I thought I loved Elizabeth Warren before…

…but, damn, her performance tonight is going to make me break out my credit card yet again and make another contribution.

Posted in Uncategorized | 121 Comments

Our racist president, being a racist, says something racist

I didn’t want to write about Donald Trump’s most recent racist statements, as, to be honest, I didn’t see as how any good would come of it. It was just a week or so ago that we were talking about how he’d told four freshman Congresswomen of color to “go back” to the “crime infested” countries they come from, apparently unaware that three of them were actually born in the United States, and I didn’t really think that there was any new territory to cover with this most recent episode of racism, as terrible as it was. I mean, it’s absolutely unconscionable that Donald Trump, in an online attack against Congressman Elijah Cummings, would call Baltimore “a disgusting rat and rodent infested mess” that “no human being” would want to live in, but we already knew that Donald Trump was a vile racist. We knew it in the ’70s, when he refused to rent to black tenants in New York. And we knew it just after he became president, and said that there were “some very fine people” among the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, instead of condemning them across the board. There’s nothing left to be debated. It’s a fact. The President of the United States is a racist. And apparently that’s OK with 40-some percent of Americans. And I just don’t see how it helps to spend my time chronicling each instance of racism, as doing so clearly isn’t going change anyone’s mind. [I’m convinced that he could say the n-word now, and not lose a single supporter.]

Oh, and before anyone feels inspired to step up and make the case as to why Donald Trump shouldn’t be considered a racist, here’s something to think about… These are the elected officials that our president has personally attacked using the word “infested.” Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that none of them are white? I mean, why is it that he calls Cummings’ district “a disgusting rat and rodent infested mess” that “no human being” would want to live in, when, as former Republican Bill Kristol pointed out today, Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky has a poverty rate of 17.2%, which is higher than that in Cummings’ district… which, by the way, also includes one of America’s finest research institutions, Johns Hopkins.

So, as angry as it made me, I wasn’t going to write about the attacks against Cummings. I was, instead, going to spend my evening writing about the case of Francisco Galicia, and American-born teenager who was just held in detention for almost one month by U.S. border agents because he couldn’t produce his citizenship papers. [Galicia, it’s being reported, lost 26 pounds over the 23 days he was held prisoner.] But then it occurred to me how much I loved Baltimore, and how I’d taken a photo the last time that I was there that might make for an appropriate response to our President… The following photo was taken at The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.

The people of Baltimore, I’m happy to report, don’t give a shit what Donald Trump has to say, as least as evidenced by the op-ed in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun titled, “Better to have a few rats than to be one.” Here’s a clip.

…In pointing to the 7th, the president wasn’t hoping his supporters would recognize landmarks like Johns Hopkins Hospital, perhaps the nation’s leading medical center. He wasn’t conjuring images of the U.S. Social Security Administration, where they write the checks that so many retired and disabled Americans depend upon. It wasn’t about the beauty of the Inner Harbor or the proud history of Fort McHenry. And it surely wasn’t about the economic standing of a district where the median income is actually above the national average. No, he was returning to an old standby of attacking an African American lawmaker from a majority black district on the most emotional and bigoted of arguments. It was only surprising that there wasn’t room for a few classic phrases like “you people” or “welfare queens” or “crime-ridden ghettos” or a suggestion that the congressman “go back” to where he came from.

…Finally, while we would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner — or ruefully point out that he failed to spell the congressman’s name correctly (it’s Cummings, not Cumming) — we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.

I need to stop for the night, but here are two videos that I’d like for you to watch.

In this first one, CNN’s Victor Blackwell, who was born and raised in Baltimore, addresses Donald Trump’s racist comments directly.

And, in this second one, Cris Wallace confronts White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, on the President’s use of the term “infested” when talking about the home districts of elected officials of color.

Oh, and by the way, the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kusher owns almost 9,000 rental units across 17 complexes in Baltimore County, many of which are in disrepair and infested with mice.

One last thing… Back in 2015, when private citizen Trump last attacked Baltimore, he blamed Barack Obama, the President of the United States, for the city’s troubles, and demanded that he personally go to Baltimore to set things straight. Why is it that, when Obama was President, Baltimore was his problem, but now it’s not Trump’s problem? Why is Baltimore’s “infestation” now solely the fault of Elijah Cummings? And why isn’t Donald “I alone can fix it” Trump on a plane right now, marshaling the resources to fix what Obama could not? I find that curious (and racist, and vile, and, sadly, completely predictable).

