A DICTATOR DICTATES - WE DO NOT HAVE TO COMPLY!

by Ruth A. Sheets

Yesterday was World AIDS Day.  You probably didn’t know that and were not reminded because Donald Trump decided the United States was not going to commemorate it, as though it doesn’t exist.  I was surprised Trump even knew there was such a thing as World AIDS Day (he probably didn’t).  The cadre of hateful folks around him, Trump’s Toddler Pool spends their time finding ways to get their “boss” to demonstrate their hatreds and his.  Folks like Steve Miller, Russell Vought, JD Vance, mostly rich white men want us to think of AIDS as the gay disease that was around in the 1980s and nothing more. 

Donald Trump and the Pool also want to rewrite American history, science, and medicine to place white men at the center of everything, to dismiss everyone else as just burdens white men have to bear.  They decide which laws they will follow and ignore the rest.  They threaten to “hang” Democrats who remind our military and intelligence communities they are required not to follow illegal orders.  They blast small boats out of the water in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific supposedly because they are transporting drugs (with no proof), even killing survivors, all of which are against American and international law.  The Pool and its “leader” desperately want to be seen as powerful enough to dictate everything to the people of this nation, even what is truth.

Their super rich “friends” like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and a few others have bought up our media, online, in print, and on air and have been working hard to shape it to whatever story Trump and the Pool want told and with the language they will approve.  Clearly these media owners are getting something for sacrificing their integrity (if they ever had any).  I think it is being “in the room where it happens,” or rather making sure they have a hand in what happens in that room.  For that “presence, they will cover only what Trump (and the Pool want covered, a win-win for them and a lose-lose for the rest of the American people. 

They have dictated that climate change (global warming) is a hoax and threatened Republican members of Congress that they must vote for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” even though there is nothing positive in it for their constituents.  They told Republicans in Congress to cut funding for public broadcasting, libraries, museums, infrastructure programs, mitigation of climate change, and more, whose funding congress had already approved.  In short, I can’t think of a single thing Trump and the Toddler Pool have done since gaining office nearly a year ago.

We the People are not helpless.  We can communicate our opposition to our representatives at all levels and vote for those who have our interests in mind.  We have participated in significant protests, the most recent “No Kings” event brought 7 million people out to say “no” to the dictator would-be-king.  Conservative school boards around the country have been replaced with boards that do not want their curricula and practices dictated by people who are ignorant of nearly everything.  The uninvolved have stepped up to protest cuts in SNAP, Medicaid, unaffordable healthcare, issues which have touched them personally. 

People in our cities have been standing in the way of ICE as the illegal law-enforcement troop drags people from their homes, cars, and off the street  and disappears them into appalling prisons and concentration camps.  People are standing with and for neighbors they didn’t know before.

Workers are demanding unions and not accepting the treatment that current bosses are dishing out.  Young people are demanding better on the job and off.

People of many faiths, ages,  and backgrounds voted for a young mayor, Mamdani,  for NYC, and plan to work for the issues he stands on.  The idea that there could be housing, child care, and public transportation for everyone is spreading.

We must find ways to reach out to people who see the world differently from us and hear about their needs, their dreams, and what keeps them supporting a group of folks who care nothing for them and prove it on a daily basis.  We can’t impact the world view of people if we don’t  understand them, and with understanding, we can encourage them to fight with us for things we have in common, our nation for example!

THE EPA HAS DECIDED CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT REAL. WHAT!

By Ruth A. Sheets

Yo!  Lee Zeldin,  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, wake up!  Your future also depends on the decisions you make now.  At this moment, you are not on a good track in the decision-making department.  Check this out and maybe you’ll decide to do better.

Let's face it, no matter what those like you, who are ignorant of a subject, put into positions you know nothing about think, science is real and so is global warming/climate change.  I do wonder why so many Trump/Republican appointees have decided lying about reality is a good thing; it isn't, it is just ignorance made manifest!  

I communicate with you as a concerned citizen to implore you to uphold your Agency's Endangerment Findings and maintain vital climate standards.  That's the intelligent thing to do, but it is not clear where in the current EPA leadership intelligence lies if it is present there at all.  What do you think?

