Who You Callin' a BITCH??!!??

         

It’s not about the flag. It’s not about disrespecting anything. That is the insidious power of ignorance. I often tell myself that ignorance is everywhere. Stupidity is everywhere. Racism and bigotry can be found in every country, every state, and every city. It pisses me off that the President of the United States would go to the state of my birth, Alabama, to one of its most beautiful cities, Huntsville, to vomit all over what this nation is supposed to be.

On July 6, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Alton B. Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man was arrested by two white police officers. They wrestled him to the ground. While he was pinned to the ground at least one of the officers pulled his service weapon and shot him several times. Mr. Sterling died. The event was captured on cell phone video and broadcast to the world on social media.

The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American man was driving his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Riding with him was his girlfriend. Her 4-year-old daughter was riding in the back seat. Police officers pulled him over. According to his girlfriend, Mr. Castile informed the officer that he had a license to carry a firearm and that it was in the car. The officer shot him as he sat in the car. Mr. Castile died. His girlfriend used her cell phone to record the scene, including the haunting image of the officer’s weapon pointed menacingly inside the car. The video was broadcast around the world on social media.

On July 19, 2015, a Cincinnati police officer shot and killed Samuel Dubose in the head while he was sitting in his car. Mr. Dubose was not obstinate or belligerent, he was not threatening. He was stopped for not having a license tag on the front of his car. America and the world saw and heard it all.

On July 10, 2015, a Texas State Trooper stopped Sandra Bland. Her mistake was changing lanes without turning on her turn signal. The trooper got angry when she refused to put out a cigarette, threatened her with a stun gun, ordered her out of the car, wrestled her to the ground, handcuffed her and took her to jail. A few days later she was found dead in her jail cell. The officer’s dash-cam and a bystander’s cell phone recorded it all.

On June 5, 2015, McKinney, Texas police were called to a pool party attended by Black teenagers in a gated community. Cell phone video captured one of the police officers pointing a gun at several of the teenagers before grabbing a Black girl in a bathing suit, tackling her, and shoving her face into the ground.

On April 12, 2015, cell phone video allowed the world to see Freddie Gray being arrested and dragged into a Baltimore police van. He was in obvious pain. His legs were not moving. He would die of a spinal injury a week later after being tossed around without a seat belt in that van before arriving at the police station.

On April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, a bystander with a cell phone recorded video of a white police officer shooting Walter L. Scott eight times in the back as he ran away. Scott was not a suspect in any crime. He was unarmed. He had been pulled over for a traffic violation. He died on the scene.

On November 22, 2014, In Cleveland, Ohio, 12 year old Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun in a public park. A white police officer arrived, got out of his cruiser and immediately shot the Black boy twice from point blank range, killing him. Surveillance video captured it all.

On August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, cell phone video shows Michael Brown, an 18 year old Black teenager lying in the middle of the street for hours after he was shot and killed by a white police officer. He was unarmed.

On July 17, 2014, in Staten Island, New York, several police officers tried to arrest Eric Garner for selling illegal cigarettes. Mr. Garner was wrestled to the ground, placed in a chokehold, and strangled to death. A friend’s cell phone recorded it all.

According to the Washington Post, Black people are seven times more likely to be killed by police than white people. In 2015, 259 were killed. In 2016, 233 were killed. So far in 2017, 165 have been killed.

        

Colin Kaepernick was once the starting quarterback for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. He is the only player in NCAA Division 1 history to amass 10,000 passing yards and 4,000 rushing yards during his college career. During the 2012 NFL season he led his team to the Super Bowl. In 2013 he led the 49ers to the NFC Championship game. During the NFL’s preseason games in August of 2016, Kaepernick decided to sit during the national anthem to protest the killings of Blacks by American police. He would later start to kneel on one knee during the playing of the anthem for the same reason.

          My father was a minister. Since I was old enough to remember anything, I have been taught to kneel to pray. I kneel as a sign of reverence and respect for the God that I pray to. I was taught that Jesus Christ took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion, fell to his knees, and prayed. If kneeling before God or even a pagan king is a sign of reverence and respect, how in the hell is kneeling during the playing of the national anthem a sign of disrespect?

