Go Back Up The Escalator Mr. Trump

Many of you recall how he descended the escalator in Trump tower with his wife, Melania, to proclaim his candidacy in 2015, with a speech full of fear equating how Mexico was not sending its best. 

"They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some I assume some are good people." This is the way a person with a white nationalist agenda speaks. He uses the fear of rape to stoke his racist political agenda. The Ku-Klux-Klan came into popularity in America with the propaganda film "The Clansman" later re-titled "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915. Former Grand Wizard David Duke ran the film during his bid for the presidency in 1970 and is an avid supporter of this president. The film in short, highlighted the fact that when black people came into power during the reconstruction era they had one thing in their hearts, and that was to rape white women. So in rode The Clansmen. They were the heroic figures who would save white women from the evil black men which Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had unleashed on America. Please note the racists cheer and embrace this film ignoring the fact that they were afraid of the very thing that they themselves were guilty of historically.

Thursday in West Virginia, Donald Trump flips his prepared remarks on tax reform into the air calling them boring. The crowd chuckles and applauds that he was going off script again. But beneath that playful boyish gesture, Trump had a thorn in his side. He didn't get money for his wall in the last spending package, so fuming about it he signs the bill but proclaims that he will never sign another deal like this again. 

This is where mockingly Ann Coulter quoted him back and added in a Tweet of what his fate would be. Feeling the heat from Coulter and his biggest boosters at Fox News, Trump first decided to deploy military troops to the southern border to secure it. He tells a gathering there at West Virginia who gathered to hear his thoughts on tax reform that the rapists are coming--- again.

"And remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower, when I opened. Everybody said, 'Oh, he was so tough,' and I used the word 'rape.' And yesterday, it came out where, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don't want to mention that. "So we have to change our laws. And the Democrats, what they're doing is just — it's insanity. I don't — nobody understands what's going on." -CNN.com

Trump claims women are being raped  in caravans

 Donald Trump's claim that women were being raped at levels that no one has ever seen before, has to be on the top of his list of his Greatest Lies Ever told (Volume Ten). The Caravan which was moving into Puebla, Mexico from Central America is a yearly trek which the people mostly from Honduras, Central America make every year. They do it in hopes to reach Mexico for a better life. They prepare for their own safeguard measures because they know a trip like this one can be dangerous. The reporters on hand and 

observers mentioned that the trek was a hard one for these determine people who were seeking asylum in Puebla, Mexico but there were no incidents of rape at all. But Donald Trump goes to West Virginia to gossip and blather on about how women on this journey are being raped at epic proportions. Rape is happening for sure. But it's not coming across the boarders by brown people. It’s here within our own country and this administration has not been speaking out or initiating programs to stop it. His talk about rape has been, and continues to be, reckless and irresponsible especially for a person who holds the highest office in America. To me his proclamation that April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, is about as proactive as proclaiming February 14 to be Valentine’s day. It’s just not meaningful.

We’ve all heard of a few times about false reporting of rape from some people. And for sure, false reporting is wrong, and it hurts a person falsely accused. Mansplainers will proudly thump their chests proclaiming "See! There is proof that all women are liars about being raped." They clutch onto that 2-10 percent false claim and use it to weaponize themselves that all claims are a sham. And here we have Donald Trump telling a patently false and debunked lie about rape once again. His obvious reasons behind it is to gin up his base, and stoke more hatred and bigotry against a race of people that are fighting for no more than the right to exist.

People Migrating North from Honduras No one is raping PBS News

The Caravan was not designed as an invasion to crash our boarders as was being reported by Fox News, but a long movement to safety to protect the people who were making the journey from harm. But Trump seems to believe that Fox News had accurately sounded the alarm against the so-called invaders, and he was determined to do something about it. Fox News is Trump's main go-to source to stay on top of the issues above all other briefings he may get. So with a lie on his lips about rape, and the need to get back into the good graces of his Trump fans, he's sending National Guard troops to the southern borders to assist the border patrol. This could be manpower which might be needed elsewhere if a real crisis should happen. But it’s happening at the whim of a bigoted man who occupies the chair in the oval office, and who thinks that dividing humanity is the way this Country should be. It was a sad day when he came down that golden escalator. Go back up Donald Trump and hit the power switch off.

