TRUMP’S PARTING QUID PRO QUO

 

The Republican Senate in November of 2017 approved the $1.5 Trillion Tax Relief Bill skewed to assist the wealthy and major corporations but not without an offer to repay some major part of the cost of debt.

 

That payment would involve a deal: the reassignment of public lands as well as Native American lands as leasable to private oil, gas, and energy companies just before the end of Trump’s first term in office. 

 

Those lands, the “Coastal Plain” of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge represent nearly 8 percent of the 19 million acres of publicly owned land that is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  In addition, the Trump Tax Relief Bill also provided subsidies for oil and gas industries, cuts in federal investments for clean energy development, and the lessening of plans to control climate change.  But there’s more: Trump’s administration has added to the $8 Billion gas and oil companies already receive in tax benefits as well as reducing royalty rates to be paid to the U.S government for use of lands, etc. 

 

The “coastal plain” is nearly 1.5 million acres, but it is also the environmental and biological heart of the ANWR, supplying life to the migrations of thousands of caribou, providing safe denning for hundreds of polar bears, protecting endangered avian species, and maintaining large salmon resources.  And the home of indigenous peoples who depend on those resources for their culture and survival.  

 

Trump started the process for selling oil rights in the coastal plains just after his election loss on November 17^th.  The procedure included a 30 day window for oil companies to confidentially tell the government which pieces of land they would like to include in a possible lease.  

 

Like a car, it’s a lease that ends with an option to buy and own.  Or, the companies can turn it back over to the Native Americans after they've “developed it (aka mutilated) beyond recognition.  But, if profitable, the companies can purchase it and carry on.

 

Although distasteful, this is not really very new.  Land reform deals where Roman patricians gained financially over plebes through swindles of acreage and the emperor over those same patricians reach back to 500 BC, but oil companies have been salivating over this opportunity in the coastal plain of ANWR for decades.

 

Patterns of seismic blasting the '84 and '85.

Between 1984 and 1985, more than 20 oil companies found means and method to survey the lands under the coastal plains, leaving scars and pockmarks that lasted many years.  Findings were unclear, but in 1986, Chevron and BP got the opportunity to spend $40 million and drill down 3 miles to find the answer, an answer no one is allowed to know. The well was called KIC-1.  

 

We’ll never know if there was oil or not – unless BP or Chevron (now Standard Oil) give away their position when bidding on a lease. Through the work of their hordes of lawyers and subsequent court filings, the two companies were able to muzzle the Alaskan Department of Natural Resources from releasing any of the two companies’ data.   

 

As for Alaska?  A Republican state without income or sales taxes and dependent upon its 50% of all revenue from mandated lease sales, despite its effects upon its indigenous people?  They can easily look the other way as the political process continues.

 

If you were wondering what another four years of Trump might look like, this is just one small sample of what he would do and is doing to burn it down before leaving an office in shambles for the next President.  President Biden may find his hands somewhat tied if Trump and his gang can get the leases finalized before he is forced to leave office on the 20^th of January, but Biden does control the permitting process afterward and the future costs enough to make even BP or Chevron take pause.    

Let's hope he does.

 

Resources: Center for American Progress and NRDC

 

 

 

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

 

Back in 2016, a larger number of people I worked with admitted they were going to vote for Trump for two reasons: they detested the well-established power of Hillary Clinton AND they wanted to send someone to the Whitehouse who would destroy the status quo.  

 

They sure did.

 

Now in 2020, Clinton has disappeared in the rearview mirror, but Trump is about to pay all of us (even supporters) back for the electoral college loss.  Not simply refusing to concede the election in order to soak them all once again for money to “fight” the inevitable, but also to lay the framework(s) for kneecapping Biden’s Administration for the next four years after January 20^th.  And, in so doing, likely loose economic havoc upon the nation if possible in order to show us just how sorely he will be missed after being fired.  Always the Imperial Sulker. 

 

This week, treasury Secretary Mnuchin began an unexpected battle with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about how to handle the remnants of nearly $1.8 trillion provided by the Congress for the CARES Act, passed in March of 2020, to assist the businesses, markets, and working population suffering from the effects of the Covid pandemic.  

