Justice for Sam Dubose & Ray Tensing's T-Shirt

Ray Tensing (left) and victim Samuel Dubose

Donald Trump's latest stream-of- consciousness Tweet this morning suggesting that people should be jailed or loose their citizenship for burning the American flag offers a troubling glimpse of the president-elect's views on Constitutional protections.

Particularly given that the Supreme Court has firmly established that burning the American flag is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

So what's going to become of the growing nationwide calls for more police accountability for officers who use excessive and deadly force in situations where it's unjustified?

Considering that Trump's pick to head the EPA denies the existence of climate change, his pick to head the Dept. of Education supported a law to allow child labor, and his pick to head the Department of Justice opposes both voting rights and civil rights, it's fair to ask how the incoming administration and F.B.I. are going approach the slew of unjustified killings of unarmed innocent people of color by police in this country.

How will a Trump administration impact egregious police brutality cases on the local and state level?

For example, will justice ever be served for the senseless and violent death of Samuel Dubose in Cincinnati at the hands of an overzealous campus cop back in 2015?

After the first trial ended with a deadlocked jury earlier this month, earlier today a new judge, Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Judge Leslie Ghiz, was assigned to the case.

Her first decision will be to rule on the prosecutor's request for a retrial in a new location.

Judge Leslie Ghiz replaces Judge
Megan Shanahan

According to an article posted on Cincinnati.com this afternoon, Ghiz is a non-nonsense Republican former Cincinnati City Councilwoman and assistant prosecutor who is respected by attorneys and has a reputation for handing down tough sentences.

As an assistant prosecutor she was known as being a friend of  law enforcement, but that's generally true for any prosecutor.

Will she grant the motion for Tensing's retrial?

Millions of people watched the video of former University of Cincinnati campus police officer Ray Tensing shooting Samuel Dubose in the head at point blank range while the unarmed motorist was in the driver's seat of his vehicle with his hands raised over his head.


Last year I posted a blog on July 30th to try and make sense of the outrage I felt at seeing yet another unarmed man of color shot and killed by a law enforcement officer for no reason.

The facts of this flagrant case of excessive use of force remain as troubling as they were confusing when the incident happened last July 19th when Tensing stopped Dubose for not displaying a front license plate properly.

Based on the audio and images taken from Tensing's body-cam the two appeared to be having a relatively civil discussion over Dubose wearing his seatbelt when Tensing suddenly pulls out his gun, points it at Dubose's head and fires - killing him instantly.

Watch this three-minute edited version of the body-cam video of the moments leading up to the shooting for yourself - does it appear that Dubose is in any way even remotely acting aggressive towards Tensing?

And don't worry, the actual shooting portion is so shaky that it's too difficult to actually see the gunshot to the head - but you can hear it.

Ray Tensing shoots unarmed Sam Dubose in
the head while his hands are raised.

Video still frames (pictured left) definitively showed that Dubose was seated behind the wheel with his hands in the air when Tensing fired the shot.

Totally contradicting Tensing's initial bogus claim that Dubose was attempting to drive away and that Tensing was being dragged and was forced to shoot Dubose to save his life.

It's hard to see it in the video, but look at the image, both of Dubose's hands are in the air at the moment Tensing fires his gun.

Tensing's attempt to use the same ambiguous rationale so often used by members of law enforcement who shoot and kill unarmed people for no discernible reason, that he feared for his life, was not only contradicted by the video evidence, his motivation for shooting Dubose was also called into question based on a strange piece of evidence that wasn't revealed until the case went to court.

During the course of the trial, prosecutor Joe Deters revealed to the stunned courtroom that when Tensing followed, stopped and then shot and killed Dubose, he was wearing a t-shirt under his police uniform with an image of the Confederate battle flag on it and the words "Great Smoky Mountains".

Does the fact that Tensing was wearing a t-shirt with the image of a Confederate battle flag on it under his uniform during the unjustified shooting death of an unarmed African-American man pulled over for minor civil infraction serve as some kind of "smoking gun"?

T-shirt Tensing wore when he shot Samuel Dubose

Not in a court of law, no.

But it does call into question the issue of motive for the shooting; particularly given the fact that Tensing was a campus police officer.

Take a look at the t-shirt (pictured left), we live in a free country and campus police officers can certainly wear what they want to; regardless of what any of us think.

But members of law enforcement, be they campus police officers or real cops, must be held to a higher standard given that they are licensed to carry and use firearms.

Given that members of law enforcement are expected to perform their jobs with a degree of objectivity and fairness, does it seem right for an on-duty officer to wear a t-shirt with a Confederate battle flag on it?

What if the t-shirt had a swastika on it?

Or how do you think that same jury would have voted if Tensing was an African-American campus police officer and Dubose was an unarmed white motorist and it was shown that the officer was wearing a t-shirt with a Black Panther logo or an image of Malcom X on it?

Family & friends of Sam Dubose comfort one
another after his funeral last July. 

From my perspective Tensing certainly has a right to wear that t-shirt on his own time, but by wearing it on duty (even under the uniform), it clearly raises questions about his impartiality as a law enforcement officer.

Unfortunately for Dubose's family, friends and advocates of justice and human rights, a mistrial was recently declared after a jury in Ohio remained deadlocked on whether or not to find Tensing guilty of murder or manslaughter charges.




But prosecutor Joe Deters has been adamant about holding Tensing accountable, and I don't think anyone who watched the video of an unarmed Dubose being shot in the head at point blank rage while his hands were up after being pulled over for an improperly displayed license plate would agree that it's fair that Tensing's first trial ended in a hung jury.

Obviously many people are anxious to hear how Judge Leslie Ghiz rules on the motion for Tensing's retrial, perhaps Samuel Dubose has a better chance of receiving some measure of justice from a judge who runs a tighter courtroom.

