This past week, on Thursday Peter Strzok appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. It has been compared to another hearing on Benghazi. Benghazi? Really? Is that the best comparison you can do for this national disgrace? Oh yea who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. (George Santayana) So too here we go again. This was a Soviet style show trial, with an American twist. The guilt or innocence was pre determined. In fact, no one cares about guilt or innocence, all they cared about was to slam and destroy the reputation of the Strzok. The process was not about getting to the truth, the underlying facts of the matter or any furtherance of any legitimate investigation of the facts. It had one purpose but to smear the person with enough merde as they, the elected gentlemen of the GOP could get away with. (Since many of those same men are about to be indicted for collusion, it is no wonder they are trying their best to muddy the water. They are going to jail for crimes against America!) They cannot take Strzok out to a firing squad, (course knowing those men, it would be circular and he would be tied to a post ten feet away.) But they might just as well have a rope and tree as they publicly tried to lynch a good man and his good name. But it backfired. (Bigly) This is not “Back in the USSR”; this is America, the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” Strzok stood up his bullies and he fought back with integrity and honesty. What were they thinking? This is a police officer who has had to testify many times in court with defense lawyers who actually have master the facts, know what they are doing and are not trying to cover up their own crimes. Those lawyers play hard ball. The GOP House members are not real lawyers, they are not even authentic. No self serving criminal is ever able to stand to a good man with righteous anger. So the Majority members cringed and snarled and made up rules of procedures to try and squirm away from him as he stood up for himself! And all of this was covered live by Fox News. If they were trying to help their side, they should cover more such disasters. It is one thing to lie and tell the spin, it is another to try and lie while the people are watching it live before their very own eyes just what is going on; to see the man’s passion and his answers to ever question. How he stood up and put them in their place. The result is that the GOP looked corrupt and stupid. And best of all, they failed to tarnish him. He came off as a hardworking, honest man, trying to fight for the people and uphold their laws. When you see the chair acting so improperly that he demanded the witness not speak with the FBI lawyer? Everyone knows you have a right to consult with your lawyer during questions. So when Strzok invoked “investigation in progress” language, he was threatened with contempt? I think that the chair should be formally thanked with obstruction charges when he hands down such paperwork. Along with everything else he is going to be charged with.  America deserves better than this from their government. Stand up for change and vote out anyone who was part of Trump’s legacy.

Okay so Will Smith has not been in the news a lot lately and has he even done any acting of late? But he made the news today in my world when I saw a quote. Let me set the stage. This week I have seen so many viral videos of racists acting all superior on minorities. One lady, for daring to wear an American territorial flag in the USA, who knew Puerto Rico was not in America?  Timothy Trybus, allegedly is the drunken racist in the video says it is not. And the cop who stood by and watched him, and is now on desk duty, should be fired. (Or as I checked for the latest update, fearing his termination and protecting his pension, he has resigned instead. This way he can get another job in a different place and still claim to “serve and protect.”)Or the two white women acting as the neighborhood bigots welcomes a Hispanic family moving in across the street from them with a drunk attack on the nice people. They both got arrest. Then there was the grandmother who got all upset at being called a racist when she spotted a black child selling chocolate bars. As if that racist would have done the same for a white child. Then there were the two pool incidents, the first a white women claiming to be property manager attacked a black family for wearing socks in the pool. Okay weird behavior but you could still be polite about it and not a racist. Just saying that as friendly parting advice, she was fired from her job soon after the video went viral. It seems her company has a thing about having racists working for them. Or the other racist pool member on the board of regents, who demanded a women tell him her address even after she had a community card and going so far to call the police. The board fired him. Then to help him spend more time at Klan rallies, his company spotting his face, also fired him. It is bad public relations to employ someone that openly racist and that openly stupid on your pay roll. Now he can no longer afford to live in that nice area and might actually have to move to where those other people live… Gasp! Bye, enjoy the move. So on and on it went all week with the morning having some new video. Today’s video had a bit of a twist to it, in that some racist using the “N word” in Chicago on a small black woman. What he did not see was the biggest nightmare he could imagine in a very large African American who took exception to the racist rant and took off his glasses and proceeded to punch the asshole such that he fell to the floor and the when he again cursed the man he kicked him into the tracks of an oncoming “El” train. At that point the people pulled him out of certain death. See even those they would let him get the beat down he deserved, they figured he might learn from his racism and live to see the light of day once more. Now I do not condone violence of any sort. Because it leads to what also happened this week when a 92 year old Hispanic man, walking with the aid of walker accidentally touched a little girl on the sidewalk in front of her mother as he did his daily walk. The mother took a break and slammed it into his face. Then while he was left to rot on the ground a gang of youths came by and proceeded to viciously kick him more than a few times. He has now been released from hospital and is recovering at him. 92 years old. The attackers in this case were black. Racism is not only a white thing. It’s a thing and it has to stop.