 

Ignoring the current precipitous climb in Covid cases nationally as coldly as he ignores the lack of any actual plan to do anything by a Whitehouse which has not addressed or attended any Task Force meetings for two months, Mnuchin cites the economy’s “great shape” as reason enough to pull money back to the Congress that was earmarked for the Federal Reserve for use in playing lifeguard if economic conditions were to drown.  

 

You can read this later: (Very simply put, the money in the CARES Act was given to the Federal Reserve to provide money to all of us in need as the pandemic wreaked destruction on our economy: cutting borrowing rates, maintaining lowered interest rates, actually purchasing massive amounts of securities to stabilize residential and commercial mortgage backed borrowing, providing safety backstops for to cover losses for money market funds hit hard by the initial responses to Covid, eased overnight lending for cash and short term requests to keep price stability, assistance to small businesses, relief for municipal and state governments, and many more.)

 

Riding the market’s high wave of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine announcements, Mnuchin, according to the New York Times, “is taking away a source of economic support just as the new administration comes into office and as rising virus cases dog the recovery.  By asking the Fed to return the money that enables the emergency efforts, he could make it harder for the Democrats to restart then at a larger scale or on more generous terms.”

 

Get it?  Things are probably to get worse with the Covid before they get better; the economy is therefore going to falter; and there will now not be any money left to help counter the problem.  

 

One policy economist stated, “It is not just closing down the store for Biden; it’s burning down the store.” 

 

On the other hand, “The Fed’s lawyers have interpreted the law to mean they can keep the programs running into 2021…”.  But Mnuchin argues that the original CARES Act was written to end on December 31, 2020.  Mitch McConnell, of course, agrees.  And the money returned to the Secretary will not be recouped in loan repayments as it was originally intended.  When returned to the Congress, it will instead be added to the deficit as Congress can use it to spend as they like.  

 

How many more reasons do we need to become involved in a Senate run-off in Georgia in January? 

 

According to the CDC, we’ve incurred nearly 200,000 new cases of Covid today.  Those in need will see the end of their fiscal assistance on December 26^th. 

 

Trump and his cronies, realizing they will not win in the courts, are now in the process of assuring that the next incoming administration faces as many crises as they can manufacture – no matter how many people, friend or foe, are injured or killed.  

 

Payback.   

 

 

 

  

TEN YEARS AFTERS

 

Ten Years After…

 

Apologies in advance. This post will wander all about, but in keeping with 2020 not much remains undistorted anymore.

 

Ten days ago seems now much like Ten Years After.  And an old rocker like myself fondly recalls Alvin Lee’s singing “I’d Love to Change the World.”  And, honestly, I believe there are at least 78.5 million Americans who would agree with that idea right now…yesterday, in fact.

 

Of course, Trump refuses to accept the obvious outcome, just as his niece Mary Trump warned in her recent book and as Bill Maher has been finger-wagging for nearly four years. And, well, here we are.

 

But always the transactional narcissist and would-be dictator, Trump will not exit until he can feather his ample nest with more and more cash.  And his quietly frightened cohorts in the Trump/Republican Party will not be any obstacle, nor will those who still occupy shady if credentialed positions in the GOP’s transition to whatever it stands for now.  (Remember this last election cycle; the Party avoided identifying any platform whatsoever.) 

 

Newt Gingrich, for example.

 

I just received my call to action from Newt in my email.  I always enjoyed reading the descent of the Republican Party into chaos and fawning for an Uberfuhrer, so I never did hit that “unsubscribe” part of their blasts.  

 

Digression: When we taught together in high school, our language arts team often approached vocabulary as a student’s means to “play” with language while learning its power to generate a voice, a persona, a sense of emotion, and often an appreciation for persuasion – sometimes serious and sometimes ludicrous.  

 

I’m afraid poor Newt would not have fared so well in any of our classes. I’ll provide the plea for cash for Don at the end of this post, but you’ll notice there is no ethos, pathos, or logos in the emotional request.  Nothing playful or even interesting.  Anger, loathing,  and fear-mongering, in fact, is all that runs through it: 

 

“Friends:  The Election is unlike anything we have ever witnessed.  The systemic corruption is breathtaking. The mainstream media, the Left-wing academics, and the entrenched Democrats will all ask us to roll over right now.  There is voter fraud in this Election that MUST be reported and uncovered.” 