          There are several definitions of the word “bitch”. They include; “The female of a dog”, “a lewd or immoral woman”, “a malicious, spiteful or overbearing woman”, etc. On Friday, September 22, 2017 in Huntsville, Alabama the President of the United States referred to any National Football League Player that kneels during the playing of the national anthem as a “son of a bitch”. He also said they should be fired, repeating the “fired” for emphasis. The crowd roared, and America sank even lower into the cesspool of bigotry.

          As an educator, I have spent most of my life trying to help young people understand that the foundation of our country is the right to peacefully protest. Freedom itself is the right to disagree. The very first amendment to the Constitution, the first thing enumerated in the Bill of Rights guarantees the American people freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, and the right to petition the government to address our grievances.

        

Professional athletes and all the rest of us have a constitutional and unalienable right to protest the indiscriminate and racially motivated killing of Black people by the police. We will continue to do that.

That son of a bi….got in the White House won’t stop us.  

2018

          Since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States nothing he has said or done has surprised me. I have been angered, I have been disgusted, I have been embarrassed, but I have not been surprised. I am reminded of the late football coach Dennis Green, who was so disgusted after his NFL Arizona Cardinals team lost a game they had no business losing that he screamed something during the post-game interview that he will forever be remembered for; “THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!!”

Donald Trump is who I thought he was. Bigoted, narcissistic, ignorant, xenophobic, dishonest, petty, criminal, misogynistic, racist…

          For the past ten months, I did not want to think about it, read about it, write about it or talk about it. I have been struggling with the “why” question? I wanted to understand why good, caring people would vote for such a monumentally flawed human to be President of the United States. My conclusion? It’s complicated. Possibly, the answer is as simple as “Americans just screwed up”. Sometimes that happens. People make mistakes. Nations make mistakes. There is no question that buyer’s remorse is rampant in the body politic. Donald Trump’s approval rating is at a historic low, during a time that would normally be considered a honeymoon period for an incoming President.

          So, what do you do when you screw something up? First, you admit it. Only when you can accept that a problem exists can you develop a solution for it.

          The American constitution provides three remedies for a Presidency that presents a clear and present danger to the nation itself. The 25^th Amendment to the constitution states that the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet secretaries may notify the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate that the President of the United States is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. In other words, Mike Pence and more than half of Trump’s hand-picked cabinet would have to declare that Trump is so mentally ill that he can’t do the job. However, if Trump says, “there is nothing wrong with me!”, (he’d probably do it with a tweet) the dispute would be decided by congress, a congress that currently is controlled by republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It would take a two-thirds vote in BOTH houses to send Trump back to Trump Tower in New York.

          Don’t hold your breath on the 25^th Amendment.

          The second remedy provided by the constitution is impeachment. There are currently FIVE official government investigations into Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and his business transactions. All of them have the potential for discovering activities that could be impeachable offenses. They are being conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the Special Counsel via the Justice Department, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. According to the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, the issues being investigated include;

·         Russian meddling in the 2016 election

·         Michael Flynn’s connections to Russian officials

·         Trump disclosing classified information to Russian officials

·         The firing of FBI Director James Comey

·         Collusion between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Russian Officials

·         Ties between Trump associates and Russian officials

·         Possible obstruction of justice by Trump and financial crimes among Trump Associates

·         How to prevent and deter foreign interference in U.S. elections

·         Russian media’s attempts to spread fake news during the 2016 election

All of these investigations might conclude that all of the allegations are true, that Trump is guilty as sin, but Article II of the constitution grants the power to impeach the President only to the House of Representatives. If the House of Representatives approves articles of impeachment, it is the same as an indictment. A trial for the President would occur in the Senate. Two-thirds of the Senators must vote for conviction in order to remove the President. It has never happened in the history of our country. Chances are, it won’t happen with Trump either.

