Red state voters like Mail In Voting

The GOP hierarchy, from Trump on down, are down on Mail In Voting. As Trump famously told Fox News when his political filter failed, “If we have Mail In Voting we’ll never elect another Republican". However, Republican voters in Red State Montana disagree. Montana is one of 30 states that allow it without requiring an excuse. Instead of showing up in person, 70% of Montana voters mail in their ballots, electing roughly 60 % Republicans to state and federal offices. Extending such voting to 100% of voters in swing states is what terrifies Trump, McConnell and the rest of GOP elite grasping at voter suppression to stay in power.

Is Operation Gideon Trump’s Bay of Pigs?

Two Americans, including decorated former Green Beret Jordon Gourneau, were arrested in Venezuela leading a rag tag group of Venezuelan dissidents in a failed coup against Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro. Goudreau even posted a video boasting how his invasion was going to lead to Maduro’s arrest on US drug trafficking charges and install US backed designate Juan Guaido at Venezuela’s president. Goudreau had been training the Venezuelan rebels in neighboring Columbia. Hey, didn’t the CIA train a rag tag group of Cuban rebels in Nicaragua 69 years ago that self-destructed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba?

The US has been lusting for regime change in Venezuela for two decades, first against hated socialist president Hugo Chavez; then against his socialist successor Maduro. Cruel, deadly economic sanctions have decimated the Venezuelan people. A year ago US sock puppet Guaido inspired a coup that failed. On the one year anniversary last week, former US National Security Advisor and war monger extraordinaire John Bolton tweeted, “Morning is coming to Venezuela…again”.

President Trump denied involvement yesterday claiming “I just heard about it…it has nothing to do with our government”. It’s curious, tho, that US coup leader Goudreau had a relationship with longtime Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller who accompanied Goudreau to Miami last May to discuss beefed up security for US designate Guaido and his advisors in Venezuela and around the world. Shiller dropped all contact with Goudreau but apparently didn’t tell Trump or the State Department about his connection to the coup leader. Why? Not in his Trump job description.

Fifty-nine years ago, JFK and his State Department pitched the Bay of Pigs failure as a spontaneous uprising by Cuban freedom fighters. When the truth came out JFK said, ‘Yep, Made In USA’. Any chance history will repeat itself regarding ‘Operation Gideon’?

Ignoring UN call for pandemic ceasefire a bi-partisan cave-in to war party

As expected, the Trump administration said ‘nyet’ to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterrez who urged warring parties worldwide to lay down their arms to support the bigger battle against Covid-19, the common enemy that is now threatening all mankind. The US position is such a move would hamstring US efforts to eliminate alleged bad guys trying to attack the homeland. Using that twisted logic to blast away at warring factions ten thousand miles away allows perpetual US wars to grind on while thousands are dying from the pandemic as well as US bombs.

Supporting US acceptance of the UN ceasefire request should be a no-brainer for presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. It would be a principled, humane move to distinguish his vision for a saner, safer America; indeed the world, from that of the malevolent Trump. Alas, Joe has been silent on the ceasefire call, proving again the power of the US war party to suffocate dissent.

Calling for an end to US warfare throughout the Middle East and Africa, squandering trillions while the domestic economy crumbles from a pandemic requiring our entire arsenal of resources, is the policy that dare not appear on the campaign trail.

Besides Kent State, Jackson State deserves remembrance

Today marks 50 years since Ohio National Guard pumped 67 bullets at Vietnam protesters at Kent State University, killing 4 and wounding 10. That dramatic day is still burned in my memory from the extensive coverage it provoked then and again at its half century commemoration.

But I never even heard of the Jackson College (now Jackson State University) shooting just ten days later till about 20 years ago. It was in arguably worse than Kent State, in that local Jackson and Mississippi state police at the scene were under less threat than the inexperienced and poorly trained Ohio National Guardsman. Their response to an imagined sniper was to unload nearly 500 bullets on the declared dormitory sniper nest. No evidence of a sniper was ever produced. Amazingly, only 2 were killed and 12 wounded in what could have been a horrendous massacre.

The Jackson State shootings were virtually ignored by our political culture then and likely now for reasons involving race, class and America’s obsession with the Vietnam War. The Jackson State student protest involved civil rights.  Let’s hope that 10 days from now we devote the fair share of time ruminating on the tragedy of Jackson State that we devote today to the tragedy of Kent State.