Friday, September 19, 2025

We're On a Slppery Slope

 

                                                      We’re On a Slippery Slope

                                                           Junious Ricardo Stanton


            Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles California, Washington D.C. and his threats to do the same in Chicago Illinois and Memphis Tennessee is placing this nation in an untenable predicament.  Under the guise of public safety, Trump is using the National Guard for purposes they were not intended to serve. The Natonal Guard is for emergencies: to assist in natural disasters or to quell uprisings and riots.  Usually, the governor of the state is the one who calls for the activation of the National Guard units in the state once he or she has declared an emergency, not the president.

            The situation in L.A. with the wildfires was an emergency yet neither the governor nor the mayor called for the National Guard to be deployed. Trump took the unusual step of bypassing both of them and calling for the deployment of the California National Guard.  There the guard performed a variety of tasks from aerial firefighting using their planes and helicopters to try to contain the blazes, on the ground firefighting, aid distribution, traffic control and security.  

In D.C. Trump’s rational for deploying the Guard was to boost security, augment policing, and clean-up of squalor. The Guardsmen and women were deployed around federal property as well as several neighborhoods in D.C. The mayor of Washington D.C. did not request assistance from President Trump and was resistant to his activation. Several Republican governors supplied their Guard Units for deployment in D.C.

            With regards to Chicago and Menphis, Trump is threatening to send in the guard and use them as law enforcement to supposedly augment those cities’ police departments. The problem is, just like L.A. and Washington D.C. neither the Chicago and Memphis mayors nor the governors of those states has requested federal aid! Trump is literally militarizing the National Guard authorizing them to perform duties the state and local governments have not requested! His Republican pal governors are supply the troops to comply with Trump’s activation orders which is quite unusual!

            On the surface it seems like Trump may be or could be considered well intended, but upon closer scrutiny he is overstepping his bounds. Using high crime rate data, Trump is playing on the fears, anxiousness and gullibility of the American people, something this nation already has an abundance of. These cities are run by duly elected mayors who just happen to be African-American which plays well with Trump’s base who believe everything he says no matter how foolish, untrue and fabricated it may be. Trump is subtly playing the race card insinuating these elected officials are unable to deal with the problems in their own cities and states. Meanwhile it is apparent Trump’s policies both domestic and foreign are ineffective and wishy-washy.

 The mayors acknowledge they have crime in their city; all cities even Red State cities and towns have crime; but these mayors challenge Trump’s assertions the crime rates in their cities warrant the deployment of the Natonal Guard. In fact, the mayors say crime is down in their municipalities. National statistics, even Trump’s FBI’s data, verify violent and property crimes are down in the US, that homicides despite what the nightly news says are down across the US!

Nevertheless, Trump is using contradictory data to justify his actions. Trump ever the showman/circus barker is using this disinformation to accomplish several objectives: one, he is brazenly overstepping his constitutional authority, the Posse Comitatus Act forbids deployment and use of troops in a law enforcement capacity, but Trump is ignoring this.  Second, by mobilizing the Guard he is getting Americans used to experiencing soldiers on their streets in a law enforcement capacity, third Trump’s deployment of the Guard is complimenting the use of surveillance and biometric recognition technology such as Palantir to spy on Americans and set up a Big Brother police state infrastructure that would make George Orwell blush with envy. Lastly by calling on Red State governors to supply and deploy troops in Blue State cities, Trump is exacerbating the partisan divide in this country.

Whether or not Trump is aware he is doing all these things is not the point, he could very well be an unwitting tool of the Deep State. Trump is not the first US president to be used and played by nefarious forces and interest groups like the Military Industrial Complex, the banksters or foreign governments.

What does this mean for us? It means we are already on an extremely slippery slope, one that, along with the other bone headed moves Trump is making, could take this nation into the abyss of a technocratic police state, and this is not hyperbole.

