Monday, January 20, 2025

The snapshot

Monday, January 20, 2025.  Welcome to the nest four years of hell.


Today, we observe the birthdate of MLK -- a national holiday for a heroic American.  Speaking yesterday at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, South Carolina, US President Joe Biden noted MLK:

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, hello, hello.  (Applause.)  Please.  Please, sit. 

Before I — before I begin, let me tell you what I told Jim about 20 minutes ago. 

I used to start off, as a young kid getting involved in the civil rights — my state, Delaware, to its great shame was a — was a — anyway, fought on the wrong side of the w- — (laughs).  My state was segregated by law.  My state, Delaware, was no different in terms of its laws than South Carolina or any other Southern state.  And like two other states, just couldn’t figure out how to get in the fight on the side of the South because it was cut off.  But the southern two parts of my state, they talk funny like y’all do down here.  (Pronounced in an accent.)  You know what I mean?  (Laughter.)

And — but all kidding aside, I — I used to — I used to go, when I got engaged to — in the c- — I — I didn’t plan on — I love reading these biographies on how I knew I was going to be president, going to run for president, et cetera.  Truth of the matter was that I’m a kid who — we talk about impediments; I used to ta- — t- — ta- — talk — talk like that.  I used to stutter.  Came from — came from a — a — you know, came from a place called Claymont, Delaware.  A lot of steel town — it all went bankrupt.  Come from Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Things didn’t work out so well because of the economy. 

But you know what?  Every time — every time I spent time in the Black church — I was telling Jim — I think of one thing: the word “hope.”  (Applause.)  No, not a joke. 

Pastor Holt, thank you for allowing me to be back at this pulpit.  And, Senator, thank you for that introduction.  I appreciate it. 

You know, you made a really moving sermon, Pastor.  And — and thank you, for the congregation of Royal Missionary Baptist Church, for welcoming me back to Charleston to worship with you. 

I prayed with you here in February of 2020 when I was running for president.  On my final full day as president, of all the places I wanted to be was back here with you.  (Applause.)

I first got involved — first got involved in public life because of the Civil Rights Movement.  I — I’d attend 7:30 mass at my church, then I’d go to another morning service at the AME Church in Delaware — the Black church, the spiritual home of the Black experience that helped redeem the soul of the nation, literally. 

That’s the truth we honor on the weekend we celebrate one of the political heroes — my political heroes, many of yours — Dr. Martin Luther King.

I have two busts in my office that I can see from my desk.  I had two political heroes growing up: Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy.  (Applause.)  No, I’m serious.  S- — you’ve been in my office, Jim.  There’s two busts fr- — that I see from my desk.

On Sundays, we often reflect on resurrection and redemption.  We remember Jesus was buried on Friday and he rose on Sunday.  We don’t talk enough about Saturday, when his disciples felt all hope was lost. 

Our lives and in the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays; we bear — to bear witness of the day before glory, and some people’s pain — are in pain and they can’t look away.  But what — the work we do on S- — Saturday is going to determine whether we move a- — with pain or purpose. 

How can faith get a person, get a nation through what’s to come?

Here’s what my faith has taught me.  Scripture says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another person.”  (Applause.)  That’s what faith and friendship has taught me. 

And friends in South Carolina, like Jim and Emily Clyburn, I could not be standing here, I would not be standing — that’s not hyperbole — I would not be staying here in this pulpit were it not for Jim Clyburn.  (Applause.)

And although somewhat presumptuous of me, neither of us would be standing here without Emily, who we all miss dearly, and who actually made Jim endorse me.  (Laughter.) 

Thank you, Emily.  (Laughter and applause.)

South Carolina friends like Fritz and Peatsy Hollings, who believed in me when I got through one of the most difficult times of my life.  When I was a 26-year- — -9-year-old kid, I got a phone call saying my wife and daughter were dead and my two boys were not likely to live. 

Well, guess what?  Jim, Emily, Fritz and Peatsy, and so many friends in South Carolina have always been there for me, and especially in those Saturdays when I felt all hope was gone; those days when I buried pieces of my soul — my wife, my daughter, my son, Beau, who was the attorney general of Delaware; when I felt like there was just a black hole in my chest sucking me into it — anger and rage that I felt at the time. 

