Texas 200 Years Ago... And Last Night.

Note:  I wrote the following 4 years ago  in 2013 when Wendy Davis was filibustering a restrictive anti-choice law in Texas.  Now in 2017 we have President Trump who has assembled the most regressive cabinet in history.  We are indeed rolling back women's rights and choices.  Let's not forget what the lives of women were like.

In Texas 200 years ago:

Old Woman in a Shoe picture found here

A good friend, a woman who was born and raised in Texas, passed away a few days ago.  She came north after WWII and had been here so many years by the time I met her that she no longer had a Texas drawl.  

In her memory, I started to research her family tree, which has its roots firmly in Texas soil back 150 years.  Some of her ancestors were Texas freedom fighters.  One was a Justice in the Texas Republic appointed by Sam Houston himself.
     

Two Teenagers named Polly and Margaret

However, another of my friend's forebears, a great great grandmother named Margaret, was born in 1815 and married in 1830, at age 15.  Her first child was born later that same year, in 1830.  She went on to have 14 children over the next 27 years.  Six months after her last child was born, she died at age 43, no notations as to cause of death.

Eight months after her death, her husband remarried.  He had three children with the second wife, and the second wife died within a few weeks of the birth of that last child.  

To Republicans, Ignorance is Bliss.. Apparently.

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R), South Carolina  

Good grief.  Does the Republican insanity ever end?    

A group of Republicans, led by Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, wants to eliminate key economic statistics by eliminating all of the surveys that the government now conducts, except the ten year Census.  From the Huffington Post:.

"A group of Republicans (is) cooking up legislation that could give President Barack Obama an unintentional assist with disagreeable unemployment numbers -- by eliminating the key economic statistic altogether. 

The bill, introduced last week by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), would bar the U.S. Census Bureau from conducting nearly all surveys except for a decennial population count. Such a step that would end the government's ability to provide reliable estimates of the employment rate. Indeed, the government would not be able to produce any of the major economic indices that move markets every month, said multiple statistics experts, who were aghast at the proposal."

Who Needs Numbers Anyway?  Let's Just Stay in the Fog! 

We don't need to know how many people are employed or unemployed, how many live in poverty, how many people are dying or being born at what rates, how many people are in school or have degrees, right?

Apparently none of that stuff is important or necessary to the numbnuts who call themselves Republicans.  No wonder we are increasingly becoming the laughingstock of the developed world.

Remember:

"Information is the bane of all oligarchs and tyrants."

Comments from the article:
 

Independent observers had a hard time wrapping their minds around the legislation. 

"This learning is valuable in so many ways -- in terms of helping the government allocate resources, allowing researchers to deepen our understanding of our social and cultural life, allowing business to make decisions about how to target customers and thereby become more profitable, and so on," said John Sides, a professor of political science at George Washington University. 

"It's hard to take this seriously because they're really saying also they don't want GDP. They want no facts about what's going on in the U.S. economy," said (Maurine) Haver, (past president of the National Association for Business Economics). "It's so fundamental to a free society that we have this kind of information, I can't fathom where they're coming from. I really can't." 

"It's so unimaginable. It would be like saying we don't need policemen anymore, we don't need firemen anymore," said (Ken) Prewitt, (former director of the Census). "To say suddenly we don't need statistical information about the American economy, or American society, or American demography, or American trade, or whatever -- it's an Alice in Wonderland moment."...

Haver also suggested there is a fundamental divide between people who are interested in solid, reality-based data and those who are not.

"If you know what you think, you don't need information to help you assess what's going on," she said. "The people that need information are the people who use it because they really want the truth, not people who think that because they believe it, it becomes the truth."