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 92 Comments

Less than 24 hours after Mueller warns that foreign election interference is imminent, McConnell blocks $775 million in election security funding

Yesterday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, appearing before the House Intelligence Committee, warned the American people that, if they aren’t stopped, members of the Russian intelligence service, working on behalf of Vladimir Putin, will surely attempt to influence the outcome of our next election, just as they did in 2016. Warning that, “(they’re still) doing it as we sit here,” the former FBI Director urged members of Congress to take action, and ensure that we address the threat of foreign interference in a comprehensive way. Well, today, we learned even more about what the Russians may have in mind. According to a new bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee titled, Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 Election, we have evidence that hackers working on behalf of the Russians have probed the election systems of 21 states. While, according to the report, there’s no evidence that vote tallies were changed, we know that it was attempted, and we know, according to our intelligence agencies, that it will be attempted again.

So, with this said, I find it amazing that, today, we’re seeing headlines like this.

That’s right. Today, less than 24 hours after Mueller reiterated his warning about the Russian military’s concerted attacks against our political system, and almost concurrently with the release of the new Senate Intelligence Committee detailing how, in addition to launching a sophisticated disinformation campaign, and hacking into Democratic servers in 2016, the Russians also breached the election systems of 21 states, the Republicans stopped a bill that would authorize $775 million in security funding for state election systems… The following comes from CNN.

Republicans in the Senate have twice in 24 hours blocked the advancement of bills aimed at strengthening election security just hours after former special counsel Robert Mueller warned of the continued threat that foreign powers interfering in US elections.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor Thursday to personally object to House-passed legislation backed by Democrats. This comes after Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi objected to a trio of bills on Wednesday, in keeping with long standing GOP arguments that Congress has already responded to election security needs for the upcoming election.

Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ron Wyden of Oregon had advocated for the bills on the Senate floor, asking for unanimous consent to pass the package, but that ask can be halted with an objection from any senator…

And, here, lest anyone think that the SAFE (Securing America’s Federal Elections) Act is some kind of extreme bill, is an overview of the proposed legislation.

This bill addresses election security through grant programs and requirements for voting systems and paper ballots.

The bill establishes requirements for voting systems, including that systems (1) use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots; (2) make a voter’s marked ballot available for inspection and verification by the voter before the vote is cast; (3) ensure that individuals with disabilities are given an equivalent opportunity to vote, including with privacy and independence, in a manner that produces a voter-verified paper ballot; and (4) be manufactured in the United States.

The National Science Foundation must award grants to study, test, and develop accessible voter-verified paper ballot voting and best practices to enhance the accessibility of such voting for individuals with disabilities, for voters whose primary language is not English, and for voters with difficulties in literacy.

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) must award grants to states to (1) replace certain voting systems, carry out voting system security improvements, and implement and model best practices for ballot design, ballot instructions, and the testing of ballots; and (2) conduct risk-limiting audits.

States may use elections requirements payments to carry out activities related to election security.

The EAC must provide for the testing of voting system hardware and software and decertify such technology that does not meet guidelines.

Now, I ask you, why would Mitch McConnell scuttle a bill that seeks to make it more difficult for foreign governments to interfere with our elections? Why, when we know the threat is real, is he unwilling to advance this legislation to the floor of the United States Senate, so that it can be voted on? What is he afraid of?

Please call your Senators today and demand that they vote on the SAFE Act!

update: Even former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough can see what’s happening. Mitch’s refusal to bring this to a vote, he says, is “un-American.”

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Mueller on Trump’s willingness to accept the assistance of a hostile foreign power to win the White House: “I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear that it is.”