 

While it is true that the Election was unlike anything we have ever witnessed in the sheer numbers of people inspired to come to the polls – especially to rid ourselves of the current mistake – no one has found any systemic corruption, and judges are reprimanding the false claims of lawyers approaching the bench to find any for Trump.  Pennsylvania’s prestigious law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur has withdrawn representing a suit to claim miscounts in that state.  Another firm in Arizona has done likewise.  There’s so much here. Okay, maybe a positive for ludicrous….  In his closing sentence, Newt suggests an illogical and perhaps alternative reverse of cause and effect: “reported and uncovered.”  Normally that phrase would be other way around, but this is 2020 and this is Newt.

 

Or is it?

 

I think maybe, just maybe, Newt plagiarized this from Stephen Miller.  Don’t you?

 

 

Friend,

It’s time for us to get MAD.

This Election is unlike any we have ever witnessed. The systemic corruption is breathtaking. The mainstream media, the Left-wing academics, and the entrenched Democrats will all ask us to roll over right now. There is voter fraud in this Election that MUST be reported and uncovered.

President Trump isn’t backing down - nor should he - but he needs YOUR help to keep going. He’s calling on a select group of his STRONGEST supporters, like YOU, to step up and bolster our critical Election Defense Fund.

This is the moment that will decide everything - will you join President Trump and FIGHT for America’s future? 

He’s even agreed to increase your impact by 1000% if you ACT NOW.

 Thank you,

Newt Gingrich

AND TRUMP'S GONNA MATCH YOU 1000%?
 And now, “I’m Going Home.”

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE FEAR

 HERE’S A SPOOKY OUTCOME THREE DAYS AFTER HALLOWEEN: NO OUTCOME

 

Let’s face it.  After the last four years and the exclamatory ending called Covid-19, we can’t imagine anything getting worse than what we have endured.  Right?

 

Sorry…

 

Blame it on the Founding Fathers, if you will, but if you’ve been wondering why 79 days exist between election day and the swearing in of the new Commander-in-Chief, it’s more than just organizing a vote in December by the Electoral College in case of an inappropriate and harmful choice by the country’s populace.  That vestigial process didn’t work well last time, but what if there were NO OUTCOME.  In other words, what if a tie in the popular vote too close to call and an actual tie in the Electoral College: 269 to 269 votes?  

 

I know, not probable, but, still, possible.  And after this year, well, why not?

 

And, believe it or not, the Founding Fathers and a later Amendment or two make that convoluted selection process of a new President and Vice President somewhat clear and slow-moving.  And the process indicates just how dreadfully important each down ballot for Senator or Representative in each state will be.  “Vote like your life depends on it?”  

 

While the polling may indicate a substantial lead for the Biden/Harris campaign right now, Biden campaign handlers warn that the election may be closer than anyone thinks; after all, they’ve seen a snake bite before.  And Tom Edsall in the New York Times indicates that data shows in some key states Republicans are registering to vote in numbers far greater than Democrats

 

Most of this nightmare emerges from an unsettling possibility reiterated by Elaine Kamarck in a review of the unlikely process for the Brookings Institute.  Here’s what happens:

 

“The Constitution is pretty clear on how this plays out. If there is no winner in the Electoral College, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 3 states that the decision goes to the House of Representatives while the Senate picks the vice president. But the voting in the House is different from the Senate. In the vote for vice president, each Senator has one vote. But in the House each state has only one vote for president—regardless of its size—and a presidential candidate needs 26 states to win.”  Illinois has, for instance 18 Representatives in the U. S. Congress – 13 Democratic and 5 Republican (at this time).  

 

“If the presidential race should end up in the House the outcome would depend on which party controls the state’s delegation. As it stands Republicans are in the majority, with control of 26 state delegations.  Democrats control 23 state delegations and one state, Pennsylvania, has a tied delegation: 9 Democrats and 9 Republicans. But the Congress is sworn in before the Electoral College votes are read out in the Senate. In the case of a tie it will be the next Congress not the current Congress that votes on the presidency, and a handful of 2020 congressional elections could decide the presidential election.”

 

The next Congress?  The battle that is taking place before us these last weeks and the next very few days.  But is it really likely?  Only in our recent lifetime has America had two elections where the winner of the popular vote did not become the President because of the Electoral College. And the danger in holding to an antique and obsolete notion of distrust for the people’s vote makes possible that this undermining of democratic processes could repeat again.  