Other great comments from readers:

• No way, listen to the shock in my voice, something absolutely insanely stupid is uttered from a South Carolinian. You know, the state that until just a matter of years ago was flying the confederate flag at their statehouse.
• In an IQ challenge between this guy and a box of rocks, box of rocks in a route...
• As a Six Sigma guy, it hurts my brain to think that someone would want to willfully dismantle the metrics by which socioeconomic success is measured. I worship at the altar of data, and let fact-based analysis guide my decisions, both professionally, and in my personal life. For a member of Congress, and sponsors, to propose this nonsense, well, there are a host of colorful adjectives to choose from, none likely acceptable to the HP moderators. Bottom line, this is willful ignorance at its most despicable.
• Wow. One of the stupidest and most dangerous things I've ever heard Republicans propose. Unbelievable. And people still wonder why the rest of the world thinks America has completely lost it's collective mind...
• I love this bill. It perfectly embodies the willful ignorance at the core of modern conservatism.
• So, in essence, the Republicans want to return the American people to a state of complete ignorance about the state of their economy, their population's demographics and comparative standing in the world...When did the US become North Korea? 
• Do away with GDP data, I guess so if you are a repub.....
• Given that starting with Truman every DEM as reduced deficits as a percent of GDP(that includes Obama who has almost reduced the mess he was handed by 50%) and every repub after IKE has increased deficits as a percent of GDP!
• Is there even ONE republican't with a functional brain anymore, anywhere?
• They (republicans) really DO live in an alternate universe. I was going to say, alternate reality but that would be a stretch of the imagination too far.
• Why is everyone so amazed at this GOP-proposed legislation? If you want to rule by ideology and don't want to be hounded by facts, you just get rid of the facts.  There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
• There are many pressing issues so lets waste a bunch of time trying to enacting a law that has 0 chance of becoming law (even in a Republican controlled government) and also completely unnecessary. Because that is what the good people of South Carolina elected me to do!
• South Carolina rocks! It's the greatest States in the greatest nation. We know what is important and Census data - not so important! Partly because it's a bunch of numbers. We hate numbers. Number always lie about the state of affairs. By eliminating numbers, we eliminate the unemployment and math - did I mention I hate math!
• Having reneged on their 2010 mantra of "jobs, jobs, jobs", the GOTP is considering a different method to get rid of unemployment.
• Just insane. Can't prove your theories work with data? Discontinue the data and keep pushing a theory with no way to know if it works. Now, that just doesn't seem smart or wise. Census data is used in healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure planning, and more on national and state levels. One big round of let's be ignorant and see what happens. Can't be good no matter how you look at it..

Republicans want to get rid of most of the work of the Census Bureau, not the Democrats! 

And yet, even in the comments to this article, there were a couple of people trying to tell us that "Both Parties Are the Same".   No, I don't see Democrats trying to get rid of Census Bureau statistical surveys or the unemployment rate.    

Republicans Care About Women?

Republicans lie, twist, and finagle, but we all know that, don't we?

From Prevention magazine

The following article was published last August at Townhall, but it just came to my attention today.   

Townhall was trying to pretend that Republicans really care about women by highlighting inflation in food prices since Obama took office.  Now how the Republicans would stop any food price inflation, of course, is not discussed.  Much of food price inflation comes from increases in the price of fuel and some of that comes from oil speculation.  I'm sure the Republicans will tell their deluded constituency that they will stop increases in oil prices by projects such as Keystone and open drilling on federal lands.. not to mention more deep water offshore drilling.   

By the way, food and beverage prices went up 28% during the Bush years, and food alone went up 29%.  I guess the writers at Townhall think that women are too stupid to look this stuff up on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index databases where it is readily available.

From the article:          

As I've noted before, the Obama campaign is trying hard to "reach out" to women -- especially the single affluent women (with false claims about the GOP's plans to take away contraception!) and single poor women (with class warfare rhetoric and the implicit promise of more government assistance). 

But for women who are really paying attention, this should raise some eyebrows: As the graphic below illustrates, grocery prices have risen 15% just since the start of President Obama's term.  And as the RNC points out (www.gop.com), if prices have risen this much in four years, what would they be after a second Obama term?

Kitchen table issues matter.  When lefties start spouting nonsense about Republicans wanting to take women back to the 1950's, point out better to return to the prosperous '50's than to the Depression-era 1930's, courtesy of Obamanomics.

My reply:  

There is really nothing false about the desire of many in the GOP to restrict access to contraception for many women, in particular, those who are less well-off who need free or low cost contraception the most.  "Defunding Planned Parenthood" is a battlecry throughout the Republican Party.

