Month: April 2021

SYSTEMIC RACISM.

Background:  There has been systemic racism, at least on a regional level, in the United States.  A nation that tolerates slavery is undeniably racists. 1865/post-Civil War; denying liberties for freed slaves in the former Confederate states was systemic racism. 1864/post-Civil War; Democrat-led proliferation of KKK organizations in nearly every county in the deep south was systemic racism. 1865-1964, for 99 years an underpinning of the Democrat party platform was segregation.  That was pure, unadulterated, unambiguous, in-your-face systemic racism.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton set the stage for a new way to define racism with these prepared remarks: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”  In two sentences she defamed tens of millions of Americans with zero facts to back up her assertions and it stuck to the Democrat party. Since 2016 the Democrat party has expanded on what Hillary started to where we are today; that is, if you disagree with my platform or you are in agreement with President Trump’s policies you are a racist. That’s where the Democrats came up with their claim that systemic racism is rampant across the nation.

With that background let’s get to today’s issue, systemic racism.  First, define systemic.  It is “a practice, or set of beliefs that has been established as normative or customary throughout a political, social, or economic system; relating to or affecting the body as a whole.”  The body as a whole; that’s us, you and me. 

President Biden says over and over “The fact is, systemic racism touches every facet of American life.”

In order for Biden’s systemic racism theory, “touching every facet of American life”, to be true, how many of us have to be actively involved in being a racist?  100 million, 200 million?  Stop reading right now.  Stop.  Before you go on take a few minutes to mentally cycle through your personal list of extended family members, neighbors, associates at work and friends.  While doing this keep a tally of those who you believe are racist. For this exercise let’s further simplify racism as those white people who hate Black Americans and Black Americans who hate White Americans.  This may take you awhile.  Keep going.

Ok, how many did you come up with.  I’m guessing, maybe two or three.  Maybe only your weird Uncle Fred.  I came up with exactly zero and I spent thirty-two years of my professional life interacting with Black Americans on a daily basis.  I honestly believe if we asked all Americans to take this personal survey we would come up with similar results.  So, who are the tens or hundreds of millions of racists touching “every facet of American life” day-in and day-out that Biden and the remainder of the Democrat party leaders are talking about?

I am seriously ashamed of this nation’s Democrat leaders who have made an intellectual choice to casually throw around the word racist as they go about their daily duties. I am enraged at those Democrats who work tirelessly to politicize racism for political party gain.  I have absolute disrespect for those who seek to destroy the gains in integration and are so intellectually dishonest about Black achievements over the past fifty years. 

Not to be underestimated, the Democrat leadership, aka the president, has taken the final step and allowed systemic racism to be morphed into an equally ugly and unfounded description of tens of millions of us, we are now also white supremacists.

Conclusion: the charge of systemic racism in America is a crock of crap.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY.

CRT, is based on the assumption that throughout US history, since the first slaves arrived in 1619, all American institutions and laws have been intentionally crafted so that white people can put up social, economic, and legal barriers between the races in order to maintain their elite status. From these assumptions the CRT folks have concluded that the source of poverty and criminal behavior in minority communities is due exclusively to these barriers.

But what if the assumptions that led us to the theory are not valid?  I recently watched on TV a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer and spokesperson.  When asked to define CRT he responded, “CRT is a pack of lies.”

Here are some thoughts I gleaned from work by John Horvat II, a brilliant scholar, researcher, educator, speaker and author.  His bottom line is that CRT must be rejected if this country is to survive.  Here are some CRT underpinnings to ponder:

CRT seeks to divide our society into two groups, the oppressors (white people) and the oppressed (black people) followed by constant struggle between the two.  Result, a deep-seated national culture of blame and hatred.

CRT sees race as the preeminent prism through which all things are considered; history, economics, sociology, science, virtually all aspects of life. All current governing and cultural structures are tainted with racism, systemic racism.

CRT teaches that those who are oppressors are incapable of ridding themselves of their biases. They are irredeemable (as Hillary told us in 2016) and incapable of exercising free will to change.

CRT sees reform of race relations as impossible.  Because racism is systemic, the present institutions cannot be redeemed or modified.