According to the Cincinatti.com article, not long after she won her seat on the bench, Judge Ghiz said in a radio interview that she wanted to be known as the "Velvet Hammer"; - we'll see if she lives up her reputation for tough sentences.

For the sake of both justice and human rights, let's hope she does.

Advent, Castro & The Season of Change

Cuban leader Fidel Castro

For some Christians, depending on one's country, today marks the beginning of Advent; which means 'Coming' in Latin.

In the context of the modern Christian church it is meant to represent the Sundays and weeks that lead up to Christmas Day.

So for some Christians, today marks the start of the period recognizing the arrival of Jesus, both a celebration of his birth and a period of reflection on the Biblical preparations for his arrival here on Earth as the son of God.
 
In some ways the recent passing of Cuban leader and noted political revolutionary Fidel Castro reflects the season of approaching change that Advent represents.

Regardless of one's personal religious beliefs, or whether one chooses to believe at all, the birth, life and death of Jesus of Nazareth changed the world in profound ways that still reverberate and impact to this day - people may debate whether he was the son of God, but writings from the early part of the first century AD by Roman historians including Jocephus and Tacitus make multiple references to Jesus, including his crucifixion by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.

Now to be clear, in no way am I comparing Fidel Castro to Jesus, but there's little question that Castro's life has also had a profound impact on the world as we know it today - I found myself reflecting on both Advent and Castro's passing this morning.

Jesus and Castro? Just hear me out on this.

Music has had a deep impact on my life, I play the guitar and sing. Back in 3rd grade at The Landon School For Boys in Bethesda, Maryland, I learned to read and play music and I also sang in chorus as well; so as I often do as I write on Sundays, I listened to the program 'With Heart and Voice', a weekly program of sacred choral and organ music broadcast via The Classical Network on WQXR at 1pm.

Cuban-Americans celebrate Castor's death in the
streets of Little Havana in Miami, FL

That program is immediately followed by 'Sounds Choral' at 2pm on the same station, which also explores a wide variety of classic and modern choral music and hymns.

(FYI a number of my blogs are written as I listen to Baroque and Renaissance classical music as well, I find it peaceful and it inspires thinking and creativity depending on my mood.)

Now there is little doubt that Castro's death at the age of 90 has, and will, spark a wide range of reactions and discussion amongst regular people, academics and politicians.

If you saw some of the images of ecstatic Cuban-Americans and Cubans-in-exile dancing and celebrating in the streets of Little Havana in Miami, Florida after hearing news of Castro dying, it's clear that people view this complex icon of the 20th century from a variety of different perspectives.

On Saturday conservative politicians from both Canada and America lit into the popular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he issued a public statement of condolence for Castro in which he called the controversial Cuban leader a "remarkable leader" and noted that his father, former Canadian PM Gary Trudeau, had known and respected Castro.

The latter also caught flack from political leaders when he made a state visit to Cuba in 1976 where 250,000 Cubans came out to welcome him.

Early today, the younger Trudeau amended his previous statement (and placated his conservative critics) by acknowledging to reporters that Castro was in fact a dictator who caused suffering for those he considered his enemies.

Fulgencio Batista on the cover of Time, April 21, 1952

Castro's role as the revolutionary who led efforts to topple the Western-backed Cuban military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and later fought off the American effort to overthrow him during the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961, gave him global stature among leftists and anti-American leaders and nations around the world.

An emboldened Castro's use of military and financial backing from the Soviet Union to thumb his nose at the United States, criticize capitalism and American foreign policy, and spread Communist influence to other parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia, often made him a political thorn in the side of eleven different U.S. presidents.

But even though he was elevated to an almost mythical status amongst leftist political leaders, he was reviled and feared by many in his own country.


On Castro's orders at least 582 Batista loyalists were executed by firing squads in the wake of the coup that put him into power in a one-party, one-rule system for 49 years.

He made drastic and significant improvements to Cuba's health care system and expanded access to doctors for all people, he also improved the educational system to expand literacy amongst the poor and rural populations who'd been so disenfranchised, alienated and powerless under Batista's rule.

But according to Human Rights Watch, Castro implemented a repressive system that quashed civil liberties, crushed independent journalism, eliminated political dissent and jailed thousands of people in deplorable conditions where many were subjected to torture.

While Castro often lambasted the United States for it's treatment of Native Americans and systematic discrimination of African-Americans, as Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. noted in an excerpt of a chapter from his companion book to the 2011 PBS series 'Black in Latin America', (posted on the Website TheRoot.com) Castro ruled over a Cuban nation as deeply divided over race as the U.S.

As Professor Gates observed based on interviews he conducted in Cuba and research, Castro presided over a system that systematically discriminated against Cubans of color and African descent in ways that have left poor blacks in Cuba even more marginalized and segregated in ways that are worse today than during the Cuban revolution.

Castro's vision of socialist revolution and equitable opportunity materialized for some, but not all, based (in no small part) on race and political ideology.


So as we in America prepare to come to grips with the seismic shifts from the November 8th election which elevated Donald Trump into office, perhaps there is a larger significance to the death of Castro at the start of the season of Advent - when we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Regardless of how Castro is viewed, he will remain one of the more iconic figures of the 20th century and his place in history looms large even though it will be debated by scholars and historians for years to come.

After five decades in power, if nothing else, Castro's death is a genuine reflection that significant and lasting change is coming, for the Cuban people, the Western Hemisphere and the larger global landscape.

With the United States finally reestablishing normal diplomatic relations with Cuba under the leadership of President Obama, perhaps Castro's death will herald at least the hope of lasting and meaningful changes to the lives of those in Cuba who've been excluded from Castro's vision for a new Cuba.

Not because of their ideology, but because of the color of their skin.

