How Does That Kool-aid Taste?

A response to the Facebook posting of the following image:

  Does this mean you believe the 10,000+ lies of Our Glorious Leader? How's that new covers-everyone, cheaper, better, health care plan working for you? You know, the one Trump said that you pay $12 a year for, and by the time you are 70 you have a nice plan?
  Enjoying the trade war that consumers are footing the bill for (not the Chinese, just us)? Do you think that the cost of tariffs is not passed on in the form of higher prices?

  Are you cheering on the Racist-In-Chief as he goads his white nationalist base to attack minorities?
  Do you still think the 30+ indictments and guilty pleas resulting from the Mueller investigation are a nothing burger and a Witch Hunt? How many charges resulted from the numerous Congressional investigations into Benghazi and Hillary's private e-mail server? None? Is that why Hillary is not locked up?
  How many of Trump's top campaign officials were charged with crimes? All of them?
  Do you think that the fact that Trump's golfing trips total more than three times the whole cost of the Mueller investigation is meaningless?
  Or that Trump profiting from foreign nationals staying at his properties is not a violation of the emoluments clause?
  Remind me of the scandals that occurred involving the Obamas?

  Do you still believe the lie that Democrats want to take all guns away? Or that Social Security is the biggest federal expense (even though it is by law separate from the national budget and has its own revenue stream)? Are you okay with Medicare being banned from negotiating drug prices, the result of which is Medicare and seniors being forced to pay whatever the drug companies want to charge?
  Are you okay with gerrymandering being legal and political parties getting a 2/3 majority in state legislatures with less than 50% of the vote?
  Unlimited campaign spending and the ability of foreign governments to invisibly contribute to campaigns?

  What is it going to take for you to see what a disaster Trump's administration is? More mass murders? More outrageous lies? Prevention of election security measures? More consumer protections being stripped away? Rivers once again catching on fire? The continuation of the denigration of poor and working-class and disabled and LGBTQIA Americans? More racist tweets about minority members of Congress? More ignoring of and failures to enforce the Bill of Rights? More dead and injured journalists? More insults and accusations using official White House correspondence (as the President's tweets have been declared to be)? More insults to allies and praise for dictators? More calling out "Fake News" whenever unfavorable stories about the president are aired? More deaths and human rights violations in Trump's concentration camps? What is it going to finally take?

  How does that kool-aid taste?


All Americans have a constitutional right to criticize President Donald Trump

Bleeding Heart Liberals - My Facebook Response

Oh. My. God. You're so right. Liberals are bleeding-heart tax-and-spend spineless proponents of a welfare state. The sick and the poor have only themselves to blame with their unhealthy lifestyles and poor career choices. Minimum wages and pensions and safety regulations are for pussies. Corporations should be able to take whatever resources they want and not have to worry about rivers catching on fire or smog or contaminated soil or complaining neighbors or products that kill people. Caveat emptor! No more regulations! Corporations should be able to impose their religious beliefs on heathen lazy workers. Deviant lifestyles should be punished. Sex is binary!

The healthcare insurance industry should stand between a patient and doctor, and be able to pick and choose healthy people to insure. Insurers should be allowed to charge unlimited premiums, co-pays, deductibles, limits. Why should insurers have to pay for people's stupidity and sinful ways? Monopolies make good business sense. Trickle down will work this time! The pay raises and benefits and new jobs will rain down on workers. Jobs will be created because corporations have more money, not because of increased demands for their products.

Gerrymandering will ensure that only the worthy will govern us. Who cares if brown people have to stand in line for five hours to vote. It's the American Way. The financial sector should be able to play with Social Security Trust Fund's $2.89 trillion in US Treasury Bonds. Teachers should be armed. Sure, some kids might get accidentally shot. That's the price of a free state.

Liberals only want health care for all, justice to be not just for the wealthy, minorities and disabled and the sick and elders to not be discriminated against, regulations for health and safety, air and water and soil protection, higher wages for workers (and more purchasing power), consumer protections, pension protections and safe retirements, fair elections, bans on weapons of mass murder, police who don't murder 911 callers, no more corporate welfare (including indirect welfare by having to provide government assistance to their employees), worker VISAs so migrants can go back home, a non-religious government, healthcare that corporations don't have to fund aside from equal taxes.

