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~ my 2cents ...

The answer is not in black or white

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Just another rant … ongoing

In politics, Labor Day is traditionally marked as the start of election season. That means September 7, is the first working day of the fall campaign. The urgency for change and the fight for a better Union continues! All it takes for the Democratic Party is to take your civic duty seriously and drop your ballot into your State and community drop-off ballot box

The fights against discrimination in all its forms break out all over the U.S.; Americans have to wonder why voters are drinking the Republican fear-mongering kook aid instead of putting “We the People” ahead of Lobbying groups that arm their current or next elections with $$$, and the folks coming out ahead are the 1%, NOT the rural guy or middle-class worker.  In a place that has always welcomed and/or cared for the poor, single moms with kids, respected the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, immigration, women’s, senior citizens’, and workers’ rights when the need is clear, with votes on the Floor of Congress in the House against most, if not all of the above.

Instead, the Republican Tea Party came to power in 2013 with ugly Colonial ways and ideologies on issues like Race, religion, and the rights of its people. The GOP of 2013 said they spoke for the people, yet decided to ignore the polls unless it was against the Obama admin and all democratic elections. They trashed $24billion of the people’s money with a shutdown, a tantrum that probably will hurt Americans in the long term. If you can, imagine what $24 billion could have done for your fellow American, then remember Ted Cruz reading Green Eggs and Ham as if $24 billion meant nothing.  I used to think all we had to worry about was what side of the political aisle these righties stood on and how many actually needed to be voted out of Congress. Now, it is all about states’ rights and what social program the government will cut, slash, or burn while pitting the upper and middle class against the working class, then eliminating those in need as well.  I would love MSM to ask all or most republicans about being on Social Security! Is it a right, a privilege, or something else that makes it ok for them, while others needing social services are considered lazy and need to get a job while they get Tariff Refunds? They don’t know the individual situations and circumstances of folks of colour, let alone anyone else.  The fact is, 1 out of 6 people live in poverty and 20% … let me say that again, 20% maybe more of our American children live in poverty; for an ultra-rich country, information should offend and outrage us all.

If you listen to conservative media speak, because it is clear they had to control the airwaves …  the lines of fair or balanced news and behavior become blurry, leaving the voter confused or having taken the fear-mongering to heart, voting against their own best interest and got what they paid for.

I once said: If the 2013 GOP gets their way, if they complete their mission, the only ones standing will be those who claim to be Republicans, but in 2016 Americans got beat by folks who feared America was becoming too brown, proudly announced themselves to be nationalists or white nationalists wanting to be the only governing source or supporting family governing or even worse? When HRC lost the 2026 election, all elections afterward seemed different; some of us thought this had to be rigged, manipulated, let alone the odd electoral results… this ish happened in the 21st century?

We the People cannot keep allowing this to happen

We had two great POTUS, and it felt like a few steps forward. Yet, the era of Trump took hold, and while we see being “other than” as against the law, suffice it to say, how much does Team Trump want to take away from what was gained over the last few decades as democracy seems to be slipping away?  Make your voice heard and vote vote vote … register others for elections!

As memory lane becomes a jagged, crooked road of things for the millionaires and billionaires, the average American continues to lose while the middle and lower classes are suffering … some have become Vehicle Residents

We all know that programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are considered Mandatory Spending, accounting for almost 60% of federal expenditures. Yes, they definitely need reform, but should not be eliminated. The current crazy offensive fiscal attacks by Republicans do not seem to be because of the deficits we were facing, but a brazen attempt to privatize these programs. We have to remember the past, so we don’t repeat the Ryan budget plan, which was a nightmare. Most people in the U.S. know the big three need updating, but Republicans are not going to update or reform them to reduce waste, abuse, and fraud, or expand them. The plan, imo, continues to be splitting up all US Social Services into pieces so that premiums and prices have absolutely no regulatory control, or caps on how high or how often costs will rise.