                                                        -30-

Friday, September 12, 2025

Don't Fall for the Okey-Doke Again

 

                                                            Don’t Fall for the Okey-Doke Again

                                                                     Junious Ricardo Stanton


            The murder of Charlie Kirk was merely one of numerous shootings, killings and murders that occur in America on a daily basis. The fact he was a political influencer is immaterial. He was a Soul whose life like so many in this country was needlessly and prematurely snuffed out. Whether it was a political hit or a random act of violence is not the issue, the issue is there is a lack of respect for the sanctity and importance of life, a lack of morality in a culture that uses gratuitous violence as the predominant form of entertainment. Then when something like this happens, we feign shock and horror despite the fact violence has become a rampant daily occurrence.

            Unlike the hundreds of Americans who are shot and killed in America on a daily basis, Charlie Kirk was somewhat famous, he had a media following, he had a platform, he was the darling of the right, a conservative influencer and organizer. He was a personal acquaintance of Donald Trump; he campaigned on his behalf and Trump included him in his MAGA circle of supporters and acolytes.

As a “celebrity” Kirk was known and revered in right wing circles and held up for his public pronouncements and ideology. His strident commentaries reflected an animus against liberalism, progressives and their policies.

Kirk rose to prominence within ultraconservative circles when he co-founded Turning Point USA a student-based organization in 2012. The organization grew nationwide and became his major platform for his ideology. He was supported by wealthy and influential Republicans and toured the nation sponsoring debates between young, college aged Republicans and Democrats after dropping out of Harper College a community college near his home in suburban Chicago Illinois.

 Kirk had been influenced and radicalized by The Tea Party an insurgent group that denounced US fiscal and to some degree US foreign policies. He was a skillful organizer and he targeted younger Americans with his message. Soon Turning Point USA became one of the largest conservative organizations of its kind in the US. Kirk railed against the culture wars and what he considered Marxist influence even publishing a list of college professors whom he considered purveyors of “leftist” propaganda.  His professors list caught on and through it he gained even more attention and followers.

 Kirk distanced himself from the virulently racist Neo-Nazi fringe of the right and embraced Christian Nationalism which is still predominantly White oriented. He was a supporter of Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential run, he hobnobbed with Trump’s sons and became a key player within the Trump wing of the Republican Party.

Turning Point USA subsequently established several subsidiary organizations and Kirk became a role model for young conservatives due to his zeal and organizing skills. He had a popular podcast; he authored several books, he sponsored college and university speaking tours around the country where he promoted free market capitalism (which doesn’t actually exist), limited government and he was a harsh critic of America’s current socio-political-economic conditions. Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on September 9, 2025 at a college in Orem Utah where he was speaking.

Now the Right is in arms about his murder. They are calling it a political assassination and making him into a martyr. Many are saying his murder is the opening salvo of a new US “Civil War”! Donald Trump has ordered the lowering of all US flags to half mast in honor of this man.

 Meanwhile several HBCUs were closed and put on lockdown due to threats. However, there is no evidence these threats had a direct correlation or connection to right wing supporters of Kirk! Nevertheless, US history is replete with examples of White ire and outrage being focused against Blacks due to the Whites’ fears and prejudices over the economy, their tenuous socio-economic status or whatever boogeymen and hobgoblins they conjure up rather than dealing with the root causes of whatever problems real or imagined they are experiencing.  Today in the US right wing White males are full of anger and angst; who knows what they might do. Look at what they did on January 6, 2020. The Left is just as animated and agitated and the nation is polarized and divided.

We must remain vigilant but don’t fall for the okey-doke. There may be civil unrest but there is not going to be a civil war. In our communities we are more likely to be the victim of a home invasion or random attack by our own then by rabid right-wing fanatics! We have our own issues to resolve and truth be told we cannot rely on White folks or the government to do so.

                                                -30-

Monday, September 01, 2025

Labor Day Contradictions Abound

 

                                                  Labor Day Contradictions Abound

                                                             Junious Ricardo Stanton



Today is Labor Day, a day set aside to remember and honor workers and organized labor and their struggles to gain respect, decent wages, safe working conditions, benefits, the right to bargain collectively and a place at the workplace decision making table. The irony is on this day there is an ongoing attack on organized labor and unions spearheaded by the government at the behest of corporate executives, the financial sector supported by national elected officials and oligarchs alike.