The Endangerment Finding is an assessment of the challenges faced by the people and environment caused by human activity:  fossil fuel burning, power plant emissions, harmful chemicals, and more.  Revoking the Endangerment Finding would ignore overwhelming science and endanger public health. In addition, this set of proposals you are championing undoes the vehicle emissions standards. Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution and these standards are critical to limiting dangerous heat-trapping emissions.  Is there someone intelligent there to understand this?  I am not sure.  Either way, do you care!

From the beginning in the early 1970s, the EPA’s duty has been to base decisions on science and to protect the public from dangerous pollution, just as Nixon and his scientists expected.  What you are proposing now advances polluter interests, not the EPA’s mission.  Why would you permit this? 

Have you considered that this means the polluters are also lacking in  basic thinking skills (I guess greed does that to you). They will be physically impacted by the extra pollution, just like we, the  expendable peons, even if they/you can't see it.  Greenhouse and other gases are invisible, but they allow for heating of our world.  The visible pollution is also dangerous because it can cause cancer and other lovely medical conditions and you rich folks get those too.

I am hoping there is a spark of intelligence left at EPA that will cause you to uphold the Endangerment Finding and keep strong climate protections in place.  Stop listening to the demands of the folks who will want you all to take the blame when storms, floods, wildfires get worse and start killing even more people, not to mention the wildlife. 

Do the right thing for a change.  Get the word out that the rules will stay in place for now until you "study" the situation, then keep “studying” over and over until people in the white house forget.  Do you have the courage to do that or are you just a lacky whose intelligence was left behind when coming to work for an administration for whom intelligence is a liability? 

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear 2020 era Republicans,

Wow!  There seem to be no depths to which many of you will not go these days.  Even in the midst of a pandemic, you worry more about coddling huge corporations than taking care of the PPE (protective gear) needs of front-line workers.  You cover for every misstep Mr. Trump makes as he fumbles his way through challenges that he neither understands nor really cares about.  You in the Senate of the United States continue to approve nominees from partisan operatives to stack our courts with people you are pretty sure will be unfair to most of the people of this country, you know, the ones that are not rich, white, straight “Christian” males.  You are OK with the Senate being neutered by Mr. McConnell for his own purposes, possibly yours too, that isn’t entirely clear yet.

As you Republicans all well know, Mr. Trump is not fit to hold the office of president, but you just love him because you can manipulate him into doing the damage to this nation you have wanted to do for a long time.  Among the damage:

-destroy the post office even though it is provided for in the Constitution, to benefit rich corporations who will donate to your future campaigns
-Destroy public lands on behalf of hugely wealthy  donors
-force through judgeships for people who are neither qualified nor ethically suited to be a judge of anything
-slow and impede the response to COVID19 at the expense of many lives.  Your president is OK with it since they are mostly old people and people of color who are dying, and in blue states too, win-win-win!
-You give most of the money in stimulus to the huge corporations who, by rights, should be able to fend for themselves with all the other corporate welfare you have blessed them with over the years.
-You are trying to reinstate the “Patriot Act” which was wrong when it was passed by the frightened white guys in Congress who couldn’t think of anything else but to take away people’s rights and supports in a time of crisis, unfortunately shaming and lying colleagues into going along with you.
-You allow our Justice Department to become Mr. Trump’s lapdogs, instating and dismissing cases at the president’s whim
-You dismiss climate change (global warming) as a hoax, which of course you know it isn’t, and that it’s serious.  What does that make you, hypocrites?
-You are OK with gerrymandering, voter suppression in its many forms, and forcing voters to go in crowds to vote and risk their lives or give up the vote.

I could go on because there is so much I didn’t get to, but alas, you wouldn't read it anyway.  You all are deeply under the spell of a man who thinks and acts like an 8-year-old school yard bully and you all know that about him.  He is moving into the beginnings of dementia.  You all know that too and still cling to him because Republicans, you know, are ethically bankrupt.  You knew Mr. Trump committed the crimes he was impeached for, and more.  To prove you knew, you made it so there could be no witnesses in his trial.  That says nothing about Mr. Trump's innocence, only your guilt.

As a teacher, during Teacher Appreciation Week, I am alas, saddened to see the lack of critical thinking employed by Republicans for the past 70 years or so, from McCarthy to Trump-McConnell.  Thank goodness there have been a few bright lights among your party’s members, but ah, , too few.  I can’t help but wonder if we teachers are just not teaching critical thinking sufficient for people to make better decisions or if something else is at play.