          The third option available to the American people for a Presidency gone off the rails is a simple one, an election. Every two years America elects the entire House of Representatives, all 435 of them. We also elect one-third of the Senate, 33 or 34 seats, depending on the year. The reason why the first two options are unlikely to happen is because republicans control both houses of congress. They currently have 247 of the 435 seats in the House, a majority of 29 seats. The republicans also hold 52 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The vice-president has the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, which gives them a majority of three in the Senate.

          American politics are currently poisoned by blatant tribalism. We focus on those things that make us different, instead of what makes us whole. This sickness is fed by the influx of unlimited money into our political system, allowing local and state elections to be unduly influenced by corporate interests with no interest in what is truly beneficial for the people that actually live in the place where that election is held. The election of Barack Obama ignited an unprecedented obstructionism in the nation’s governing bodies, a vicious backlash in conservative media outlets, and a racial polarization unseen in this country since the dawn of the modern civil rights movement. Then came Donald Trump, who capitalized on all of this madness and rode the wave all the way to the White House.

 

          There will be an American election in 14 months. It will be the most important election in our lifetimes, and one of the most important elections in the history of our country. In November of 2018, America will get a do-over, a mulligan. America screwed up in 2016. We will get a chance to fix it in 2018. If the democrats can pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump will be impeached. Even if the republicans in the Senate refuse to convict him, his legislative agenda will have no chance of passage.

          2018 will be a referendum on Trump. If the American people leave the republicans in charge of the House and the Senate, then we deserve whatever fate has in store for us.

          As for me, I choose to believe that the American people have seen enough, and will do the right thing in 2018. If I’m wrong, may God help us… and the rest of the world.

The Agony of Defeat

Today at 12 noon, Eastern Standard Time, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States of America. That is a fact. There is nothing that I can say or do that will change that. If there was something I could say, I would say it. If there was something I could do, I would do it. The reality is, Trump won the election, and Clinton lost.

For me, that hurts. It hurts to say it. It hurts to write it. It hurts to think it.

When I went to bed (early) on election night I felt physically ill. I love my country. I have studied its history intently since I discovered my school’s library in elementary school. I am still moved by the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. I am inspired by America’s heroes that have given their lives to preserve its freedoms and defend our rights. I am proud of its achievements in science, engineering, architecture, medicine, and the arts. I take pride in my country’s role in protecting human rights around the world and alleviating the suffering of those less fortunate than ourselves. I am proud of our way of life, our standards of living, and our progress in making our own country a beacon of opportunity for people all over the world. But when I went to bed on election night I was not proud. In fact, I was ashamed. I was angry. I was embarrassed.

I wonder who felt that way the night Barack Obama was elected President of the United States? I wonder if they would have the courage to ask themselves why?

I was ashamed because Donald Trump thinks that we should torture people and “take out their families”. To me, that means murder. Torture has been outlawed with the consensus agreement of the entire civilized world. So, our new President wants to be a war criminal and murderer. Donald Trump was caught on tape bragging about “grabbing them by the pussy”. He feels he can do that to women because of his celebrity. That makes him a misogynistic, admitted sexual abuser. Not to mention he has been accused of sexual assault by at least twelve different women. He feels that when we invaded Iraq we should have just “taken their oil”, and “presto!”, ISIS would not exist. He doesn’t seem to realize that invading a country and seizing its natural resources is the height of imperialism, and the type of thing the Nazi’s were sentenced to be hanged for at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, this is our new President.

I was angry because Donald Trump believes that we should have guns in our schools. Elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges. He thinks we should have guns in our churches. He thinks we should have guns in our bars, guns in our airports, guns in our supermarkets, guns in our theaters, guns in our offices, guns in our malls, guns at our sporting events, guns in our restaurants, he thinks everybody on our streets should have a gun. Then, and only then, will we be “safe from the terrorists”. I am angry because I served in the United States Marine Corps, and I know what guns can do. I was a high school Principal for almost ten years, and I know how beautiful, brilliant, immature, impetuous, and stupid teenagers can be. I know how it feels to deliver a eulogy for a young person gone too soon. I still feel the pain of the parents of those elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut. Gunned down with a weapon designed for the battlefield. I went to bed angry that night because I despise racism and those that promote or perpetrate it. Donald Trump created his political base by insisting at every opportunity that America’s first Black President was a fraud, illegitimate, born in Kenya and ineligible to be President. Donald Trump said that Barack Obama was “the most ignorant President we have ever had”. Trump started his campaign by insisting he would build a wall on the Mexican border to keep the Mexican’s out of the country, and institute a ban on Muslims entering the country to stop terrorism. He has said nothing about keeping illegal immigrants that happen to be white out of the country.