Given that CRT tells us all things must be seen through the prism of race, including the sciences, its promoters declare falsely that science, reason and logic are “white” ways of knowing things. 

CRT weakens the bonds that create trust of individuals, of institutions and of government.

CRT is irreconcilable with traditional Christian teachings.

CRT is totalitarian and allows for no opposing theories.

CRT holds that America and white Americans are irredeemably racist. The solution is reverse racism which is called equity. “Equity”, not to be confused with equality, further transforms all elements of America from merit-based to equity based.  Under equity, mediocracy will reign supreme. 

Irrespective of this clear and present danger to our country, Critical Race Theory, Project 1619, and ethnic studies are being incorporated in public schools all over America. It’s part of an anti-racist mission that is anything but.

Imagine a couple of youngsters, one black, one white, from the same neighborhood; they are best friends, walk to school together, play ball after school and are in and out of each other’s homes frequently.  Then, while getting their required weekly dose of CRT instruction, they suddenly look across the classroom at one another and think, wow I thought he was my friend but he is actually my enemy. Indoctrination.

CRT is potentially the most dangerous initiative ever undertaken in our history with almost unimaginable ramifications. For example, Damon Young, a senior editor of The Root and an occasional New York Times contributor, adds, “Whiteness is a public health crisis. It shortens life expediencies, it pollutes air, it constricts equilibrium, it devastates forests, it melts ice caps, it sparks (and funds) wars, it flattens dialects, it infests consciousnesses, and it kills people”.  

In line with the woke revolution, President Biden’s Department of Education has signaled its intent to impose the most radical forms of Critical Race Theory on America’s schools.

CRT, in the process of being included in educational curriculum at all levels, is purely and simply indoctrination.  It will guarantee the perpetuation of systemic racism and white supremacy in this country for generations.

Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in any organization.  If we think of the US and an organization, over the past 20 years we have seen a culture of blame cultivated in Washington politics and spread across the nation.  A culture of blame is so powerful and debilitating it has rendered our Congress ineffective. Then in 2016 Hillary started the hate culture movement.  CRT has the potential to take both the cultures of blame and hate to new levels with devastating consequences for generations to come.

CAMPAIGN HOME ROOM.

Is CRT the solution to our pathetic failed education standards in elementary, secondary and higher educational institutions?  Are we to be satisfied with an ever-increasingly racially divided nation?  Are we to knuckle under to the Democrat leaders claims of systemic racism and white supremacy being taught to all of our youngsters? Is there no alternative solution?

The above, in this article, are what I call BGOs, blinding glimpses of the obvious.  None of the above will fix racism or education and will probably make them worse.  So where do we go from here with this discussion?  I have for the past few years been advocating a race relation/education reform solution. 

By comparison with Biden’s Department of Education, which is planning to continue to throw tens of billions of dollars at education to fix our pathetic system, what I am proposing is free.  While the Department of Education will increase regulations and control of education from the top down, what I propose is completely run at the local level by County Boards of Education, superintendents and school principals.  While the federal government mandates more failed curriculum changes, to include CRT, my solution is a proven concept and will fix education and race relations for generations to come. I call it Campaign Home Room.

It is always a good idea to begin long-range strategic planning with a statement of the problems to be solved.  

Problem # 1: Race relations and education are not what they should be and we are moving in exactly the wrong direction. We need to change direction quickly or it will be too late.

Problem # 2: We are suffering from a culture of blame in both race relations and education.  Blame is a powerful and pervasive force that is polarizing and provides no hope of moving forward.  Blame must be supplanted with something positive.

Problem # 3: Kids are not born bigoted and hateful.  They learn it.  We have to change what they learn.

Problem # 4: Federal education programs costing hundreds of billions of dollars and utilizing thousands of bureaucrats have not worked.  We have to decentralize decision making and execution.

Problem # 5: Every day thousands of U S students drop out of school and every year thousands more graduate from high school functionally illiterate. They do so because they got behind.  We have to figure out why and fix it.

There is no quick fix for what has brought us to this impasse.  The solution will only come if we change what our youngsters learn, how they think, what they believe in and how they behave.

All of these problems can be solved through a comprehensive Character Education program involving every school and every student in America.  It will take a well thought out strategic campaign plan to reach all 60 million students.