Just 17 Minutes

Looking back on when I

Schools representing children slain by guns littered the Capitol grounds

Was a little nappy headed boy
Then my only worry
Was for Christmas what would be my toy
Even though we sometimes
Would not get a thing
We were happy with the
Joy the day would bring
Sneaking out the back door
To hang out with those 
Hoodlum friends of mine
Greeted at the back door
But thought I told you not to go outside
Tryin' your best to bring the
Water to your eyes
Thinkin' it might stop her
From woopin' your behind
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ever have to go
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ever have to go
-Stevie Wonder

I can't tell you, how many times I heard this song on the radio or danced to it. It's strange but this Stevie Wonder song makes me laugh. Because some of it was my childhood. I could get into trouble, for just being curious about things, or people, or life. Most of us who are grown up now, couldn't wait to get out on our own. It's natural to want to go after the life that we saw all the adults in our lives living. The sort of trouble our kids face is because some in the system are standing in their way.

Students and Parents lit candles mourning the loss of those at Parkalnd

Last month, bullets again ripped though another school, killing children and teachers. Their lives were stopped cold in the face of trauma, tragedy, and grief. They cried out to the grown ups to do something this time. Fix this! The replies were more of the same thing that met other grieving families going back to Columbine. Some grown-ups both near and far, just had words. A self hugging President Donald Trump, proclaimed that he would have run into the building like a super-hero. He sat there as parents and young people from Stoneman Douglas High School looked at him and said "I lost somebody. Fix this Mister President!" Trump's confused thinking he proclaimed ideas of seizing the guns and then later after consulting with the NRA he said, No we won't do that. NRA talking heads pretending to care, shamefully turn the attention to journalists. "You're the problem," Dana Loesch proclaims. You love the killings because you love the ratings.

And the kids said, we got this, and don't get in our way. "The time for confusion is over. We don't

want your politics, or your prayers, your half solutions, or tough talk, and most of all we don't want guns," they proclaimed on and off both social media and mainstream media. Young people from Parkland, Florida, to my city Fresno, California, have walked out in protest of the latest tragedy and all tragedies brought on by guns. They are doing it peacefully but with a purpose, and that is to bring attention to the fact that they see these killings, and that they don't want to be next.

I was happy to see some lawmakers and congressmen standing with these children at the Capitol.

"we got this, and don't get in our way"

Great men like John Lewis who continues to fight for all good causes in America. But it broke my heart that in some schools, some teachers along with politicians just don't get it. In my own city in Fresno, California; a group of young people at Computech Middle School who were planning to join the protest of gun shootings won't be stopped from joining in national protests, but they can't mention guns. Computech principal, Andrew Scherrer, offered a dumb-down version of the 17-minute walk-out, and "highly encouraged" the students to make the event only a memorial for the victims, and shy away from discussing gun policy, also sighting that those who participated would be marked absent for the day. At Pensacola High, several freshman received a note stating:

A Young Student shows a warning if she protests guns

"Malcolm Thomas Escambia County District Superintendent does not support a student walk-out. If you leave campus, there will be discipline consequences for refusing to follow directions."

The thing that really shocked me was footage of  police handcuffing Aminah Glenn, a 13 year old junior at Kenwood Academy in Chicago, as though she was some dangerous armed young thug for walking out in protest. The bystanders shouted "Let her go!- Let her Go!"

Aminah Glenn, a 13 year old junior at Kenwood handcuffed because she walked out

Maybe our young people have learned their lessons too well, that guns kill. Some schools and parents are with the kids, because today is their future and they must be allow a voice in the conversation. It's
pitiful that some of the most powerful people in America won't effect change, some of the teachers in charge of our children's education missed a teaching opportunity, and the students are now the lesson givers here in America. When our children can have normal childhoods without the fear of gun violence, then maybe we as parents also can have normal lives that doesn't include one more child funeral. I truly wish those days would come back again.