Now back to the article from Townhall, again, published back in August 2012:

At least "Julia" in the diagram may now have a job, which is more than she had after the Bush recession.

Our Republican friends appear to be playing with numbers, which isn't surprising. According to the chart, the bill for that grocery list went up 14% from some time "before" Obama. (The article doesn't appear to tell us what month they were looking at.) Now, inflation was actually DOWN from January 2009 until December 2010 and has been rising during the recovery over the last two years. 

How much has the index for "food at home" risen from January 2009 when Obama took office until August 2012, the date on which this article was published? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 6%. So... It seems that the authors took a representative "grocery list" of items for which prices were going up faster than average to trash the Democrats. Not surprising.  (Under Bush, the "food at home" index rose 10% from January 2001 when Bush took office until August 2004.)

And, for women and families who are struggling financially, having an additional mouth to feed because of limitations in access to contraception is still a greater threat to their financial future than a 6% increase in the price of food.  

Again:  There is NOTHING in the article to suggest that the Republicans could actually do anything about inflation as a result of recovery... and inflated oil prices... (and they certainly did NOTHING about food inflation during the Bush years), but they really do count on stupidity to win them a few votes here and there. 

*************************************

For reference, here are the highlights for the Consumer Price Index report for February, which was just released Friday:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.7 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.0 percent before seasonal adjustment.

 

The gasoline index rose 9.1 percent in February to account for almost three-fourths of the seasonally adjusted all items increase. The indexes for electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil also increased, leading to a 5.4 percent rise in the energy index. 

The food index increased slightly in February, rising 0.1 percent.  

A sharp increase in the fruits and vegetables index was the major cause of the 0.1 percent increase in the food at home index, with other major grocery store food group indexes mixed.  

The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2 percent in February. The indexes for shelter, used cars and trucks, recreation, and medical care all rose in February. These increases more than offset declines in the indexes for new vehicles, apparel, airline fares, and tobacco.  

The all items index increased 2.0 percent over the last 12 months compared to a 1.6 percent increase for the 12 months ending January. The index for all items less food and energy also increased 2.0 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index increased 2.3 percent and the food index rose 1.6 percent. 

You Can Never Have Too Much Hitler...Or You Might Get Trump.

The Hitler Channel

Updated March 14, 2016 after the recent events at rallies for Donald Trump.

Updated November 10, 2016:  We did get Trump.  Very horrifying.

Many people used to jokingly call The History Channel "The Hitler Channel" because it aired so many shows on various aspects of the Third Reich and on Germany under Hitler.  Lately the Hitler Channel has turned into another reality TV channel and the Hitler programs have moved to the American Military Channel.  

No matter though.. There are still plenty of shows on AMC about various aspects of the Third Reich, some new, some not so new. 

In the last couple of days, we've been watching some of those shows; some I've seen before, some I've never seen.  I used to think that there were so many shows about Hitler that it was simply ridiculous.  Enough with the Hitler stuff already, I would say to my husband.

But I've changed my mind.   

I really don't think that we can ever have too many shows on Hitler and the Third Reich.  I sometimes think that we should bombard our children with these shows (after they hit a certain age).  Required watching.  And I fear that as the years go by, too much of what happened in Germany will be watered down and/or forgotten.

Anne Frank

It Can't Happen Here?

Even though many of us want to think that the Third Reich is a thing of the past, something that we are too sophisticated to ever allow in the world again, all we need to do is to look around and realize that it could happen again; it could happen here or in another advanced, developed nation.

Hitler came to power on the back of economic catastrophe by blaming and spreading hate about one group of people and by elevating and extolling another group of people.  Then Hitler solidified his control by eliminating opposition, eliminating free speech, assembly, and a free press.  He also restored economic vitality to impoverished, struggling Germany by private-public partnerships that also relied on military build-up.  No two ways about it, the people of Germany loved Hitler in 1936 and 1937, and most (who weren't Jewish) didn't see the coming catastrophe until 1939 or 1940 at the earliest.

What Hitler Could Do That FDR, Obama and any other American President Could Not.