President Donald J. Trump has been in the forefront of this attack on organized labor which goes back several decades. Billions of dollars have been spent to push back the gains made by both public and government unions and this pattern will continue into the foreseeable future. Upon his return to the White House, Donald Trump has overseen the negation of hundreds of thousands of federal government workers collective bargaining rights. He has terminated 400,000 employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Environmental Protection collective bargaining rights and illegally terminated thousands of government employees.

He has done this by Executive Order, fiat, personal decrees which are highly authoritarian. He is using little known legislation like the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act which allows for the setting aside of collective bargaining if collective bargaining is not applied in a manner consistent with national security requirements. This is a seldom used piece of legislation that Trump is applying unilaterally to dozens of federal agencies such as: Federal Communications Commission, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.

Trump seems to like following Ronald Reagan’s model and example. In 1981 President Reagan broke a strike called by the Air Traffic Controllers Organization who were demanding better pay and working conditions. Reagan swiftly decertified the ATCO, effectively rendering it a non-entity while simultaneously firing all 11,000 members of the union! Ironically Reagan was a former union member himself having served as the president of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild.

What made Reagan’s gambit work was the fact that powerful unions like the Teamsters and Longshoreman failed to support the ATCO membership. Had just these two union gone on strike in solidarity with the ATCO, all commerce across the nation would have stopped, Reagan would have had to back down, and been forced to deal with the air traffic controllers. Alas that did not happen and Reagan won a major victory for anti-union forces.

Similarly Trump seems to have little organized opposition, there have been a few lawsuits filed by federal union employees which are winding their way through the courts. Trump has won a few decisions in the lower courts while others are still pending. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was not created by an act of Congress so it really has no authority. It really was a working group or consulting entity.

Following the firing of thousands of government workers by DOGE, Trump was forced to scramble to get the Republican controlled Congress to approve the job cuts and his tax bill. It remains to be seen how the courts will rule on his firings and the abolition of collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of government employees.

Meanwhile people are partying, cooking out and going about their business celebrating a federal holiday that was created to honor the struggles and hard fought victories of workers, oblivious to organized labor’s long history or to the implications of what Trump is doing now!

The fact of the matter is, union membership is in decline in the US. Only 11.7% of private sector employees are union members while their federal worker counterparts make up 29.9% union membership. Decades of deindustrialization in America, offshoring of jobs and the shift to a service economy with so called gig worker has accounted for much of the decline in private sector union membership. However the push to de-unionize by corporate owners, employers and the federal government is also a major factor. We should think about this as Labor Day 2025 comes to a close.


-30-



Saturday, August 23, 2025

We Are Living in Bizzaro World

 

                                                      We Are Living in Bizzaro World

                                                           Junious Ricardo Stanton


            Every day we are assaulted with more and more absurdities, irrational claims, government pronouncements and policies that make no sense at all. Eight months into the second Trump presidency we are witnessing the implosion and collapse of the Democratic Party as Trump places his stamp on the Republican Party which means we will see more flip flopping, outrageous bombast, threats, contradictions and gaslighting.

            It’s as if we somehow got sucked into another dimension and we are now living on Bizzaro World. Some of you may not know what Bizzaro World is, it is a fictional place in the DC comics universe one of Superman’s nemesis created. Bizzaro was a sort of Frankenstein Superman who was created by the mad scientists/criminal mind Lex Luthor, but Bizzaro was so flawed he was a caricature of Superman. Bizzaro later created his own world an upside-down place where everything was the opposite of what was happening on planet earth.

 Bizzaro had super powers like Superman but his thinking and behavior was as we used to say was “throwed off”. Normal people dealing with Bizzaro faced a major challenge because Bizzaro presented a reverse, inside out, upside-down version of everything they were accustomed to.  When Superman travelled to Bizzaro World he had to make major adjustments when he confronted Bizzaro because the situation was so bizarre.

America in 2025 is very much like Bizzaro World. We have a president who claims he is for peace yet he supports wanton genocide and supplies hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons in an ongoing proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, he makes vague threats and provocative statements against China then backtracks or postpones what he threatened. He postures and boasts about America prowess when in fact the US is at a severe disadvantage geostrategically, economically and militarily!