This Concept of Operations, called Campaign Home Room, is not a guessing game.  The strength of this concept is that there are existing successful models to lean on and learn from.

Strategic planning becomes easier if we can put a frame around the organization to gain focus on all the involved parties. The organization in question will consist of the following: 

• 142,000 schools
• 180 million adults with children under age 18
• 60 million K-12 students
• 4.5 million teachers
• 2.4 million Home Room volunteers
• Over 200,000 Superintendents, Principals and Education Board members

That is about 250 million, three of every four Americans, will, in some way, be involved in Campaign Homeroom.

The concept is simple:  The first twenty minutes of every school day will be devoted to Home Room period in which volunteers will teach a Character Curriculum every school day in every school to every student, grades K-12.  Doing so will reset the value base in this country and establish a culture of accountability, respect and trust. 

There was not and never will be a quick fix to the deep-seated five problems outlined above. It will take a generation to accomplish.   It will transform America.

Here is the curriculum: accountability, citizenship, commitment, compassion, courage of convictions, courtesy, confidence, healthy habits, honesty, honor, humility, integrity, judgment, leadership, morality, perseverance, punctuality, respect, responsibility, self-respect, selfless service, sportsmanship and trust. That is, teach and talk about values.  Call it the Character Curriculum. There will need to be three versions of the curriculum; elementary k-5, middle school 6-8 and high school 9-12.  Out of this will come an overpowering culture of accountability, respect and trust across America.

This curriculum is transformational and this is what it will do:

• ACCOUNTABLE students do not resort to blame.
• Students who are steeped in COMMITMENT, CONFIDENCE, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY and RESPONSIBILITY do not skip school, fall behind or drop out.
• Students who are deeply rooted in TRUST and RESPECT will strike down bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults. 
• Students who are COMPASSIONATE, COURTEOUS, HONORABLE, GOOD CITIZENS and demonstrate the COURAGE OF THEIR CONVICTIONS do not join street gangs.
• Students who have accepted HONESTY, MORALITY AND INTEGRITY as their guiding light will likely be life-long upstanding citizens.
• Students who understand, live and accept a life of SELFLESS SERVICE are unlikely to become self-serving adults.
• Students who have an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe they know might be incorrect, have the quality of HUMILITY. 
• Students who understand SELF-RESPECT recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally dependable. 
• With this value base, students across the nation are more likely to exercise good JUDGMENT and become great LEADERS.

The concept of using character education to “indoctrinate” youngsters has been effectively used by a national organization called The First Tee.  It uses golf as the medium to bring kids together.  The outcome is almost immediately transformational. I was involved with a First Tee chapter which provided character education to all of the 4^th graders in a North Carolina county.  The teachers very reluctantly observed the process until after about two months they all had an OMG moment.  “What have you done to my students, they were asking, they are more attentive, more engaged in learning, more polite and understanding.”  Studies of The First Tee program have shown that 100% of character education translates directly into the classroom and 80% into the students’ homes.  A mother said to me, “what have you done to my teenage daughter, she now acts like a real human being?”

To be completely up front here, I have spent the last few years attempting to market this concept to include sending the Campaign Home Room document to President Trump, the VP, COS, White House principal deputies, Secretary DeVos and North Carolina political leaders, all to no avail. My conclusion is that it rarely, if ever, makes it through the mail room.  All of the details for a national campaign of character education are contained in a 25-page White Paper.  If any of you are interested, I will forward a digital copy to you upon request; my email, MandDcovault@yahoo.com

BOTTOM LINE.  Our country is in trouble, serious trouble and moving in exactly the wrong direction. The kids are our future and what they learn today will define the future of America.

Just for a moment imagine, across this country, 60 million K-12 youngsters in 2.4 million Home Room classes at 8 o’clock every morning in every school in America being taught and mentored by 2.4 million volunteers on the subject of character.  Campaign Home Room is within the art of the possible and “we the people”, not we the government, can make it happen and transform America.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

I’m bothered by a lot that is going on in America today.  Here are some of them. 

We are to believe there was no such thing as voter fraud anywhere during the 2020 election. Now fixing the actual voter fraud problem is considered racist.

