A Nation of Haters

I am back to this topic again because it keeps coming up in the news. It is necessary for me to remind you that HATE is alive and well in America.

The sickening hatred of all Non-White Christian Americans has never been worse than it is today. They are racists. (Racist definition: a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.)

When the president of the United States promotes hatred for minorities it provides the haters with the encouragement they crave.

“You Will Not Replace Us” is a white supremacist slogan that became popular in early 2017, as did its acronym version, YWNRU. The slogan appeared on white supremacist flyers, banners and graffiti in a variety of places in the first six months of 2017, gaining wider attention when white supremacists used the phrase at several rallies held in Charlottesville, Virginia, culminating in the large and violent Unite the Right event in August 2017. Many in that march were chanting “Jews will not replace us.”

Now the focus is on Asian Americans. The hate against them was promoted by former president Donald Trump who called the COVD-19 virus the China virus. The haters have seen that as a signal to attack them.

The history of hate of Asian Americans is not new. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.

A total of 11,507 people of German ancestry were interned during war II, comprising 36.1% of the total internments under the US Justice Department’s Enemy Alien Control Program. By contrast, an estimated 110,000–120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment camps run by the US War Department’s War Relocation Authority.

2018 marked an anniversary if a massacre of 15 Mexicans in el Paso, Texas. The slaughter, which was carried out by white Texas Rangers, US soldiers, and local vigilantes, was justified by labeling the Mexican American families “bandits” and criminals. It wouldn’t be the las.t On The August 3, 2019 a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which left 22 people dead, appeared to be the deadliest terror attack and hate crime against Latinos in recent American history.

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a mass shooting that took place on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre)^[6][7][8] was a mass shooting on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dylann Roof, the killer, was a 21-year-old white supremacist, had attended the Bible study before he committed the shooting. He was found to have targeted members of this church because of its history and stature.

President Joe Biden may have empathy for those who have been attacked but it will take more than showing compassion to alter the hate in so many hearts.

Eight Republicans Voted to Tighten Background Checks on Guns

Finally after years have gone by since the killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut we may have a bi-partisan group in the House of Representatives who will pass some meaningful legislation.

The Sandy Hook attack began when 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the home that the two shared in Newtown. She was shot four times with a .22-calibre rifle. She had purchased the rifle, as well as an AR-15—the civilian semiautomatic version of the military M16 assault rifle—and several other firearms that Adam Lanza would use later that day, in the years prior to the shooting. Before leaving the house, Lanza destroyed his computer’s hard drive, an act that would make evidence gathering difficult for law enforcement personnel.

Protecting the public from people who have a total disregard for life should be the objective. It has been reported that most gun owners are in support of reasonable regulations. I guess the question is what is reasonable?

Eight House GOP lawmakers bucked party lines and joined Democrats in supporting legislation aimed at strengthening background checks on firearm sales.

The bill would put new background check requirements in place for gun transfers between private parties. The bill would also ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of more than 200 “military-style assault weapons” identified by name, although owners would be allowed to keep existing weapons. The bill would also require background checks on any future purchases, trades or gifting of an assault weapon included in the bill. This won’t stop future mass killing but in this gun crazy nation it’s probably the best we can do now.

Here are the Republican members that voted in favor of the bill:
Rep. Vern Buchanan (Fla.)
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.)
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.)
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (Fla.)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)
Rep. Maria Salazar (Fla.)
Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.)
Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.)

Upton, Smith and Fitzpatrick co-sponsored the legislation, which faces an uphill battle in the upper chamber. The NRA is a very powerful voice that donates lots of money to campaigns.

The United States is at War

The fear of domestic terrorists who want to bring down the United States government is real. The House of Representatives has canceled their Thursday March 4 session because there is credible evidence that there will be an attack on the Capitol building.

U.S. Capitol Police officials said Wednesday they have “obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group on Thursday, March 4” — the date that far-right conspiracy theorists believe former President Donald Trump will return to power.

There are discredited internet conspiracy theories that allege the world is run by a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles. Followers of the fringe movement believe that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen from Trump, who has pushed baseless claims of voter fraud along with his allies.

QAnon followers also believed that Trump would not actually leave office on Inauguration Day but rather would declare martial law, announce mass arrests of Democrats and stop Joe Biden from becoming president. When that didn’t happen, the date was moved from Jan. 20 to March 4.

There are many among the conspiracy groups who believe Ulysses S. Grant was the last legal president of the United States because he was the last president inaugurated on March 4. That is the focus on March 4 as the day that Donald Trump will be inaugurated for a second term as the 19th president. I do not know how the conspiracy people explain the four years that Trump was president. There is no reasonable explanation. The conspiracy theorists have yet to square the facts that is probably because they don’t want to look at reality.

Those of you who think this is all nonsense should look at what happened on January 6 at the Capitol. This is the start of a war. January 6 was the first attack. There will be more attacks if the perpetrators are unsuccessful on March 4.

America is Turned Upside Down

The hell of 2020 is now the hell of 2021. It all started with the shutdown of almost everything in March 2020. Five events that happened (or didn’t happen) that cause me to predict that 2021 is just an extension of 2020.

1. A virus but no approved vaccine. Yes you read that correctly. I just had my first Pfizer vaccination after someone handed me some documentation that read the following day. In part the document says (I bolded the last line) “The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine that may prevent Covid-19. There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent Covid-19.”

2. Conspiracy theorists that have been around since people have had the printing press to promote their ideas. It has now become a mainstream reality that have been promoted by QAnon. While the identity of the original author or authors behind “Q” is still unknown, the history of the conspiracy theory’s spread is well-documented — through YouTube videos, social media posts, Reddit archives, and public records reviewed by NBC News. With most of us staying home more than ever and little to do we are more likely to read and perhaps accept conspiracy theories. Many of those people at the riot at the Capital on January 6 were carrying signs and dressed in what they believed to be part of their purpose. One rioter at the Capital is known as the “QAnon Shaman” now regrets his entry and said after his arrest, “I deeply regret and am sorry that I entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. I should not have been there.”

3. A majority of Republican senators and house members have no problem with the president of the United States attempting to overturn the results of a national election. After the acquittal the Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “There is no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.”

4. The economy is in shambles. Restaurant and retail workers may never have jobs again because remote work at home jobs have supplanted those people who drove to work and had lunch out and did their shopping during their lunch breaks.

5. Two years after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida not one piece of legislation to deny the mentally unstable to obtain a weapon has been passed by congress. On Feb. 20, 2020, candidate Joe Biden made this statement. “My first day of office, I’m going to send a bill to the Congress repealing the liability protection for gun manufacturers, closing the background check loopholes and waiting period.” It didn’t happen. There is no legislation at this time said the Biden Press Secretary, Jan Psaki.

And you thought things would be getting better in 2021.