When I went to bed on election night I was embarrassed because our children are watching. People all over the world are watching. The American President has incredible power to influence the actions of others. They are the supreme role-model. Some of our children have already begun to emulate the despicable behavior displayed throughout the campaign at Donald Trump political rallies. They are insulting minorities, ridiculing the disabled, and threatening violence against those that may disagree with them.

I fear for what comes next for my country and the world. War is more likely than peace, and nuclear weapons makes it possible for Donald Trump to destroy civilization itself. Trump is beholden to the Russian government. Evidence indicate the reasons are financial as well as sexual. I fear what the Russians will extort from our new President.

ABC’s Wide World of Sports was an American institution from April 1961 until January 1998. It’s iconic opening sequence featured a terrible crash of a ski jumper, Vinko Bogataj. Just before Bogataj’s crash, the announcer, Jim McKay says “the thrill of victory”, and as the crash occurs, he says… “and the agony of defeat”. Watching the crash, you can’t help but assume that every bone in Bogataj” body is broken, and he probably died.

Bogataj survived the “agony of defeat”. I pray that America will survive it too.

Waiting to Exhale

My best friend and I argue about many things. I think he enjoys it. There are times when I am sure that he takes a position on a certain topic for no other reason than he knows that I feel differently about it. He calls it “poking the bear”, and it works… We fight about football, baseball, basketball, golf, guns, movies, books, food, history, politics, and a thousand other things. One of our more memorable arguments was about the causes of the American Civil War.

We both have read extensively about the war, and visited the battlefields together. We agree that the Civil War was the pivotal event in American history, an existential threat to the nation itself. I have always believed that the reason for the war was slavery. He insisted that the cause was “states’ rights”. For years, he used that argument as the proverbial stick to “poke the bear”. It worked every time. Every time he brought it up he would truly piss me off, and he knew it. Eventually, we decided to agree that the root cause of the Civil War was the Confederate States’ insistence on their “right” to own slaves.

Imagine that. Our nation split in two. State against State. Brother against Brother, Neighbor against Neighbor. We went to war against each other, because one half of the nation, convinced of its racial superiority, insisted it had the right to own Black people as slaves. By the time the war was over, more than 620,000 men would lose their lives in the line of duty, more than World War I, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam, combined.   

That is the power of racism. It is a human defect that has been present within us since the beginning of time.

The Civil War began in 1860. Four score and four years after the Declaration of Independence. One hundred years later, in 1960, the nation found itself engaged in another existential struggle caused by racism. The Civil War had resulted in three amendments to the United States Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship rights to African Americans and former slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans and former slaves. Nevertheless, one hundred years later, in 1960, none of the rights granted by the war and these amendments were reality.

The Civil Rights Movement was required to ensure that the 620,000 lives sacrificed during the Civil War were not given in vain. The movement ensured that the majestic words enshrined in the Lincoln Memorial were not meaningless. More sacrifices would be required. More blood would have to be shed. More tears would have to fall, but once again, the scourge of racism would be forced to retreat, and America would move ever closer to the promise of its creed.

Forty-eight years later, America would elect its first African American President.

Many thought that the election of Barack Obama was clear evidence of a post-racial society. Many thought that his election was proof-positive that American racism was a thing of the past. They were wrong. Racism is not an American problem. Racism is not a Southern problem. It is a human problem, and the election of a Black man as President of the United States was more than most racists could stand.