Because of political opposition, FDR could not do as much to restore economic vitality as quickly in the United States in the early 30's as Hitler did in Germany in the early 30's.  (And Obama, with intense, determined opposition, could not do as much as FDR.)  Hitler could also build prisons and crematoriums and use people as slave labor.  Though there is plenty of inequity here, we aren't anywhere close to that kind of evil.  At least not yet.

Growing up in the Echo Of World War II

Anyway, those of us who are Baby Boomers grew up in the echoes of the war, and we knew what Hitler did and we knew much about how he did it.  I remember waiting for a train at a railroad crossing near my house when I was 7 or 8 years old.  My mother told me about the boxcars full of Jewish people that Hitler shipped to their deaths in concentration camps.  I didn't understand how that could happen and I was very upset; so upset that I can distinctly remember the time and the place over 50 years later.  (The movie The Diary of Anne Frank came out right at that time, in 1959, when I was 7 going on 8.  Perhaps that is what inspired my mother's musings as we watched those freight cars roll by.)   

Do Kids Growing Up Today Really Understand What Happened in Germany in the 1930's and 1940's?

I'm not sure that people who grew up after the 60's really understand how evil and destructive Hitler was.  That's why I say that we really "can never have too much Hitler".  This era of history needs to be taught and retaught, and we need to sit our kids and grandkids down in front of the T.V. and talk about Hitler and the Third Reich with them.  Our kids need to know how and why this happened.  They can never forget.  We can't let them.   

What about today's adults?

And many adults need to know how and why this happened as well. Some of them have forgotten.  Some of them actually buy into the same kind of racism and ethnocentrism that polluted Germany.

Some of them support Donald Trump, who has made racism and xenophobia the cornerstones of his Presidential candidacy.  And his candidacy is encouraging people to suppress the opposition.  Now it just means escorting people out of his rallies to cheers accompanied by nasty comments by Trump.  But if Trump were elected?

I just came across this article at the Daily Kos, an account of two young people who decided to entertain themselves by attending a Trump rally.  From the article:

Once, after a protester was removed, Trump said, "Where are these people coming from? Who are they?" A lady, sitting not 5 feet from me, said, "Well hopefully when you're president, you'll get rid of em all!" Get rid of them? Get rid of anyone who opposes Trump? It was sickening. I felt truly nauseous. 

Somehow we have to stop this.

Voting Concerns in the U.S. Right Now: Shouldn't One Person Get One Vote?

We have many voting concerns in the country right now, including:

• Voter ID laws which disenfranchise thousands of people, many of them old and poor.  The most thorough article I've read on this can be found HERE at pro-Publica (Everything You've Wanted To Know About Voter ID Laws), "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. "  A good column here by Ernest Dumas at the Arkansas Times:  "Pure GOP Meanness".  Don't miss this article at the ACLU website:  "Voter Suppression in America".
• Changes in hours of early voting which disenfranchise thousands of people due to long lines and excessive wait times, sometimes exceeding 4-5 hours.  A few links for people who can't quite remember what happened November 5th:  Long Lines Suggest a Need For Voting Reform (Opinion piece at the Washington Post); Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic: No One Should Have to Wait 7 Hours to Vote; and this article about long lines in the Washington D.C. area.  Meanwhile, just to be fair and balanced, here's an article from the conservative Heritage.org which believes that complaints of long voter lines are overblown.  (No, Heritage.org, most of us didn't have to wait more than fifteen minutes to an hour. But that doesn't mean that long voting lines are not a problem!) 
• Gerrymandering of Congressional districts, particularly in states controlled by Republicans.  Here's a good article with a link to a Republican State Leadership Committee report that bragged about how the gerrymandering worked.  Another Washington Post opinion piece on the issue HERE.  Two other articles on this, this one from the LATimes (Short of Voters, the Republicans Gerrymander Their Way Back to Power), and this lament at Salon.com:  The House GOP Can't Be Beat. It's Worse Than Gerrymandering, which does talk about why the problem may be worse than simple gerrymandering.  
• Rigging of the Electoral College system in states now controlled by Republicans which voted Democratic in 2012.  So many good articles on this mess:  Mother Jones: "GOP's Plan to Rig the Electoral College Explained"; The Atlantic: GOP's Plan To Take the Electoral Vote Rigging Scheme National;  also at The Atlantic:  How To Win States and Disenfranchise People.  Thom Hartmann presents a strategy to deal with this HERE at Truth-Out.  Google "Republicans rigging the electoral college" for many more articles on this,particularly for information on the various states. 
• A challenge to the Voting Rights Act (brought by Republican interest groups) which may result in less federal oversight of elections in states and counties that have traditionally disenfranchised minorities.  Here's a good summary of that at NPR.
• ONE older lady in Ohio who claims to have voted twice and perhaps voted more than that.. who IS being investigated for voter fraud.  

