"This Russia Thing"


-->
“This Russia Thing”

           
At this point, all Americans should be fully "woke!" But if you know someone who isn’t please wake him or her up!  As Sly Stone once wrote, “There’s A Riot Goin' On!” Something is happening on a daily basis in the nation’s capitol.  However, things are happening on Main Street as well.
The Trump reality show continues to take center stage in the news, which means that if we don’t look far and wide, we might miss other important events. However, for about three weeks there has been a collision of sorts. Foremost, President Trump’s tariffs seemed to spark a trade war, which affected the stock market and the job market.
The stock market took its biggest hit in a decade. China’s response to the tariff talk was counter tariffs and talk of increased prices.  The markets actually showed degrees of fear.  Several companies, including Hasbro and Mattel, responded with immediate cuts to the news that Toys R Us is liquidating.
Similarly, the White House leak that President Trump congratulated President Putin on his re-election raised additional questions about “this Russia thing.” It remains a mystery why the president continues to denounce the Russian meddling in the 2016 election and calls it a “witch hunt".  The connections between Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, the Russians and the election should make us all pause and take stock of what is happening and how easy it is to have our personal information and our government hacked.
            It remains to be seen why the president did not think that politicians on both sides of the aisle would not denounce such actions. Not surprisingly, the president was placed under additional scrutiny for the firing of General McMaster and Secretary of State Tillerson after they made critical statements against the Russian government.
            The likelihood that President Trump did have a sexual encounter during his time in Russia is increasing as the details of his alleged affairs with a porn star and Playboy model are revealed. And the fact that one of his lawyers resigned should raise additional concerns that the president wants to be his own attorney and that does not bode well for him or the nation.
            The recent Sixty Minutes interview is not about sex but about corruption.  At this point America does not care about Mr. Trump's infidelity, but rather about hush money and non-disclosure agreements.  It is the secrets and lies that are being bought.  The absence of truth is starting to haunt all Americans.
            It’s equally discouraging that Fox News seems to be the White House’s sole source for replacement staff.  That President Trump continues to watch the network for affirmation, and then selects its talking heads for his team.  Where will he secure contrasting opinions? Clearly, a good president needs voices of dissent!
            The White House also remains quiet on the impact of climate change. Between wild fires, hurricanes, and Nor’easters, the nation’s infrastructure has been hard hit and the repairs have cost billions. It might be time to consider urban redesign; new ways of fighting forest fires, putting more electric wires underground are rebuilding the nation’s power plants.
And the nation’s tragedy with guns continues.  No word came from the White House following the fatal shooting of Jaelynn Willey, a student at Great Mills High School in Maryland.  A school resource officer killed the shooter, a male student. Another student was also injured in the confrontation. 
Equally little has been said about the YouTube Headquarters shooting.  Outside of falsely describing it as a “workplace shooting”, lawmakers have not addressed the ease in which a disgruntle person can gain access to a place of business and severely injure workers.
The shooting of Stephon Clark, 22, by the Sacramento, California Police Department is developing into another story of racial bias in American justice. Once again critics are asking how white criminals with weapons are allowed to surrender after shooting and often killing people, but African American males are killed despite not having weapons and not committing a crime or a serious offense. There has been no response from the president or any major political figure. Mr. Clark, unarmed, was shot over a dozen times, including eight times in the back, in his family’s backyard by two officers looking for a suspected car vandal.  The officers’ body cameras revealed that each officer fired multiple times (over 20 combined shots) and waited over five minutes before backup came to see if Clark was alive. Despite the fact he was dead when the paramedics arrived, his lifeless body was still handcuffed.
Black voices are not letting this act go unchallenged. Black Lives Matter organized rallies in Sacramento, and it has been a focus of conversation on Black radio. Hopefully this will be another step toward forcing true change!
So as the week came to a close, it was important to note that the president was out of town and the Parkland High School students are in charge of the city! President Trump literally ran out of town to his Florida estate to avoid conflict with the student centered “March for Our Lives” anti-gun protest.  In addition to the main rally in Washington, there were other protests in every state and throughout the world. And, it was equally important, that inner city youth who are victims of gun violence in schools and in the streets were participants on the stages and in the crowds.
But of course, as soon as the president returned, he hit the ground energized from his contacts with friendly faces and with ammunition from Fox News to attack “the resistance”.  His minions attacked the Parkland students, levied further attacks on the Chinese as currency and trade manipulators, and defended the widely criticized EPA Secretary.  Then true to form, President Trump emerged with a series of controversial and conflicting statements on a wide range of topics.  There was talk of inviting Mr. Putin to Washington and removing US forces from Syria.  But by mid-week the more serious engagements began.  He attacked Mexico on the weak border and renewed calls for the wall.  He spoke about caravans of migrants (with criminals and rapists) coming northward, he denounced the Democrats for not protecting the nation, he declared DACA dead, and ultimately, he asserted that he will put the military on the border to save the nation!
 Perhaps, not coincidentally, a new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn entitled "Russian Roulette" was published in mid-March. It’s already a New York Times bestseller.  The book is the inside story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump!

So, it seems that Gil Scott Heron was wrong.  The Revolution will be televised after all!


-->

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can We Talk About The Statues?

Another Historical Conversation Can We Really Talk About The Statues? The creation of the Confederate States of America is one of the unique chapters in the history of the United States. Formed in 1861 and concluded in 1865, this entity operated as a separate nation with its own governmental structure during the entirety of the Civil War. What is so important about the CSA is that it was a reflection of what Southerners believed failed in the United States. In essence it was the creation of a “more perfect” union that endorsed slavery and racial inequality.             Once the war efforts started to decline and it was apparent that the CSA was not going to succeed, divisions of the Confederate Army surrendered and Union troops hunted down and captured members of the CSA government including its president and vice president.   By December 1865, all vestiges of the CSA were defeated.      ...
Read more

A Really Big Lie

   Last weekend thousands of Russians were in the streets protesting. They did so in spite of extreme cold and a strong police presence. The protests took place in numerous cities and the protesters realized that their lives were in danger for challenging the authority of President Putin's government. Contrast that scene with recent protests in the United States. Americans are never afraid for their safety for their right to protest is protected by the Constitution. While the Russians knew they were protesting in support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and for democracy, often American protesters cannot fully articulate the issues for their anger or frustration. The January Washington protests are a case in point. Thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. for a rally and then afterwards were encouraged by the president to march to the Capitol. After gathering there, protesters decided to storm the building. However, why did they do this? What did they expect to achieve...
Read more

Why Not A Latina Justice?

The “E” Word Commenting on the announcement of Justice Souter’s retirement from the US Supreme Court, President Obama stated the one of the qualities he wanted in a nominee for the Supreme Court was empathy. This statement has caused much concern and shock among the news media and the Washington political and policy establishment. These entities collectively are struggling with concept that a President would use empathy as criteria for a Supreme Court Justice. Various commentators criticized the President for this criterion. Why empathy is such an important criteria? How did the President come up with such a crazy idea? The people who are struggling with this concept are looking and listening in the wrong places. They are forgetting or ignoring a key fact. The President and his wife are African-American lawyers. In the African-American and minority legal and political circles, subject of judicial empathy has been discussed continuously for at least nineteen years. African-Ame...
Read more