9/11 comes down to one terrifying conclusion: unimaginably powerful and overwhelming evil lives among us.
Evil so powerful that it can compel our most trusted, most gifted and trained protectors to stand idly by, participate in, or plan and perpetrate heinous crimes against us, their own people.
James Corbett’s 9/11 Whistleblowers series reveals how pervasive that evil is. Please watch Michael Springmann’s interview below.
I hope you will agree, we must find a way to identify, neutralize, eradicate and balance out this evil with “good”.
All of us are once again teetering on the frightening edge of adversity's abyss.
And, while evil's weapons are more powerful now, we have no choice. We cannot acquiesce. Most importantly you must know that YOU are not alone.
Do you hear the people of the world sing of their freedom?
9/11 Whistleblowers: Michael Springmann
James Corbett 9 Sept 2019
* Screen capture from video above which was filmed at the special Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert in 1995. Do You Hear the People Sing? was sung by 17 different actors who had played Jean Valjean around the world. Each actor sang a line of the song in his own language. The languages sung were English, French, German, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Norwegian, Czech, Danish, and Icelandic.
Look
a little further, searching for how to “identify evil”, and you’ll discover how “evil”
is discussed in the Bible.
But for 800,000 Americans, and now millions of Americans, plus the "economy" as a whole, I’m betting 100 cat’s eye marbles that “evil” comes front
and center, and very personally, with no paycheck deposited in their checking
accounts or government services for the rest of us "Joe and Jane" Americans. No money today means a truck load of pain for federal employees and government
suppliers, too, even with the Congressional promise that one day their pay will show up.
Still, perhaps, one good thing may come to pass out of this... the
longer this debacle continues the more likely Trumpists will come face-to-face
with their hero unmasked as the nation’s number one sadist. In fact, I’d
go as far as to say that it’s now obvious that Mr. Trump was simply Born Evil
and that Trumpists are showing signs of emulating his low intelligence level,
lack of empathy, soullessness, psychopathy and the myriad of his other
personality disorders by continuing to support him.
Further,
and ever so sadly, the mainstream media is complicit in “normalizing” these
“Trump behavior disorders”, with bullying topping the list as acceptable.
Evil really does walk among us. Today, we know evil as the Republican Party.
Here are just four of evil’s signs:
1. VA kills plan to cut homeless-vet program after outcry, Arthur Allen & Lorraine Woellert, Politio, 6 Dec 2017.
The VA says it is essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans.
Four days after Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin held a big Washington event to tout the Trump administration’s promise to house all homeless vets, the agency did an about-face, telling advocates it was pulling resources from a major housing program.
The VA said it was essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. Instead, the money would go to local VA hospitals that can use it as they like, as long as they show evidence of dealing with homelessness.
2. How The GOP Tax Plan Scrooges Middle Class, Retired And Poor, Joh Wasik, Forbes, 29 Nov 2017.
Retirement Benefits Will Likely Be Cut. Because the plan proposes to add at least $1.5 trillion to the national debt, fiscal conservatives say the imbalance needs to be offset by either cuts of "entitlement" programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid or tax increases...
Republicans would rather give heirs and heiresses a tax break than care for needy kids.
More than two months ago, Congress let the Children's Health Insurance Program expire, and has offered no indication it will provide funding any time soon. Just last week, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-MA) on the Senate floor that, "the reason CHIP's having trouble is that we don't have money anymore." Two days later he voted in favor of a trillion-dollar tax cut for multinational corporations and the wealthy.
For the New York Times' Paul Krugman, this is just the latest salvo in a Republican war on children. In his Thursday column, he argues the GOP is further enriching its already fabulously wealthy donors at the expense of America's youth. Take CHIP, which provided health care to 8.9 million kids whose parents could not afford it last year. The estate tax would finance the program and then some—the former generates $20 billion in revenue while the latter costs taxpayers $15 billion—but Republicans would rather give a tax break to heirs and heiresses worth millions (or more).