And then, there are the ethics.  I can’t help but wonder if you are all OK with the lying and cheating that many of your party are using to obtain and maintain office:  gerrymandering, voter suppression, purging the voting roles.  You know the purpose of all these things is to deny voting rights to your fellow citizens.  You do it under the guise of protection from voter fraud, but in recent years, nearly all the voter fraud in the extremely rare cases where there was any, was done by Republican voters.

I can only hope you all will do better in the future for the sake of all of us, but the nearly certain thing, change is really hard, especially if you are getting the changes to our country you want for your own benefit.  You might start to think a bit about why you want so many to have fewer rights than you have, why you continue to blame poor people for their poverty, why you think rich people deserve more than everyone else and keep pumping money into their pockets.  Why do you despise young people so much (except your own kids, of course) that you dismiss their demands for a strong positive response to climate change (global warming), voting rights, poverty, human rights, sensible gun control, and their other issues.

Your party hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory this past quarter century.  Don’t you think it’s about time you stage your own rebellion and occasionally, put the needs of others who perhaps don’t look, think, or believe like you, ahead of your party’s destructive agenda?  Sadly, I don’t see that happening.

If you were ready to rebel at all, you would be telling McConnell, “no more nominee approvals until the nation is back on its feet, and no more incompetents approved.”  You’d tell Mr. Trump to listen to the experts, and he himself is not an expert on this.  You’d be 100% behind laws to insure every American citizen has the right and ability to vote unimpeded in every election.  You’d see the pain Americans are experiencing now and you’d be standing with them doing everything in your power to get those frontline workers everything they need to care for themselves and the people they encounter.

I know, I hear you laughing or, some of you, tossing a curse in my direction.  Oh well, another fault of us teachers.  We haven’t taught you to take and learn from a critique. 

CHANGE OF FUTURE

by Ruth A. Sheets

We need a very different future than was on the drawing board before COVID19 hit.  Our representatives and fellow Americans need to take a variety of actions to change the trajectory of this nation and the world.  COVID19 has clearly pointed out problems our leaders have chosen to ignore in the past.  The time of ignorance is now gone and we must step up to meet the challenges facing us.

The following are some actions we can take to reshape the future in ways that will benefit everyone.

1. Global warming will move front and center in our thinking and every action.
a. we must become less of a super consumer society and more a reduce, reuse, and recycle kind of folks, with recycling plants all over the place.
b. Everyone will need solar panels and electric vehicles should become the standard.
c. Burning coal, except at limited levels will be outlawed,
d. Massive funding of renewable energy sources will take place, like the “man on the moon” efforts of the 1960s.

2. The flora and fauna that share our planet will have a more prominent place in our thinking and planning.  –

3. Our oceans must stop being our dumping place and our places for drilling and destruction.

4. Health care in this nation should be universal and supervised by the government.  No one should be making money on the suffering of others beyond salaries and general expenses.

5. Education should be funded at levels sufficient to provide children and young adults with the knowledge they will need to effectively maintain a career, participate actively in the life of the community in which they live, and be active informed citizens in the society.

6. The United States Postal Service, which is called for in the Constitution should be appropriately funded and should be able to perform basic banking  activities, particularly for lower income persons who may not be able to afford a bank.

7. Our prison system needs to be revamped so rehabilitation and treatment are the goals rather than just hiding away people of color in private for profit institutions.  No prison should be run by any entity but the local, state, or federal government who sentenced the prisoners.

8. Immigration will be addressed.  We need the general public to understand that refugees would not
be leaving their homes unless circumstances forced them to do so.
a. There should be a path to citizenship for all who were brought to or came to this country as children and it should not cost them a fortune.
b. The detention/concentration camps for immigrants will be closed and those imprisoned in them will be quickly and properly processed, most allowed to stay here.
c. Anyone who is a parent of US citizen children should have a path to citizenship too so they can stay and provide for those children.
d. In short, deportations need to stop.
e. Bans on citizens of other nations unless we are specifically at war with that nation or face a pandemic must stop permanently and not be allowed to be manipulated by a president or political party for its own edification.

9. Voting at all levels should involve automatic registration upon reaching 18 and mail-in options for anyone who chooses that, particularly during a natural disaster.
a. Voting security will be a priority.
b. voter suppression and gerrymandering will be permanently disallowed.  