Now.. Which of these situations, which of these affronts to our democratic national principle of one person/one vote, are getting the most press and the most concern from Republicans and other right wingers? 

You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

(You can find information on the woman in Ohio all over the right wing Internet sites.. Just do a search on "Ohio woman voted six times".)   

No, people, Both Parties Are NOT the Same! 

Conservatives are Soooooo Superior.... and You're Not!

I'm perfect in every way.. and YOU are just a bum...one of those "takers"!

Ducks in a Row (from Sophyta's blog)

Sparring with right wingers may not be the best use of my time ...  I hear many of the same things over and over again.  But there are just a few different tenets underlying right-wing (usually conservative and/or Republican) thinking.  Here is one of the biggies:  

• If "those people" just "worked harder", "planned ahead", or "made good choices", then they wouldn't need any kind of assistance/would have enough saved for retirement/wouldn't be poor/wouldn't be sick...on and on, bla bla bla, whatever.

But really people.. are we all so superior and so sure of ourselves? 

Look, I KNOW families who THOUGHT they had all their retirement ducks in a row by the time they were 50 who wound up in difficult financial straits or foreclosure.. One guy I know was even homeless for awhile.  This happened to one family I know BEFORE the economic collapse of 2008.

Here are the kinds of things that can happen (even without an economic collapse thrown in) that can cause hardship for people who DID plan ahead, who DID save enough, who DID work hard, who DID get an education.  Few of us are immune from or have enough insurance of varying types to weather these storms... unless we have very wealthy families behind us.

1.  After a job layoff after 50, a man invested some of his money into a business and lived off of the spouse's salary... The business went bad and the company the spouse worked for went belly up a few years later.  (I'm tired of reading that people who are laid off should "start their own businesses".  If the person can do it, fine, but businesses generally require capital and MOST businesses go belly up in the first two years... taking that needed nest egg with them.)

2.  A late in life divorce.. Splitting assets when you are 50 doesn't help your financial situation at all.  But if your spouse has started to wig out in terms of drinking, gambling, perhaps not working, being abusive, chasing other men/women-- and refuses to get help.. what are you supposed to do?   

3.  Health problems in one or the other partner or one of the kids; that is, serious physical or mental health problems.  I know families who spent sums in the tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps as much as a hundred thousand, trying to get a teenaged or young adult kid straightened out... Special schools, rehab facilities, kiddie prisons, you name it.  Physical diseases can be just as taxing and as expensive. 

4.  Disability in the primary worker.  After an accident or a disease, he/she may be tossed out of his job or simply can't work.  It takes two years for disability (SSDI) to go through these days and, IF and when you finally get disability, those $1400 payments (if you are lucky to get that much) don't go far.

5.  A natural disaster in your home.  Anyone who thinks that adequate insurance, FEMA, and flood insurance will put everything back in order hasn't lived through a massive natural disaster.  And you may not know this:  You can move into a house that is NOT in a flood zone.. and find out some years later that your home has been reclassified into a flood zone!  Oh, happy day!

6.  Having kids late in life.  If you have kids in your 30's, they aren't out of the house until you are in your 50's.  Many people plan on working for 10-15 years after the kids are gone to refeather the retirement nest.  And then.. health problems, a lost job, a lost business.  And there they are, 62, no job, no retirement savings.  

There But For the Grace of God...

If one of these things hasn't happened to someone before they retire, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, they need to get down on their knees and thank the Lord, the Great Spirit, or the Goddess Athena herself.