 

Need something to watch carefully Tuesday evening?  Kamarck gives us several:

 

Pennsylvania: “Start with Pennsylvania, a state that is already getting outsized attention—it was very close in 2016 and looks to be close again. Since its congressional delegation is tied now, if Democrats hold their seats and win only one congressional seat they will control the delegation. According to the Cook Political Report the most likely seat to flip is Pennsylvania’s 10^th Congressional District, located in the south central portion of Pennsylvania. The Republican incumbent Scott Perry is running against State Auditor General Eugene de Pasquale, a Democrat. The district has a PVI score of +6 Republican, meaning that in recent elections it tends to vote for Republicans. But recent polling suggests a neck and neck race.”

 

Florida: “Next is Florida where the Republicans have a one-seat advantage over the Democrats. If one seat switches from Republican to Democrat, control of the Florida delegation moves to Democrats. Democrats have to hold all the seats they have and pick up one seat. Their best chance is Florida’s 15^thCongressional District, northeast of Tampa. It’s an open seat currently occupied by Ross Spano, who was defeated in the Republican primary. In the general election race Democrat Alan Cohn, a former ABC News anchor, is running against Republican Scott Franklin, a Navy veteran and city commissioner. Like Pennsylvania’s 10^th Congressional District, Florida’s 15^th tends to be Republican. But Cohn is running slightly behind Franklin and within the margin of error.”

 

A clear landslide on either side dampens any arguments moving the outcome toward this kind of scenario, although Trump will always be the wild card in the aftermath of dog whistle/electoral/judicial reviews of his outraged complaints.  And if Trump says it could go on for a very long time?  Well, he may be the last to have read the United States Constitution, but it’s a possibility: “What if the tied Electoral College race results in a tied race in the House of Representatives? The House keeps voting until someone gets 26 votes. If the House can’t elect a president by Inauguration Day, the person elected vice president by the Senate becomes the acting president until the House manages to select a president.”

 

And the House must continue its voting until it finally the deadlock finally breaks…until the deadlock finally breaks. 

So, grab your popcorn and handkerchief…or something decidedly stronger, and settle in for a long, long evening on Tuesday.

 

Wishing us all the best.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“DON’T EVER USE THE WORD SMART WITH ME…JOE”

 “DON’T EVER USE THE WORD SMART WITH ME…JOE”

 

In their first meeting, hardly a debate, presidential candidate Joe Biden touched an exposed nerve in Donald Trump’s thin skin which forced an eruption of projected anger. It was one of many outbursts and interruptions which left political pundits shaking their heads and feeling like student teachers on a grammar school recess yard.  Did you repress it?  You can find the angry retort on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOsW3cj53FI

 

Chris Wallace was at a loss too, and he couldn’t restrain Trump’s anger at having his “stable genius” considered, much less questioned.  

 

My suggestion?  Make sure you bring it up again this week, Joe.  Watch him respond like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz after being hit by a pail of water.  “All my beautiful dreams…….”

 

And projected anger? “Joe, you said you went to Delaware State but you forgot the name of your college.  You graduated the lowest or almost the lowest in your class.  Don’t ever use the word smartest with me…”

 

As for Trump’s self description, he graduated either number one or with honors from prestigious Wharton College.  However, according to Jonathan Valania , in the City Life section of Philadelphia Magazine, a lot of mystery surrounding Trump’s self-described ascension into academic superlatives at Penn’s Wharton College are quite questionable.  And his responses to those who question his intelligence, his immediate retort is anger and vehemence. 

 https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/

 

“Ahh, the college transcript. Trump famously graduated from Penn’s Wharton School in 1968 — a fact he reminds audiences of over and over again. (Per Penn’s student newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, he publicly name-dropped Wharton 52 times between June 2015 and January 2018.) But despite all his humblebragging about that Wharton degree, Trump has never allowed his academic performance there to be made public.”

 

“’This was a major, major thing with Trump — that people might think he’s stupid,’” Michael Wolff told me around the time of Siege’s publication earlier this summer. “’The focus of that for Trump is the college transcripts, which are apparently terrible. I’ve spoken to friends of Trump from that time, and this was a guy that was obviously not interested in school and possibly never read a book in his life. For everyone that had known him then and years afterward, the assumption was that he had terrible grades, he was a lackluster student at best.’”