10. Congressional procedures must change.
a. No one person in Congress should be able to block all legislation and votes on issues critical to the people of the nation and use extortion as Mr. McConnell has done for the past 5 years.
b. There should be a 60 vote majority in the Senate or a +5 votes to the number of senators in the majority to approve anyone for a lifetime appointment to a court.
c. Lobbyists must be removed from central positions in our government and lobbying should be a volunteer activity in which no favors or gifts can be passed to or from government officials.  Corporations and individuals with huge money pots should not be able to have more governmental influence than less wealthy individuals and groups.

11.  -Women and men will be legally recognized as equals and people will be respected and heard no matter their race, age, gender, LGTB status, political party, or any other factor.
a. Women will have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies
b. All kinds of reproductive health care will be available to all persons on request, including contraception and pregnancy services.  
c. LGTBQ citizens will have the full rights of any citizen without exception.
d. A committee will be assembled to begin addressing issues of reparation for African-Americans related to slavery and the racism that followed.

12. Workers will have basic rights and a living wage through a “workers’ bill of rights which will include paid sick leave, child care, and other needed services and protections.

13. Taxes on the wealthiest will be considerably higher than pre-COVID19, after companies are up and running and workers are back on the job, perhaps, a 2-year window after the crisis is past).

14. We will become more prepared for everything including natural disasters, pandemics, and more through appropriate funding.

15. We need to employ experts to get these actions going and share findings with everyone who can help.

16. We need to set ethical standards for whom we will nominate for public office and hold them to those standards.  The “lesser of two evils” should no longer be an acceptable means for judging a person’s ability to govern.  This one can’t be legislated, but it can be promoted through all media.

17. Dividers among us need to take a back seat for a while so others can succeed in bringing us together to accomplish this work.

This is an ambitious agenda, but we will need an ambitious agenda if we are to have a prosperous nation and a livable world, and we are running out of time to get this going.  This time of “sheltering in place” may give us all time to think about how we will live the next few years, what kind of world we will leave our children and grandchildren, what kind of people we will become through and beyond this crisis.  We have the time, let’s use it wisely.

OPEN LETTER TO Senator Patrick J. Toomey

Pat Toomey, career politician  

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear Senator Toomey,

I know you care nothing for the global warming that is taking over our planet, but I thought I would try to convince you to support the Paris Climate agreement along with the entire rest of the world.  The U.S. is really not looking good when it is the only nation standing outside the agreement, and doing nothing nationally to stop global warming.  Knowing this and that the rest of Republican America is with you, I can’t help but think Republicans care nothing for their children, grandchildren, and into the future.  What would make anyone think otherwise? 

Global warming is the greatest crisis in our lifetime.  It needs your attention.  One way to address this crisis would be passing a law stating the United States will remain in the Paris climate agreement despite what Mr. Trump wants.  (who by the way knows nothing about global warming).

A difficult, but meaningful way to do this would be to cosponsor S.Res.404, a resolution sponsored by Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland. This resolution would ensure  the U.S. officially remains in the Paris Climate Agreement, accelerate U.S. efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage our leadership in making the agreement more than just pieces of paper.

We really don’t have much time to act, yet  instead of moving forward the United States is stepping back from any leadership we could have had in saving our planet.  You and other Republican Senators have allowed Mr. McConnell to decide for you that nothing will be done to protect our air, land, and water or to cut greenhouse emissions.  This, of course, means you are in agreement with him.  Letting the EPA reduce protections for our air, water, and land puts us all at risk, yes, even you wealthy folks.  You ultimately have to breathe the same air and drink the same water.  (Oh wait, you think bottled water won’t be affected don’t you?) 

I get it, Republicans standing against Donald Trump is really hard.  I honestly have no idea what he has over you, and I know he would throw you under the bus if you cross him, but it is time you stand up for yourself and for the people of Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world.  Think about the future generations of your own family if you can’t summon caring for anyone else.

Thank you, 
Ruth Sheets

OVERWHELMED AGAIN

by Ruth A. Sheets

Over four and a half years ago I wrote a blog about how overwhelmed I was at Republican vitriol after Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012.  One would have thought he had a mandate to get his agenda passed.  That, of course, is not what happened.  State legislatures had gerrymandered districts so thoroughly that the House of Representatives was heavily weighted toward Republicans, and those Republicans could not bring themselves to support anything President Obama favored, and  racism raised its ugly head. 

