Notes from a Disillusioned Democrat

 Back in 2016, Trump managed to knock 15 other Republican opponents out of the race and went on to win the presidency. He was able to do so because he had a genius for galvanizing listeners. Some of what he did was ugly--the "Lock her up" chants come to mind as well as his incessant ranting about immigrants.  Perhaps the ugliest event was Trump offering to pay the legal bills for anyone beating up an African American heckler. In other ways, he had a visceral feel for the pulse of the nation, especially working class and middle-class men whose wages had not kept up with inflation and who feared losing their well-paying factory jobs and being forced to work as Dollar Store cashiers. He touched anti-war voters with his promise to end the conflicts that drained America of its blood and treasure.  On a personal level, he acted like he was having fun at his rallies, that he liked his supporters and enjoyed being with them. He had a marketing genius as well--those red MAGA hats....

  Last night, September 24, 2024, Marcellus Williams was executed. He had been convicted of the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle Picus, a journalist, who was stabbed many times--some sources say 16 times while others claim 43 times--with a butcher knife taken from her kitchen. She had lived in a gated community in the city of University City, Missouri.  A photo of Felicia Picus appears below. She should not be forgotten because of the controversy over the execution. She had worked as a journalist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch . She was also a social worker.  Her husband found her body when he came home. Williams's conviction relied on the eyewitness testimony of two people, both of whom were "incentivized" to testify against him. Both had long arrest records. An analysis of the murder weapon revealed male DNA that did not belong to Williams. Picus's family did not want Williams to be executed.  The Innocence Project supported Williams's claims but this blogger insi...

 No, I am not advocating armed revolution, but I do enjoy the spirit of this cartoon: 

  A map will make this post easier to follow. This one shows Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, in red, at the lower-right corner. This map also shows the Kursk Oblast, of which the city of Kursk is the capital. Kursk is shown in the upper-right corner.  While largely unknown inside the US, the Ukrainian missile attack on the Russian city of Sevastopol, in Crimea, killed several people, including the 9-year-old Sofia, the daughter of Yuri Grishan, the Mayor of Magadan, Russia. Most people in Crimea--60 percent or more--are ethnic Russians although Crimea itself has been under control of both Russia and Ukraine at different times in history. Most recently, the area was annexed--or occupied, depending on your perspective--by Russia in 2014.  The attack used US-supplied ATACMS--Army Tactical Missile System--which uses GPS signals emitted by satellites.  Predictably, the Russian government has blamed the US government:  Russia's defence ministry said the missiles ...

South Florida has the nation's largest Haitian community--nearly half a million people. I lived in South Florida for over fifty years and have heard my share of comments, good and bad, true and false, about the Haitian community. In the decades I lived in Florida, I never once heard any comments about Haitians eating cats. There were no rumors of disappearing pets. Maybe a mentally ill Haitian has killed and eaten a cat but eating cats is NOT the cultural norm for Haitians.  Because I have taught Haitians high school students, I was particularly disturbed by the cat-eating allegations. These rumors make my former students look like subhumans when nothing could be further from the truth. Most Haitians coming to America work hard, have struggled to learn English, and encourage their kids to get a good education. It takes courage to immigrate to a country with another language and defaming them is a gross injustice.   The rumor appears to have started because of two factors...

  Jill Stein recently did an interview with the Breakfast Club, in which she details the ways in which the Democratic Party has tried to sabotage her candidacy.  If you can't watch the whole thing, I have summarized key points below.  The gist of her allegation is that the Democratic Party is using "lawfare" to block the Green Party from the ballot because it might suck voters from Kamala Harris. In contrast, the party has fought to keep RFK Jr on the ballot because he might draw voters away from Trump.  In her interview, she alleges that the Democrats:  Have tried to get her banned from ballots even if she has MORE than the required signatures. Pulls out all the stops to throw their opponents off the ballot--but only the ones who will take votes from Kamala Harris They search for trivial details and use them to suppress ballot access Advertise for infiltrators and spies to work within the Green Party to sabotage their electoral chances Blocked her access to the...

I registered as a Democrat when I was still in high school. I joined the party that opposed unnecessary wars and stood up for the working class. If the Democrats had nominated someone like Bernie Sanders--or another candidate with similar views--I would vote for Sanders or a like-minded Democrat with zero hesitation and I would not be writting posts supportive of Trump who, alas, is the most mainstream sort-of antiwar candidate with a chance of winning.   Unfortunately, during the first election after the disastrous Iraq War, whom did the Democrats nominate? John Kerry, who voted for the Iraq War.  In 2008 and 2012, the Party couldn't very well oppose Obama, for obvious reasons, and bless the man, he did oppose the Iraq War before it started. It is also my sense that the Democrat establishment did their best to do an end-run around his more dovish foreign policy after he was elected.  Once Obama had served his eight years, the party went back to form and nominated Hi...

 For the record, I do NOT believe that Haitians are eating cats. The story sounds like an urban legend that has its basis in fear of an unknown culture.  Still, I did laugh at this video and the picture below it.

  Judging by their silence, our media elite seem not to care about whether Americans lose their lives in war. During the debate, Trump was asked if he wanted Ukraine to win the war. His response: I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly -- people being killed by the millions. It's the millions. It's so much worse than the numbers that you're getting, which are fake numbers. . . . If I win, when I'm President-Elect, and what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other, I'll get them together. That war would have never happened. And in fact when I saw Putin after I left, unfortunately left because our country has gone to hell, but after I left when I saw him building up soldiers, he did it after I left, I said oh, he must be negotiating. It must be a good strong point of negotiation. Well, it wasn't because Biden had no idea how to talk to him. He had no idea how to stop it. And now you have millions of people ...