Getting Their Trump On: More Toxic Trickle-Down

James Means killed by William Pulliam

With facts still emerging about 62-year-old William Ronald Pulliam's arrest for shooting 15-year-old James Harvey Means twice in the stomach last Monday with a .380 caliber handgun, it's hard to say whether this latest example of physical violence against a young man of color is directly tied to the divisive rhetoric of the president-elect.

But given that Pulliam told cops "Another piece of trash off the street." after the arrest, I'm guessing he didn't  vote for Hillary.


Now no offense to any white males who may be reading this (some of you are good friends of mine) but it's Saturday November 26th as I write this, so it's only been fifteen days since a white male Trump supporter aired his personal grievances and political views against a black man minding his own business in a public place.

Remember U.S. Army veteran Ernest Walker being unfairly interrogated about his military service record in a Chili's Grill and Bar in Cedar Hill, Texas on Veterans Day by an old guy in a Trump t-shirt and the manager of the establishment two weeks ago?

Well as Republican icon Ronald Reagan once famously noted, "Here we go again."

Yet another Trump supporter is making headlines for "getting his Trump on" in a place of business, only this time it was targeted against women in the confines of a Delta Airlines flight en route from Atlanta, Georgia to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Trump supporter rants on Delta flight

Seriously, the election took place over three weeks ago; what is it with Trump supporters in public places?

Now interestingly, like the Chili's incident in Texas, this story first started blowing up on social media after a passenger on the flight named Emma Baum used her cell phone or iPad/Kindle to take a brief video of a Trump supporter in a black t-shirt and a white baseball hat wandering the aisle of a the packed flight ranting about Trump.

Have you seen this video that's been viewed almost 2 million times already?

The as-yet unnamed man is just ranting about Trump to the entire plane and in an incredible display of misogyny, he actually has the gall to call the female passengers, "Hillary bitches".

According to an article posted on Buzzfeed.com yesterday afternoon that quoted Emma Baum's Facebook page, the stewardesses on the Delta flight eventually took the Trump supporter aside for fifteen minutes where my guess is he was finally warned about his behavior.

But how does someone just get up mid-flight and start ranting openly like that without a quicker response from the Delta flight crew?

As a number of people observed on Twitter last night, had that guy been a man with dark skin and a turban on they would have made an emergency landing.

Or worse.

Faisal & Nazia Ali kicked off Delta
flight for "sweating" and texting

In fact, just last August Faisal and Nazia Ali, a Muslim couple who'd just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in Paris, were seated on a Delta flight back to Cincinnati, Ohio when one of the Delta employees asked them to exit the plane.

One of the Delta employees claimed that Faisal had been seen "sweating" and allegedly tried to hide his cell phone when the Delta employee walked by; the plane had been sitting on the tarmac for 45 minutes in August, I would have been sweating too.


Faisal had actually been texting his mother to tell her when to pick them up at the airport, but even after being questioned by a French police officer who found no reason to detain them, the captain of the Delta flight wouldn't let them back on based on the employee's unjustified suspicions.

But I guess some guy standing in the middle of a Delta flight "getting his Trump on" by ranting at random passengers and insulting women is okay with Delta?

Seems like Delta's cautionary screening procedures depend on what you look like.

Funny how the remarkably thin-skinned Trump blows a gasket on his Twitter account if someone says something he doesn't like, but when his supporters act like assholes to innocent strangers minding their own business in public in Trump's name?

Radio silence.

Guess this is the kind of Trickle-Down Theory we can expect from now on, only it's not imaginary money trickling down from the "top"; it's toxic divisiveness and bigotry.

Jordan Jackson, Bias in U.S. Schools & The Big Con

Jordan Jackson and his 4-year-old sister J'Niahia

Watching different cross sections of the American populace beginning to organize to confront the divisiveness, anger and ethnic and racial hatred channeled by the president-elect and some of his advisers and followers has been one of the more encouraging signs of hope in the wake of the November 8th elections.

A recent incident involving 8-year-old Jordan Jackson, an honor student and athlete at Spanish Lake Primary School in Geismar, Louisiana, reflects the urgent need for that change.

As Brianna Cox reported in an article in The Atlanta Blackstar on Tuesday, Jordan and his 4-year-old sister were waiting to be picked up from school recently when a group of boys, including a 13-year-old, began throwing mulch at the two siblings and taunting them.

When Jordan asked them to stop harassing his younger sister, he was physically pushed to the ground multiple times before one or more of the boys body slammed him to the ground; breaking his arm.

According to Jordan's mother, who teaches in the community, and a fifth-grader from the school who witnessed the incident, Jordan told one of the students, "That's racist!" and the student responded: "You do need to go back to the cotton farm."  

Make no mistake, Donald Trump bears responsibility for this.

The toxic racism, xenophobia and bigotry he actively cultivated inspired a 13-year-old boy to target an innocent 8-year-old honor student minding his own business and standing up for his 4-year-old sister, and then suggest that child needs to "go back" to a state of indentured servitude is as absurd as it is offensive.

How could Trump's bigotry infect a primary
school with such a diverse student body?

Don't get me started on that as-yet-unnamed 13-year-old's parents.

Since the incident, Jordan has been to the hospital at least three times to be treated for a fractured right arm and concussion symptoms and his uncle Cris Colbert set up a GoFundMe page to help with the costs related to his treatment.





According to Colbert, Britton Colon, the principal at the Spanish Lake Primary School, told Jordan's mother Alana Jackson that the school is not liable for the medical bills related to the assault because the student primarily responsible for the attack was not a student at the school and the incident happened after school hours.

This incident has rapidly garnered global media attention so my guess is that we'll probably see what a lawyer has to say about the school not being liable for an assault on an 8-year-old on school grounds.

