What we have here is a #FakeDemocracy

If voting is the only power that we have, and our voting and choice processes are manipulated by outside forces, what power do we have left?

— Mark H. Brainard (@Draniarb) May 31, 2017

EYE weep for our country redux

No Democrat has won the majority of the white vote since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Of course it's about race. pic.twitter.com/96vEwVNCMj

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 26, 2017

EYE had a feeling the black, EYE mean, backlash in response to America's first African American President was going to be fierce, but EYE had no idea how fierce.  Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine the depth of the hatred for people of color.  It's one of the reasons EYE didn't buy into the post racial America narrative.  There is a mean spirit on the loose that is just too big and too mean to fight.

Republicans bite off their noses to spite their faces.  

The Trump administration unveiled a budget for 2018 on Tuesday that seeks to overhaul many of the country’s safety-net programs for low-income and struggling Americans. Though these cuts are popular among Republican lawmakers, they affect programs that are actually more commonly used in Republican-leaning states than in Democratic ones, and that in many cases benefit white voters without college degrees — a demographic group that strongly supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
The programs experiencing the deepest cuts provide assistance for health care services to children, the poor and disabled, and that supplement food and housing for those with low incomes. Most of the programs were created decades ago by Democratic presidents.

Hatred is a powerful motivator 

If a Republican-controlled Congress has its way, the results would be "apocalyptic":

Hundreds of thousands would lose health insurance; medical debt and untreated conditions would surge; and there would be an explosion in extreme poverty, including a lot of outright hunger.

Don't think.  Support Trump. 

You may recall Trump’s remark during the campaign that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Well, he hasn’t done that, at least so far. He is, however, betting that he can break every promise he made to the working-class voters who put him over the top, and still keep their support. Can he win that bet?

You Betcha 

To Blog or not to Blog.... that is the question

Say, have you seen my democracy?  You know the land of the free and the home of the brave with liberty and justice for all?  It seems like every day there is a new assault on every right we have except the right to bear arms, and even that right doesn't apply to all.  EYE am scared to Blog but EYE am more scared not to Blog so here goes.  

From the Files of Freedom isn't Free

Trumpsters can dish it out but they can't take it.

This Colbert joke was the bridge too far for Trumpers. Sure, they were on board when during the campaign Trump mocked a disabled reporter. And when Trump demonized Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and stoked hate versus Muslims by saying “Islam hates us.” Many of them defended Trump’s bragging about grabbing women by the genitals as “locker room talk.” And Trumpers literally cheered at his campaign rally in October when he called the courageous women who came forward to report that Trump had sexually assaulted them “horrible liars”.

So they call on the government to take care of it for them 

Late night talk show host Stephen Colbert’s controversial joke about President Trump drew the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. The agency received “a number” of complaints about Colbert’s commentary earlier in the week, according to the FCC’s chief.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai promised to “take the appropriate action” following a comprehensive investigation of Colbert’s remarks.
The FCC's response will depend on whether Colbert’s remarks are considered “obscene.”

In Case You Missed It

The Trump administration is making Fox News into official State TV

The televisions in public areas at the Health and Human Services Department headquarters in Washington have been switched to Fox News. Now the same change appears to have applied to other HHS buildings, including Food and Drug Administration buildings in Maryland.
According to two people who work at the agency, the televisions at the Hubert Humphrey building had previously rotated among the three main cable channels every three days or so. But since shortly after the Trump administration took over, the televisions have been on Fox News.
One of the sources suggested that the information came from "high up" in the agency. (Our colleague Dan Diamond first pointed out in January that the televisions were tuned to Fox.) Now, a new internal email that appears to be from the agency's White Oak campus in Silver Spring, posted to Twitter by several reporters, says current administration officials ordered the change.

They hate us for our freedom 

To be black in America means to live in a state of constant vulnerability. 

So far in 2017, black people have constituted 25 percent of the police shooting victims, according to the Washington Post.
Out of the 339 people shot and killed by police this year, 85 of them are black—and it’s only May.

And we dare not protest 

We are in an era where the White House considers Black Lives Matter to be a terrorist organization. Deliberate attacks against black people who are fighting for justice—whether the Rev. Clementa Pinckney of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., or half a dozen other activists killed by white nationalists in the last decade—are not far-fetched.

If you are scared then say you are scared 

Don't underestimate Trump

As far back as 2006, Lakoff saw the writing on the wall. “A dark cloud of authoritarianism looms over the nation,” he wrote in his book Thinking Points, A Progressive’s Handbook. ”Radical conservatives have taken over the reins of government and have been controlling the terms of the political debate for many years.” The progressives couldn’t hear him, either.

Why we can't wait

Am I just paranoid—or perhaps merely still sufficiently medicated—to wonder if these giddy omadhauns who went to the White House kegger on Thursday afternoon did so because they have faith unbroken in voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other activities within the margin of chicanery that has come to mark close elections in this country?

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer to go pray....

The #Deplorables "Win" Again #Despicable

We just condemned millions to death and sickness and poverty. Time for a selfie! pic.twitter.com/0pgUSzlMTM

— Richard Kim (@RichardKimNYC) May 4, 2017

EYE don't know why republicans think repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with Trump Don't Care is a good look for them.  They ought to be ashamed of themselves.  But of course, they are not thanks to their white male dominated media enablers.  EYE would be ashamed to admit I was a member of a party that put greed over people.  But this is what happens when the pigs are turned into farmers and the farmers are turned into pigs.  

Democrats are the party of the people for the people. 

"OBAMACARE'S EVISCERATION STARTS TODAY BECAUSE THE TYPICAL GOP VOTER IS JUST LIKE MO BROOKS"

Mo Books, mo problems...

So today is the day republicans enabled by the white male dominated media who have access to quality affordable health care vote to take access to quality affordable healthcare away from 24 million Americans because they hate former President Obama more than they love their country, their constituents or themselves.

EYE turn the floor over to No More Mister Nice Blog

But why wouldn't the voters GOP House and Senate members rely on be upset if this bill becomes law? Because Republican voters generally think like Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Ala.):
“It [The GOP health care bill] will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy,” explained Brooks. “And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

 

Speaking of "good people"  a 61-year-old white grandmother was convicted and faces a year in jail for laughing at Jeff Sessions.  EYE kid you not. 

Three women - including one who said her only crime was laughing - were convicted Wednesday on charges of disrupting the confirmation hearing of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The women were part of activist group Code Pink and were protesting Sessions' Jan. 10 Senate confirmation hearing. Two of the women, Tighe Barry and Lenny Bianchi, appeared at the Washington, D.C. hearing dressed as Ku Klux Klan members. They were acquitted on a count of disorderly conduct but convicted on two separate charges of parading or demonstrating, the New York Times reported.
A third woman, Desiree Fairooz of Virginia, was found guilty of disorderly conduct and parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds.

Another protester escorted out of Sessions hearing. Her original offense appeared to be simply laughing. pic.twitter.com/p6lWzBVFRW

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 10, 2017

"There is nothing more dangerous than ignorance in action."