Plus, Trump’s buddy Benjamin Netanyahu who is waging a unrelenting campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the people of Gaza who in July launched an illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran that Trump supported and joined is going to nominate Trump for the Noble Peace Prize! This is pure Bizzaro World stuff.

Here are a few examples of Trump’s Bizzaro World antics. Trump claims the US economy is doing great under his watch yet anyone paying attention to consumer prices knows things are not great, inflation is still high. Trump wants to replace Jerome Powell the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank because Powell won’t lower interest rates, an act most economists know will generate continued inflation! Meanwhile Trump says absolutely nothing about the steadily escalating rise in M2 the US money supply which is the real cause of inflation!  We are being gaslit on this issue.

Trump claimed he would end the Ukraine war as soon as he was inaugurated in January. Well, here we are seven months later and the war is still raging. Trump held a much ballyhooed meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week promising great results. Prior to the meeting Trump threatened more sanctions if Putin didn’t agree to his demands. But the meeting ended quickly with no deals, no resolutions, no ceasefire nor any concrete prospects for peace. To add insult to injury Putin continued to pound Ukraine hard before and after his meeting with Trump!  So much for Trump’s diplomatic acumen and deal making.

Next, Trump called a meeting with Zelensky the president of Ukraine, but Zelensky brought his European supporters who seem to want the war to continue to the meeting with him! The Europeans and Zelensky made demands they knew Putin would never accept, thus ensuring the war would go on. Even comic book creators couldn’t make this stuff up. We are indeed living in a real live Bizzaro World.

                                                -30-

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Trump Has Shown Us Who He Really Is

 

                                                 Trump Has Shown Us Who He Really Is

                                                              Junious Ricardo Stanton


            Maya Angelou is reported to have famously said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” In this world and in life, everyone shows us who they are. We all reveal ourselves every day one way or another; whether we are honorable or vile, whether we are truthful or disingenuous, productive or a slacker.  There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, there is nothing done in the shadows that will not come to the light. By this reckoning Donald J. Trump has revealed to the world, he is doubleminded, wishy-washy, disingenuous, impetuous, vindictive and unstable.

His admirers say he is playing three- or four-dimensional chess that his moves are brilliant while his detractors say he is an imbecile, he’s like a reckless child playing with matches. Donald Trump has crafted a media persona that depicts him as the consummate deal maker, he’s the man, a world class wheeler dealer, but his record shows him to be unscrupulous, a multi-failure businessman who has fenagled more second chances and come backs than the average guy could ever imagine. Perhaps that is his best strength, he a survivor.

We will see Trump in rare form this weekend when he and Vladamir Putin sit down face to face in Alaska to discuss a myriad of topics which will have a major bearing and implications on world events. Trump will not be able to bully, browbeat or intimidate Putin who is well aware of his track record in business and politics.

Putin is no slouch. He is the former head of the Russia intelligence machinery. He is a world class martial artist who is sharp and astute. He helped bring Russia back from the abyss of bankruptcy and corruption. He restored a sense of pride in the Russia people. Today Russia is a top ranked nation economically and militarily.

 Despite the best efforts of the West to undermine and break Russia, Putin has time and time again thwarted their efforts and come out victorious. He has weathered the US’s economic sanctions which are economic warfare, he has survived domestic intrigue and direct threats to Russia’ sovereignty yet both he and Russia have survived, are standing tall and doing fairly well.

Putin is waging a war against Ukraine a war he knows the US and its NATO acolytes encouraged, are funding and supporting with logistics, technology and personnel. Putin is winning the war and he holds all the cards. NATO is cutting off its nose to spite its face just to remain America’s lapdog.

Meanwhile Putin is a major player in the BRICS+ alliance, a consortium of nation’s working to build mutual trade and commerce partnerships and soon security and military alliances as a powerful counterbalance to the US/NATO thuggery.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to be a peace president, he lied. He said he would end the carnage in Ukraine within days of being sworn in, that hasn’t happened and in many ways his actions are keeping the conflict going. He said he and Putin would meet and work it out. Yet in recent days and weeks, Trump has uttered threats against Putin, he has given ultimatums and pulled them back when he saw he was being ignored when Russian became even more aggressive against Ukraine.