Similar incidents of verbal and physical assault and harassment in schools across the nation are not unique to Louisiana, Caitlin Dickerson catalogued some of those incidents, including those responsible for them, in an article in the New York Times yesterday.

As I blogged about last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently announced a new online survey of American teachers to update the findings of the Teaching Tolerance project to better analyze the effects of Trump's election on the nation's school children.

Royal Oak Middle School in Michigan

Schools and playgrounds around the country have been defaced by racist graffiti, including swastikas,

In the wake of the election during the week of November 8th, a group of white students at the Royal Oak Middle School in Michigan disrupted a lunch period with loud chants of "Build the wall!"

As a Washington Post article reported, on Monday, the already troubling atmosphere in that school took a more sinister turn last Friday when a student placed a noose in the bathroom.


But despite these kinds of reprehensible incidents occurring in some places of learning around America, organizations and people are stepping up to the plate to address it.

As Eric Lichtblau reported in the New York Times on Tuesday, billionaire investor and Holocaust survivor George Soros pledged $10 million from his foundation to distribute to community groups around the nation to fight incidents of hate.

As the progressive political activist noted in the article, "We must do something to push back against what's happening here."

Amen to that brother.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in 'The Sting'

As millions of bewildered Americans are only beginning to discover, one of the downsides of having an erratic, quasi-delusional con-man who casually encourages xenophobia and racism as the president-elect is, well, he's an erratic, quasi-delusional con-man who casually encourages xenophobia and racism.

Now if you're in need of a great family film for Thanksgiving Day that people of all ages can (and should) watch, one of my favorite movies is 'The Sting', the 1973 film directed by Walter Hill starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw.

A masterpiece of 1970's filmmaking, it won seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

The story centers on a small-time grifter named Johnny Hooker who seeks out an elusive and mysterious experienced con man named Henry Gondorff in order to learn how to set up a ruthless gangster who murdered one of his friends.

Gondorff teaches Hooker the art of using patience, careful planning and manipulation to play the "Big Con"; a meticulously-planned and highly complex scam meant to take a wealthy "mark" for huge amounts of money without the person even knowing that they've been taken.

To me it's not only entertaining, it serves as a cautionary tale that anyone can be "taken".

As millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump are starting to learn as he steadily begins to walk away from the bold campaign promises that pushed their buttons and got him elected, they got played by one of the biggest con men of them all.

And some of them, particularly embittered working class folks from rust belt factory towns or rural coal mining communities that have seen the globalization of the economy and unchecked corporate greed take away their jobs and livelihoods, don't even know they've been taken by a con man.

They're still too busy venting their anger and frustration on immigrants, people of color and people who don't worship like them.

It's just sad that someone like 8-year-old honor student Jordan Jackson must pay the price for their ignorance and willingness to be duped by a con man whose self interest is all consuming, and whose ethics are almost nonexistent.

In Defiance of the Black Snake

Police using pepper spray on Standing Rock
protesters in North Dakota on Nov 2nd [Reuters]

Throughout modern history images like Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a young Kim Phuc fleeing a South Vietnamese village in 1972, after having her clothes burned off her body by Napalm dropped by South Vietnamese planes, have demonstrated the power of visual media to alter public perception and government policy and law on major social issues like the Vietnam War and civil rights.




But it remains to be seen whether images like the one seen above of heavily-armed members of local law enforcement using pepper spray against unarmed protesters trying to cross a stream near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation back in early November will move the Dakota Access Pipeline's principal owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, to seek an alternate route for the stretch of the pipeline that could potentially threaten the Missouri River - and the fresh water source for the Standing Rock Sioux.

Throughout Sunday night some truly disturbing images of local and state police using high-powered water cannons on unarmed demonstrators trying to cross a bridge were distributed across social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram until mainstream media finally began devoting coverage of the incident.

I watched a short video posted on Twitter of a medic who was treating injured protesters at a make-shift first-aid station at the Standing Rock camp; he said the use of water cannons had caused a number of minor injuries created when people fell trying to get away.

Standing Rock protesters being hosed by
water cannons Sunday night

He also said people were being treated after being shot by rubber bullets.

Drone footage showed some limited ariel shots of the incident, including efforts by police to used the water cannons to take out the drone to prevent footage of the confrontation from being leaked to the media.





Accounts from other medics on the scene reported that up to 200 people were injured from shrapnel from concussion grenades, bean bags fired at point blank range and symptoms of hypothermia from some protesters who were intentionally doused with water while temperatures were in the 20's - causing their clothes to freeze.

Proponents of the DAPL claim that the 1,127 mile pipeline is a safer option than rail cars to transport highly volatile crude oil from the Bakken Shelf in North Dakota down through South Dakota and Iowa to a terminal storage facility in Illinois.

But Energy Transfer Partners have offered little in the way of guarantees that the company would be financially equipped or prepared to deal with the major environmental consequences of a serious pipeline break - as a Wikipedia article reports the state of Iowa only requires pipeline owners to keep a $250,000 surety bond on hold in the event of a major spill.

Think about that.

Ruptured section of the Kalamazoo pipeline 

How far is $250,000 going to go to cover a major underground pipeline break that spills hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick, viscous Bakken crude that could threaten wildlife, farm land and fresh water supplies?

Environmental organizations estimate that at least $1 billion needs to be held in reserve to deal with a major accident.

Remember the pipeline rupture in Kalamazoo, Michigan back in 2010?

The Canadian oil company Enbridge ignored three separate reports about the six-foot section of ruptured section of pipeline that eventually spilled over a million gallons of heavy Tar Sands oil into a section of the Kalamazoo River that spilled 40 miles downstream, drenching animals and 4,435 acres of land along the river bank.

That man-made disaster cost Enbridge $1.2 billion to clean up, a $177 million settlement, it displaced over 150 families and closed sections of the Kalamazoo River for two years.