On Tuesday, November 8, 2016 (just two days away), America will elect a President to succeed Barack Obama. In many ways, Obama’s successor will be more fortunate than he was. They will inherit a nation with few of the problems Obama faced on his first day in office. The worst financial crises since the Great Depression is no more. Interest rates are at record lows, inflation is non-existent, unemployment is 4.9%, and the country has enjoyed 72 consecutive months of job growth, the longest consecutive streak since 1939! Last year, the country had the largest increase in median household income since 1968! And, the number of Americans without health insurance has reached a record low. Not to mention the two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) that were raging are no longer claiming American lives.

I believe that Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States, but I’m not absolutely sure. Donald Trump could win, and that scares me. After watching and listening to Trump for the past year, I am astounded that 40% of American voters are willing to make him President. There have been so many times when he has said and done things that embarrassed me as an American because I know the world is watching, I know that impressionable children are watching. How can tens of millions of American citizens believe that this man should be the leader of the free world? I have asked myself, “is racism that powerful?” “Is ignorance that pervasive?”

I have heard the arguments that all of this is a manifestation of “economic populism”. I listen to the people on television who are paid to say intelligent stuff talking about how all the manufacturing jobs are gone because of “immigration” and “bad trade deals.”

But then I think about the changes that have occurred since the Civil Rights Movement, how the racial caste system was finally destroyed and how the legal barriers to minority achievement have begun to level the economic playing field for minorities. Perhaps that is why minorities are overwhelmingly Democrats, despite the fact that economically and socially they are still suffering more than white Americans.

I hear the pundits talking about how the jobs that only required muscle are gone overseas (where wages are lower). They talk about our “21^st Century” economy that places an emphasis on education. Today, educated minorities are visibly more successful than uneducated whites. Their once “superior” status, which was based simply on being white, is a thing of the past. Many of them still live in towns that have been adversely affected by these fundamental changes.

Is this what they mean when they say they want to “take our country back”?

When Trump says, he will “Make America Great Again” is he talking about before all of this happened? Before the Civil Rights Movement? Before the Civil War?

Who will he take the country back from? The Latinos? The Jews? The Muslims? The African American in the White House?

My best friend and I argue about a lot of things, but we agree on Trump. He is an existential threat to the United States and civilization itself. His appeal is rooted in racist appeals and bigotry. Many of his supporters are victims of an evolving economic system that demands more than they have to give. This is a problem that could, and should be addressed. America has solved bigger problems before, but this one will require Democrats and Republicans working together.

Abraham Lincoln, when facing the nation’s first great existential threat, said “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature”.

It seems as if I have been holding my breath, waiting for this election to end. I pray that this threat to our nation, the “last great hope of mankind”, shall soon pass.

Revenge of The Racists

On June 17, 1994, my niece was married in a beautiful ceremony in New Jersey. I was on my way home, waiting to catch a train back to Maryland in New York’s Penn Station when it became obvious that something was happening. People began to gather around whatever television they could find. Eventually, the buzz was palpable. Almost everybody in the massive edifice was transfixed by the flickering images on the screens. The famous and beloved football player, celebrity, and pitchman, O.J. Simpson and his childhood friend A.C. Cowlings were fleeing the police on the Los Angeles freeways. Live, on T.V., with helicopters overhead, and people lining the streets cheering him on. O.J.’s wife, Nicole, had been murdered along with her friend, Ron Goldman. Their throats had been slashed. Obviously, O.J. was the murderer, why would he be running (with a gun to his head) if he wasn’t? The entire scene was surreal, mesmerizing.

The story would dominate the news for the next year. The trial would make household names of the participants. The nation would hold its collective breath on the day the verdict was announced. Despite a literal mountain of evidence to the contrary, Simpson would be acquitted. Many Black Americans would celebrate. Many others, Black and White, were totally shocked. Many saw the verdict as payback. Figuratively, for the historical abuse of Black people in the legal system since the settlement of the continent, and literally, for the recent acquittal of several white police officers in the vicious, videotaped beating of Rodney King, an unarmed Black man that had precipitated recent riots in Los Angeles.

