It's like this:
Protest is born out of pain.
Progress is born out of struggle.
Freedom will be born out of persistence.
Mark that down.
Larry Middleton
8/29/20
6 subscribers
Dec 8 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
Folks are angry about election theft and the apparent lack of will of party leadership to do anything about it. That must be addressed. But for folks to deny that Biden being dislodged by big donors caused confusion didn't also contribute is just denial and must addressed, too.ππΏ
Democrats have always prided ourselves on being able to walk and chew gum. Now is not them time for tunnel vision refusing to examine ourselves because we're mad. Separate and apart from any election theft, party need to take a good, hard look at itself.ππΏ
Dec 7 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
FACT: Debt service - paying the interest on borrowing from Social Security or from other foreign governments - is the biggest component of the government budget. Not the military. Not social security.
Why?ππΏ
Because republicans refuse to raise taxes on the rich, insist ooncutting the revenue stream to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and have been robbing Social Security for decades to pay for their pet proects - like the Iraq War - without paying back.ππΏ
Dec 6 β’ 5 tweets β’ 1 min read
A big of the reason that Social Security was etablished in the first place is that employers have never paid a wage suffieient for employees to save for retirement, particularly those who do not have employer pension funds.ππΏ
Consequently, many retirees and ttheir survivors wound up destitute. Thus normative economics in a just society required a solution: Social Security.ππΏ
Dec 6 β’ 19 tweets β’ 3 min read
The democrats have a problem. It's not a Joe Biden problem or a Kamala Harris problem. It's an identity problem. Cornell Belcher (@cornellbelcher) provided one of the most insightful analyses of the Democratic party that I've heard in a long time on @NicolleDWallace today.ππΏ
I know that many of my friends have sworn off mainstream media and have specific and intense ire and invective towards MSNBC (so do I.) That's fine, but that's not the point or concern here. If you have the chance to watch that segment, it may be valuable.ππΏ
Nov 27 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
Your bearded, beer-belly cousin RickyLee, the Trump super fanboy who pinches your wife and insists on parking on your lawn, invited himself to dinner tomorrow. But that doesn't mean everyone can't have an enjoyable time. A few helpful hints:ππΏ
1. Offer him lots of booze during pre-dinner football and he'll sleep through dinner (perhaps the weakest option since you'll have to drive him home later.) 2. Put him at the kids table - in the next room. 3. Discretely tell him that you got the turkey at the halal meat store.ππΏ
Nov 27 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
MAGA, everything has a cost, and your bill is about to come due. This is what will happen: Eggs, milk, bread, gas and overtsized tires for your pickups, housing, and medical cost will go up along with everthing else in your lives, including beer. Jobs and companies will go away.
But look on the bright side. You'll have religion and no books in school, your wives daughters, and mistresses dead from lack of women's health care, less "CRT and DEI," no immigrants to do the work that you're too good to do yourselves, and way more drug addiction and suicide.
Nov 20 β’ 6 tweets β’ 1 min read
I know that a lot of folks are worried about the problematic big names going into nomination, and for good reason. Some of them know just enough to be dangerous, while most of the rest are thoroughly clueless. But I think the nomination fight is a distraction.ππΏ
I think it may be more useful to keep an eye on the deputies and lower-level appointments. Many, if not all, of those folks will be ideologues, extremists, fanatics, Christian zealots, and undoubtedly Russian assets. That's not being paranoid, that's simply being real.ππΏ
Nov 19 β’ 15 tweets β’ 2 min read
I've heard a number of so-called "experts" say that abandoning Xtwitter for Bluesky or other platforms is a bad idea because, among other things, people are moving to places where there are fewer dissenting voices and diminishing the "public square."
I don't buy that.ππΏ
Conflict and dissent are the most fertile ground of problem-solving and creatvity. They allow for the cream of tthoughts and ideas to rise to the top, to be refined, and perfected. Dissent isn't just contrarian or disagreeble for the hell of it. It's for achieving what's best.ππΏ
Nov 19 β’ 21 tweets β’ 3 min read
When you stand back and take a clear-eyed view of republicans and the GOP regardless of what your idelolgical beliefs are, it becomes clear that practically everything that they believe about themelves is a lie. And when you examine history, data, and facts, it's all supported.ππΏ
It's no wonder why they're so desperate to erase and rewrite history and to literally whitewash the minds of America. For them, the truth is a hard - impossible - sell.