I continue to ask, why didn’t Republicans learn a single thing from the near-US collapse of 2008, and do the old purity pledge Tea Party teach the new MAGARs members of Congress a lesson, or do they just have a big itch to see what exactly happens when a government falls apart because it feels like a full-on reach back to the Colonial days …

What we have here, what we have all been watching is the destruction of our government as we know it, seemingly trying to change it from the Republican Tea Party which really no longer exists or is based on a “family values platform” but one of overt discrimination … a we against them mentally, which includes and is not limited to banning Choice suppressing the Vote eliminating Social Services among many other things.

It is a disturbing and truly rude awakening watching and listening to how folks seem to want to turn back the clock and reinstate segregation, Jim Crow, and the poll tax.

Be a Seed for Change ~ Nativegrl77 ~ Another Rant

~ Culture & History, ~ my 2cents ...

August … a month full of historic events


270px-Hurricane_Katrina_Mobile_Alabama_flooded_parking_lot_20050829just another rant …

August~

 remember Katrina … remind folks what happened on the Gulf Coast as the people fled, some were forced out into the streets some died in the Katrina disaster trying to get out safely; while others faced excessive force violence and death

August 1, 1838 – Slavery was abolished in Jamaica. It had been introduced by Spanish settlers 300 years earlier in 1509.

August 2, 1776 – In Philadelphia, most of the 55-56 members of the Continental Congress signed the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence.

August 3
1936 – Jesse Owens won the first of his four Olympic gold medals.

1943 – Gen. George S. Patton verbally abused and slapped a private. Later, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered him to apologize for the incident.

1981 – U.S. traffic controllers with PATCO, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, went on strike. They were fired just as U.S. President Reagan had warned.

1992 – The U.S. Senate voted to restrict and eventually end the testing of nuclear weapons.

2004 – NASA launched the spacecraft Messenger. The 6 1/2 year journey was planned to arrive at the planet Mercury in March 2011. On April 30, 2015, Messenger crashed into the surface of Mercury after sending back more than 270,000 pictures.

August 4, 1962 – Apartheid opponent Nelson Mandela was arrested by security police in South Africa. He was then tried and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1964, he was placed on trial for sabotage, high treason and conspiracy to overthrow the government and was sentenced to life in prison. A worldwide campaign to free him began in the 1980s and resulted in his release on February 11, 1990, at age 71 after 27 years in prison. In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa’s President F.W. de Klerk for their peaceful efforts to bring a nonracial democracy to South Africa. In April 1994, black South Africans voted for the first time in an election that brought Mandela the presidency of South Africa.

August 4, 1964 – Three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were found murdered and buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. They had disappeared on June 21 after being detained by Neshoba County police on charges of speeding. They were participating in the Mississippi Summer Project organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to increase black voter registration. When their car was found burned on June 23, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the FBI to search for the men.

August 5, 1861 – President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first Federal income tax, a 3 percent tax on incomes over $800, as an emergency wartime measure during the Civil War. However, the tax was never actually put into effect.

August 6, 1965 – The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Act suspended literacy, knowledge and character tests designed to keep African Americans from voting in the South. It also authorized the appointment of Federal voting examiners and barred discriminatory poll taxes. The Act was renewed by Congress in 1975, 1984 and 1991.

August 6-10, 1787 – The Great Debate occurred during the Constitutional Convention. Outcomes included the establishment of a four-year term of office for the President, granting Congress the right to regulate foreign trade and interstate commerce, and the appointment of a committee to prepare a final draft of the Constitution.

August 9, 1974 – Effective at noon, Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal. Nixon had appeared on television the night before and announced his decision to the American people. Facing possible impeachment by Congress, he became the only U.S. President ever to resign.

August 10, 1863 – The President meets with abolitionist Frederick Douglass who pushes for full equality for Union ‘Negro troops.’