Previous Blog

No Guns No NRA. Let Me Show You The Way

No Guns No NRA Let Me Show You The Way

Mourners gather around one of the white crosses set up to honor the victims

I don't know everything
But there's something I do know
I've read and heard a lot
And now I'm ready to show
That we can come together
And think like one
Come together now
Live together underneath the sun
Please, please let me show you
Let me show, let me show you the way to go
Follow me, my friend
Let me show you, come on
Let me show you the way to go

Gamble and Huff
Performed by the Jacksons

This happy pop song from the 70's when Afro's we're huge, and pants were tight, might be just what some of the younger kids are saying to us right now. They are still grieving over lost friends and classmates from the Parkland massacre. Many are engulfed in trauma and are sick of the rhetoric of things from politicians that have no meaning.

Emma Gonzalez with tears and resolve said at a rally

A passionate Emily Gonzalez says, now its our turn

We're the kids you're going to read about in textbooks not because we're going to be another statistic about mass shootings, but because we are going to be the last mass shooting. Later she would go on to say MSNBC: "We are going on to talk to Congress because this is our fight now, because you messed it up so badly--- that you left it to the kids, and it's our job and you can't try and take that back from us."

These young people aren't playing around. They checked into school for what should have been a happy Valentines day full of regular class activities and sweetheart exchanges of balloons and cards. Shortly after 2 pm the terror began when an unhinged 19-year-old Nickolas Cruz, made his way on campus and began his reign of Terror. And as usual we're all shocked. Some family's lives will never be the same again. But these kids--- oh man, these surviving Parkland students who attend the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are fed up. They have had to live through a day of sheer hell, as they huddled underneath their desks and in closets speaking in low whispers and muffled cries, hearing the gunfire going off in the distance. Most of them prayed their classrooms wouldn't be next. Fourteen-year-old Lauren Hogg said,

"We got a text and it would be ---are you guys okay? Are those gunshots--- somebody just heard gunshots. What's happening?--- and then somebody else texts, somebody is coming down the hall--- there are kids screaming--- are you guys okay? and the next thing someone would text, my teacher's down.--- Things are going bad. I love you guys."

The last message Rebecca received from her daughter during the shooting

She lost 4 classmates that day. Fortunately one of them wasn't her older brother David who spoke to her and said, "Lauren something bad is going on. Hide, hide hide!" Their mom Rebecca Boldrick who was on campus that day also got a text from her reading, "CODE RED ACTIVE ALERT--- I LOVE YOU MOM." After the gunman's methodical exit, children were ushered out classrooms and into safe spaces where they reunited with parents and grieving classmates. They just clutched and held onto Valentines and to each other. Other parent's arrived to find their child was one of the 17 who didn't survive.

This was all followed up by politicians who were beholden to the NRA sounding very political. It was as though they were reading from the same script.

The things you do say:

• This is a tragic loss
• Our thoughts and prayers go out to the grieving families.
• We are looking into this issue of mental health
• We need to have a time of healing

The words you don't use

• NRA
• Guns
• Background Checks.

I think we all know it by heart. And yes, these are Republican talking points. This was all followed up

by Donald Trump pulling on a thread of information that he tried to use for his own purpose to blame the FBI for failing to do anything to stop the shooter. He tweeted a jaw dropping self absorbed tweet in an effort to shut down the Russian investigation followed by a visit to the hospital for a few cheezy photo ops with a survivor and staff. Of course the visits were to only patients who fit his election and very presidential profile. Unlike Anthony Borges, 15 who is is being hailed a hero after he was shot trying to protect his friends during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. These are the things that keep us divided as a nation. And our young people are grieving angry and sick of living like this. They live Orwellian lives of what to do on school campuses and mall areas. Rebecca Bolrick laments, "you never think it will happen to you. You see it on the news-- Oh those Sandy Hook parents, their babies are gone. You never ever, think it will be you." But these days she has consistently had talks with her teens about where to hide in case there is a public shooting. But now they are fed up with living scared and being handled by adults who do nothing. Drying her eyes and setting her jaw, Lauren Hogg continued,"All these politicians are saying, 'oh no they're not ready.' We don't need comfort, we need change. And that's the only way I know I'm going to heal.---if things change."  