Oh and Enbridge is one of the partners in the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It's pretty clear that Energy Transport Partners is basically expecting the American taxpayers to pick up the bill while they reap the profits of this $3.7 billion project; and they'll basically lawyer their way around responsibility if and when there's an accident on the 1,172 miles of the DAPL.

A consortium of 17 different global banks including Citibank, TD Securities, and BNP Paribas provided $2.5 billion in loans to finance the project; the remaining $1.2 billion was raised by ETP selling stakes in the pipeline to Phillips 66, Enbridge and Marathon Oil.

Energy Transfer Partners CEO
Kelcy Warren

The prospects of a Trump presidency aren't good for opponents of the pipeline either.

In addition to the untold number of personal business conflicts of interest presented by the president-elect's global business interests (many of which the public doesn't even know about because of his refusal to release his tax returns), the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners Kelcy Warren personally donated $103,000 to organizations that supported Trump's campaign.

According to an article posted on Democracy Now, Warren has also given thousands of dollars in political contributions to House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Energy Chair Fred Upton and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski.

Oh and ETP also has it's own PAC. Really.





So in addition to the over 71,000 miles of oil pipelines around that nation that ETP owns, thanks to the Supreme Court it also has a direct and anonymous unlimited pipeline of cash it can inject directly into a web of other conservative petroleum-friendly PACs that support Republicans who deny the existence of climate change and can't say no to Big Oil.

Trump also has investment ties with Phillips 66, and may have additional financial interests to some of the 17 banks that financed the DAPL.

It's an ethical mess of epic proportions that's going to roll right through four states.

With billions at stake for the pipeline, hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to Congressional Republicans in Washington who control the environmental laws and regulations that allowed it to be built with superficial environmental impact studies, the hundreds of indigenous peoples camped out near the Standing Rock reservation have a steep hill to climb.

As Native American activist Iysukin American Horse eloquently wrote in The Guardian back in August, many of the hundreds of members of different tribes who've gathered near the Standing Rock reservation see this not as a political fight.

But as a spiritual battle to protect their source of water, their land and their way of life.


Increasingly many see this pipeline designed to transport over 400,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil per day as the manifestation of the apocalyptic Native American prophecy of The Black Snake - which their elders foretold would destroy their way of life if not defeated.

Considering the forces behind the pipeline and the growing power of the corporatocracy it represents, The Black Snake is a truly dangerous creature.

And as the brutal attacks by local and state police against hundreds of protesters demonstrated last night, that Snake is already trying to destroy the way of life of the Original Americans.  

Let's hope those horrific images of violent police overreach on behalf of this consortium of pipeline producers, oil companies, banks and politicians continues to turn the powerful tide of public opinion in favor of environmental and human rights, and the basic principle of Democracy on which this nation was founded.

The Resistance Will Not Be Televised

The #GrabMyWallet boycott against Ivanka Trump's
fashion product line is gaining traction in the U.S. 

Donald Trump's efforts to populate his top cabinet positions with men who mirror his own narrow-minded views on bigotry, xenophobia and extreme religious intolerance are genuinely frightening.

But social media is offering a variety of innovative ways for the millions of Americans who might not be able to join marches or protests against the Trump to express their opposition for what he stands for.




The backlash to Chili's Grill & Bar in the wake of manager Wesley Patrick's treatment of African-American veteran Ernest Walker last Friday is an example of the growing grassroots movement to show solidarity against Trump's horrifying vision for America by financially boycotting the Trump brand, and speaking in the one language he does seem to grasp - money.

It's been interesting to see how technology, social media and grassroots activism can directly (and quickly) influence the behavior, choices and profitability of large and small companies - and impact the larger American landscape.

For example the stock price of Chili's parent company Brinker International is down 1.04% over the past five days, so I think it's interesting to observe investor's response to the negative global publicity generated by Wesley Patrick's personal bias and poor management skills.  

Logic would suggest that if customers do begin boycotting Chili's as a direct consequence of the incident in Cedar Hills, Texas, the impact on the company's profit margin will be very real - which in turn could effect the decision of some investors to sell the stock to cut their losses.

Or, some investors motivated by displeasure over Ernest Walker's treatment may simply decide to sell the stock on principle.

Remember when news emerged last year that Exxon-Mobil's own internal research showed that the burning of fossil fuels was a major contributor to global warming, and that the company had known this for decades even as it contributed to bogus "research" that backed climate change denial?

I was one of many people and large institutional investors (like the Rockefeller Family Fund) around the globe who decided to sell my Exxon-Mobil stock.  


In many ways the movement to divest from fossil fuel production is an extension of the global anti-apartheid movement to encourage nations to divest from the nation of South Africa over it's government-mandated policy of racial segregation in the 70's and 80's.

That same kind of widespread grassroots energy is not only coalescing around the growing anti-Trump movement taking shape in this country, the accessibility of technology combined with the power of social media platforms are now targeting the companies that either do business with Trump, support him, or are associated with his family.

As an article by Sam Reed in the style section of The Hollywood Reporter noted back on October 24th, influential digital brand strategist Shannon Coulter's #GrabYourWallet social media movement to encourage consumers to contact large retailers and demand they stop carrying Trump products is gaining steam - her list below makes it easy for consumers to take action:

Fed up? Call these retailers and tell them to stop peddling Trump products!

Lists like this one created by Coulter translate a message that retailers and investors understand; one that people from all walks of life are speaking with their purchasing decisions, computers and cell phones.

One that can have a concrete impact as the critical holiday spending season nears.

Other online grassroots movements like The Donald J. Trump Resistance have cropped up to give people information on the CEO's or owners of large retailers who have supported Trump, so that consumers who don't want their hard-earned dollars lining the pockets of people who are giving tacit endorsement to the kinds of anti-American policies Trump envisions.