Three days after the 2020 election Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent Democrat Party spokesperson, called for a blacklist, entitled The Trump Accountability Project, with the objective of archiving the names of individuals who “elected, served, funded, supported, and represented President Trump.” Where was the national outcry against this?

H.R.1391 – American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, aka Covid Rescue Plan.  It bothers me that only 9% of the $1.9 trillion was related to actual covid relief.    

President Biden was selling infrastructure legislation to improve roads and bridges.  But only 5% of the $2 trillion, misnamed, “American Jobs Plan” is actually for roads and bridges.  It is a reasonable public policy objective to expand medical care for the elderly and disabled, but it bothers me that $400 billion for that is called infrastructure.

I’m bothered that U.S. debt has now passed the value of our GDP and no Democrats seem concerned. We are printing money at a rate never envisioned.  When does inflation kick in and how hard will the blow be?  Most Americans cannot remember how debilitating for everyone the President Carter economy was with 14.8% inflation and interest rates at 18%. 

By Executive Order, President Biden has authorized US taxpayers to pay for abortions overseas, while consistent polling shows that 77% of Americans are opposed to it.

We have a generation of “educated” Americans who know almost nothing of our nation’s history.  But it is getting worse.  Now they are learning revisionist history about what horrible people Americans have always been and are today. 

Workers’ rights are being demolished. The House passed the miss-named bill, “Protecting the Right to Organize Act”.  Wall Street Journal said, the bill “brazenly opposes workers choices.”  It would effectively repeal right-to-work laws on the books in most states which allow employees to decline union membership. 

The Iran-backed terrorist group Houthis took control of Yemen in 2014. With U.S. assistance, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of nine nations against the terrorist network in Yemen. Without the Saudi effort, it is quite possible that the Houthis would have successfully transformed Yemen into a terrorist operational and training safe haven with deadly consequences for the United States and the international community.  In another knee-jerk I’ll-show-you-Trump action, President Biden is removing the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists from the Global Terrorist list.

To add insult to injury, Biden has put a hold on Trump-negotiated arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth billions of dollars. 

Under the guise of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, Biden included hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financially mis-managed democrat-led cities and states without demanding those governors and mayors take the steps necessary to become fiscally responsible.

It bothers me that the alleged offenses against Hillary Clinton, the FBI Director, intelligence leaders, et al have been swept under the rug; perhaps the most egregious actions by trusted government officials against an existing administration in the history of this nation.  

Pelosi’s House passed H.R. 1 which is the most sweeping change in our election laws in history. It federalizes and micromanages the election process administered by the states, imposing unconstitutional mandates and reverses decentralization of the election process.

States and cities are defunding police while crime rates are rising at alarming rates. 

Whenever there is a “mass shooting” the Democrat leadership ramps up their arguments for massive gun control.  But where is the debate about mental health screening in the US? Reality is that if you suffer from a mental illness, as most mass-shooters do, you may find a confusing and often contradictory system of doctors, clinics, institutions, home care, and drug regimens that is hardly a system at all.

Biden will follow the lead of Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama who all gutted our military forces reducing combat readiness to dangerously low levels. It’s easy to cut but it is a long hard road to get readiness back to acceptable levels when we need it.  Our allies and enemies alike, carefully watch our combat readiness and act/react accordingly.  Nothing deters enemy intent to do harm more than fully combat-ready U.S. forces.

FBI Director Wray has testified before Congress saying, “Antifa is a real thing.”  He went on to say, “We have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.” Contradicting that, our head-in the-sand leader calls Antifa, “an idea

The Biden corporate tax rate increase from 21 to 28% is what the Wall Street Journal calls “political fakery”; implying it is a tax against CEOs and rich share-holders. WSJ goes on to say, “Everyone knows corporations don’t really pay taxes, they are ultimately paid by some combination of customers in higher prices, workers in lower wages and shareholders in lower returns on investment.  In other words, Biden’s corporate tax increases will hit he middle class hard in the value of their 401k, the size of their pay packets and what they pay for goods and services.” What make the corporate tax hike more onerous is that most large economies in the world are in the process of lowering their corporate tax rates thereby making it even more difficult for US corporation to compete price-wise in a global market thereby forcing more US manufacturing overseas. 