For once, the system had worked for a Black man as it had worked so many times for whites. It didn’t matter that Simpson may have debated the point if you called him a Black man. Nevertheless, a predominantly Black jury, encouraged by a flamboyant Black defense attorney, decided to exercise the old Southern concept of interposition and nullification and set “The Juice” free.  

Personally, I was never comfortable with the O.J. verdict. I was among the many that were shocked by the acquittal. I understood the possible reasons for it, but deep inside, I felt there would be a price to pay in the future.

Today, Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States of America. Despite the absurdity of it all, Trump could win. The white supremacists love Trump. The Ku Klux Klan loves Trump. Trump admires the dictatorial leaders of Russia, North Korea, China, and Egypt. He despises the American President. Trump advocates torture, murder (of families of suspected terrorists), profiling, finding, and expelling more than ten million Latinos (and their American born children) from the country, while leaving undocumented white people alone. He also wants to block all Muslims from immigrating to America.

The Republican nominee for President has never held an elective office. He has not served in the military. He claims that his enormous success as a businessman qualifies him to be President of the United States. However, he refuses to validate his business acumen or success by making his tax returns public. The information that investigative reporters have been able to obtain casts serious doubt on Trump’s claims concerning his net worth, charitable giving, and yearly income. He would be the first Presidential candidate in more than 50 years that refused to disclose his tax returns.

Recent polling suggests that at least 40% of American voters will vote to make Donald Trump the next President of the United States. More than 80% of them are White. Most of them do not have a college education. Most of them are at least 50 years old. They don’t care if Trump has the intellect, temperament, or organizational skills required of an American President. They don’t care if his stated intentions would make a mockery of the American constitution. They don’t care about what will happen to the Latinos. They are totally unaware of the terrible parallels between Trump’s plan for the Latinos and Adolph Hitler’s plan for the Jews of Europe. They are unaware of the catastrophic effects that banning people of a particular faith (Islam) from the United States would have. They don’t care if American law enforcement mimics the German Gestapo, ordered to spy on Muslim homes and mosques, implicitly signaling that if you are Muslim, you are guilty until proven innocent.

To be sure, not all of Trump’s supporters are old. All of them are not uneducated, ignorant or stupid. Many are smart, intelligent, and calculating. Some are motivated by the possibility of power, celebrity, wealth, and hubris. Nevertheless, the ways and means they obtain their desires are unimportant to them.

Some Republicans can see the danger, and have made their feelings clear. Many of them are cognizant of the facts, and have chosen country over party. They have chosen light over darkness, right over wrong. They realize that it is impossible to alter the arc of history. They understand that the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is not restricted to whites only. They believe it when they pledge that the United States is “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all”.

America is a pluralistic nation, a multicultural society. It always has been, it always will be, or it will cease to be a nation at all.

Recently, I have often found myself thinking of the day when the verdict was announced in the O.J. Simpson trial. I was sure he would be convicted. Just like that day of the police chase on the interstates of Los Angeles, people were gathered around television sets in anxious anticipation of what would happen next. Many were hoping that the jury would interpose their own version of justice. They were hoping the jury would nullify the evidence and set Simpson free. Many others were hoping, even expecting the jury to just do the right thing.

I expect that election day this year will be very similar.

The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case was revenge. Plain and simple.

Will the racists get their revenge this time? 

Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein

In prison culture, a pedophile is called a “short eyes”. A “short eyes” is despised by the rest of the inmates. They are usually separated from the rest of the prison population to prevent them from being killed. They are the lowest of the low.

Donald Trump’s attorneys have been ordered by the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, to appear in courtroom 1506 on September 9, 2016, for an initial status conference for case No. 16-CV-4642 (RA).
https://timinhonolulu.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/20160630-7-order-and-notice-of-initial-conference.pdf

Why? Donald Trump has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1994.

During his campaign for the Presidency of the United States, Donald Trump has said many things that would seemingly disqualify him for the position. Nevertheless, he has persevered, triumphed, and continues to survive. Despite ominous recent polls, he still commands the support of a bedrock base of 35% of the American electorate.