Republican State Senator Doug Ericksen

You heard about Republican Washington State Senator Doug Ericksen proposing a bill that will alter existing law to categorize what he calls "illegal protests" as "economic terrorism" and make it a felony?

A felony, like assault or murder.

Can you imagine an America where the right to freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment becomes a felony?



Trump supporters can, is that what they meant by "Making America Great Again?"

As I write these words, the newly-created Facebook page of the Resistance to Donald J Trump already has 27,808 likes and growing and Twitter is rapidly becoming a hub for information and news on the huge number of organizations and individuals who are actively opposing Trump and his policies.

With the evidence now indicating that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a margin that exceeds the number of votes John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon won by, it's clear that the American people did not give Trump an open mandate roll back gains in civil rights, strip away women's right to make their own reproductive and healthcare choices, end Medicare, or put the names of law-abiding Muslim citizens into some kind of database registry.

This isn't Nazi-era Germany, and the grassroots campaign to make Trump and the politicians and corporate interests that are associated with him understand that is only getting started.

The mainstream television news outlets that gave Trump so much free press and live coverage of his rallies and speeches during the election might not devote as much coverage to the growing opposition to the president-elect, but it's happening.

The resistance is real.

Who'd have imagined that we'd need one in 21st century America?

Chili's Cold Reception To a Black Vet

U.S. Army veteran Ernest Walker

The latest example of overt bigotry based on an individual's race or ethnicity linked to Donald Trump is a Texas-sized doozy.

African-American Army vet Ernest Walker goes to a local Chili's in Cedar Hill, Texas with his registered service dog last Friday for the free meal the restaurant chain offers to military vets on Veterans Day.

He orders his meal, eats, then asks the waitress to pack up the rest to go as he has to leave and pick up his wife; he tips her.

Then according to Walker's Facebook page, an older white man wearing a Trump t-shirt walks up, sees Walker sitting there with his service dog, proceeds to question him about his service and then tells the young white manager of the restaurant, Wesley Patrick, that he doesn't think Walker is a real vet.

Patrick comes over to Walker's table and verbally confronts Walker, basically accuses him of lying about his service to get a free meal; Walker politely shows the suspicious manager his government-issued military ID and military discharge papers - but the manager still doesn't believe him.

A verbal exchange ensues until Patrick reaches down and grabs the container with Walker's to-go food in it and takes it away from him; video of the exchange was caught on Walker's cell phone and posted on Youtube where it's now been seen hundreds of thousands of times.

Blowback for this deplorable treatment of a military veteran on Veteran's Day was swift, local protesters were picketing with signs in front of the restaurant by the next day, by Sunday the reaction on social media and news of the incident prompted a response from Chili's which issued a statement with a rather tepid apology for the incident and the behavior of manager Wesley Patrick.

Chili's manager Wesley Patrick

Video of this incident would've sparked outrage even if it had taken place before the election of Trump.

But in light of the sharp increase of overt incidents of hate against members of the Muslim, African-American, LGBTQ and Hispanic communities since last Tuesday, Patrick's treatment of Walker bears more scrutiny.

As do the training practices and management policies of the restaurant chain he works for.


A veteran who served his country honorably was dehumanized and embarrassed (his words) in one of their restaurants because an embittered old man wearing a Trump t-shirt questioned the service record of a total stranger minding his own business.

How have people have reacted?

Take a look at some of the thousands of comments that have been posted on the Facebook page of Chili's Grill & Bar by folks of different racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Wesley Patrick has been removed from his position as manager of the Cedar Hill Chili's, but my sense is that's not going to be enough for Chili's or its parent company Brinker International.

Chili's Pres./CEO Kelli Valade

The Catholic Church scandals have taught us that simply moving the pedophile priest to another parish doesn't solve the deeper institutional problems that allowed him to molest children in the first place; it just gives the priest a chance to molest more children in another parish.

In no way am I equating the molestation of a child with the actions of an incompetent manager in a restaurant, but many people are not going to be satisfied until Patrick is fired and Chili's takes concrete steps to apologize to Walker in a meaningful way.

Late Monday afternoon Kelli Valade, the president and CEO of Chili's did release a public statement, and the company deserves a measure of credit for accepting responsibility for the debacle.

But as someone whose worked as a copywriter and in a corporate communications capacity, the statement struck me as a bit canned and generic.


Like some PR hack in a cubicle in their corporate communications department opened up a "crisis apology" template in Word, polished the text and emailed it to Valade's assistant to run by "legal" for a quick review before sending it out.

Obviously it was meant to demonstrate that the company was aware of the situation and the public reaction to it; but to a degree I think Chili's got schooled in the power of social media in the same way that some police departments have in the face of evidence captured by an individual with a cell phone camera that conflicts with  the account of an officer who knows he or she screwed up but is trying to cover their ass.

Chili's TV commercials are slick, the menus are colorful, and the food is pretty decent as far as franchises go - but the brand was still soiled by what's on that segment of cell phone video.

Someone sets fire to their New Balances

No $500,000 television ad buy during the half-time of the Super Bowl is going to just wash away the impression of how Wesley Patrick treated Ernest Walker on Veterans Day.

And I guarantee you that in the current climate of growing consumer activism against companies that appear to be aligned with the hate and bigotry peddled by Trump, there are a sizable number of people who will consciously choose not to go to Chili's in the coming weeks of the Thanksgiving and holiday season specifically because of this incident.

Just ask Matthew LeBretton, the VP of Public Affairs of New Balance whose klutzy ill-timed pro-Trump comments after the election has sparked people to post video of themselves burning their New Balance shoes on Youtube.

So Kelli Valade is going to have to roll up her sleeves and do some work to assure the public that Chili's customers will not be treated differently because of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or their ethnicity or religion based on the word of a racist Trump supporter who happens to be in the restaurant - or by some bush league manager with a sketchy political agenda, no customer service skills and a cheesy goatee.