August 11, 1841 – Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, spoke before an audience in the North for the first time. During an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island, he gave a powerful, emotional account of his life as a slave. He was immediately asked to become a full-time lecturer for the Massachusetts Antislavery Society.

August 11-16, 1965 – Six days of riots began in the Watts area of Los Angeles, triggered by an incident between a white member of the California Highway Patrol and an African American motorist. Thirty-four deaths were reported and more than 3,000 people were arrested. Damage to property was listed at $40 million.

On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln did something unprecedented in presidential history up to that point: he met with a small delegation of black leaders (all free: 5 black clergymen). But the meeting did not auger a decision to give African Americans a voice in government. In essence, Lincoln sought to lobby these men in essence to agree to a divorce. In other words, the President wanted to get black Americans behind his plan to colonize them abroad. –Source http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln5/1:812?rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=August+14

August 14, 1935 – President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act establishing the system which guarantees pensions to those who retire at age 65. The Social Security system also aids states in providing financial aid to dependent children, the blind and others, as well as administering a system of unemployment insurance.

August 15, 1969 – Woodstock began in a field near Yasgur’s Farm at Bethel, New York. The three-day concert featured 24 rock bands and drew a crowd of more than 300,000 young people. The event came to symbolize the counter-culture movement of the 1960’s.

August 18, 1920 – The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote.

August 24-

August 28, 1963 – The March on Washington occurred as over 250,000 persons attended a Civil Rights rally in Washington, D.C., at which Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his now-famous I Have a Dream speech.

    August 28, 1955 The death of Emmett Till

 August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina slams into Gulf Coast

August 30 1967  Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Supreme Court justice

1983 U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger

August 31

Source: http://www.historyplace.com

~Nativegrl77

~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Reminder: Ending DACA could have cost states billions in GDP ~ reminder

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While several groups on both sides of the political aisle have posted how much they believe ending DACA will cost, the trump admin didn’t and still doesn’t seem to care or understand GDP. 

As Americans, some of us believe in the lowercase c for capitalism, so the idea that it would cost approximately $290 billion-plus to end DACA and Deport the Dreamers as well seems like an obvious wtf moment. The logical response would seem to be Nah, we can’t afford to do this, so working this ish out in a reasonable bipartisan way seems much saner… right?

So, the demand to end DACA was heard and being pushed worldwide by the now-former and late AG Jeff Sessions in what seemed like an exciting press conference, at least to him. Yet, those who understood the gravity of the decision fought back. It doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to understand how GDP works and what its ultimate impact is on our economy.  Well, a few civilians get it. 

 Luckily, the courts stepped in then, but the struggle, the fight, and best efforts for a perfect union continue.

~Nativegrl77

~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Birthright, birthers, citizenship, economy, and austerity …


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a repost

just another continued rant on citizenship …  2013 …

The sole mission of this Republican Party of No – is to turn back the clock … It is beyond offensive and will affect all our family’s past, present, and future.