Splitting his time between the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent approximately seven hours on Capital Hill today, answering questions about his investigation into Russian interference in our 2016 election. And it went pretty much just like most folks thought that it would. The Republicans attempted at every turn to raise the specter of conspiracy and throw out new red herrings [hello, Joseph Mifsud], while the seemingly exhausted former FBI Director kept referring back to his written report, as he warned us that he would back in May. We knew going going into this that, given Mueller’s demeanor, there probably wouldn’t be any highly theatrical, made-for-television moments that would immediately start moving Republican support away from Trump, and there weren’t. But, with that said, there were still things to like about today, like the fact that, for the first time, we got to hear Mueller, in his own voice, tell the American people that Trump was lying when he described Russian election interference as a “hoax” perpetrated by the Democrats… “(It was) not a hoax,” Mueller said, adding that Russian interference is still among the “most serious” challenges facing our democracy.

And, of course, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, he also got to say that Donald Trump was full of shit when he came out last March, before the report had been made public, declaring that Mueller and his team had completely “exonerated” him… “Did you actually totally exonerate the President?,” Congressman Jerry Nadler asked Mueller this morning, to which the former FBI Director responded with a clear and firm, “No.” [Mueller found several ways over the course of his testimony to make it clear that Donald Trump has lied throughout this process, both to the American people and to investigators.]

Here, if you’ve forgotten it, is what what Trump said about the report back in March, before anyone had seen it… Today, during these two hearings, the Democrats, working together in a coordinated fashion (for a change), led Mueller through the report chapter by chapter, laying out every instance of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, perjury.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure that, without much effort, you can find better analysis elsewhere. Before I go, though, I wanted to be sure to share this exchange between Mueller and Congressman Adam Schiff, which is a pretty good four-minute recap of how the day went, with Democrats laying out Trump’s multiple crimes, and the former FBI Director responding that, yes, our President had actually done each of the horrendous things on the list.

Oh, and it’s worth noting that Mueller did, on occasion, depart from his “yes, no, I can’t talk about that” script, allowing his feelings concerning Trump’s behavior to come through. For instance, he said at one point, when asked about Trump’s willingness to accept the help of Russia in the 2016 election, “I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear that it is“, which I found to be incredibly chilling.

One last thing. Mueller also made it clear that Donald Trump could be prosecuted for his crimes upon leaving office.

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 31 Comments

My great-grandfather’s story of theft aboard The Robert E. Lee

The family and I have spent the last four days in the Maine woods, where my aunt and her husband had rented a cabin so that our extended family could celebrate my father’s 75th birthday together. Aside from falling in Maine’s largest lake while completely clothed, having to scrub vomit from the upholstery of a rental car on the side of the highway in New Hampshire, and somehow managing to get sun poisoning on just one lip, it was an incredible trip. [While I was careful to apply sunscreen, it hadn’t occurred to me to do anything to my lips, and now the lower one is swollen to the point where it burst open in several places, like a package of cheap Piggy Wiggly hotdogs left for the summer on the dashboard of a ’72 Chevy Vega in a police impound lot.] If I didn’t have to do multiple loads of laundry, and catch up on my other household chores, I’d tell you all about our time on Sebago Lake, the numerous lobster rolls that I consumed in violation of my wheat boycott, and the festivities surrounding my father’s graceful descent into old age. As time is short, though, I’m just going to share one thing with you… a story about gambling and theft featuring my great-grandfather, Curtis Florian, that involves the fabled steamship, The Robert E. Lee.

Here’s how I came to hear the story… Just as we were getting ready to sit down and have dinner on our last night in Maine, my aunt called everyone together to give my father a birthday gift, which appeared, given the packaging, to be an enormous bottle of tequila. Inside the box, however, wrapped in burlap, was a small statue of a man on horseback, which my father, from the look on his face, immediately recognized. As he held it up to show everyone, he said, “This sat on the mantle of the house I grew up in… My grandfather stole it off the gambling boat, The Robert E. Lee, in the early 1900s.” [That’s The Robert E. Lee, nicknamed “The Monarch of the Mississippi,” just above.]

Here’s the statue that my Aunt Betsy found and refinished for my father using catsup and a toothbrush. She said she rubbed the horse’s ass too hard, but, otherwise, it looked great.

While I’d never heard that it had been stolen off of a gambling boat, I was familiar with the piece. It was one of two pieces of artwork in the old farmhouse where my great-grandparents lived, and I distinctly remember being told not to touch it as a child, as, according to my father, it sat on top of a clock whose inner working had been removed to make room for a snub-nosed .38 revolver. [The other piece of artwork was a copy of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s famous 1894 painting Dogs Playing Poker.] It’s also worth noting that this was not the only gun hidden in my great grandparents’ home, as they also each slept with loaded pistols under their pillows, as I recall.