The Website of Chili's parent company Brinker International boasts that it owns over 1,600 restaurants in the U.S. and around the world and that "Our guests know that every time they step into our restaurants, we'll give them a warm welcome...while making people feel special."

Those words ring pretty hollow in the wake of Ernest Walker being interrogated about his military record with his service dog at his feet on Veterans Day.

Amid Loss, Glimpses Of Hope On the American Horizon

PBS Newshour anchor Gwen Ifill dead at 61

With so many new stories of incidents of targeted bias based on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation cropping up all over the country in the wake of Donald Trump's election last week, it's been difficult to regain perspective and a sense of optimism for America's future.

The loss of a gifted and intelligent journalist of the substance, caliber and moral and ethical character of Gwen Ifill to cancer earlier today was yet another blow to the ranks of the Fourth Estate in this country.  

If there was any one member of the mainstream media I was depending on to ask the hard questions in the coming days of the conservative onslaught it was her - after watching countless reports and interviews with her on the PBS Newshour over the years it feels a little like loosing a friend whose presence you just take for granted.

But I'm not sure there's been a time since the 1960's or early 70's post-Vietnam / Watergate era when the need for quality journalism has been so critical for the American people.

As Julie Alderman observed in an article for MediaMatters.org earlier this morning, some of the nation's major news media outlets seem to be downplaying or totally ignoring the long-term impact of Trump's selection of Brietbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon as a senior White House policy advisor - in effect legitimizing a known white supremacist and anti-Semite and assuring that he will have the ear of the president.

But while things do seem bleak, there are glimmers of light breaking through the trees.

Kellyanne Conway on 'Meet The Press'

The hundreds of thousands of people who've taken to the streets of many American cities continue to make clear that Trump did not win the popular vote of the American people.

And he faces a huge grassroots firewall of opposition from across the nation from those who will not tolerate his policies of anti-immigrant hysteria, racial divisiveness, ethnic bullying, climate denial and rehashed failed Trickle Down economic / tax policy.

Trump campaign manager / advisor Kellyanne Conway had the gall to appear on NBC's 'Meet The Press' on Sunday and cast blame for the ongoing protests on Democratic leaders. 

After enduring two years of Trump's delusional stream-of-conscience blathering, bullying, juvenile insults, constant lying and threats, I don't know anyone who for one second takes seriously Conway's claim to NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday that Trump is "there for them. And he is going to be a president that listens and takes the counsel of many different people, including those from the other side of the aisle."

If Conway is going to become the White Press Secretary and we have to endure quasi-delusional spin like that, it's going to be an even longer four years than we already know it will be.

But as I said there are still signs of hope, particularly on the local and grassroots level.

While Trump, Conway and his other advisors and spokespersons seem content to pretend right-wing nut-bag racists defacing property with swastikas and the N-word all over the country is no big deal, organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center are taking the initiative to begin tracking these incidents of hate to record the data to be able to analyze and make sense of it.

They've undertaken an online survey of American teachers to update the findings of last spring's Teaching Tolerance project; merging information gathered from responses and input from some 2,000 teachers with survey data from teachers on how the hatred and divisiveness of Trump's election are impacting American students in the classroom.

If you or someone you know has heard of, or experienced an incident of hate or bias since the election you can report it to the SPLC. 

Grassroots movements are beginning to organize as well, as you've likely heard tens of thousands of people from across the nation are signing up for the Million Woman March planned for January 21, 2017 the day after the inauguration. 

A massive effort to not only steal Trump's thunder, but to also demonstrate that woman and men across the nation are not going to sit still while right-wing ideologues like Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence begin to dismantle court-mandated protections for women's rights, access to health care and control over their own reproductive choices.

While the presidential and congressional elections grabbed the headlines, there were some glimpses of hope on the local state level too. 

Particularly in the state of Kansas where citizens voted NOT to misuse a state retention vote designed to prevent judicial corruption to oust four of the state's Supreme Court judges.

Republican Kansas Gov Sam Brownback

As I blogged about back on September 9th, Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his vengeance-minded conservative allies in the Kansas state legislature were behind a massive effort to use a retention vote to try and remove four State Supreme Court Justices who ruled that massive cuts to Kansas public schools violated the state constitution.  

When the Justices put a stop to the Kansas legislature's efforts to turn the state into some kind of crazy Republican lab experiment, what did those right-wing lawmakers do?

Republican State Senator Mitch Holmes authored Senate Bill 439; a bill that would have radically expanded the legislature's ability to impeach State Supreme Court Justices.

Not for judicial corruption mind you - but to prevent those Justices from being able to rule that any laws passed by the legislature violate the state constitution; no lie folks, that is some seriously Banana Republic-type shit.

But in a positive sign for reason and hope, the people of Kansas showed that they have had just about enough of Sam Brownback's kooky hyper-conservative agenda - remember folks, this was the guy who used an executive order back in 2015 to rescind protections for LGBTQ state workers so that it would be legal to fire them for being gay.

On November 8th Kansas voters voted to keep the Justices in place; thwarting radical Republican overreach and preserving the balance of power that is so basic to American government.

It's not an answer to all the swastikas, harassment and fear-mongering, but it's a positive sign that in two years, Democrats along with more moderate Republicans could begin to chip away at the Republican majorities in state legislatures all over the country.

Like the ongoing anti-Trump protests and the thousands of people joining up for the Million Woman March in Washington, it's a sign that folks aren't going to just sit idly by while Republicans rip the fabric of this nation apart in order to sew it back together into something dark and unrecognizable.

Something many in this nation have no desire to wear. 

