On Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe

 

This is Sarah Beckstrom in her Army National Guard uniform, where she was happily serving her country - our country - in the capacity that we are all responsible for assigning her to do.

 Guardsmen go where they are ordered. Not because they particularly want to, nor because they have an agenda. They go simply because someone up the chain of command told them to go. They are assigned duties. Sarah's was standing guard duty over a building. Not a particularly offensive duty, or at least it shouldn't be. When was the last time you went to a concert and there were no guards, no security. Did it offend you that they were there? Or did it make you fell just a little bit safer?

Sarah wasn't there to serve her own political, personal or ideological purposes. She was there because she was ordered to be and she was doing the job she was ordered to do. She was a good soldier. She was also a young woman on the brink of putting together her future. That has all ended. It cannot continue. Her story has been tragically and oh so sadly cut short.

Sarah died in the line of duty. She was 20 years old. As a soldier, the ones who ultimately carry the responsibility for her death is us, the people. We elected the officials who gave the orders that ended up putting Sarah on a street in Washington, D.C. We are truly and ultimately at the top of the chain of command. And as such, it falls to us to mourn her loss and remember that she gave her life as a soldier. No more or less so than any fallen soldier on any battlefield this country has ever put troops on. She deserve our respect, our honor and our remembrance. She certainly has mine. We are less because of what happened to her.

This is Andrew Wolfe, USAF Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe. At this writing, he is in a hospital with severe and life threatening injuries from a gunshot wound he suffered in the line of duty. It is unknown whether or not he will survive.

He, like Sarah, was simply doing what he was ordered to do in service to his country. Again, the ultimate responsibility for his wounds belong to "we, the people". He was in service to us, doing his duty for us - not some ideal, policy or preference  - for us. 

While I am praying for his full recovery, I would ask that all of us keep him in our consciousness. He deserves all the good thoughts we can send his way. He has more than earned them.

And I would also ask that we save the finger-pointing, blaming and political maneuvering until after the mourning. It is not appropriate to use these young peoples' and their families' horror for political or personal gain. Sarah deserve our reverence. Andrew deserve our honor. 

Please give it to them. They deserve so much more than we can ever, as a nation, give them.

On The Supreme Court and Same-sex Marriage

 

"Supreme Court rejects challenge to legalisation of same-sex marriage"

That was the headline on the BBC website this morning. I goes on to cover how this non-hearing came about with a woman named Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue a wedding license to a same-sex couple based on her religious beliefs. She got sued and lost. The judge in the case found that she cannot use her constitutional rights to violate someone else's. Evidently, the Supreme Court agrees. I think it goes deeper than that.

I support Ms. Davis' right to her religious beliefs. She is free to believe her Apostolic Christian beliefs freely. Her mistake is believing that she had the right to impose those beliefs on anyone -anybody- else. If she truly believes that homosexuality is against her beliefs, then she's in the wrong job. Instead of refusing to do her job, she should have resigned. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's". She was a public authority. Her job was to issue legal licensing to the public for the purposes (pretty much) of state record keeping. If she had religiously-based issues with that function, get another function. 

Your religious beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with another's beliefs or political rights. And you damn sure cannot enforce your beliefs on anybody else. It is anti-Christian to do so. You want people to share your beliefs? Show them how your beliefs make your life better, improve the society we live in, and make people happy while they maintain their right to choose. God gave mankind choice. Who are we to take it away?

Christ turned no one away. No one. The only entity he rejected was Satan and even then, he simply refused to take up what he was offering. You have an absolute right to your beliefs. So does everybody else. You want to convert someone? Love them. Don't deny them.

This Is The Way Its Supposed to Work

 With the government shutdown and Congress and the President playing politics with real peoples' lives, the people have stepped up to take care of their communities. It is absolutely one of the most heart-warming things I have seen in my life -and the way its supposed to be. Here are just a few examples of what ordinary people, charitable organizations and political candidates are doing to feed SNAP beneficiaries and out-of-work federal employees:

Pittsburgh man, A J Owen, set up a neighborhood food bank in his front yard with non-perishables and snacks he got from his local Aldi's. His TikTok went viral and he was covered on local and national news. Donations starting coming in, including an envelope with $100 bills and no name, Pittsburgh DE Yahya Black and his fiance who dropped off totes of food. And he estimates he's feeding 200 families in his community.

Kat Abughazaleh, of whom I have spoken before, has pledged $2500 per week of campaign funds to the food depositories in her district (She's running for Congress) and has challenged all candidates in her race to do the same (there are 17 candidates). 

A coffee shop owner in Portland is giving free "SNAP" breakfasts to anyone who needs a meal because an 11 year old boy asked him for one "because he was hungry". He is serving over 150 breakfasts a day and is getting help from donations. In his 450 sq. ft. coffee shop...