According to my father, my great-grandfather had told him that he’d stolen this statue from the steamboat at some point during a night of gambling. [It’s unclear to me whether he claimed to have stolen just the statue, or both the statue and the clock which sat beneath it on their mantel.] I was initially somewhat dubious, as I knew that The Robert E. Lee traveled up and down the Mississippi River, but, then, doing a bit of internet sleuthing, I found a reference to the fact that, “during spans of bad business, (The Robert E. Lee) would forsake Natchez and instead go to St. Louis or Louisville, Kentucky.” [The Mississippi River and the Ohio River meet in Cairo, Illinois.] So, it’s certainly conceivable that a hard-drinking poker player in Kentucky could have stolen something off of The Robert E. Lee. The question is, could it have been my great-grandfather, who was born in 1892, 26 years after The Robert E. Lee first went into service.

And here’s where I start to loose confidence in the story, at least as it was explained to me the other night by my father. While it’s conceivable, I suppose, that The Robert E. Lee was repaired and relaunched after the fact, the last news item I see about the storied old paddle-wheeler is from 1882 — ten years before my great-grandfather was born — when a deadly fire broke out abroad the ship, killing 21. [The New York Times, as you can see here, uses the word “destruction” when talking about the boat in the context of the fire.]

OK, so a few things may have happened. The “destroyed” ship could have been repaired, and had a second life as a gambling boat. Or, perhaps more likely, my great-grandfather could have been on an another boat owned by the Lee Line, as they had a number of similarly named boats. [The owners were apparently big fans of the Confederate General, and wanted to keep his legacy alive after the Civil War.] I think there’s another possibility, though. I think it’s conceivable that my great-grandfather stole The Robert E. Lee’s statue/clock, but that he didn’t steal it from ship itself.

You see, when reading about the famous 1,200-mile race that took place in 1870 between The Natchez and The Robert E. Lee, which The Robert E. Lee won, cementing its reputation as the fastest steamboat in the world, I happened across an interesting fact. John W. Cannon, the colorful Captain of The Robert E. Lee, was from Frankfort, Kentucky, where my family hales from. [My great-grandfather lived just outside of Frankfort for a majority of his life. I should note that I too lived in Frankfort for a while. In fact, I’m told that I won the “Little Mister Frankfort” beautiful baby contest at some point in the late ’60s.] Well, apparently Cannon died in Frankfort in April, 1882, after a protracted battle with what’s been referred to as “a slow form of tuberculosis”. So, the Captain and his family were somewhere in Frankfort, not far from where, not too much later, my great-grandfather would be making and losing fortunes over hands of cards. “Is it possible,” I wonder, “for the statue to have changed hands in Frankfort, ultimately winding up in the possession of my great-grandfather?”

I should add here that my great-grandparents weren’t wealthy when I knew them, lest my comment about “fortunes” should give anyone the impression that they were William Zanzinger-like characters who inherited tobacco wealth and walked around town wearing diamond rings. Toward the ends of their lives, they lived in a very simple farm house, sleeping in separate twin beds (just off the kitchen) that sat at a 90-degree angle to one another, with a gas heater and a small television between them. My father tells me, however, that, while they were never what we’d call rich, there were years that they did quite well, reaching a high point in the 1950s, when they had a 60-acre tobacco farm of their own on a parcel of about 1,000 acres. [I need for my father to show me where this farm would have been, as I only remember their later house (described above), which was near Georgetown, Kentucky, in an area referred to as White Sulfur.] So, all things considered, they did pretty well for two people who, as teens, got married, started farming the land of others, and eventually got a place of their own in the small town of Rabbit Hash. [To hear my dad tell it, their fortunes began to change during the flu pandemic of 1918, when, as everyone around them was dying, they kept going, farming more and more land for those who no longer could. My father says my great-grandfather was able to do this, and not get the flu himself, by “staying drunk” for the duration. And that’s how they came to eventually own their own farm, where they raised my father. Even then, though, they still lived in a house without insulation, electricity, or indoor plumbing. They wouldn’t get a house with those things until my dad was about eight years old.]