Emma Gonzalez spoke out at a rally which was peppered with shouts and applause.

An over-looked student during Trumps hospital visit Anthony Borges

Every single person up here today, all these people, should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it's time for victims to be the change that we need to see. Since the time of the Founding Fathers and since they added the Second Amendment to the Constitution, our guns have developed at a rate that leaves me dizzy. The guns have changed but our laws have not.We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. In Florida, to buy a gun you do not need a permit, you do not need a gun license, and once you buy it you do not need to register it. You do not need a permit to carry a concealed rifle or shotgun. You can buy as many guns as you want at one time.

I listened in amazement to their entire speeches. They not only know what happened to them last week, but why it keeps happening. David Hogg told ABC News, "I don't care if you're a Democrat, I don't care if you're a Republican, let's work together as Americans and come to a compromise because in politics no one side ever wins. It's always through compromise that change ever happens."

David Hogg with his sister Lauren speaking on the attack 

I know it sounds hoaky to say these young people are wise beyond their years, but I think that comes from paying attention and really seeing what's happening. When we allow the powers that be, to govern, and talk from the same old playbook, more children and adults (like some of their teachers) will definitely die. To continue to keep putting the issue of guns aside and say ineffective things like mental health is the cause, while big mouth commentators like Rush Limbaugh denounce the students for wanting to march in protest makes sure that we're sealing the fate of another generation.  

David Hogg knocks it out of the ballpark as he speaks to Martha Raddatz. "I don't want anybody just saying, I'm so sorry. I want you getting out there. I want people doing things about this. If you can't do something about this then get out of office."

Today on President's Day, much to the chagrin of right wing pundits, Donald Trump, the NRA and hard bitten 2nd amendment lovers, the young people and their supporters came to the Capital to protest this tragedy. They are are speaking, walking, protesting and clearly in my opinion, showing us the way to go.

Sources

CNN

MSNBC

ABC News

Raw Story.com

Previous Blog

They Fiddle And Another Child Dies

They Fiddle and Another Child Dies

Oh, once upon a time in Arkansas,

An old man sat in his little cabin door
And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,
A jolly old tune that he played by ear.
It was raining hard, but the fiddler didn't care,
He sawed away at the popular air,
Tho' his roof tree leaked like a waterfall,
That didn't seem to bother the man at all.

A traveler was riding by that day,
And stopped to hear him a-practicing away;
The cabin was a-float and his feet were wet,
But still the old man didn't seem to fret.
So the stranger said "Now the way it seems to me,
You'd better mend your roof," said he.
But the old man said as he played away,
"I couldn't mend it now, it's a rainy day."

The traveler replied, "That's all quite true,
But this, I think, is the thing to do;
Get busy on a day that is fair and bright,
Then patch the old roof till it's good and tight."
But the old man kept on a-playing at his reel,
And tapped the ground with his leathery heel.
"Get along," said he, "for you give me a pain;
My cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."

This old song takes me back to my childhood when my grade school teacher read the lyrics to us. She smiled as she read, and we heard the absurd words of a man who fiddled away while water came into his cabin on a rainy day. He rebuffed a man who told him that he should repair the leak when the rain stopped. He couldn't repair the roof while it rained and wouldn't repair it when it didn't rain. That reading of a childhood song came back to me when a school board city Commissioner from the district in Florida said, "Right now is the wrong time to be discussing gun laws." I heard the words and I was triggered with the image of an old guy just fiddling away. My frustration continued to rise partly because it's what has been said repeatedly from Donald Trump and others who refuse to take action about guns and gun laws which continue to leave people vulnerable.

Children came to school with the happy anticipation of exchanging valentines with friends and classmates. After a deranged gun obsessed 19-year-old young man entered the school and took 17 lives, the children exited the school in shock and horror clutching those valentines, which may symbolized a day of horror for them when they lost a friend. Some of the children ran into the arms of shaken parents who sobbed and held onto them with relief. And the nation looks at this mess and this carnage, and an unpatched roof of protection for it's citizens and we still cry out "Fix it!"

Lori Alhadeff a mother of a dead child screams at the President and Congress to fix the roof!

