Let’s say you are a Trump supporter. It’s your choice and your right to choose under the liberties granted citizens under the Constitution.
And, let’s say your main reason for backing the president is that, now, Donald Trump is an anti-abortion champion. Again, that’s your right,
And, say you are a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Period. Paragraph. That’s where this conversation should start.
First, Donald Trump is not a Republican: That’s his label du jour this week, but in the past he has registered as a Democrat, Republican and Independent. He is, then, a political chameleon, changing his color, philosophy and beliefs as it suits his moods or fiscal standing.
He has donated money to many Democratic candidates and organization, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Planned Parenthood and other so-called “liberal” organizations.
Trump is an opportunist, for sure, in business, politics and life. What is good for The Donald is good for The Donaid and his brand.
Now, Republican supporter of President Trump, how do you view the truism that the president, now the titular head of your party, is choking the life out of the GOP with the certainty that the Minneapolis policeman choked the life out of George Floyd?
When The Donald is through “playing” the part of a kick-ass Republican, he will slough his GOP mantle and abdicate the party to start the MAGA Party or the PAT sect (Party for America and Trump) or maybe the TOWY Party (Tired of Winning Yet).
Whatever, Trump is interested in two things and two things only: Money and power. Right now he is giddy beyond measure because, in his eyes and his ham-handed style, he has both.
Win or lose in November, he will do whatever it takes to keep both. That scenario does not bode well for the Republican Party or the majority of citizens in general, and the United States of America in particular.
The rigors of personal agony and turmoil enveloping this country today is a spit in the ocean compared what could be headed our way after November’s general election.
If you believe in the power of prayer, it’s not too early to drop to your knees and start praying now for the future of this country.
Lose, and Trump and his supporters will not go quietly;. Win, and every global citizens will hold their collective breaths, wondering what new hell this president, this newly ordained potentate, will serve up.
The future of America, four months from the election, is a surrealistic landscape where up is down and “bleak” is the main theme.
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Effective Monday, June 8, 2020, Marshall city leaders will open the following city buildings and services to citizens. This decision aligns the city with the latest Executive Order GA-26 from Governor Greg Abbott.
Outdoor public events less than 500 people
City park playgrounds and basketball courts
Marshall Visual Art Center – Only paid renters of art cages will be allowed access
City Hall Community & Economic Development Department for permits and code enforcement
The City of Marshall will hold City Commission meetings utilizing a video and audio conferencing tool, as well as a standard conference call. Instructions and direct links to view meetings or speak during Citizen Comment are at http://www.marshalltexas.net.
The City of Marshall urges all citizens to follow Governor Abbott’s Standard Health Protocols.
All businesses should continue to follow the minimum standing of health protocol for DSHS. For details and a full list of guidelines, please visithttp://open.texas.gov.
Individuals are encouraged to wear appropriate face coverings.
People should not be in groups higher than ten when possible.
People over the age of 65 are encouraged to stay at home as much as possible.
People shall avoid nursing homes, state-supported living centers, assisting living facilities, or long-term care facilities.
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In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans against one another.
James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.
“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
He goes on to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”
Mattis’s dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country. They still have the responsibility of protecting this great big experiment of ours.” He did add, however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”
That period is now definitively over. Mattis reached the conclusion this past weekend that the American experiment is directly threatened by the actions of the president he once served. In his statement, Mattis makes it clear that the president’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests, triggered this public condemnation.
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
He goes on to implicitly criticize the current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and other senior officials as well. “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
Here is the text of the complete statement.
IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.
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[Marshall, Texas] It is essential to note that the Marshall Public Library has been open and available for curbside service since May 1, 2020. We encourage patrons to avail themselves to access the library’s services through these means. Please contact info@marshallpubliclibrary.org or (903) 935-4465 to make arrangements for reading materials through this service.
When the city announced furloughs back in April, city leaders were careful to point out that they made such a decision concerning our response to protecting the pandemic for our citizens and budgetary considerations. The focus for the furloughs was mainly in areas that are destination-based, as opposed to safety services and utility operations based on our current circumstances. We are in a recession, which will be announced formally at the end of the month, after the second quarter. We have seen estimates in the drop of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for this second quarter ranging from 35-53%. This drop in the GDP will impact on our sales tax revenues, one of the city’s primary sources of income for providing services on almost every level. We won’t know how severe an impact it will have until we receive our latest sales tax report, which we anticipate in the next few weeks. Keep in mind; there is an approximate two-month delay between what happens at the cash registers in Marshall and when it shows up at City Hall. Although there has been a lot of rhetoric in the nation’s capital about aid to states and cities for lost revenue, there are no formal plans for providing that assistance. Assuming our citizens didn’t want the shortfall passed onto them via tax increases, city leaders have done the responsible thing and made adjustments as early as possible to mitigate the impact of the sales tax lost revenue. Whether we have to cut more, will be based on the subsequent reports.
