ROSA PARKS HONORED
Congratulations Montgomery, Alabama, for unveiling the statue of Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks who on December 1, 1955, refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus when front seats were reserved for Whites only. Ironically, the statue was unveiled by Montgomery’s first Black mayor, who wisely said: “We’re always looking to (acknowledge the city’s history). But we want to make sure we’re not just a museum for the rest of the country. It is not enough if we are just commemorating things that have happened in the past. We have to invest in the future of citizens who live here now so we can be part of the future.”

BLACK COWBOYS
“The cowboy has long been one of America’s most potent symbols. Strivers have taken inspiration from rugged frontier warriors who embodied American individualism, creativity and the quest for manifest destiny….For the most part, these icons have been confined to the narrow image of the white man, despite the fact that during the golden age of westward expansion, 1 in 4 cowboys was black.” (Time, December 2-9, 2019) When I was a kid, I loved cowboy movies never realizing that my own history had been deleted and that one of my greatest cowboy heroes, John Wayne, was an avowed racist.

TIMES ARE SURELY IMPROVING
As he was walking home at 3 a.m. in the morning from a weekly card game at his mother’s house, Gregory Gunn was stopped by a White police officer for a random stop and frisk. The White officer shot him in the back as he ran away. Facts showed that Gunn was never a threat to the White officer who was charged, tried and convicted of manslaughter by an all-White Ozark, Alabama jury. Things are getting better.

WHAT REPUBLICAN MINORITY LEADER KEVIN McCARTHY HAD TO SAY ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE ABOUT THE LATE ELIJAH CUMMINGS
“We respected him because he was good. We respected him because he beat us many times. We respect him because what he fought for, he believed in.”

THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT
“…there is no choice but to impeach and remove Trump: because he was willing to undermine our democracy to help his prospects of re-election; because he has stated, unapologetically, that he would do it again; and most important, because he wielded the powers of his office for personal benefit instead of for the benefit of the people. And a President like that – a President who puts himself over his country – is exactly the kind of Commander in Chief our founders included impeachment in our Constitution to remove.” (Neal Katyal, Time, November 18, 2019)

MAYOR PETE’S BURDEN
“Since (Mayor Pete Buttigieg) became mayor in 2012, the city’s (South Bend, Indiana) violent crime has surged 70% compared to about 10% Indiana-wide. Violent crime has declined 2% in the U.S. in the same period despite a transient uptick in 2015 and 2016 amid a backlash against police following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.”
“…one persistent problem is lack of trust between police and the community that Mr. Buttigieg hasn’t improved. He demoted the city’s first black police chief in 2012 amid an FBI investigation into his taping phone calls of White officers. Maybe the demotion was justified….(but) he then hired a white police chief from New Bedford, Massachusetts, who shared his technocratic tendencies but was opposed by rank-and-file officers and the City Council. Mr. Buttigieg wasn’t able to build consensus, which might have eased racial tension. The new chief resigned after three years without progress reducing crime.” (The Wall Street Journal, November 23-24, 2019)
Mr. Buttigieg will need all of his intellectual and oratorical skills to convince Black voters to embrace his candidacy.
NANCY PELOSI
Great leader. One lesson I learned as a youngster and carried with me throughout life is that pandering to a bully is a big mistake, which is why I so much appreciated the House Majority Leader’s robust response to a snippy reporter who asked her if she hated Donald Trump. She went right at his jugular and when she finished, those who didn’t already know she is a tough lady who knows who she is and what she is doing and has the strength of her convictions should know it now. As the disingenuous reporter sat speechless with a nonplussed glare, Pelosi walked calmly out of the room. She is a hero and history will record it so.

JOE BIDEN’S GOT SPUNK
I could do nothing but laugh at the pundits on CNN and MSNBC parsing words over Joe Biden’s frontal attack in response to a corpulent, older heckler’s loaded question about Biden’s son. The form of the question assumed that Biden and his son had conspired to do something wrong in Ukraine. It was really more of an assertion that they had done something wrong and Joe Biden rebuked the man in terms that most would consider very aggressive. And the pundits couldn’t figure out whether Biden’s performance should be considered appropriate or inappropriate as all of their commentary landed somewhere in between. I laughed because my biggest worry about Joe Biden is that he might be too nice to be able to handle bullies. So I was extremely pleased to see him do so with such panache. He walked, with his mobile mike in hand, right up to the man and called him a liar. And after the man questioned his age, Biden challenged him to a physical competition and the man backed down after which I was convinced that he could handle Donald Trump. That’s all that matters to me.

THE REPUBLICAN CUP OF EVIL RUNNETH OVER
Most of us know that the Republican Party has worked feverishly in a modified Jim Crow manner and with substantial success to reduce the votes of folks of color. But few know that they are now working feverishly to reduce the Republican vote in defense of Donald Trump who apparently can’t be trusted to fend off a Republican challenger on his own merit. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece (December 6, 2019), Joe Walsh, a former U.S. representative from Illinois who is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, pointed out that Georgia, North Carolina and Minnesota Republican officials will allow only Trump’s name to appear on their primary ballots and South Carolina, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and Alaska simply canceled their Republican primary outright. All of these Republican officials are effectively disenfranchising their own voters in defense of Donald Trump, which should be a source of deep concern to not only his Republican challengers, but primarily to the disenfranchised voters. This entire Donald Trump saga gets crazier and crazier.

IMPEACHMENT
All four of the expert witnesses called before the Congressional Judiciary Committee agreed that the facts surrounding the impeachment of Donald Trump meet the Constitutional requirements for impeachment. Three of the experts were called by the Democrats. They were unequivocal in their application of Constitutional principles as outlined by both the words of the Constitution and by those who were most instrumental in its formation: Madison, Hamilton, George Mason, et al. The fourth expert was called by the Republicans. He agreed that the facts as presented met the Constitutional requirements for impeachment but he testified that impeachment should not happen without a more in depth investigation, especially involving calling the witnesses that the President has ordered not to cooperate with Congress, which is itself grounds for impeachment. What emerged from the day’s testimony and comments from Congressional Republicans is that the Democrats will follow Constitutional dictates and the Republicans will ignore them.

STALIN AND TRUMP
Having just completed a more than 700 page biography by Stephen Kotkin on Josef Stalin, I am more enlightened by how a person can completely divorce himself from compassion and empathy in the pursuit of raw power at the expense of most of those he is supposed to represent. But what was more eye opening was, once Stalin had established himself as supreme leader, the extent to which other powerful people around him shed the principles that guided them through the Russian revolution of 1917 to support Stalin through some of the ugliest behavior in recorded history. I was reminded of Donald Trump who many are tempted to compare to Adolf Hitler. I think it would be more appropriate to view Trump as a far less intelligent, shallow, Stalin wannabe who is bereft of any ideological anchor just as he appears to yearn to be like most present day dictators and pushes the Constitutional envelope to make it happen while a wall of elected Republicans go along. Thank God for impeachment and Democrats.

LISTENING IS BELIEVING
As I read about the recent college scandal in which privileged White folks cheated through a variety of schemes to guarantee their kids would qualify for colleges of their choice and listened to their explanations, I became convinced that most of them really believed what they were doing was okay until the law stepped in and surprised them with criminal charges. I am convinced that had most of them been conscious that they were breaking the law and were in jeopardy of going to jail, they would not have cheated. As I listened, I understood the legal ignorance, but I remain astounded by the complete moral vacuum that seemed to have arisen from their senses of entitlement. ■