This is yet another necessary and assertive commentary on citizenship… 2013..
Amazingly, Republicans thought they could bury the birther issue for good, only to resurface after a couple of Romney flip-flops. Now that he’s back in Congress, numerous Republican members and governors are still insisting that Americans’ concerns don’t matter—that Birtherism is real, the War on Women and their rights are deemed less significant. Republicans in Congress need to prioritize the people’s business; instead, this group seems more focused on hearings that serve no purpose and on revenge politics, dismissing constituents entirely. We must confront the facts as we approach the next elections: Trump was in office for just two years, and the Treasury Department was scrambling to address financial turmoil. It’s outrageous! Not to mention that Trump chose Monica Crowley for Treasury Secretary—a Fox contributor and lobbyist with a track record of plagiarism and no real financial experience. Despite the mess caused by Republicans, our economy is slowly recovering, thanks in large part to President Obama. While progress is happening without austerity measures, Mitch McConnell and his allies continue to filibuster against it. Austerity remains the mantra of the new Republican nationalists. Americans seem oblivious to the reality unfolding before them, but as the truth surfaced at town hall meetings, some finally recognized the detrimental impact of the plans being pushed. The current 115th Congress needs to face scrutiny because their economic strategies will only benefit the top 1-3%. Ignorance is not bliss—it’s a trap. Amidst the clamor of confusing economic narratives, the Republican Party’s behavior is hitting new lows. Birtherism might seem ridiculous, but the ideology fueling it continues to infiltrate conservative discussions and their notion of “Religious Conscience.” It’s time to question whether religion, consciousness, and instinct belong together, especially given the destructive policies coming from the current administration of white nationalists. We must respond—so lace up your marching shoes. The issues affecting women, immigrants, workers, minorities, students, voter rights, and religious freedom are all deeply tied to Republican agendas. The harsh reality is that many states are passing stringent, harmful legislation against the middle and lower classes under the guise of new, bright promises of prosperity. The Ryan agenda, full of promises of prosperity, fell apart almost immediately, revealing that Trump had taken an extreme right turn, full of continued tantrums and chaos. His presidency is still the face of the Republican Party—and racism and birtherism are mere tools for their fearmongering. The Republican Party of the 21st Century is not even close to what our parents had to face; instead, it has become a far more dangerous entity, seemingly trying to take us back to colonial days. The extreme right has swapped places with the short-lived Dixiecrats, perpetuating a divisive ideology that continues to thrive in today’s version of the Southern Strategy. We must recognize the perilous path that conservatives are attempting to lead us down—it has the potential to dismantle our democracy. Moreover, we should not be afraid to call out the absurdity of any pledge, let alone this conservative pledge—especially this “Purity Pledge” from the organization N.O.M. It’s utterly offensive to pledge to harm and exclude others, yet all socially conservative presidential candidates signed this disgraceful document. This pledge boldly demands commitments that are not just archaic but downright harmful, insisting participants never engage in premarital or extramarital affairs, abandon all forms of pornography and gambling, refuse to marry individuals of the same gender, and oppose any government action supporting civil unions for same-sex couples.

It’s time to challenge this narrative—this purity pledge doesn’t represent true American values, and we must demand better.

The sole mission of this Republican Party of No – is to turn back the clock … It is beyond offensive and will affect all our family’s past, present, and future.

~ Culture & History, ~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture, ~ pop culture

How can I reduce my exposure to Roundup in food?


Practically, this means supporting local farmers who adopt sustainable practices and choosing food products certified by organizations like the USDA’s Organic label or the Leaping Bunny Program. By making informed choices, we can contribute to a more resilient food system that prioritizes pollinator health and maintains ecosystem balance.

Another way to reduce exposure to Roundup is to be more mindful of the foods that are most likely to contain high levels of the herbicide. Consumers can focus on buying whole, unprocessed foods, which tend to be lower in pesticide residues and contaminants. They can also cook and prepare foods in ways that minimize exposure, such as washing and peeling fruits and vegetables, and choosing cooking methods that break down or eliminate pesticide residues. By being more informed and taking proactive steps, consumers can reduce their exposure to Roundup and promote healthier eating habits. Environmental Factors Contributing to Bee Declines: Interactions with Glyphosate

Glyphosate has been a major concern for bee health, and research suggests that its interactions with environmental factors are crucial in understanding declining bee populations. Let’s explore these interactions further.

Additionally, it seems that our own NIH may have information that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overlooked. I’m not entirely sure, but I found this while searching for information. The only solution is to stop consuming certain foods that scientific studies have documented as toxic due to pesticide use, such as Roundup, or foods that were directly treated with these chemicals.

Farina, W. M., Balbuena, M. S., Herbert, L. T., Goñalons, C. M., & Vázquez, D. E. (2019). Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Honey Bee Sensory and Cognitive Abilities: Individual Impairments with Implications for the Hive. Insects, 10(10), 354. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects10100354

Sources: panflavor.com, beekeepercorner.com