I should also mention here that my father, when telling us about how my great-grandfather had told him that he’d “stolen” the statue/clock, made it a point to add that he could have just meant that he won it off of someone in a poker game. And, as long as I’m adding footnotes, it’s probably also worth noting that, by the time I knew my great-grandfather, he no longer drank or gambled. He apparently just had a very strong will, and one day just decided that he was done with it. I don’t know for certain, but this could have been shortly after the time that my father remembers him sitting outside, on their front porch all night with a gun in his lap, waiting for someone that he’d just beaten in poker to come and make good on a promise to kill him. [My father, if I didn’t mention it earlier, was pretty much raised from the age of two by his great-grandparents.]

So, given all of this, I’m inclined to say that there’s a good likelihood that this statue that my aunt presented to my father did, at some point, reside aboard The Robert E. Lee. I suspect, however, that he probably didn’t steal it off the ship. At least that’s my guess. Now I just need to find an expert on the interior design of steamships just after the Civil War.

Here, for those of you who made it this far, is a close-up photo of the Wild Bill Cody-type character riding the horse. [A high-res version of this photo can be found here.] If I had to guess, I’d say he’s just a generic frontier scout or Pony Express rider, but I suppose he could be a specific person from the era. And, no, I don’t think it would have actually been Buffalo Bill Cody, as he was a Union soldier, and I doubt that would have gone over so well on The Robert E. Lee. It’s also worth pointing out that the person on the horse doesn’t appear to be wearing a uniform of any kind, which is why I suggested that it might be a generic frontiersman, as opposed to, say, a Confederate soldier.

OK, that’s it. If you can provide any suggestions as to where I might look to find out more about this statue, I’d appreciate it. As this was clearly made from a mold, I’m hopeful that there are others in circulation, but, as of right now, I haven’t had any luck on my own.

Oh, and I’ve told you about Curtis Florian before.

update: Well, that was fast. My friend Doug Skinner just confirmed that I was onto something when I said that the figure looked like Buffalo Bill Cody. This piece, at least according to Doug’s research, was apparently a souvenir sold at Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, which began making it’s way across the United States in 1883. Here’s a write-up about the statuette from an online retailer of western goods and artifacts called River Junction Trade Company, which posted one for sale not too long ago.

This is a very old statue. These were made between 1870 and 1910, and were sold as souvenirs at BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST shows of the late 1800s, and turn of the century. Buffalo Bill Cody would tour the country, mostly in the east, and pretend to fight Indians and kill buffalo. These souvenirs, were sold at these shows and this is one of them.

This is a very old casting, you can tell by the fact it was cast in many pieces and braised together afterwords and by the steam holes to let out heat in the foundry. This measures over 10 inches tall and over 9 inches long, and weighs 3 pounds. It is in amazingly good condition. This has most of its originally antique bronze finish remaining and the metal has a great patina.

Look closely at the detail. The base is ornate with flowers and ferns. The horse is a prancing steed, two feet off the ground. The rider and saddle is a separate casting from the horse. He wears the long hair and mustaches of that period. He wears fringed buckskin pants, a bow tie with long tails, and a vaquero type jacket and a big hat with a feathered plume. Slung across his back is a rifle. He has one outstretched hand in the air and it holds a metal lariat. The horse itself has a metal bridle and reins.

It is very rare to find the original reins intact and in good condition. This is guaranteed old, genuine and original.

Here, if you’d like to see it, is a link to an image of the online auction page.

OK, so if these statuettes started selling in 1883, and The Robert E. Lee was destroyed by fire in 1882, it likely wasn’t onboard… So, with that said, I think there are a few different scenarios to consider. 1) It’s probably unlikely that my great-grandfather would lie about such a thing to my father, but it’s conceivable that he made the whole thing up… or, I guess, imagined it, after drinking his way through the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. 2) My great-grandfather acquired the piece in a card game (or stole it) from someone who had lied to him, telling him that it had come from The Robert E. Lee, perhaps in hopes of driving up its value in a bet. 3) When he told my father that the piece on their mantel had come from The Robert E. Lee, he wasn’t talking about the statuette at all, but the clock beneath it. And the statuette of Buffalo Bill Cody was just something that he’d added to it prior to my father’s birth…. So much to think about. [I really wish that my great-grandfather had blogged.]

Posted in History, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

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