-Their policies have never worked and have been popular with the majority of Americans.ππΏ
Nov 9 β’ 7 tweets β’ 2 min read
I am sick to death of people like David Axelrod and others who seem to believe that liberals/progressives ought to hang our heads and apologize to people who don't give a damn about anything but their own hate because we want and expect more and better from our government.ππΏ
They insist that we must listen and understand. Be more empathetic. We tried that. It failed. They had - and have - no interest in listening. What they heard from Trump made them feel good. All of the listening in the world will not sway the endorphins from their good feelings.ππΏ
Oct 30 β’ 8 tweets β’ 2 min read
It's no coincidence that every area in the nation with a majority white population has the full menu of rights, privileges, and benefits of the constitution, including statehood. Enough Native Americans were killed off or moved out of all of those areas to ensure that result.ππΏ
Whereas there isn't a single area or territory where people of color represent the majority that has full citizenship rights and statehood. Name one. Puerto Rico? No. America Samoa No. USVI? No. Washington, DC? No. Why? I suspect that we all know. ππΏ
Oct 17 β’ 16 tweets β’ 3 min read
It makes no sense to have laws on the books that don't have serious enough enforcement mechanisms and penalties to either serve as a disincentive to breaking them or punish people severely when they do. Once again, it needs to be stated until lawmakers hear it and change it.ππΏ
The Justice Department also needs to have the will wherewithal, and resources to enforce it, too. Otherwise, rules are just suggestions, and unscrupulous folks see them as challenges, impediments and inconveniences to be ignored on the way to doing whatever the hell they want.ππΏ
Oct 15 β’ 7 tweets β’ 1 min read
Let me tell you a little story. Most of you probably remember, but others may not know, especially young, first-time voters. So it's better to be safe than sorry.ππΏ
Almost immediately after Trump was inaugurated in 2017, over a million women in pink hats (and the men who love them) went to Washington, DC to protest in anticipation of what was to come from a Trump administration. It was probably the biggest protest in history.ππΏ
Oct 14 β’ 5 tweets β’ 1 min read
I've been seeing republican ads blaming MVP for paying for inmate "sex change" operations. They're purely ignorant, dumb and counterintuitive. But stupid people see what they want to.
1. Even if she made the recommendation, the decision was made by the court and prison system.ππΏ
2. It's far less expensive and far more responsible to continue and support the processes during incarceration for people who began the process outside than to incur the cost of liability for sickness or death by not allowing it to continue.ππΏ
Oct 7 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
The red state governors who are in full panic now about Trump, Musk, and others putting out lies and conspiracy theories about FEMA to terrify and manipulate hurricane victims are reaping what they sowed. They thought they were cute and smart enough to have it both ways:ππΏ
To support Trump just to be associated with political power, and still be independent so that they could pretend that they were in charge and not accountable to the MAGA machinery. It's their fault. Did they think that there wouldn't be a political price to pay?ππΏ
Oct 1 β’ 6 tweets β’ 1 min read
Why we need to pay attention: In one interview, JD Vance said that we need a "de-bathaafication process" in America. The question is WHY? I suspect that many people don't even understand what that means, but it's essentally the same process used in Germany to get rid of Nazis.ππΏ
Originally, Baathism and the Baathist party were created as a means and political force to break away from British colonialism. Decolonialism also meant being separated from western domination and control (keep that in mind.)ππΏ
Sep 14 β’ 6 tweets β’ 1 min read
It's bizarre how republicans' positions change when situations become inconvenient. When it comes to guns and mass shootings, they insist on blaming people, specifically, especially the MH populations - whether or not they're involved. But they try desperately to ignore guns.ππΏ
But, oddly, when it comes to instigating pogroms against Haitians who are guests in Ohio doing job that'd otherwise go unfilled specifically so that violence can be instigated against that community, cowards like Mike DeWine blame the internet, not the people inciting violence.ππΏ
Sep 11 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
Liars claim that Biden "created" inflation when they know that inventory and raw matierials shortages existed, many businesses were closed, and lots of people were out of work for at least a year after Biden took office and still dealing with the COVID-19 mess Trump left behind.
It was fundamental supply and demand. And when inventories and supplies started coming back, businesses reopened, and people began returning to work, many corporations confessed to keeping prices artificially high strictly for profits, and some of that continues through to today.
Sep 5 β’ 16 tweets β’ 3 min read
Every republican who thinks that if Trump gets defeated and if they just wait long enough that the GOP they love will return is delusional. They obviously haven't paid any attention for the past 20 years. The GOP doesn't have a Trump problem. They have a GOP problem.ππΏ
For years before Trump came on the political scene in earnest, the tea party was aggressively purging the GOP of it's elder statemen/women, stalwarts, and conservative stars. They were hell bent on ideological purity even if it was unclear what that ideology was.ππΏ
Sep 1 β’ 10 tweets β’ 2 min read
One of the things that makes the the "explain or justify your race" trope so infuriating is that the news media is sczhophrenic (no slight to schophrenics intended.)
It's the same media that puts black people on the spot for an individual to explain, account for, or take responsibility for all black people on the one hand, but on the other hand it blindly asks black people do validate or defend their blackness because others question it.ππΏ
Aug 31 β’ 21 tweets β’ 3 min read
Let's play a game called "Remember When"
- Remember when Biden and Kamala extorted the Ukrinian president and wound up being impeached for it all in an effort to extort dirty information on his election opponent?
Oh, that was Trump.ππΏ
- Remember when Mueller indicted many folks in Biden's and adm foreign nationals, and Biden was accused multiple times of obstructing jutice?