I have never been more disappointed in my fellow Americans than I am right now!

It is now two and a half minutes to midnight!

Ticked 30 seconds closer after Trump took office based on his North Korea comments.


[link:https://thebulletin.org/press-release/it-now-two-and-half-minutes-midnight10432|]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 26, 2017 – It is now two and a half minutes to midnight. For the first time in the 70-year history of the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board has moved the hands of the iconic clock 30 seconds closer to midnight. In another first, the Board has decided to act, in part, based on the words of a single person: Donald Trump, the new President of the United States.


...
The statement continues: “Just the same, words matter, and President Trump has had plenty to say over the last year. Both his statements and his actions as President-elect have broken with historical precedent in unsettling ways. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding the US nuclear arsenal. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice related to international security, including the conclusions of intelligence experts. And his nominees to head the Energy Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency dispute the basics of climate science. In short, even though he has just now taken office, the president’s intemperate statements, lack of openness to expert advice, and questionable cabinet nominations have already made a bad international security situation worse.”

African-americans; have things changed in the last year and if so, how?

I have to run to work but wanted to ask, in day-to-day interactions, have you noticed a change. Do people treat you the same, differently?

"Why Do the Koch Brothers Want a Convention of States?" - CHARLES P. PIERCE

[link:http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14841457/convention-of-states-campaign-secession/|]

But the larger danger is that the idea of disunion, within states and generally throughout the country, has now become not only a viable topic of political discussion, but also a viable political strategy. The whole blue-red thing used to be an easy way to distinguish on television which geographical area voted for what candidate. Then, it became shorthand for all manner of political differences. It was inexact and shallow, but inexact and shallow people found it convenient, so everybody went along with it. Now, though, those divisions are driving policy in a way that they rarely have in the past, and when they have, the policies generally resulted in ghastly consequences.

For example, the portion of the recently passed tax bill involving the deduction of state and local taxes is directly aimed at the (largely blue) states that are willing to pay for a certain quality of life for their citizens through local taxes. Basically, Massachusetts is being penalized for deciding not to be Mississippi. The same dynamic is at work with Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and his newly announced war on decriminalized marijuana, in which Colorado is being penalized for not being Alabama. This latter instance has the added power of federal law enforcement behind it, which (theoretically) puts politicians like Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey at risk. But the use of disunion as a political tool is exemplified best by the campaign to call a constitutional convention of the states under Article V of the present Constitution.

Right now, the people pushing the convention—and we’ll get to them in a minute—have commitments from 28 state legislatures. They need 34 to trigger the Constitution’s provision for a “convention of the states.” Four states are on the verge of voting on the issue now: South Carolina, Kentucky, Montana, and Idaho. (South Carolina has an unfortunate history with the consequences of disunion as a political tactic, which it apparently has been encouraged to forget.) If the convention is called, the disunion that has become a faith in some conservative quarters will run amok. Economic oligarchy will be established in law, and any political check on the powers of business likely will be eviscerated.

As to the former, the Koch Brothers and other aspiring oligarchs are the money behind the movement toward a convention. As to the latter, the whole thing is being sold under the camouflage of a desire to enact a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution—aka The Worst Idea In American Politics. But even the late Antonin Scalia admitted that a convention so called cannot be limited to one topic, and, anyway, a visit to the website of Convention of the States Project, one of the most prominent organizations in favor of the convention, reveals that the convention is a device for profound political sabotage.

Non-violent Mass Civil Disobedience - General Strike - Government Shutdown - Boycotts

“Things do not change; we change.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



If not now, when?