"Are there any possible defenses for this choice?" Krugman asks. "Republicans like to claim that tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring economic growth, but no serious economists agree—and that’s the case even for things like corporate tax cuts that might have some positive economic effect. Applied to inheritance taxes, this claim is beyond absurd: There is no plausible argument to the effect that letting wealthy heirs claim their inheritance tax-free will make the economy boom."
The GOP's ridiculous argument that the estate tax hurts small businesses and family farms really demands no response, but Krugman provides one anyway. Just 80 ("eight-zero") such taxpayers would qualify at all. As for Chuck Grassley's claim that the country needs to reward those who invest rather than spend their money on "booze or women or movies," Krugman offers this rejoinder: "Yes, indeed, letting the likes of Donald Trump Jr. inherit wealth tax-free is a reward for their fathers’ austere lifestyles."
What Republicans will never acknowledge, despite a wealth of supporting economic data, is that increasing aid to poor kids ultimately saves the government money. The healthier children are and the more financial support they receive, the more likely they are to become productive members of society who pay their own taxes. "But such results, while interesting and important, aren’t the main reason we should be providing children with health care and enough to eat," Krugman is quick to clarify. "Simple decency should be reason enough. And despite everything we’ve seen in U.S. politics, it’s still hard to believe that a whole political party would balk at doing the decent thing for millions of kids while rushing to further enrich a few thousand wealthy heirs."
The Republican Party’s new motto: tu es labore sudatum - You Are Scum.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a meeting of all GOP senators Thursday morning ahead of the release of the new version(s) of the Obamacare repeal legislation. J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Of course, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is back with his most recent revision of the Better Care Reconciliation Act, aka Trumpcare.
He’s glued together a concoction that he believes will pass the acid test, making all those senate Republicans happy.
As best as I can tell, it’s just the same old bill, with a couple of changes to make the bitter pill go down.
Still, McConnell’s brew is a remarkable accomplishment for its concentrated evilness… jigumbus Medicaid cuts by more than 30%, insuring 49 million of us by 2026 and outright discrimination against those unfortunate among us to have pre-existing medical conditions - just to point out a couple of the most horrendously hurtful provisions these people have devised.
Despite knowing that most Americans as well as most of the medical community have previously declared his bill repugnant, McConnell is pushing for a vote by next week.
Why?
Why, is McConnell so dead set on hurting so many people?
Because he can?
Or, worse, as Dr. Henry Giroux explained, because he sees these millions of us as, “disposable, refuse, excess” to be consigned to fend for ourselves? (1.)
Giroux continues, “Disposability is not new in American history, but its more extreme predatory formations are back in new forms. Moreover, what is unique about the contemporary politics of disposability is how it has become official policy, normalized in the discourse of the market, democracy, freedom and a right-wing contempt for human life, if not the planet itself. The moral and social sanctions for greed and avarice that emerged during the Reagan presidency now proliferate unapologetically, if not with glee.”
Glee, indeed. I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing a happy McConnell if his evil bill wins.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” Matthew 7:15 & 16.
Blind to the “fruit” of the current work of Republicans House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, many Trump supporters have absolutely no doubt that their man, Pres. Trump, will provide a cornucopia of sumptuous things (fruit) among them: expulsion of “illegal” Muslim immigrants, creation of “good” jobs, “America First” foreign policy and revocation of Obamacare with a replacement Trumpcare program that will guarantee “beautiful healthcare” at reasonable prices for everyone.
Now that Sen. McConnell has unveiled his Trumpcare bill we have some idea of his view, along with Rep. Paul Ryan’s view, of a worthy replacement for their hated Obamacare program.
Thanks to these two men the Senate now has a bill for consideration that is without equal on the biblical scale of evil. If adopted, it will be so hurtful to the most vulnerable, powerless Americans that one must be forced to consider these two leaders and their Republican followers in the House and Senate will rank among the most evil and hateful humans to have lived upon this earth.