When deciding on when to reopen city services to their normal state, the City of Marshall will use a combination of things, including a city advisory committee comprised of management personnel, the Governor’s Orders, local COVID-19 statistics, and budgetary considerations. The committee will continue to meet periodically to evaluate reopening the full complement of city services. A prompt announcement will be made by the city on decisions to change the status of building openings or city services.
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Cleon Flanagan is an American, a husband, father, production engineer, and former law enforcement officer. He is my son-in-law and dad to Bryan, 17, Brayden, 11, and Marley, 6, three of my seven grandchildren.
He is black.
He and I talked this weekend about the racial turmoil roiling through the U.S. His heart was breaking and it was obvious he was worried about the future and what new hell his biracial children would face.
So you will know, I grew up in a segregated community and never had a real, honest conversation and exchange of views about anything with any black person until I went to college.
Cleon is the epitome of what a husband, father, relative and human being should be. He is one of the best men I have ever met. I love him.
He wrote the piece below this week. Please read it. If you do and get through it without shedding tears…you have more self control than I do.
By Cleon Flanagan
So let’s talk … take a seat.
1980’s—Walking home, around age 12, and two white men in a pickup truck and a confederate flag waving, pulled up behind me and then beside me and threw beer and full beer cans on and at me. Thank God I was almost home.
1997 — When I worked for a local police agency, we were doing a transport of some detainees and prisoners when a detainee turned to me and said (while i was in uniform) “My daddy used to own some like you. ha ha!” I couldn’t speak up.
Same town — I went into the store to get a drink, in uniform, and the cashier looked at me (missed the badge) and said “I can’t stand f-ing n******.”
I’d like to say these instances early in my adulthood were rare, or stopped as I aged.
But that would be a “No.”
Jennifer Thurman Flanagan and I, throughout our marriage, have endured comments that we know wouldn’t be made (or tolerated) about white couples.
“Oh, I’ll bet her family has money. You’re all set now.”
“She has a good job so y’all know y’all will be ok. (But I’m an engineer?)
Jen has been asked if all of our kids were by the same dad.
They are struck by the fact that she had actually graduated college, got married, and bought a house (in that order) yearsssssss before having kids. That we weren’t teen parents.
She’s been asked at the grocery store, when the little ones were with her, if she’ll be using her Lone Star card to pay.
She’s looked at as trash when she shops alone with our kids, but I get stereotyped as having “married up.”
And let me tell you about our recent vacations … Galveston 2019 — Our kids were questioned for missing fishing poles from a residence AN ENTIRE BLOCK AWAY. The police were driving around and saw our kid’s fishing (with their own poles).
Lake O the Pines 2018 — The white man who owned the property we rented was as friendly and sweet as peach pie over the phone… until he saw Bryan, his black classmate, and me heading in with our boat. After that, we were harassed, watched, hounded, then, after cleaning profusely, he kept our deposit and sent us a bill (we got it all back after filing a complaint with VRBO).
Speaking of vacations — How many of you have to plan your vacation depending on the demographics of the town? The location? Is it a place notorious for pulling over and harassing POC (people of color)?
Have you every had to justify simply being in a public place?
Have you every been denied a day off by your boss at Thanksgiving, just for him to tell you, “Them white folks don’t want you to eat with them.”
These are only a fraction of the stories I could tell. Imagine all of the stories millions black men and women could tell today.
Imagine being a black man and being ridiculed and belittled by police, by your boss, by your white neighbor. treated less than human, in front of your own children who don’t understand the systematic racism that you encounter.
And you are helpless to fight it. You have to “stay in your place.” You can’t speak up.
If you think the world still doesn’t look at us differently, let me tell you: I have a CHI (Concealed Handgun License), and I could open carry. If I walked into Walmart with a rifle strapped to my back, the cops would be called. White men open carry regularly – not an eye batted.
Have you every had to tell your black son where to put his hands when he gets pulled over and to let the officer know he are unarmed?