This brings up my first comment by Will Smith. See I was getting despondent about the constant video assault, until I read his words. Now he may not be profane in much of what he says but this time? He hit a home run.

“Racism is not getting worse. It’s getting filmed.” -Will Smith

Amen Brother! It is getting filmed. Named and shamed and then we play the game. From holding a make shift Mariachi for New York racist lawyer Aaron Schlossberg, to having them fired, arrested or shamed in public. Racism is no longer tolerated. No longer accepted and will no longer be in the dark. Every cell phone has a video camera and you find a Wi-Fi spot nearly anywhere. Just film it and upload it and let the voice of the people name and shame ever last one of them.

Ontario has announced changes to their existing drug plans. If you are a child and have private insurance, by way of your parents I would assume, you no longer get your drugs free under the provincial plan. Should you have no insurance then you remain covered by the government plan. There should be no difference at the local level in distrusting pills to sick kids. This is good, sort of. At least it should be! Right? It will save the government money as it goes forward and that is a good thing right? That should lower taxes and this is a good thing. Right? Well there are two tracks, the personal and the governmental to follow. First, the personal path; As the government is saving costs by dumping on insurance companies, they costs are forwarded to consumers who have to pay increased premiums to cover the additional costs now borne by government for what used to be a public cost is now a private cost. So what happens? Profits are a percentage of sales, so by increasing premiums, so increase the profits. Insurance companies unlike the government are there to make money. So costs go up for private plans. This knocks off the marginalized working poor whose premiums go up such that they cannot afford insurance any longer. So no more dentistry, no glasses, and nothing that private insurance would have covered. But children still have their pills. See what might have cost all of Ontario pennies each will cost the work poor real money off their pay. Money they will no longer afford to pay. Do we really want to have people asking such American questions as; “Do I buy us food or do I buy my kids glasses and dental care.” When you live on the margins, such a question is very real.

But this great for the government supply side right? Not so much, by reducing the amount of people covered, they increase their own bulk buying costs. The predictable cost is now unpredictable, when you cover all children; you get all the range of problems. But as people are covered by private insurance this is subject to change year over year in a non linear function. Furthermore as people are forced off insurance due to rising costs, the state will have to pay in other cost related expenses due to less medical care that was once covered by insurance for poor and marginalized people. Long terms costs can be seen in that people with less ability to buy glasses will read less, and learn less and be more likely to stop school earlier then they could have achieved.

The one thing this is good for, and it is not citizens of the province but the companies. Drug companies will charge more per pill. Insurance companies will earn more profits on high costs per policy. But at least the people will get a tax break right? No not really. The savings will not trickle down to them, and if it did, as they are only paying pennies for their share of such a program, they will get pennies back. All in all, this plan is a loser neo con agenda to strip people of entitlements that are paid for collectively.

New York Times published an article about a Muslim girl living in America, within it she questions her sexuality, her religion, her life and her basic existence. This is seen as strangely inappropriate for her to wear a Hijab and be a hoe. Hoejabi is even a word now.
“Taken literally, the term “hoejabi” refers to women who see themselves at the crossroads of being “hoes” and “hijabis.” If you’re not a Muslim woman, don’t even think about using it”(1)
We have seen this sort of thing before: 50 years ago this would have been written by an Italian discussing the Madonna–whore complex. Same idea different day. Some years later, we would be hold a copy of the “Catcher in the Rye” and wondering what poor tragic Holden Caulfield would do next? Or perhaps it would be “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. Before that even F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Great Gatsby” from way back to 1925. I even suspect that if I was in England in the 70 tys it would be “The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe”  as my talisman for teenage angst.  Or perhaps if i was older and pre second world war it would be George Orwell and his works “Down and out in Paris and London” or “Homage to Catalonia.”Just put on the vintage record album with “why must I be a teenager in love” released by Dion and the Belmonts in March 1959.  Or perhaps Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”?I could go on but the point is the literature is rift with people questioning who they are in their teenage years. Today it is a Muslim female. And I say so? Welcome to the club, let us know if you ever get an answer back.The only man who knowingly questioned the world and got an answer was Job.

• Job 38:1-7

  Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

  2 “Who is this that obscures my plans  with words without knowledge?

  3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

  4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.

  5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

  6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone

  7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

Let me know if anyone ever answers you!