Southwest Diner in Boulder, Nevada is serving free meals to children during the shutdown.

In my home state, HEB, a huge but relatively local chain, has donated $5 million worth of food to food banks on top of what they were already donating weekly.

And the list goes on and on and on...

People helping people, spreading hope and love in their homes, their communities and to their neighbors. Something our government is entirely incapable of doing.(Not blaming the government, no government ever conceived has the tools to do that.) While it is not perfect, it is the way its supposed to work.

But don't let these stories convince you that all is well. Every food bank, depository or soup kitchen  researched is begging for help. They are getting more than they've ever gotten to help the hungry, but there are more hungry people than they've ever seen before. What used to last a month is now lasting less than a week.

These people they are helping have no options, no Plan B, nothing to fall back on. Food banks don't solve their poverty, they literally just keep them from starving while Elon Musk gets paid $1 trillion dollars. Funny that while working class Americans open up their wallets, give of their time and reach out with the hand of community, the 1% are strangely silent. Hmmmm...

So, please, do what you can to help. Usually, the best donation you can make is cash. Food banks can stretch your dollar to buy much more food than you can just buying from your local grocer. They can combine your money with other donations and buy in bulk for pennies on the dollar, corporations can write off any discounts they give to food banks so food banks can buy for less. All the food banks I researched also said that they need diapers and feminine hygiene products, which the cannot get discounts on, but that families need. My suggestion is call the food bank of your choice and ask what they need.

This is America at its best, this is what happens in a democracy of the people. When we're down, we come together and quit looking at our difference and start acting like what we are - "One People, Under God". Help if you can and may God Bless the United States of America.

American History and the Trump Question

 Fair warning - If you are a true believer in the MAGA movement and believe that President Trump is doing what is necessary to preserve America, then you probably will not like at least some of the thing I am going to write. Your agreement is not necessary or even expected. I would urge you to consider what is written here and present a cogent, reasonable refutation. I will respond, in the same vein, to tell you why I think you are wrong or agree whole-heartedly if I believe you to be correct. I promise.

First, let me explain what I think is going on. Donald Trump is the perfect front man for a group of small people who want to be gigantic. Stephen Miller is now, and from what I can read, always has been a fascist. But he is the man behind the movement, as far as I can tell. He might be a fascist, but he ain't stupid. He is using every tool at his disposal to manipulate people, events and history. (Have you read Orwell's 1984?) He is using governmental powers and prerogatives to undermine virtually every other institution in American society - not that these institutions hadn't pretty much shot themselves in the foot. The church has become a weapon of white nationalism. The media has become more about a news anchors or influencers opinion than the facts - forget the truth. The current administration spews lies like fountains spew water and there is no credible nay-sayer. 

But when the President blows boats out of the water in international waters because he can, when troops are illegally deployed in American cities, and only those cities that are overwhelmingly Democrat, and then looks straight at the camera and lies about why - When people are wholesale manhandled into unmarked vans by masked "agents' and sorted out later to determine if they can further be deprived of their rights and humanity - When the President, the only convicted felon to ever hold the office, deploys military troops to "control crime" - When the President publicly instructs the Attorney General to prosecute his political enemies and she does, we get to the heart of the matter, control. 

None of these actions have any purpose other than to instill fear and assert control over the people most likely to disagree with the current political regime - at least for now. I will state plainly what I have always believed - If you let someone or something take away rights from anybody, you are in line to lose them yourself. If you take away Jimmy Kimmel's right to criticize the President, then you stand to lose your right to criticize anyone or anything that the people you have just granted that right to decide what you should or shouldn't be able to criticize. It starts with Jimmy Kimmel - it ends with everybody having to tow the party line, tovarisch. Hitler was freely elected as Chancellor of Germany - look it up.

I despise what is happening to America. I do not blame Trump. I have some modicum of blame for Congress, who decided a long time ago that their job was not to represent their districts, it was to tow the party line and get re-elected so they could keep paying themselves with insider information, a super retirement plan and all those unused campaign funds. No, the ones to blame are us. The American people are the ones that didn't show up to the polls, didn't raise our voices when we should and could have, we didn't hold our Congresspersons accountable to our demands or even their own promises. We got ourselves here, where fear and force are the methods of politics.

Fortunately, if the courts will continue to do their job, we can change it again. Raise your voice, call your representatives in Congress and demand they do their job. Write letters, text, post TikTok videos, shout it from the rooftops that we will NOT BE AFRAID. And most importantly, VOTE! Register and VOTE! We got ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out. But only if we use the tools given to us, our voices and our votes. 

Change the political market, demand your representatives represent you and the rest of the constituency, hold their feet to the fire. When MTG starts speaking truth to power, something is changing, the wind is shifting. Be a part of that change.

Stop! Just F***ing Stop!