Putin has stepped up the fighting and is taking more and more territory in Ukraine and Trump has to as we used to say lump it. Trump and Dimitry Medvedev the former Russian president and current Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council (a powerful position) got into a verbal tit for tat and Trump said he dispatched two nuclear submarines presumably as a show of force. I bet the Russians are shaking in their shoes.  

Leopards don’t change their spots so don’t expect Trump to tone down the bluster, reign in his ego or stop his chest pumping and threats. He will be cordial; he will listen but he will not try to Bogart Putin or demean him like he has other leaders. Trump is a blowhard but he isn’t a gangster or an idiot. Putin would not tolerate that! Trump has shown us who he is many times, let’s hope this time he doesn’t get beside himself or tear his behind.

                                                       -30-

Saturday, August 02, 2025

The Insanity Is Metastesizing

 

                                                     The Insanity is Metastasizing

                                                      Junious Ricardo Stanton


        

Every day we are increasingly witnessing indications this nation’s misleadership is totally insane. The president of the United States can’t seem to make up his mind from day to day. One day he floats universal tariffs threatening allies and competitors alike, claiming they are ripping the US off that the US trade deficits are their fault, the next day he postpones or reduces them. Now he is threatening sanctions which are really forms of economic warfare, intimidation and coercion against nations he disagrees with in order to whip them into doing what he wants them to do. For example, demanding Vladimir Putin stop crushing Ukraine in that nation’s US/NATO backed proxy war against Russia!

Trump was the one who said he would end the Ukraine mess once he was inaugurated and bring peace to Gaza within days of becoming president. We all knew Donald Trump was a narcissist with a huge ego who fancied himself as the world’s best and greatest deal maker. He is an internationally recognized businessman who brought an entrepreneurial approach to the rough and tumble, highly divisive US partisan politics.

However, after serving one term and failing in his stated objectives such as winning trade wars with China, Mexico, Canada and the EU and supposedly draining the D.C. Deep State swamp, Trump foolishly eschews learning from his mistakes and mishaps and unfortunately for us, is doing the exact same things again with the exact same results. Yet nevertheless he pushes the pedal to the metal and chaos and uncertainty are the consequences.

This time the stakes are much higher. His bluster, bravado, bombast and threats could launch a global war which in turn could trigger a nuclear holocaust. His response to Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and wars against its neighbors was to not only double down on it, but to suggest the US could turn Gaza into a seaside resort! Then he joined Israel in its unprovoked illegal and immoral attack on Iran. He bragged the US completed the mission obliterating Iran’s nuclear facilities when in fact the US failed while Iran devasted Israel and symbolically attacked a US military base to demonstrate its capabilities. To make things more Bizarro World and Twilight Zone like, Iran warned the US it was going to attack the base beforehand through a third-party Qatar and the US warned Iran what its response to the attack would be which also happened to be Qatar!  You can’t make this stuff up.

On the domestic front, several weeks ago the US Attorney General and head of the FBI announced they had the files on Jeffrey Epstein and his honey-trap extortion sex trafficking of underaged children and were set to release them. Then all of a sudden, they reneged. Their reversal stirred a hornet’s nest among the MAGAites and all hell broke out. Trump in return bad mouthed the MAGAites which only infuriated them more and raised more questions and scrutiny.  This fiasco makes Trump look silly, it gives the impression he is hiding something which he is; the scope and circumference of the Epstein operation and the number of high-profile people like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and assorted others who were involved in it.

With all this occurring in the first six months of his administration, if we extrapolate this pattern into the rest of his term, we are in for a hell of a ride. The insanity is metastasizing.

                                                -30-

  

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

The Gaslighting and Lies Contiune

 

                                                    The Gaslighting and Lies Continue

                                                             Junious Ricardo Stanton


            This month we have been subjected to a mountain of lies, disinformation, flip flopping and insults to our intelligence by the powers who shouldn’t be. On June 13th the renegade nation of Israel launched unprovoked attacks on Iran and the United States joined them is this blatant violation of international law, morality and common sense. The attack was based upon unsubstantiated claims that Iran was months within fulfilling its nuclear weapons ambitions and they needed to be stopped. No evidence of this was ever manufactured or presented just Netanyahu’s word.