 

Remember also that family member and psychologist  Mary Trump in her recent release of Too Much and Never Enough said that it was common knowledge that Donald had paid someone take the college entrance exams for him before entering Penn.  

“In truth, Trump’s Wharton GPA is just one of many mysteries surrounding the 45th president’s relationship with Penn, Philadelphia’s most powerful private institution, which, unwittingly or not, helped unleash Trump on the world. Over the years, there have been rumors about how Trump might have gotten into Penn in the first place, and how much — or how little — he’s donated to the school as an alum.” 

“Perhaps the biggest reason for this shroud of mystery is Penn itself; the school’s sphinx-like reticence about its most famous alumnus plays at times like a silent scream. For instance, Penn has never had Trump deliver a commencement speech or conferred an honorary degree on him. In the wake of his election, Penn tour guides were discouraged from bringing up the T-word and issued simple instructions for handling questions about Trump’s tenure at Penn: Keep it short and sweet — “’Yes, he graduated from Wharton in 1968’” — and leave it at that. Tell Penn you’re writing an article about Donald Trump’s time there, and you’ll get the academic version of name, rank and serial number: “’Donald J. Trump earned a B.S. in real estate, which was awarded on May 20, 1968,’” says Ron Ozio, Penn’s director of media relations, declining my request for an interview. Which is peculiar, given that most universities make a lot of marketing hay out of an alumnus in the White House — and Trump is Penn’s first.

“It’s rare for a professor to disparage the intelligence of a student, but according to attorney Frank DiPrima, who was close friends with professor William T. Kelley for 47 years, the prof made an exception for Donald Trump, at least in private. “’He must have told me that 100 times over the course of 30 years’,” says DiPrima, who has been practicing law since 1963 and has served as in-house counsel for entities including the Federal Trade Commission and Playboy Enterprises. “’I remember the inflection of his voice when he said it: ‘”Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!”’” He would say that [Trump] came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything, that he was arrogant and he wasn’t there to learn.” Kelley, who passed away in 2011 at age 94, taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years, retiring in 1982.”

“This assertion (that Trump was number one in his class at Wharton) appeared in a fawning New York Times profile of the Trump Organization published in 1973, the same year the Department of Justice sued Donald and his father Fred for housing discrimination for refusing to rent to people of color. Sample paragraph:

“Donald, who was graduated first in his class from the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, joined his father about five years ago. He has what his father calls “drive.” … “Donald is the smartest person I know,” he remarked admiringly.

“The claim was repeated in another doting profile of Trump in the New York Times in 1976. Noting that practically every article ever written about Trump in the wake of the Times profiles parroted the “’first in his class’” claim, the Times finally corrected the record in yet another eye-roll-inducing profile published in 1984 (“Spending a day with Donald Trump is like driving a Ferrari without the windshield. It’s exhilarating; he gets a few bugs in his teeth”), declaring that the notion that Trump finished first in his class at Wharton was contradicted by the university’s commencement program.

“The program for the commencement ceremony lists the names of students who graduated from Wharton with honors — cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude — and Donald Trump isn’t among them. Nor is his name included on the Dean’s List published in 1968 by the Daily Pennsylvanian. Given that colleges and universities are prohibited by law from releasing transcripts to anyone other than the student in question, and that Trump has purportedly forbidden the school to do so, we’ll have to rely on proof by omission that Trump didn’t graduate with any academic distinction whatsoever.

“Trump himself finally copped to this in a 1988 New York magazine story written by Julie Baumgold. “’Okay, maybe not ‘first,’ as myth has it,’” Baumgold wrote, “but he had ‘the highest grades possible.’”

 “As Trump admitted in The Art of the Deal, all he got out of Wharton was bragging rights: “’In my opinion, that degree doesn’t prove very much, but a lot of people I do business with take it very seriously, and it’s considered very prestigious. So all things considered, I’m glad I went to Wharton.’”

Joe, it’s not a chink in the armor, it’s an opening you should drive through every chance you get.  Good luck this week.  And go get him.  

 

From "Breadcrumbs" and written by Ida Wye on Facebook

ARE WE THE MORIBUND IN A RUSSIAN NOVEL?  BREAK THE CHAINS!