Some of y’all get excited about your kids going off to college, traveling the world, getting jobs ANYWHERE. That worries the hell out of me. I don’t get the privilege to get excited for my kids — I just get to worry.
The only reason I’m posting this is because I need y’all to understand. I have tons of white friends. I have white family members. But I really think that some don’t understand the experiences that we go through. They make assumptions that our life is great and happy and everyone is nice to us. I’ve heard the sideways comments from people and either they think it doesn’t bother me, or they make the comment of “But you’re not like other black guys.“ What does THAT mean??
THIS IS OUR EVERYDAY REALITY!
This impacts me personally not because of my experiences that I have had or will have, but because of the experiences that my children will have. Racism is only around today because it keeps being reinforced and taught throughout the generations. And now, it’s my kids’ turns to encounter it. And it INFURIATES ME.
What if George Floyd was Bryan. Or our classmates, or me????
Like I was told at the police academy: Just because it happens in a big town, don’t think it can’t happen in your small piece of the world.
Would you still sit back silent? Would we just be a hashtag?
Would you be complaining about protestors and rioting … or would you march for me? Would you actually act? Would you vote differently? Would you not make assumptions? Would you still grasp your purse or lock your doors when we walk by? Would we still get an interview, the job, or a promotion?
Would you stand next to us?
And, does it have to be someone you know for you to GET IT!?
Are you mad at the protesters? Be mad that y’all haven’t spoken up in the names of my sons. Be mad at the systematic racism that is still plagues the every day life of POC.
If we keep going this way, if Y’ALL DONT SPEAK UP and make SYSTEMATIC CHANGES, then it very well really might BE one of us.
Or maybe that’s it: You don’t want it to change. And THAT is the real problem.
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After Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, peaceful protests turned into riots and from April though mid-summer, this nation was washed over by the largest wave of social unrest since the Civil War.
Today, same racial song, second verse.
The slow-motion murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd by four police officers — coming on the heels of the killing of several black Americans by law enforcement officers (and in one case by “vigilantes”)— has ignited violent protests in more than 140 cities in the U.S., and even in foreign countries.
Since 1968, there have been remarkable changes in the overall racial landscape in America: The most visible wrinkle in a racial snapshot of the U.S.in the last 50 years was the election the first black president 12 years ago.
Now, today, we’re right back to 1968, where distrust and fear of the police by a large segment of this nation’s population is rampant and fear and loathing is turning to rage and violence.
But, unlike the reactions of those trying to quell the unrest in 1968, some individual officers and even entire police departments are reducing the anger level of protestors by JOINING them in kneeling in honoring the life of Floyd and other victims of unnecessary police violence.
President Trump could learn something from these officers.
The president can be defined by many of his absurd and detrimental actions as the nation’s CEO; you either like him or you don’t, there is no middle ground.
However, his absence in the current framework of nationwide protests and violence, the absence of empathy, his absolute refusal to take time to try and calm the nation in this time of double crises (pandemic and coast-to-coast protests) is an abdication of his duties as president.
The fact he is tweeting about his confounded MAGA crew as “liking blacks…liking African Americans” is proof of how he views blacks, i.e., they are not part of MAGA congregation, and, thus, not part of HIS vision of America.
For more than two decades, the Republican Party has made it a priority to work to create a bridge of understanding with minorities, knowing those voting blocs are growing in numbers.
All that work, all the money burned in that effort has been wasted due to the callous and prejudiced actions of the Man from MAGA.
Trump’s chaotic handling of the pandemic response and his clueless response to the nationwide protests is proof-positive of his abject ignorance of what drives the majority of people in this country to get up every day and create opportunities for personal and professional growth.
He is, in a phrase, a wounded president, laid low by his constant lying, woeful management style, dearth of patience and his inability to comprehend the importance of briefings on important domestic and foreign issues.
The president claims to be a “stable genius” but his ignorance of history, the Constitution, his duty to all citizens (not just members of the MAGA cult) and how his knee-jerk reactions affect not just Trump World by the global community, prove that he is a spoiled, rich bully.
Trump claims to be a Christian but displays no Christian values; he came to power to “drain the swamp”, but his “swamp” is deeper, more murky and more corrupt than any administration since the Watergate era of Richard Nixon and that of Warren G. Harding’s Teapot Dome scandal.
He should never have been elected. His re-election would ensure the continued decline of this nation on all fronts, foreign and domestic.
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