I’m bothered that the minimum $15 wage will probably become the law of the land, negatively impacting small businesses and putting another 1.5 million out of work.  Cost of living varies significantly from state to state.  This is more big-government one-size-fits-all democrat thinking.   

The Black Lives Matter anti-police underpinnings are explained by totally false data with respect to police killing Black Americans.

It is OK to have an abortion in the final tri-mister of a pregnancy (aka premeditated murder) conducted by taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood.

Open borders bother me a lot.  What is happening on our Mexican border is inhumane, out of control, getting worse every day, expensive, expanding the covid pandemic, filled with undesirables, increasing drug tracking to new levels with no end in sight and it was all predictable with an instant return to the Obama/Biden catch-and-release policy.  The Biden solution seems to be, find more beds rather than to stop incentivizing the illegals to come.   

North Korea has ramped up its weapons and missile testing.  September, 2017, the NK foreign minister, speaking before the UN said a North Korean nuclear strike against a US city is “inevitable.” President Trump promptly set up the first one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong-un. I suspect at that meeting President Trump would have casually showed Kim a clear 8×10 close-up color photo on Kim riding his big white horse at his vacation retreat.  And Mr. Trump would have said something like this, Kim, we know where you are and how to reach out to you 24/7, now let’s chat about all this testing and your plan to nuc one of my cities.  Predictably, since the election, Kim has renewed a full-court-press on testing.  Asked if President Biden would sit down with Mr. Kim, a White House spokesperson said, “that is not his intention.”  

I’m bothered a lot that Biden will abandon the most successful Middle East developments in decades; that is, after 70 years Middle East nations, led by Saud Arabia, have concluded that Israel is not their enemy.  They now realize their real and imminent danger is Iran and its intent for Middle East dominance and control. 

Biden tells us he spent his first few days in office reaching out to our allies and other world leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping.  But it took 30 days for him to call Netanyahu.  The signal is clear, the US/Israeli relations will return to the Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kerry cold-shoulder policy.

The Biden cabal will completely ignore these underlying economic facts: Prior to the Covid outbreak, there were 750,000 more jobs to fill than there were unemployed, and the lowest 20% of income earners were gaining income in percentage terms more quickly than the top ten percent. The United States became the first serious jurisdiction in the world that had begun to address the almost universal problem of income disparity. Obama/Biden “wealty redistribution” is and will always be an economic disaster.

Six corporations control 90% of the media in America and we wonder why 93% of all reporting on the Trump administration was negative.

While Biden and all democrat leaders continue preaching falsely that the Trump tax cuts only benefited the wealthy; the fact is they reduced the taxes of every American corporation and the taxes of 83% of individual American taxpayers.

I’m bothered that Major league sports have gone political.

We “graduate” thousands of functionally illiterate high school seniors every year and 7000 youngsters drop out of school every day.  And the democrats believe we can solve the problem by throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at it. 

We don’t do enough to solve the homeless problem.  

On a highly advertised and rare appearance by the President to explain his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, he launched into a tirade over the Georgia Legislature’s voting rights law.  Not only did he totally misrepresent every facet of the new law, he then emphatically played the race card. He and his writers had obviously not read the law or just decided we are too stupid to not understand what a mess the president made of the whole subject.

We could fill this page with a list of circumstances that require US citizens to show a personal ID.  Voter ID is absolutely necessary to protect the sanctity of the right to cast a legal vote. Democrat arguments against Voter ID are without factual underpinnings and essentially play a false race card.  A recent Gallop poll found that 80% of Americans believe voter ID is necessary.  If a voter ID system would include a personal voter ID number (similar to a SSN) then every know voter fraud system could be defeated.

The word “sanctuary” bothers me a lot.  The Democrats, by action rather than words, have evolved a new definition.  “Sanctuary cities” today are Democrat led, soft on crime, anti-ICE, degraded police force, pro-criminal prosecutors, deportation-blocking, low-to-no bail policies, out of control homelessness, drug infested and fiscally incompetent.  But if you are a drug-dealing, machete-wielding, homeless, MS13, illegal alien, this is your home sweet home.  And some governors want to declare a sanctuary state.