But then, friends — your friends bear witness.  They see your pain.  They pick you up to help you get to Sa- — to Sunday, from pain to purpose.  (Applause.)

I felt that faith of pres- — friendship when I prayed with this congregation — when they play- — played with the congregation and prayed with the congregation of Mother Emanual.

I went there and tried to confront [comfort] them on my own Saturday, but it was they who ended up comforting me, as we arrived together and found grace together.  Moving from pain to purpose strengthened my faith in the service of others, to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and all thy mind” and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” 

Very easy to say, but very hard to do.

But in the words — in those words are the essence of the gospel, is the essence of the American promise: the idea, as was mentioned earlier, that we’re all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. 

My dad used to say, “The greatest sin of all is the abuse of power.”  (Applause.)

We’ve never fully lived up to that commitment, but we’ve never walked away from it either because of you and your ancestors before us, who followed light of the North Star even in the darkness. 

After this service, I’ll be visiting the International African American Museum.  It captures the ongoing story of redemption.  I’ll tour the exhibits, and I’ll speak about the power of history to make real the promise of America for all Americans.  But this morning, I’d like to talk about the essential piece of redemption — the power of mercy and justice.

With experience, wisdom, conscience, compassion, and science, we know how healing and restoration from harm is a pathway to the kind of communities we want to live in, where there’s fairness, justice, accountability in the system; where the people we love go through hard times, fall down, make mistakes, but we’re right there to help them get back up.  (Applause.)

We don’t turn on each other.  We lean into each other.  That’s the sacred covenant of our nation.  We pledge an allegiance, not just to an idea but to each other.  That’s who we’re pledging allegiance to. 

That’s how I viewed my decision to issue more inv- — individual pardons and commutations than any president in American history.  (Applause.)  To inspire an end to federal death penalty by commuting most of those sentences to life in prison without parole.  To commute the sentence of individuals serving disproportionately hard, long, and harsh sentences for non-violent drug offenses compared to the sentence they would have received today in commuting [committing] that crime.  To show mercy for individuals who either did their time or a signi- — a significant amount of time and have shown significant remorse and rehabilitation.  To understand that supervision after release is critical to provide accountability and support, while knowing that government supervision over a very long time serves neither the interest of the person or the public. 

These decisions are difficult.  Some have never been done before.  But in my experience, with my conscience, I believe, taken together, justice and mercy requires as a nation to bear witness; to see people’s pain, not to look away; and do the work to move pain to purpose, to show we can get a person, a nation, to a day of redemption. 

But we know the struggle toward redeeming the soul of this nation is difficult and ongoing, the distance is short between peril and possibility, but faith — faith teaches us the America of our dreams is always closer than we think.  That’s the faith we must hold on to for the Saturdays to come. 

We must hold on to hope.  We must stay engaged.  We must always keep the faith in a better day to come. 

I’m not going anywhere.  (Applause.)  I’m not kidding.


So, to the — (applause) — to the people of South Carolina, thank you for keeping the faith.  It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president, the highest honor for Jill and our family. 

And as I close out this journey with you — (applause) — I’m just as passionate about our work as I was as a 29-year-old kid when I got elected and wasn’t old enough to serve yet.


I’m in no ways tired.  (Applause.) 

I’ve always heard before, “We’ve come too far from where we started.  Nobody told me the road would be easy.”  (Applause.)  “I don’t believe — I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me.”  (Applause.)

My fellow Americans, I don’t think the good Lord brought us this far to leave us behind.  (Applause.)

As we celebrate Dr. King’s legacy and generations before and since — women and men, enslaved and free — we have to remember one of his favorite hymns: “Precious Lord, take my hand through the storm, through the night, and lead me into the light.” 

Well, God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops. 

I owe you big.  As they say where I come from, you all — you the guys that brought me to the dance. 

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

12:44 P.M. EST


We also suffer through the cons and grifters in DC.  For Convicted Felon Donald Chump, let's note 
Alexander O'Neal's  "Fake"




 Altogether now on the chorus to the song Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis wrote:


You're a fake
Baby
You can't conceal it
Know how I know
'Cause I can feel it
You're a fake
Baby
No rhyme or reason
'Cause in your mind it's lyin' season


He's not even sworn in but if you look around online, you'll find so many people online already trying to lie.  And you'll find a lot of people wanting to run from their past and pretend what went down didn't.