 Another shooting at a church today. 3 people, so far, have died including the shooter. One is still in critical condition. Oh, dear God...

Let me first say that I do not care what the shooter's motives were. They do not and cannot change the outcome. I do not blame the left or the right, I do not blame the Internet and I do not blame his childhood, no matter what the might have been like. At the end of the day, a 40 year old man decided that he, and he alone, had the right and the capability to shoot church goers at church on a Sunday morning.

So the 4th Amendment give every citizen the right to keep and bear arms as a vehicle to keep the government in check. Let me further state that I am from Texas. I own guns. I grew up with guns. I have used them for sport and keep them in my home for protection for people that would use their guns outside of Constitutional intent. I also believe that "outside of Constitutional intent" is the way guns are being used in our society all the time - as evidenced by the incredible number of blind, stupid murders occurring everyday across our country. Your guns are intended to discourage government overreach, not to punish or assassinate people you don't agree with about something, anything. How many children have to be shot before we realize that our rights are abridging theirs? Don't children and their parents have the right to be safe in their schools, their homes and their persons? Well, dammit, don't they? Where does their right end and your right to keep and bear arms begin? Where is the line? How do we balance their right to feel safe (which to me is fundamental to the 'pursuit of happiness') with our right to keep and bear arms?

I do not know the answer to that question. But I have some thoughts - As a gun owner, I have no problem proving to my community that I am a safe and responsible owner. I'm not talking registration of guns, I'm thinking more along the lines of gun user testing, sorta like a driver's license for being able to possess a firearm. You would be able to get one, even if you don't own a weapon, it would just be a basic security to show that you understand that guns have EXTREMELY limited, legitimate uses. Not because the government says so, because of what firearms are. 

Firearms have one basic function: to kill. That's what they were invented for, throughout history that's what they have been used for, and, literally cannot be defined as having any other purpose. Sure, you can shoot targets and clay pigeons, but that's a sporting corollary to their real function, designed to sharpen your ability to carry out that main function. 

Think of it this way: How comfortable would you be knowing your neighbor had a nuclear weapon in his home? He's a great guy! Attends all the PTA meetings, takes his kids to church every Sunday, and shows up for the HOA meeting to complain about the trash piling up at the edges of the community garden. But a nuclear weapon? How confident are you that you can trust that he won't get mad enough at someone, anyone, to set it off? What if he's a physicist and has the right to have a small nuclear weapon in his possession. Does that make you feel safer? Wouldn't you feel better knowing, by some tangible evidence, that he would not even consider this as a possibility?

So guns are the nuclear weapons of modern American. They kill or injure thousands of Americans every year. And Americans are doing the shooting. How do we stop that? I don't know. I don't have answers that will make everybody happy. But we damn sure need to start talking options. 

This must stop. Just fucking stop.

On Censorship and Corporate Courage

 As of this writing, Nexstar and Sinclair have decided to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel upon his return to ABC in his late night slot. Let me first state that it is their absolute right to do so. Their right to free speech through their media companies is as valid and protected as anyone else's. They do not have to air any content they deem will be unacceptable. But that's not why they are doing it. They're scared.

Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission chairman, publicly threatened these companies in his capacity as chair. He is welcome to his personal opinion, but he may not exercise that opinion in his official capacity. The FCC has no authority to censor content outside of content very carefully defined by law and precedent (you can't air porn, for example, on a public network). Instead of telling the bully, who is definitively censoring, to go fly a kite until the court date arrives, they chose to capitulate to yet another Trump appointee. 

Nexstar and Sinclair, who own the affiliates that are pre-empting Jimmy Kimmel, both have business before the FCC that requires the approval of the FCC to complete. Nexstar is trying to merge with or acquire another affiliate to increase its share of the ABC audience beyond the current restrictions allowed by regulation. Currently, no privately or publicly owned broadcaster can broadcast to more than 39% of the American audience. Nexstar already does that. It is seeking to further expand it broadcast empire which requires the FCC to change the regulations. Sinclair is seeking pretty much the same thing, though on a smaller scale. 

Brendan Carr specifically told all ABC affiliates that the FCC will block any efforts to keep affiliates on the air if the do not remove, again specifically, Jimmy Kimmel from their broadcasts. This includes all methods at the FCC's disposal, including, but not limited to, blocking acquisitions and mergers, withholding licenses, and any other tool they can use to enforce the will of the present administration on these companies.

This action is beyond the authority of the FCC, its censorship at its most obvious and its illegal. Nexstar and Sinclair should both thumb their noses at Brendan Carr, then sue the FCC if their deals fall apart because of these actions. But they won't. Corporate courage is an oxymoron. Corporations are not brave. They are profit machines. They exist only to make money and will do what their directors and CEO's believe is the most efficient way to do that. If that means capitulating to illegal and dangerous government demands, that's what they'll do. Courage and "doing the right thing" do not enter in to their equations unless it positively affects the bottom line. ABC reinstated Jimmy Kimmel because their bottom line was tanking due to public reaction, not because they thought it was the thing that needed to be done. The American consumers dictated to Disney, who owns ABC, what fight they have to fight to protect their bottom line. And it ain't banning Jimmy Kimmel.