Since then, the attacks on the American system have exploded.  A sexist, racist bully has been elected president by the Electoral College, an outdated structure designed originally to protect Southern states and their desire to maintain slavery.  He lost the popular vote, you know the vote by individual Americans by nearly 3 million votes, yet he believes he has a mandate to totally rework the American government.  Gerrymandering has increased significantly, so it will be harder for Democrats or Independents to stop any of the "mandated" legislation, no matter how much it hurts the people.

The majority of the American people don't want any of Trump's proposals for government change, yet we may get it anyway, perhaps all of it.  We daily face the blows to our democracy, like the ones below.

- Encourage or at least allow members of the Trump campaign to meet with Russians whose goal was to disrupt the election on behalf of Mr. Trump.
- Approve as a partisan Senate totally inappropriate secretaries to head all the governmental departments that serve the American people.  They are either incompetent (Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development - I guess that growing up in public housing makes you an expert in it) or totally opposed to the department they are heading, to the point of trying to bring the department down, (most of the rest of them).
- Install relatives and other cronies who have minimal experience with anything related to governing.
- Start A shouting contest with a foreign entity that has access to nuclear weapons and a leader as unstable as ours, as though nuclear war is a positive.
- Ban Muslims from coming into our country even to visit.
- Stop the flow of refugees who are desperate, have been heavily vetted, and have nowhere else to go.
- surround the president with people whom he expects to lie for him to support his own lies.
- Cut funds that support family planning around the world which help  countries that are already in distress due to climate change and overpopulation.
- Oh, then, there's Climate Change, alright, it's really GLOBAL WARMING!  deny that anything is happening to the climate.  Not by choice of the American people, but by executive order, pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
- Allow coal, oil, and gas companies to continue to pollute at high levels because it costs too much to lower the emissions, even though deaths from the pollution are mounting.  Oh, by the way, it's OK for coal companies to dump their waste in streams and rivers.  Too bad folks downstream!
- Treat the citizens, American citizens of Puerto Rico with such disrespect that more than a month after the most devastating hurricane they have experienced in a century, most of the people still do not have access to power or clean water.
- "Order" the NFL to fire anyone who protests the way African-Americans are being treated in our justice system by "taking a knee" during the National Anthem.
- Insult the families of military personnel who have died, and when it is reported, claim it didn't happen and insult a respected Congresswoman.  Have your staff continue the insults too.
- Claim white supremacists are fine people and equate them with people who are peacefully protesting the group's racist actions.
- Nominate justices to the Federal courts who are mostly male, very young, hold extremely conservative positions on nearly every issue, and who are often not even qualified by modern standards to sit on any bench.
- Propose a tax bill that claims to give BIG breaks to middle class people, but actually gives BIGGER cuts to the wealthiest, who can now incorporate and get a 50% tax cut or just take their operations off shore.  In the process, cut all programs that serve poor disadvantaged citizens and communities, protect the environment, and improve our infrastructure.
- Begin a process to open public lands to drilling and mining, propose to close some National Parks, and double or triple park admissions.
- Call any news coverage you don't  like "fake news" and undermine journalists and limit access.
- Sabotage the Affordable Care Act by cutting the amount of time people have to sign up, cutting nearly all the money for advertising, and severely limiting the number of people who can  help citizens navigate the sign-up process, all leading to higher premiums and other problems.
- Appoint a "Voter Fraud" Commission manned by people who want desperately to limit voting, especially voting by people of color, young people, and a lot of other folks (who just might be Democrats).

Overwhelmed!  The majority of Americans want none of this, but Republicans are plowing head with all of it and more.  The list above could be twice as long.  How can we stand for the American people in the face of this onslaught?  That is the question I ask myself often before I think I might give up.

Well, this is my country as much as it is Mr. Trump's and I know Mr. Trump can only see dollar signs when he looks at every issue.  He allows only people around him who see the same dollar signs and will work to destroy any American institutions that might hinder his free-wheeling acquisition of money and power.

What do we do.  We read the list, We vote for people who will stand against these actions.  we pick a few things we can stand against, then we fight as hard as we can on those issues.  We find others who can stand with us.  There are great organizations working to stop the insanity.  We are not victims if we stand up to the bullying, lying, cheating, and hate.  We are patriotic Americans.