Open Minded Humanist

'The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right'. Judge Learned Hand

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Hunter Biden on Lindsay Graham

After Graham's death, writing in a social media post, Hunter Biden had this to say:

"At a time when senators from different parties could fight about politics and still be friends. A time when a conservative Republican from South Carolina could say of my father: ‘If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, you’ve got a problem. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics. As good a man as God ever created'.

During Graham’s short-lived unsuccessful 2016 campaign for the presidency, he described Trump as “the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican party.”

He also labeled Trump “unfit for office” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” 

For those of us (including myself) who have demonized Graham as a Trump lacky and stooge, we should remember that he was also a man who was at one time clear about the true character of the last two presidents.

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It's not all bad

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The Real Reason

What is malign about the Supreme Court's recent decision concerning voting districts is that it interprets the U.S. Constitution to allow States to gerrymander but not to consider race as a factor. The requirement that states create districts with race in mind was intended to replace historic district alignments in Southern states which were deliberately created to minimize Black voting rights.

The result and intention of this current court decision is leading many states, most in the South, to create districts which will in effect create fewer black districts, in favor of whites. The so called 'inequality' that Republicans, including their Supreme Court colleagues, have overturned will intentionally create a more Republican, more conservative and whiter congress. Black people will be the biggest losers. That is the point.

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I want Donald Trump to get my praise.

Many Trump supporters accuse Trump haters of wanting the US to lose the Iran war in order to spite Trump and his supporters. Someone who has benefited significantly from living in this country yet wanting the US to lose this war seems to be committing an almost treasonous act, at least verbally.

So, it is a concern for me when I say that 'I want the US to lose this war.'

TBC

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR 4-10-26

The human suffering surrounding Trumps war on Iran is expanding and sad. We must deal with that now, but there is something else of concern at least as urgent.

Shortly after his accession to the Presidency, Donald Trump closed down all U.S. federal programs providing aid to countries suffering from severe medical circumstances. A large number of these programs dealt with mothers and children and provided life affirming assistance to help them deal with their challenges. Many lives were saved and much suffering alleviated.

Although most MAGA supporters would refuse to participate, here's what I would suggest. Once a month, a Senator would stand up and propose the 'Save Lives' act which would basically restore the policies that Trump terminated. At the same time, the speaker would report the fatality numbers (currently over seven hundred thousand), which are available from credible agencies in the US and abroad. As the numbers continue rising, It would be my hope that the voice of public opinion would swell loud enough to force Congress to take action. Continuing indifference to this atrocity would be a tragic failure of common human decency.

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Donald Trump's World

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A few weeks ago, Donald Trump stated that he was not interested in the Strait of Hormuz anymore and that it was up to the European and other countries to get and keep it open because they are the ones who need it. A day ago, Donald Trump stated that he would bomb Iran back to the stone age if Iran closed the strait again during the two weeks cease fire. The Iranian terrorist regime closed the straight again last night in response to Israeli bombings in Lebanon. The one thing that Maga supporters, including Fox news, understand intuitively is that Trumps strategy is working just as he has always claimed. The seeming contradictions in Trumps policies are the fictions of deranged foreigners and the radical terrorist left in this country. As Trump has stated clearly many times, the mighty US Army, a product of Trumps rebuilding, has won the war completely and the terrorist Iranian system is toppling before our eyes as we speak. Trump speaks the truth about this and has always done so. The proof is that he is completely prepared to back his words in two weeks, if Iran does not submit to our just and Christion demands, by bombing the terrorist Iranian regime back to the stone age.

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Genocide anyone?

A modest estimate of lives lost by cuts in foreign aid by the Trump administration is over 500,000 and over 10,000,000 million more projected over the next decade if the trend continues. All of these lives lost and the millions more of families mourning their losses, would not have happened if Kamela Harris rather than Donald Trump had been elected President. The media has largely downplayed or ignored this fact. Trumps Christian nationalist support continues largely loyal to the President who they believe was the choice of the Christian God.

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It's a sad statement about human values that the effect of the war on oil prices is of much more importance to the media, US politicians and government officials than the lives of the thousands of people, most of them Iranian or Lebanese, who have been killed in the bombings. Or for instance how the US alleged investigation of the school building killing of over 150 people, mostly children, has been buried and erased from public view.

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Donald has said  “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F‑‑‑in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP,'

trump backers don't generally comment on this but their point of view is basically that this type of rhetoric is part of trump's clever strategy to contrast with his peace offers and confuse the enemy, foreign and domestic.

trump haters call trump's diatribe 'war crime' talk and want to impeach him.

trump backers say the democrat(ic) rhetoric is inflammatory and is meant to blame trump for finally having the courage to fight back against the mullahs who were within months, if not weeks, of creating as many as 9 nuclear bombs, arming them and sending them off to murder innocent Israelis and Americans.

trump haters call this idea idiotic.

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"We didn't start it, Iran did!"

“We didn’t start it, Iran did!” - people who apparently live in an alternate reality where Trump hasn’t been antagonizing Iran since he took office, including trying to blame them for a drone strike on a Saudi oilfield

The US has been poking this hornet’s nest for years, and that’s only amped up with Trump. Now that the hornets have stung us, suddenly we’re claiming to be the victims and that our retaliation is just us valiantly protecting our own.

Anyone who can’t see that has the observation and critical thinking skills of a parking lot stripe.

No one is saying Soleimani was a good guy or that he wasn’t dangerous. But let’s stop acting like he was just an evil terrorist who came out of nowhere and acted in a vacuum. Let’s stop acting like the US doesn’t have plenty of blood on its own hands. McConnell claiming that no one alive has killed more people than Soleimani is pure nonsense and propaganda when you consider how many innocent civilians have died as a result of wars *WE* started. How many people have died just recently because of Trump’s impulsive, short-sighted decision to yank us out of Syria?

But once someone takes out an American, nothing else matters except that they’ve spilled American blood. There’s no way it could be retaliation for something Americans did. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys, and all that matters is what THEY do to US, regardless of what WE may have done to create the situation in the first place.

It’s sort of like how people screech about all these evil migrant caravans coming up from Central America. We treat them like invaders and enemies, all the while conveniently ignoring how much *WE* destabilized their countries and gave them a reason to flee in the first place.

We can’t claim to be victims if the chain of events goes back to OUR actions.

Which is to say that no one is suggesting the US shouldn’t protect our people or our interests.

We’re suggesting that maybe if the US stopped instigating conflicts, meddling in governments, exploiting economies, and finding excuses to go to war in countries that coincidentally possess resources we want, then there wouldn’t be nearly as many threats against our people and our interests in the first place.

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I'm afraid you're sailing against the wind. The abiding ignorance, toxic patriotism, lack of empathy for the innocents among our adversary's (and friends), led by a man with a blowtorch. Will we (or the world) survive? Thanks for being a coherent voice among the babble.

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Children Die

The silence from the Trump administration continues to be deafening over the US school bombing on the first day of Trumps war on Iran. Almost as disturbing is the near silent response by Democrats to the atrocity. The Democrats continue to be obsessed by things like the Epstein matter (still?) while, in effect eliding this child killing atrocity from their concern. The Republican silence is consistent with their complete indifference to any Iranian civilian deaths including of children. But at least they are not trying to hide the matter because they barely think about it and could care less about it when they do. But the Democratic silence about it? What's the matter with you people?

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My New Yorker cartoons 1

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