Take Socialist Adam H. Johnson who plays a Democrat in public because if most people he was a Socialist when he was trashing Kamala Harris non-stop, that would have weakened his argument because, of course, a Socialist isn't going to like the politics of a Democrat.  So Adam pretended to be a Democrat and COMMON DREAMS and IN THESE TIMES went along with the con.  IN THESE TIMES always does since the depth of James Weinstein.  I can remember when they were proud Socialists.  And back then, the rag was worth reading.  Now it talks down to the readers and plays out like a Little Golden Book for the soft and squishy 'left.'


You know, Socialists didn't always hide. But when they want to try to pimp a candidate, they do tend to lie.   I can remember it was a Barack Obama campaigner who was lying about other Democrats so we called him out and he whined that we were getting him fired from the campaign.  How did I know he was a Socialist?  He worked for Katrina vanden Heuvel.  And he and Katrina used to mock and make fun of Alexander Cockburn -- a true iconoclast.  And I called them out on it to their faces.  And I filed it away as I tend to do knowing that it was a detail that I'd supply to the public record at some point.  When he started attacking Democrats in 2008 while being a paid campaign staffer for Barack, it was time to add a fact to the public record.


And on payment issues, Rashida Tlaib helped bring about this horrible inauguration taking place later today.  The point of history is to learn from it.  The DNC needs to address this with a new rule: If you take DNC money, you can't campaign against other Democrats in the general election -- especially not a presidential candidate.  Failure to heed that rule should result in your being forced to repay every cant national headquarters put into your campaign.

Yes, Rashida is responsible.  

And that reality is just too much for Adam Johnson and others so they lie online -- just like they did when they attacked her.

And they bring in their friends from their offline circle jerk like Eion Higgins who wants the world to know that this is just not helpful!!!!

Saying what went down isn't helpful!!!!

We all need to forget!!!!

That's not how it works and how pathetic the position he's taking is as he promotes a book that runs completely against this argument. 

That's the thing about fake ass 'journalists.'  They write a longform piece and don't care that it doesn't jibe with their day to day.  John Nichols is infamous for that, of course.  Wrote about impeachment, called for impeachment of Bully Boy Bush, was out promoting the book when Nancy Pelosi, then House minority leader, declared that impeachment was off the table.  And John took it off and stopped promoting the book and stopped for Bully Boy Bush to be impeached.

That's the thing about the closeted.  They're constantly hiding so they can't be real.  Richard Chamberlain's noted how being in a sexual closet inhibited his acting and I'm sure Adam and the rest could talk about how being a political closet also leaves them harmed and unable to fully develop.


In one way, the election of 2024 was not a complete waste.  It exposed to Black people that the Socialists really didn't care about us.  That they hated us the same way they hated every other group that made a demand -- you know, the ones they dismiss as "identity politics"?  

Yeah, they're exposed now and we realize they're not our friends and they're not out to help us.  When supporting us makes them look good, they'll pick us up and try to hug us like a treasured toy.  But when we're under attack and there's another group that they want to dry hump, they forget that we even exist except to trash in TIK-TOK videos and in Tweets.


They really think they can push us around and they're truly mistaken because we're standing with Michelle Obama right now who is not attending today's swearing in of Donald Chump.  As we noted in "Buy a clue (Ava and C.I.)"


As always, The People's March For Stupidity will be led by FOX "NEWS."  They start each day.  While the rest of us are sleeping, they're already up and running in circles chanting "Two plus two is five!  Seven plus eight is three!"

They sport their stupidity.


Which is how you get the recent segment with plantation mistress Harris Faulkner where they attacked Michelle Obama because Michelle will not be attending the inauguration.  


Faulkner fought for her master Donald Chump as she and the others on camera attacked Michelle.


At some point, the group realized their pants were unzipped and their hypocrisy was poking out of their fly.  


That's when a guest, in an aside, insisted this was  bad when Donald refused to attend Joe Biden's inauguration.


What?


Chump was the outgoing president when he refused to attend -- and he refused to attend after he led the attempted insurrection that, had the Supreme Court not run interference for him, could have led to execution by a firing squad -- which is the ultimate penalty for what Chump did.