Democrat mayors have been running many of our largest cities for decades. Some stats from Robert Charles, Association of Mature American Citizens.

The top-ten American cities for homelessness are sanctuary cities. In this group are Los Angeles (55,000 homeless), Seattle (12,000), San Diego (9,000), San Jose (7,000), San Francisco (6,000), and Las Vegas (6,000).  

Of the top-ten “most dangerous cities” in America all have Democratic mayors.  Those cities are Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, Baltimore, Stockton, Cleveland and Buffalo.  These cities that are too deep in poverty, have a weak tax base and lack sufficient infrastructure to attract corporate investment.  They lead the nation in murder, manslaughter, robbery and aggravated assault.

For the mayors to fix this is, of course, difficult but it’s not rocket science.  First, stop, just stop what the hell you have been doing for years or even decades and do things like: lower taxes, less regulation, incentives for business investment, stronger law enforcement, cooperation with federal immigration officials, comprehensive anti-drug policies and attack gang violence. These actions are right out of the Trump playbook which means these mayors will likely continue with a failed system.   Or why not take Trump’s ten-point plan, The New Deal for Black America With A Plan for Urban Renewal, and just use it?

The $2 trillion infrastructure bill, “The American Jobs Act”, contains hundreds of billions for “green” projects.  Have we forgotten that in the 2009 Obama/Biden stimulus bill, only 15 jobs were created for every $1 million spent on green jobs? 

I have been bothered for a long time about Democrat economics.  The Obama/Biden economy formula was TAX AND SPEND, which in modern day economics has never successfully brought any nation quickly out of a recession or caused the GDP to grow at an acceptable rate.  That formula has now morphed into SPEND AND TAX and they believe it will work better?  Obama/Biden economists believed cutting taxes would blow a hole in the deficit.  Just the opposite is true.  The Trump tax cuts caused the overall economy to grow, taxpayers and corporations made more money and as a result federal revenue hit all-time highs.  Tax increases must occasionally occur, but there has never been a tax increase in American history that did not have a negative effect on the economy.

Is it right that people who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees of real or questionable value?

Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars is being earmarked in non-related bills in Congress to pay off democrat-controlled city and state debt without demanding they fix the processes that got them over their heads in debt in the first place.

Consider the fact that private schools have remained open covid-free while government schools closed doing possibly irreparable damage to millions of youngsters.

I am obsessively bothered that education in the United States is an unmitigated disaster. School closures during the pandemic have revealed teachers’ unions for what there are; that is, a greater part of the problem than the solution.  The “demands” issued by the teacher’s unions as a condition of reopening schools tell us all we need to know about their priorities.  Their demands included Medicare for all, institute an national wealth tax and a millionaire tax, defund police, housing security, paid sick leave for parents of school children, charter school moratorium and financial support for undocumented students and families.

The left wing keeps telling us that “free health care is free” and they believe we are dumb enough to believe it.

Earmarking in Congress was costing us millions of dollars in pork, then billions and now trillions (see covid relief and infrastructure bills). Earmarks are legislation that cannot stand scrutiny of the normal legislative process; that is, expert witness testimony during committee hearings.

It bothers me a lot that our president will never be capable of holding an extemporaneous news conference. 

The fact that VP Harris, as the new border crisis czar, has failed to visit the border for a first-hand understanding of the problems, speaks volumes about her approach to dealing with a crisis, her leadership skills in general and her overall qualifications to be VP/president. 

National legalized marijuana is coming; which means it will too-easily be available to youngsters resulting in reduced mental development. Follow the science. 

The Keystone pipeline, when completed could have transported 800,000 barrels of oil a day with no carbon footprint.  Now that oil will be carried by a combination of 500 rail tankers and 950 tanker trucks all belching carbon pollutants. We are to believe that is a “green” solution to anything?

The Biden knee-jerk reduction in public land and off-shore drilling will lead us back into dependence on foreign oil, carrying with it unimaginable negative geo-political ramifications. 

It bothers me that I no longer hear the National Anthem played at sporting events.