The Founding Fathers loved the Church of England and wanted to make America safe for Church rule. They wanted freedom from the tyranny of atheists and agnostics. They were not fans of the religions of Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), Daoism, Muism, Cao Dai, Shintoism, Buddhism, and Islam (including Sunni, Shia, Ibadi, Ahmadi). They believed in The Church of England (Anglican), not in those other Christian pretenders such as Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Protestant, Episcopalian, Mennonite, and Quaker. They would not have liked modern Christianity with its strange new sects such as Pentecostal, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Apostolic, and Christian Science.

Liberals. What are people thinking? Snowflakes and libtards and namby-pamby crybabies. Give us conservatism!

Remind me when the Obama girls were adults working in government with their father. I don't remember that.

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Note: This blog posting was written in response to a comment on a post comparing Chelsea Clinton with Ivanka (Trump) Kushner.

Facebook photo posting: Chelsea vs. Ivanka

Commenter: [Name withheld to shield people from further spelling and grammar errors.] You people have become worse than conservatives. They were the bullies now you folks have taken it to their leval. I hope you know you're no different from a conservative when it comes to ignorance and being brainwashed. I remember when they were clowning on the Obama girls. Your doing the same thing hypocrit.

Supreme Court Throws Out Conviction in Sixth Trial

I'm reading the Supreme Court decision for Flowers v. Mississippi, and it is as if everyone is trying their damnedest to rule out blatant racism. But it is clear that District Attorney Doug Evans should be disbarred for that alone. How many cases were settled by guilty plea agreements simply because defendants knew there was no way to get a fair trial? How many innocent defendants were railroaded by Evans?

Additionally, there was considerable prosecutorial misconduct not related to jury selection. It's as if Evans was daring a higher court to overturn his convictions and did not care whether a trial was fair. But if he was trying to put a murderer in prison, clearly his methods were not in the public interest. The prosecutor's victories were tainted beyond redemption.

Two hung juries and four overturned verdicts. 20 years in prison for Flowers without a valid conviction of guilt. If Evans is the prosecutor for a seventh trial(!), how can a defense attorney look himself in the mirror if he does not demand a change of venue? How could a judge refuse? 

Since Evans has been allowed without restriction to continue his practice of prosecutorial misconduct as well as to continue his blatant racist behavior, clearly his nest of enablers also need to be dealt with. But it's Mississippi. That would be as likely as if the Supreme Court were to decide to reinstate the portions of the Voting Rights Act that they threw out because it was no longer needed in our "post-racial" society.

Background

Curtis Flowers was convicted primarily on the basis of one particle of gunshot residue on his right hand, along with "jailhouse confessions." One of Flowers' cellmates said he was placed with Flowers to get a confession. When he was unable to, he said that a statement was constructed by the Sheriff and by District Attorney Doug Evans. Testimonies from two of Flowers' cellmates about his confession were later recanted with claims that their testimonies in the first trial were coerced with promises of freedom and with threats. Their testimonies were not used in subsequent trials.
Other than that one particle, there was no direct evidence tying Flowers to the murders. One piece of indirect evidence was a bullet, found in a mattress, from a .380 caliber pistol. Flowers' uncle said his own .380 caliber gun was stolen the morning of the murders. The mattress bullet was visually identified (a subjective science) as being the same as bullets extracted from a post in Flowers' uncle's mother's back yard. The murder weapon was never found. There were also people claiming to have seen Flowers near the garment factory where the uncle's gun had been stolen. Some of those people were not interviewed until eight or nine months after the murders, and there were problems with other witness stories. Prosecutorial misconduct, blatant racism in jury select, two mistrials and four overturned verdicts. And one particle of gunshot residue.

Huffington Post Article: Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction In Curtis Flowers Case

Clarion-Ledger (Jackson Mississippi) article: Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row Link to IMDB summary of an episode of Wrong Man series: "Curtis Flowers: Trial and Error"