Here's how affiliates make money; they buy shows from the networks and air them at pre-scheduled times. The networks pay to produce these shows and put them out to their affiliated broadcasters in local markets. The affiliates hope these shows are fantastically popular, because the larger an audience is for a show, the more they can charge for advertising. The more advertising they sell on air, the more money they make...and here's a kicker: we're entering campaign season where candidates buy a TON of local air time to try and get votes. That's big money for affiliates. And the larger the audience for a given show, the more money they make. But if a show has a smaller or no audience?  No money. Nobody buys expensive advertising so that it won't be seen.

So what if an affiliate had no audience? Heh. No money. The affiliate would change the programming pronto. Hint, hint. Ultimately, as proved with Disney, the consumer dictates what is aired on TV. So, if your community has a Nexstar or Sinclair ABC station - don't watch it! Switch to CBS or Netflix, take a walk, set that time to have coffee (or the beverage of your choice) with your neighbors and plan on how you can insert planks into the party platforms in the next elections, read a book. Anything but give audience to that affiliate. Use your power to force these affiliates to air the shows you want to see, because, ultimately, you're paying for it. It worked on Disney in 5 days. My opinion is it will take a little longer with local affiliates because their numbers and decision makers don't have the administrative structure that Disney has. They won't see the downturn as quickly or be able to change their minds as rapidly, but when the dollars start to disappear, change their tune they will.

And if the FCC plays dirty and illegally - take 'em to court! The Trump administration has lost every single court battle brought against them. Every single one. Corporations should consider that when threatened. The bully just kicked sand in your face - punch 'em in the nose with a summons. For just once, consider where your money comes from - and it ain't the federal government. Serve your consumers first and, generally, that bottom line is safe. Otherwise, prepare to suffer the consequences of pissing off your clientele. And as one that has been in retail for a very long time, the worst thing you can do is alienate your customers. A lot of times, they don't come back. Ever.

On Charlie Kirk and Free Speech

 On September 10th, 2025 Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a lone gunman from a safe vantage point.

Permit me to enumerate at least some of the reasons this is morally abhorrent.

Political assassination , even the attempt, is the pinnacle of moral cowardice. How much courage does it take to hide on a rooftop and pull a trigger, then run away? How does one person have the right to make moral and final judgements on another? It is purely and simply cowardice at the grandest possible scale.

Free speech is a guaranteed right of every person in this nation.  A right I have stated may times I would die to protect as hundreds of thousands of people already have. Anybody and everybody has the right to express their opinion openly and without threat of physical retribution. Dissent is part of the process. Disagreement and reasoned discourse -persuasion- is the way it works. To remove a conversation from the arena cheats the whole society. Cheating means you don't believe you can win, so you don't even try. Again, cowardice.

The logical corollary to free speech, the right to state your opinion openly and without threat, is the choice not to listen. You have every right to say whatever you want. I have every right not to hear you. On April 14, 1984, the Ku Klux Klan marched up Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas to the State Capital. They procured a permit from the city to do so and followed all the legal niceties that were required for them to march, as was their constitutional right. The editor of the Austin American-Statesman at the time (who was Jewish) wrote an op-ed piece defending their right to march. He also encouraged everyone NOT to attend. He postulated that if the Klan marched up an empty avenue, if they could not upset anyone, they would not further invest their time and money in marching on the state capital. As a resident of Austin at the time, I am proud to say that this advise was largely followed. The Klan marched up an avenue lined by Austin police and maybe a dozen rabble-rousers from other groups attempting to get publicity. While the Klan was afforded their rights, the citizens of Texas exercised their corollary rights of not paying attention. The Klan has never made that march since then.

Charlie Kirk made his living, supported his family and his community by exercising his right to speak. I most vehemently disagreed with his suppositions, but would not dream of denying his right to have and speak them in the public sphere. I chose to exercise my corollary rights. I did not hear him. As with the Klan in Austin, if enough people exercise the right not to listen, Charlie would have been out of a job. The other avenue open to every citizen was to engage Charlie in reasoned discourse - argue with him- and persuade his audience that, if enacted in policy, his opinions had consequences that would be unpopular if not catastrophic. 

Persuasion, not violence, is the American way. Reason and logic are the sole tools of every social endeavor. Violence can only achieve chaos. Political violence must be anathema to the society writ large. You don't have to agree, you don't have to listen, but you must allow the freedom to speak. If you take away Charlie's right to speak, you ultimately remove your own.