This summer could be more violent than last if the Floyd trial verdict does not suit BLM and Antifa.  Last summer’s “mostly peaceful” burning/looting/murder were for the most part acceptable to Biden/Harris.  In an interview Harris said about the riots, “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop.  And everyone beware because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before election day and they’re not going to stop after election day.  And everyone should take a note of that. They’re not gonna let up and they should not”

It bothers me a lot that the Democrat leadership believes it is OK to be crude, ugly, distasteful, disrespectful and downright ignorant to openly and publicly call someone or some group racists simply because they disagree with their thinking, policies, conclusions, or theories.

Part of the new liberal mantra is that equity is synonymous with equality.

In some states gas has gone up over $1 a gallon since the election and there is no end in sight; an unintended consequential “tax” on every business and family in America. 

Pelosi’s House also passed an anti-police bill that will deny “qualified immunity” to police men and women thereby placing them in jeopardy of civil liability for doing their jobs. It will be nearly impossible to recruit a quality force.

I am especially bothered that the Democrat leadership continues to preach the existence of systemic racism across the nation. Their accusations are unfounded.  Background:

Segregation is systemic racism.  To understand segregation, we need to understand how it came about. The commander of Union forces in the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was a champion of African Americans throughout the war. President Lincoln advocated for abolition of slavery and signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1^st, 1863.

During the final days of the Civil War, in 1865, Grant and Lincoln met frequently to discuss what “freedom” should mean for those enslaved. Their plan included the right to own property, to vote, hold office and have access to all schools, public transportation and commercial activities. 

Five days after Lee surrendered to Grant, President Lincoln was assassinated. The Lincoln/Grant vision for the freed slaves died with the President. 

During the post-war period, President Andrew Johnson, sided with the former Confederate states’ Democrats to restrict equality for freed slaves.  This, and other factors, led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, threatening the lives and livelihood of all freed slaves. One of the darkest periods in American history, the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan’s goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy over Black Americans.  That is systemic racism.

For 100 years following the Civil War segregation was a principle pillar of the Democratic party platform; segregation was pure, unadulterated, unambiguous, in-your-face systemic racism. During presidential elections in the 1960s, Democratic candidate Governor George Wallace is best remembered for his segregationist views, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made segregation illegal in all states and over the last 50 years there has been systemic progress against systemic racism.

I believe we can credit Hillary Clinton for the current Democrat practice of branding large groups of Americans as racist.  On September 9^th, 2016 during a presidential campaign speech, Hillary stood behind a tele-prompter and read these prepared remarks, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”  In two short sentences she defamed tens of millions of Americans.  

The lasting impact of that insane Clinton speech was to make it OK to throw around the word “racist” with complete disregard for facts to the contrary. For example, if you supported President Trump’s policies, you are a racist.  But that was not enough.  Now we are being additionally lumped together as white supremacists.

Outside the racist rhetoric from the Democrat leadership and their main-stream media lackies, you can hear Black American leaders from all over this country articulating the absurdity of group-racism and systemic racism.

Conclusions: 

All of the above collectively tell a story.  The rational, respected, patriotic Democrat Party we have known for decades no longer exists.

The radical left thinking outlined above will not be reported on objectively by the main-stream-media.  There was an era when journalists believed they could dramatically improve the world by exposing evil and corruption through the craft of writing. That profession is dead and gone, today’s Democrats are protected from evil and corruption.

To my Democrat friends who voted against Republican candidates in the 2020 election, what you are getting is big government, centralized power, centralized control, identity group segregation to divide and conquer, wealth transfer leading to an intrenched welfare state with a disincentivized work force. Non-merit-based hierarchy will become the norm in business, education and government.

President Trump, love him, hate him or anywhere in between, in retrospect, every policy he set forth had one overarching intent, is this what is best for the American people.  By contrast, every decision, declaration, executive order, in President Biden’s first couple months, has been a low blow to John Q. Public.  

And by the way, the president’s impassioned 20 January pledge to us all to unify the nation, went from number one on Biden’s hit parade to nonexistent. 

Whatever you thought you were voting for in the 2020 elections, my “botherings” above is what you are getting.  You need to give your party a new name, whatever is appropriate, but don’t call it the Democrat Party, that party is dead and gone.  If you are having trouble, here is a suggestion, call it The New Regressive Party, not of the people, not by the people nor for the people, so help me God. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.