And I know really know families who have somehow been saddled with MANY of these situations, particularly in this Great Recession.

And If You Lack Compassion..

Now to those characters who simply lack compassion, empathy, common sense or all three:  I hate to wish a calamity on anyone...  But if you have ever bragged about how superior you are to someone who needs help...  I DO wish a calamity upon you.  May an uninsured rusty pick up truck cross your path...leaving you with no time to jump out of the way.

.  

More...Just as I was writing this, I came upon this link from cracked.com:  Four Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People.  I personally believe that this is a much bigger problem on the Republican side of the aisle (because I do NOT believe that "Both parties are the same"), but I do agree that many people who have never themselves experienced hardship have a hard time really understanding what it is like to sit on your fence (because you couldn't get the gate open fast enough) and beg the electric company to not turn off your electricity because you had gone down there the day before with a deposit (that you borrowed from a relative) and made a payment plan.  

And I wrote this last year, profiles of several families and people that I know who are struggling:  What Is Unemployment and Poverty in America?  Now, some of the people profiled in that series have improved their situations, but many are still struggling.  

Where's the outrage: Watermelon in Montana?

This is what passes for humor in the Montana GOP:

Hardee har har.

Now, Jennifer Olsen didn't make this up this hilarity.  She just shared something on Facebook made up by some true comic talent (yes, sarcasm) named Rich Diamond.  But no one is talking about good old Rich.  You see, Jennifer Olsen is a Tea Party person in Montana.  O.K., you might expect the above from a Tea Party person anywhere in the United States.

But that's not the big problem here:  She's also the county GOP chairperson in Yellowstone County, Montana.  That's right; she's an official representative of the Republican party in addition to being a Tea Party person.

Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos captures the story of the above Facebook post beautifully:

It speaks volumes that the head honcho of the GOP in Montana's most populous county and home of its largest city would think the Obama-trap photo is a big ha-ha. But then as has become obvious over the past four years, it's not just in Big Sky country that modern Republicans, and not all of them tea partiers, have chosen to treat the president like some uppity darkie who has no business entering the White House other than through the deliveries door.

The story at the Montanafesto about Racism and Republicans in Montana in general and Jennifer Olsen and her family in particular, makes this point:

Thanks to the first amendment, Americans are able to think whatever they would like as well as express those thoughts, but such expression does (have) consequences.  I discourage Yellowstone County Republican precinct chairs and legislators from turning a blind eye to this blatantly racist post.  If Ms Olsen is not held responsible for her actions, we send a message that this behavior is acceptable and perhaps these views are even condoned by the GOP.  The Republican Party was founded on abolishing slavery.  Why do we now tolerate our leaders advocating bigotry in a public forum? Bigotry is rooted in ignorance and the Republican Party should purge this cancer from the party.  Shame on you, Jennifer Olsen.  You are a disgrace to your party, to the central committee you chair,  to Montana, and to America.

Well, yeah, writer at the Montanafesto:  Of course you are correct.  The problem is that this behavior probably IS acceptable and these views probably ARE condoned by the current GOP. 

"This is what passes for humor in the Montana GOP."

And yet people out there claim that "Both Parties Are the Same" and the differences between them are spurious.  But really.. When is the last time a Democrat put out some kind of racist "fun" thing like this?  Of course Democrats take jabs at Republicans.. but blatant racism?  Find me some examples of Democrats mocking black public officials by talking about watermelons or making other racist slurs!

Most important:  When have we heard any Republican elected officials at either the state or local levels condemn the racists who do this kind of stuff?  

And then, people who proclaim that "Both Parties Are The Same", try to tell me that it doesn't matter that the racists find a home in the GOP whereas racists do not find that kind of home among the Democrats.  Tell me that racism and tolerance of racism is just not important.

A Republican Party With a Heart and a Brain

Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos sums this up better than I can:

A Republican Party with a heart and a brain and a sense of honor would have immediately booted Olsen out of her county post and offered Montanans and the President an apology. But then a Republican Party with a heart and a brain and a sense of honor wouldn't be the Republican Party.