            This is an old canard mouthed by Benjamin Netanyahu for thirty years, his personal Chicken Little claim much like the claims and lies of the American Neocons stating Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Asad gassed his own people and Gadhafi posed a security threat to the region. Thin about this, we’ve been subjected to this non-stop for thirty years. We’ve heard it whether Netanyahu was in power, or out of power, his relentless lies, “Iran is making nuclear weapons, Iran possess an existential threat to Israel, the Ayatollahs dress funny and they smell bad” etc. There has been no letup, no one checked his lies then and no one checked his most recent lies.

            Netanyahu is such a blatant liar with so much confidence he could influence the US to do his bidding, he didn’t even do what Bu$h the lesser did in his run up to the invasion of Iraq. While Netanyahu has made presentations to the UN before like Colin Powell did what he kept doing was use a fear mongering campaign to imply Iran posed an immediate threat to Israel’s safety. This is how confident the rabid Zionists were that they could launch an unprovoked attack against Iran with impunity and there would be no blowback because Uncle Sam had their back.

            This did not turn out well for Israel because Iran hit back, hard and Israel was not prepared for such a retaliation. Israel suffered major damage to its infrastructure, its war making capabilities and its intelligence headquarters. Plus, US intervention did not deter Iranian responses. In fact Iran demonstrated it could if it wanted to, directly attack US military bases. Iran warned Qatar it was going to attack US facilities ahead of time so they could warn the US, then the US could adequately prepare, thus lessening the damage.

This was pure Kabuki theater. But it demonstrated Iran’s resolve, it showed Israel is a paper tiger and the US isn’t as mighty and lethal as they project themselves to be because their attack on Iranian facilities failed. It did not I repeat did not achieve their objective which was to neutralize Iran’s nuclear program. Trump in his usual bombast claimed complete success, which was a lie and now the world knows the US failed to knock out Iran’s facilities and Iran kicked the Zionists’ behind to the point they had to run to Trump to beg him to call for a cease fire!

Next Trump continued his on again off, on again tariff and trade wars and Congress passed his misnomered One Beautiful Big Bill Act which really is a boondoggle give away to his billionaire buddies, special interests and the military, but does relatively little for the lower classes. All this means is we are in a protracted class war and the lower classes are losing.

After the Israeli-Iran war we were subjected to the ongoing Epstein fiasco. First the FBI and Justice Department (sic) announced the Epstein files were on the desk of the US Attorney General and would be released momentarily. Then Netanyahu visited Trump in Washington for a closed-door meeting, and voila the Epstein files disappeared. The DOJ and FBI say there was no client list so just fogetaboutit. No more talk about Epstein and Maxell being Israeli operatives. Ignore the fact Maxwell is in jail, sentenced to twenty years for sex trafficking, prostitution and a  slew of related charges and Epstein supposedly died in custody awaiting trial on similar charges or that he has been under investigation for fraud and money laundering! They’ve all been memory holed, business as usual.

This unleashed a firestorm within MAGA, with large segments of Trump’s base calling Bondi, Patel, Bongino and Trump sell outs. Trump hit back against his MAGA acolytes which made things worse.  Elon Musk who is feuding with Trump said out loud, Trump was on the list and denounced Trump’s team for deep-sixing the files. This made the MAGAites more furious, Trump was caught in a precarious position.

Tensions got high and hot, Trump knew he had to do something to deflect attention away from this issue and distract his base because this issue was not going away.  So, he told AG Bondi to release the MLK assassination files and “coincidently” out of the blue Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard whom Trump overruled about Iran having nuclear weapons revealed Obama was neck deep in the Russiagate attacks on Trump. Plus, the Republicans shut down Congress prematurely for the summer so there would/could be no vote to investigate the Epstein files or the FBI DOJ handling of this debacle! Man, what if the government worked together this cohesively for the people?!

Trump distracted people from Epstein by releasing the MLK files and cunningly brought up Barack Obama who is persona non grata in MAGA circles reputation by blaming him for the attempted coup against Trump! Well done, brilliant! So, the gaslighing and lies continue.  

                                                                -30-