 Lori Alhadeff

“How? How do we allow a gunman to come into our children’s school? How do they get through security? What security is there? There’s no metal detectors. The gunman, a crazy person, just walks right into the school, knocks on the window of my child’s door and starts shooting, shooting her and killing her! President Trump, you say what can you do? You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands! Put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. What can you do? You can do a lot! This is not fair to our families and our children go to school and have to get killed! I just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughters funeral, who is 14! Fourteen! President Trump, please do something! Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need now!” Victim's mother: President Trump please do something!

But they fiddle in the sunshine. Something could have happened between here and the last mass

Mitch McConnell on Twitter

shooting when 26 people were killed at First Baptist Church in rural Sutherland Springs, Texas authorities said. The shooter fled and was pursued by a resident and police but was found dead after running his car off the road. Law enforcement officials identified the alleged gunman as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of neighboring Comal County, Texas. That was followed by the Las Vegas killing which claimed 58 lives. But it appears they fiddle in the sunshine of their politics, and their own scandals.They're not prepared to take on this problem because in truth many of them have had their campaigns funded by the NRA. They win and fiddle, and fiddle more. The killings happen and the tragedy, blood, and tears come. And all America gets for its heartache are platitudes and prayer talk. No action happens, just more fiddling.

Donald Trump warned the people that his opponent wanted to take their guns away, and maybe something should be done about that. He proclaimed that if he was elected he would protect their second amendment rights to bear arms. Trump claimed it was the Mexicans who were bringing guns and crime into this county, and so he wanted to build a wall. He rolled back the former Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun. What was Mr. Trump's thinking? He blindly fiddled and proclaimed, "I inherited a mess from the former administration." That in my opinion isn't even debate worthy.

I grew up in a home with a father who owned 3 hand guns. I rarely saw them and never touched them. I handled an M-16 when I was in the military, but never had the drive or desire to have weapons in my home as an adult. Even now the argument is being made for having these armor piercing guns is that if we out-law them, that will create a demand for them. And my answer is so what? Are we a nation of children that should have any and everything it desires? That is a lame excuse for the lobbyists and pro-gun crowd to threaten Americans with the fear of lawlessness and cave in to groups who control the purse strings. An AR-15 is a weapon of human destruction designed for foreign wars. And yet it's being used right here in our schools against our children and others. True to their word in 2013 President Obama's words fell on deaf ears when the Republican Congress swore to sit on any Obama proposed legislation, refused to pass a competent bill on background checks. They fiddled after beautiful children from both Sandy Hook and Newton were cut down by senseless gun violence.

"Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad," said Barack Obama about the victims of the

President Barack Obama

Sandy Hook massacre as he introduced new gun laws in America in January 2016.
In 2015 he told BBC that his failure to pass "common sense gun laws" in the US was the greatest frustration of his presidency.
His attempts to change the laws have always been blocked by the Republicans. Usually a composed man this president was outraged at Republicans as he kicked at the door exiting the press briefing.

A very angry and animated John Lewis, the face of civil rights in America, and Representative from the state of Georgia faced off with Steven Mnunch (Secretary of the Treasury) as to whether there was a budget to deal with the proliferation of gun violence. Mnunch responded with stutters and stammers, claiming it was not in his lane. Taken aback Lewis looked at him with the stare of a bull who might charge any moment stating, 

Iconic Civil Rights leader John Lewis

"You're part of this administration and we're losing hundreds of thousands of people. Young children in school trying to get an education and they're murdered. Teachers--- A football coach! And you're saying to me who represents the people in Georgia, the city of Atlanta where we have the CDC ---and someone in this government told the CDC the end of study of gun violence. We can do better we must do better we have to save our children, our citizens, our teachers!"

Now the Treasury Secretary promised to speak with Trump and John Lewis ended it on a civil note. But I'll say it if you're not thinking it. Even if Mnuchin makes a guttural sound about guns or gun safety, I expect more fiddling from him. A few weeks will have passed and if one person dares to utter from the press about Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the killer, or any of those lives lost, he will say something through Sarah Huckabee Sanders like, "Get along, for you give me a pain my cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."

Victims of the February 14th Valentines Day Tragedy