For Donald, Actions & Words Trump Apologies

Swastikas were scrawled on my elementary school 

It's only been four days since Donald Trump was elected to be president, but for some disturbed individuals in this country, that was like a green-light to engage in cowardly acts of overt racism, xenophobia and sexism.

The underlying message of Trump's campaign, and by extension the Republican party, is that it's okay to treat people of color, foreigners, immigrants and people of different faiths and ethnicities differently - even with open hostility.

This morning I was absolutely horrified to learn that the elementary school I attended as a child, Burning Tree Elementary in Bethesda, Maryland, was defaced with swastikas on the weekend of October 28th in the weeks leading up to the General Election.

That's where my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Goldblatt taught me to love music, it's where I learned to love reading and books, the place where I played kickball and climbed the monkey bars at recess; the place where I used to gaze out the windows during class and daydream.

Burning Tree isn't the only school affected by the overt displays of racism that have spread across the nation in the days immediately following Trump's election.

Defaced door in Maple Grove High School  

The father of a Maple Grove High School student in Minnesota posted photos on Facebook taken by his son the day after the election that showed a door defaced with slurs like "F*ck N***ers", "F*ck all porch monkeys" and "#whitesonly" scrawled above the words "Trump."

Numerous incidents of hate have been reported on college campuses across the nation as well.

A female freshman who was studying at the library on the campus of the University of New Mexico on the day of the election reported that an unknown white male came up and tried to rip off her hijab and started screaming anti-Muslim epithets at her.

On the campus of Baylor University in Texas on Friday hundreds of students as well as president David Garland gathered to walk black student Natasha Nkhama to class after a group of white students intentionally bumped into her and shoved her off the sidewalk before using the N-word to tell her people of color shouldn't use the sidewalk.

On Friday morning on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania at least one as-yet unnamed student from Oklahoma used the cell phone messaging app GroupMe to target the African-American members of the freshman class with different messages referring to calls for the lynching of black U Penn students; one of the messages contained an old photo of a black man who'd been lynched with the words "I love America."

The Mayor of Philadelphia and the Governor joined U Penn administrative officials in condemning the hate messages, but there's one soon-to-be politician whose remained silent about these vile incidents.

That's Donald Trump himself.

100,000 were estimated to march in LA

After spending years inflaming conservatives with his support of loony racist Birther theories and messages of intolerance against Muslims, Mexicans and women, Trump had the gall to take to his Twitter account to call the hundreds of thousands of protestors who've been marching in cities around the nation since last Tuesday "very unfair."

Today in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Baltimore, Kansas City and Portland gathered in the hundred of thousands to demonstrate their opposition to Trump's election and voice their fears over the radical right-wing political agenda the majority Republican House and Senate are preparing to unleash on Americans.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has already openly discussed plans to privatize Medicare and push the millions of people who depend on it for health care into private insurance.

A plan that will enrich the coffers of private health care and insurance companies (and the executives who run them) with billions in taxpayer dollars.

On Friday journalist and author Chris Hedges wrote "It's Worse Than You Think", a troubling article for TruthDig.com outlining the unprecedented danger to Democracy that the Trump presidency and Republican control of both houses of Congress represents.

The nation led by a man who thinks climate change is a hoax and who has direct personal investments in the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.

A man with no political or public policy experience who could threaten the progress made by prison reform advocates because of his financial ties to the prison industrial complex and his contempt for advocates who've called for police accountability for the rampant killing of unarmed people of color by police.

Hedges rightfully warns that Trump supporters are in for a rude awakening when they discover that the career conman they elected doesn't give a shit about them - wait until those enraged white voters in rust belt towns who've watched their manufacturing, steel and coal industry jobs vanish find out that Trump's tax plan overwhelmingly benefits the top 1%; in other words, himself.

There's an awful lot of things I'd like to say to Donald Trump right about now, some of which I'll refrain from sharing publicly in the name of decency.

But I think a quote from a 1963 episode of The Andy Griffith Show effectively sums up what I think of Trump's disingenuous post-election calls for Americans to unite in the wake of the rampant division he sowed:

Sheriff Taylor, played by Andy Griffith,
dispenses wisdom to Opie, played by Ron Howard

"Being sorry is not the magic word that makes everything right again."

Those words of wisdom were spoken by Sheriff Andy Taylor, played by actor Andy Griffith, to his fictional television son Opie, played by actor/ director Ron Howard, on an episode of the classic series centered on a widowed father trying to raise his only son in a small southern town.

To me those words offer a counter to Trump's efforts to appear as some kind of magnanimous unifying figure after the division and polarization he's sewn.


As long-time television critic and Rowan University professor of television and film history David Bianculli shared on Thursday's episode of Fresh Air with host Terry Gross, in a moving scene Griffith's character must confront his son over having accidentally killed a bird with a slingshot.

A guilt-ridden Opie apologizes, but Andy reminds his only son that being sorry isn't enough to undue the repercussions of actions that have already been taken, or words that have been said.

Like many others, I'm not ready to simply shrug off the past and line up behind Donald Trump in his new guise as the benevolent leader whose suddenly discovered a desire for peace and unity.

Over the past two years this man has ripped open a chasm in the cultural fabric of this nation, allowing hatred, bigotry and anger to spill out like some kind of toxic foul-smelling sludge.

He did that just to satisfy his egomaniacal lust for power, attention and financial profit, not for the good of the country; if he cared about the country he would have run for public office years ago.

The fear and anger he dredged up that caused some low life scum bag to paint a swastika on the elementary school I attended doesn't just vanish into thin air because Trump has gotten what he wants and is now ready to assume the mantle of leadership for a position for which he's utterly unqualified and hasn't earned.

Until Trump comes out and takes a definitive stance against these acts of racial, ethnic and religious hatred, and commits to use his office to stop them, his words about desiring unity are like the many promises he's made and broken over the years; meaningless.