Breadcrumbs

September 16 at 3:35 PM · 

Author : Ida Wye 

“I’ve been wondering why this entire
country seems to be under a cloud of
constant misery.
Why we all seem to be Russians waiting in line for toilet paper, meat, Lysol.
Hoarding yeast and sourdough starter
“in case we can’t get bread”, 

Buying stamps so that one of our most beloved institutions might survive.
Why we all look like we are in bad need
of a haircut, or a facial or a reason to dress up again and go somewhere.
Anywhere.

There is no art in this White House.
There is no literature or poetry in this
White House. No music.
No Kennedy Center award celebrations.
There are no pets in this White House.
No loyal man’s best friend. No Socks the family cat.
No kids science fairs.

No times when this president takes off his
blue suit-red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt- khaki pants uniform and hides from Americans to play golf.
There are no images of the first family
enjoying themselves together in a moment
of relaxation.

No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii
moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.
I was thinking the other day of the summer
when George H couldn’t catch a fish
and all the grandkids made signs and
counted the fish-less days.
And somehow, even if you didn’t even like GHB, you got caught up in the joy of a family that loved each other and had fun.

Where did that country go? Where did all
of the fun and joy and expressions of love and happiness go? We used to be a country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity.
We used to have a president that calmed and soothed the nation instead dividing it.
And a First Lady that planted a garden
instead of ripping one out.

We are rudderless and joyless.
We have lost the cultural aspects of
society that make America great.
We have lost our mojo. Our fun, our happiness.
The cheering on of others.
The shared experiences of humanity that makes it all worth it.
The challenges AND the triumphs that we shared and celebrated.
The unique can-do spirit Americans
have always been known for.

We are lost.
We have lost so much
In so short a time.”

These last 4 years we have seen nothing but chaos, nasty tweets filled with lies , insults and hate . 

📌📌Vote Blue in November  #VoteBidenHarris  
Yes we can !  👍

 

What is Juneteenth Day?

Wednesday, June 19^th is the 154^th Juneteenth Independence Day  

The date celebrates the June 19, 1865, announcement of the loss of the Civil War and the abolition of all slaves in the state of Texas.  This was two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1^st. 

In Chicago, many events were held on the previous weekend, and a  number of concerts will be held in Hillside and the city.  Customary celebrations, like those held in Texas in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s provided an opportunity for simple freedoms like singing, dancing, and readings from worshipped artists.

Why June 19^th?  It was on that date in 1865 that Union soldiers under the command of General Granger finally washed ashore in Galveston to inform the Texans of what had transpired.  By and large, Texas and its citizens were not impressed.  The limited size of the Union force and the increased numbers of slave-holders fleeing southern states to Texas as the war ravaged their plantations made for little response or acceptance of the news.

Other stories and conspiracy theories, most likely apocryphal, surfaced as reasons for the delay in the announcement for over two years after the President’s Proclamation.  The soldier sent to carry the news to Texas was murdered by those who wanted to prevent such information from reaching the fields.  Plantation owners kept the information from their work force to maintain order and production.  The Union soldiers were complicit in keeping the information from slaves to assure cotton crops were picked before freedom.

In fact, slaves worked and tilled the fields for over two years after they had been acknowledged free men and women in the Capitol.

Despite the Lone Star pushback, after Lee surrendered in April of 1865, it was only a matter of time before the tide of change would sweep across the nation.  Texas Supreme Court decisions in the next decade reaffirmed the status of freedom for those brave African Americans who had cautiously celebrated their liberty in June in the streets of Galveston upon first hearing the news.

Other racial justice organizations will mark the day remembering the horrific history of the slave trade and its everlasting impact on a people and two continents separated by over 5000 nautical miles. 

Over 2 million died while crossing the Middle Passage into America. 

At least as many others perished during the forced transportation across West Africa to the waiting ports.

Estimates of total captives brought to America for slavery run as high as 12 million.

Several hundred captives were chained together below decks in deplorable conditions, suffering cramped contagion and death on the journey.

Insurance brokers provided for coverage in cases of drowning, but not simply deaths.  As a result, some historians visualize the Atlantic sea bottom marking the exact paths of ships with the mountains of bones left from throwing strings of sick or unwanted slaves overboard. Deplorable.