For some reason, despite around-the-clock coverage of the Presidential campaign, the major news organizations refuse to touch this case. It is possible that they all believe it is simply a frivolous lawsuit that could not possibly be true. It is also possible that the consequences of informing the American public would be so catastrophic that no organization wants the responsibility of breaking the story, destroying Trump, the GOP, and its elected officials, and later having Trump exonerated.

Nevertheless…

This is the third time that Donald Trump has been publicly accused of sexual assault or rape.

His first wife, Ivana, in a 1989 deposition accused him of attacking her, pulling her hair out and forcibly penetrating her without her consent. According to the “Daily Beast”, he was angry with her because she had referred him to a cosmetic surgeon to perform a procedure to cover a bald spot, but the result was painful, which is why he pulled her hair out. They were later divorced, and Mrs. Trump later said she did not mean “rape” in a “literal or criminal” sense.

In 1997, According to the “Guardian” and the “Huffington Post”, Jill Harth alleged in a federal lawsuit that Donald Trump violated her “physical and mental integrity” when he touched her intimately without consent after her husband went into business with him, leaving her “emotionally devastated (and) distraught.” She later withdrew the suit when a parallel suit against Mr. Trump brought by her husband was settled. As recently as this year Ms. Harth has stood by her sexual assault allegations.

Lisa Bloom, a legal analyst for NBC News, attorney, and best-selling author described the Jane Doe case in a haunting article in the Huffington Post. In it, she said;

Jane Doe says that Mr. Trump “initiated sexual contact” with her on four occasions in 1994. Since she was thirteen at the time, consent is not an issue. If Mr. Trump had any sexual contact with her in 1994, it was a crime.

On the fourth incident, she says Mr. Trump tied her to a bed and forcibly raped her, in a “savage sexual attack,” while she pleaded with him to stop. She says Mr. Trump violently struck her in the face. She says that afterward, if she ever revealed what he had done, Mr. Trump threatened that she and her family would be “physically harmed if not killed.” She says she has been in fear of him ever since.

New York’s five-year statute of limitations on this claim – the legal deadline for filing – has long since run. However, Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Meagher, argues in his court filing that because she was threatened by Mr. Trump, she has been under duress all this time, and therefore she should be permitted additional time to come forward. Legally, this is called “tolling” – stopping the clock, allowing more time to file the case. As a result, the complaint alleges, Jane Doe did not have “freedom of will to institute suit earlier in time.”

Two unusual documents are attached to Jane Doe’s complaints – sworn declarations attesting to the facts. The first is from Jane Doe herself, telling her horrific story, including the allegation that Jeffrey Epstein also raped her and threatened her into silence, and this stunner;

“Defendant Epstein then attempted to strike me about the head with his closed fists while he angrily screamed at me that he, Defendant Epstein, should have been the one who took my virginity, not Defendant Trump…”

And this one;

“Defendant Trump stated that I shouldn’t ever say anything if I didn’t want to disappear like Maria, a 12-year-old female that was forced to be involved in the third incident with Defendant Trump and that I had not seen since that third incident, and that he was capable of having my whole family killed.”

The second declaration is even more astonishing, because it is signed by “Tiffany Doe”, Mr. Epstein’s “party planner” from 1991-2000. Tiffany Doe says that her duties were “to get attractive adolescent women to attend these parties.”

Tiffany Doe says that she recruited Jane Doe at the Port Authority in New York, persuaded her to attend Mr. Epstein’s parties, and actually witnessed the sexual assaults on Jane Doe.

“I personally witnessed the Plaintiff being forced to perform various sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were advised that she was 13 years old.”

It is exceedingly rare for a sexual assault victim to have a witness, but Tiffany Doe says;

“I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.”

I will never be certain that Mr. Trump did or did not commit this unspeakable crime. What is certain, is that the allegation has been made. We are certain that a witness that worked for Mr. Epstein at the time corroborates the allegation. We know that a personal relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein existed at that time, and that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire pedophile who is a “Level 3 registered sex offender”, “a threat to public safety” – after being convicted of misconduct with another underage girl.