As Faulkner stared at the camera with the pop-eyed look meant to convey sincerity but just made her look as though she had an untreated thyroid problem, we kind of pictured even a few of the FOX "NEWS" crazies thinking, "Why should she go when Chump attacked her?"


Because he did.


And that's not what happens with normal people, let's be clear.


"TRUMP ATTACKS MICHELLE OBAMA" -- that headline is from October of last year.


We feel sorry for Harrison Faulkner as she tried to whip up a frenzy over Michelle not attending -- we felt sorry for Faulkner because it was obvious she had failed at her job and would be removed as a house slave and sent back out to work the fields.


We also find it really typical of FOX "NEWS" to think they have the right to tell a Black woman what to do.  Remember kids, if the TV screen reeks of racism, you're watching FOX "NEWS."




Republicans are looking to gut and slash federal programs in order to afford an extension to Donald Trump’s 2017 tax plan.

The extension, which overwhelmingly benefits corporations and could add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit, would arrive at the expense of dozens of popular federal programs. But perhaps most egregious among the penny-pinching proposals is a plan to literally take food away from hungry children by nixing free school meal plans made available to some of the poorest families in the country.

Raising the threshold of eligibility for schools to receive the Community Eligibility Provision could save the government $3 billion over a span of 10 years, according to a menu-like list released by the House Ways and Means Committee intended to serve as cutting options for the House reconciliation package.

“The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows the nation’s highest-poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications,” the proposal reads. “Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as SNAP and TANF. Currently, schools can qualify if 40 percent of students receive these programs. This proposal would lift that to 60 percent.”

It shouldn’t take much to argue that taking food away from children is a bad thing. But data shows that food insecurity has been on the rise in the U.S. for the last several decades, and it has seen a considerable spike since the pandemic, according to the USDA. It affects roughly one in seven American households, according to data from the Food Research and Action Center, affecting an estimated 47.4 million people across the country. 


Thanks, Rashida.  Thanks Adam H. Johnson.  Thanks Eion Higgins.  Thanks Amy Goodman.  Thanks Katrina vanden Heuvel and that Marxist you put in charge of THE NATION.  

We must never forget I pretend that it was Rashida Tlaib and her family members particularly her sister that pushed the uncommitted vote and poison young voters against Biden & Harris presidential campaign it was also Nina Turner manipulating the youth vote by saying Harris was no different than Tmp

— it's Candy Love (@candylovely.bsky.social) January 12, 2025 at 10:32 PM

Rashida Tlaib got what she wanted while her Black constituents will suffer in Michigan under her representation and another 4 years of Trump. Black America once again loses progress for the sake of some shit we didn’t have control over

— ALMA SUONO - Cedric Jackie Robinson (@almasuono.bsky.social) January 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM

  Juliana Kim,  Adriana Cardona-Maguigad and Sarah (NPR) report:


Incoming "border czar" Tom Homan said large-scale raids as part of President-elect Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration are set to begin as soon as Tuesday.

In an interview with Fox News on Friday night, Homan did not offer further details, but he did confirm that Chicago will be one of the cities targeted. 

"On Tuesday, ICE is finally going to go out and do their job. We're going to take the handcuffs off ICE," he said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Homan, a former acting head of ICE, added that immigration agents will focus on the "worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table. If they're in the country illegally, they got a problem."


Elections have consequences.  2024 was not a question mark.  We all knew what Donald Chump was capable of, we knew how hateful he was, we knew what a crook he was and we knew he'd attempted an insurrection against the country.  We knew the Supreme Court would be at stake with at least one judicial opening likely to come in the next four years.


Thanks, Rashida.  You are a Democrat but you failed to endorse and support our party's presidential nominee.  You twice voted to impeach Donald Chump which is supposed to mean he is unfit for office in your mind.  But you were okay with waving him back into the White House.

Rashida and her groupies can pretend this is about her religion or her skin color -- they never cared about Kamala's skin color did they -- as they attacked her non-stop.

It's not.

It's about her betrayal.

And her stupidity.

Today kicks off living hell for a lot of people in this country.  We will not forget the role Rashida played in this.

In the words of the late James Baldwin:

People pay for what they do, and, still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become.  And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.


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