It’s small wonder that Juneteenth will likewise mark the strong, resentful argument for reparations by racial justice organizers like the Black Land and Liberation Initiative.  They and others symbolically revisit the issue by highlighting General William Sherman’s original order in 1865 by recognizing a national day of action.  According to writer Aviana Willis, “In 40 acres across 40 cities black people will take nonviolent direct action to occupy and reclaim spaces such as abandoned schools and empty lots, with the goal of putting these spaces into service of the community.”

(http://inthesetimes.com/article/20249/black-land-and-liberation-forty-acres-mule-juneteenth)

Black Land and Liberation Initiative states it clearly:  “We are people who have been enslaved and dispossessed as a result of the oppressive, exploitative, extractive system of colonialism and white supremacy.  In this system, our labor and its products have been taken from us for generations for the accumulation of wealth by others.”(http://blacklandandliberation.org/)

“We have been taught in school that the source of the policy of “40 acres and a mule” was Union General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, issued on Jan. 16, 1865. (That account is half-right: Sherman prescribed the 40 acres in that Order, but not the mule. The mule would come later.) But what many accounts leave out is

that this idea for massive land redistribution actually was the result of a discussion that Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton held four days before Sherman issued the Order, with 20 leaders of the black community in Savannah, Ga., where Sherman was headquartered following his famous March to the Sea. The meeting was unprecedented in American history.

“Today, we commonly use the phrase “40 acres and a mule,” but few of us have read the Order itself. Three of its parts are relevant here. Section one bears repeating in full: “The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes [sic] now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.”

“Section two specifies that these new communities, moreover, would be governed entirely by black people themselves: ” … on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves … By the laws of war, and orders of the President of the United States, the negro [sic] is free and must be dealt with as such.”

“Finally, section three specifies the allocation of land: ” … each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.”

“With this Order, 400,000 acres of land — “a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast,” as Barton Myers reports — would be redistributed to the newly freed slaves. The extent of this Order and its larger implications are mind-boggling, actually.” (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/)

Stanton had gone to a group of African American preachers and ministers at the conclusion of the war, asking what would be an appropriate payment for the debasing of a race and people.  The answer was the assurance of future economic freedom by receiving land on which to farm, land that had been taken in Sherman’s march along the southeastern coast of the United States.  Sherman later threw in the single mule with the 40 acres – as many of the pack animals were now available after the war.

“And what happened to this astonishingly visionary program, which would have fundamentally altered the course of American race relations? Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a sympathizer with the South, overturned the Order in the fall of 1865, and, as Barton Myers sadly concludes, “returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it” — to the very people who had declared war on the United States of America.”

Only a small handful of states – Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and South Dakota – do not recognize the date as a day for observance, a ceremonial holiday or state sanctioned holiday.  45 other states, including Illinois, recognize the date’s importance and its observance of the participation and achievements of African-Americans in the progress of our country.  

Next Target of the Republican Junta? Mueller.

Next Target of the Republican Junta?  Mueller

Had Robert Mueller decided to entertain a doctorate in British Literature rather than Jurisprudence, he might have been the darling of the Literary Review Board for his unique ability to generate almost unfathomable, nuanced statements replete with double negatives. 

“It was not as if Hamlet were unable to not comprehend his father’s not being aware of his own brother’s lack of fealty to the realm and even the former’s not feeling guilty about his attitude.” 

Board of Professors: “Oh, well done, sir.”  “Remarkably layered, my young man!”   “You're not the first who hasn’t failed to notice the connections, you prodigy.” 

Any normal American trying to follow what exactly Mueller is stating in his report will have to contend with nothing so ridiculous, but a particular careful semantics which will leave many readers wondering whether to just leave the interpretation to Sean Hannity or Anderson Cooper.  “Yawn, whatever, I have Game of Thrones to watch…”

Coming soon:  Mueller implores us all to read the Report.  And Mueller knows that he has only limited time because, failing to motivate an unreading public to read a 400+ page report detailing two years of investigation will soon make him the target of the Trumpian/Republican Party and Fox News, which will target him for abuse and character assassination to defend the unspeakable alliance they have accepted as their fate.  

In the summary of Part Two of the Mueller Report, the Office ends with this statement before providing the litany of facts and evidence behind obstruction.  Every American should be aware that the evidence is there, that double negatives that state there was no evidence of not having done anything illegal equates to THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF LIKELY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.

Mueller Report: Conclusion to Executive Summary to Volume II

“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct.  The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.  At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.  Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it does not exonerate him.”