I am also certain that I am in agreement with the prison population of America when they say they want nothing to do with any man that would sexually abuse a child. They don’t want a man like that on their cell block or in their cell. I don’t want a man like that in my neighborhood or in my house. They think a man like that is disgusting. I do too.

I’m trying to picture a man like that in the White House.

Short Eyes.

I can’t do it. 

America, is better than that.

Black Lives DON'T Matter

On Tuesday, July 6, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Alton B. Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man was arrested by two white police officers. They wrestled him to the ground. While he was pinned to the ground at least one of the officers pulled his service weapon and shot him several times. Mr. Sterling died. The event was captured on cell phone video and broadcast to the world on social media.

The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American man was driving his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Riding with him was his girlfriend. Her 4-year-old daughter was riding in the back seat. Police officers pulled him over. According to his girlfriend, Mr. Castile informed the officer that he had a license to carry a firearm and that it was in the car. The officer shot him as he sat in the car. Mr. Castile died. His girlfriend used her cell phone to record the scene, including the haunting image of the officer’s weapon pointed menacingly inside the car. The video was broadcast around the world on social media.

The protest marches began immediately. From coast to coast large groups of people gathered to protest the killings. The “Black Lives Matter” movement was center stage, rallying young, old, Black, Latino, white, and Asian Americans to demand an end to the continuing destruction of Black lives by the police.

One of the protests occurred in Dallas, Texas. This time, a Black, U.S. Army veteran decided to use an assault rifle to attack the police. Targeting white police officers, he shot 14. He killed five.

Everything changed.

The grief and anger I had experienced on Tuesday and Wednesday was now fear. I feared that the racists and bigots would use the killing of five white police officers to encourage and justify additional violence against Blacks. I feared that the cable news networks would sensationalize the tragedy to the point of feeding a perpetual frenzy of retaliation. I feared 1968 all over again. I feared the race war that the skinheads, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists have been pining for just might be possible.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement is polarizing, but needed because Black lives don’t matter in our country. That has been a fact since the birth of the nation. It was codified in the Constitution. It was certified during slavery. It was confirmed by the Supreme Court. It was practiced via Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, segregation and systemic discrimination. The fact that Black lives don’t matter in America is in evidence by comparing segregated rural and inner city schools and predominately white suburban and private schools. It is evident by comparing the incarceration rate for black men to others, by comparing household incomes, and unemployment rates. Notice the political response to the victims of crack addiction and the victims of prescription opioid addiction. The former was considered a criminal justice problem, the latter is considered a medical problem.

It is precisely because Black lives don’t matter in America, that Black people must insist that they do. It is insulting for anyone to say white lives or blue lives matter. That is simply stating the obvious. Everybody already knows the lives of white people and police matter. Black people are simply saying, “our lives matter too… so stop killing us, stop marginalizing us…

There have been several times in recent years when I have been shaken to the core by unspeakable violence and ultimate evil… 9/11, Newtown, Orlando, Charleston, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino, Dallas, and the Washington Navy Yard. It did not matter to me what color the victims were. My humanity is not based on the color of the victim.

Thou shalt not kill.

How can a “Christian” nation allow such unabated carnage?

I am encouraged by the courageous voices of some of our nation’s leaders that are urging a peaceful dialogue and reconciliation. Americans continue to gather together to express their anger, pay their respects, and to insist that Black lives do matter. I am encouraged that they continue to gather peacefully, and to express their appreciation to those police officers that treat them respectfully, making an effort to understand and respond to their righteous anger in a caring and understanding way.

There are times when I don’t know what to do, times when I don’t know what to say. Most often, grief is the villain that leaves me this way. Today I grieve for the Black victims of unnecessary police executions. I grieve for the White victims of senseless retaliation. I feel for those that will die tomorrow and the people that love them. When I don’t know what to say, I read the words of others…

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

Begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,

But you can’t murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,

But you do not murder hate.

So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

Adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

Only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.