If you wash your hands for the length of time it takes to read one of these, the coronavirus will melt away—just as the president said it would 115,000 deaths ago.
ONE
It's been a few days now since the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, declared the LGBTQ community members of the human race. I was thrilled to hear it, but I didn't write about it because in so many ways the topic shouldn't merit discussion, let alone a Supreme Court hearing, let even more alone a mere 6-3 ruling. Why, in 2020, we're still discussing the civil rights of our fellow mortals is lamentable, but here we are.
Don't get me wrong—things that are a long time coming need to be recognized when they arrive. The 1964 Civil Rights Act is of no lesser significance because it came 100 years after the end of the Civil War. So too Monday's landmark decision. But what sours it a little bit is Samul Alito's small-minded and in some cases downright bizarre dissent which employed basically the bogeyman approach: he reminded his colleagues that in 1964 homosexuality was regarded as a mental disorder (he doesn't say by whom) and that transgender was an unknown concept. Neil Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion reminded the dissenters that we judge based on today, not the past and not the future. (Siding with Alito was Clarence Thomas and the man I consider the creepiest person on the planet, Brett Kavanaugh. This is where a more petty blogger might point out that Justice Kavanaugh should have recused himself from any court dealings having to do with sex, but I'm not petty...very much.)
So it was a good day, long overdue, and we'll leave it at that.
TWO
It took Mexican-Americans four years to eradicate the Frito Bandito from our psyches, but Rastus (the name is considered a racial slur) has been "gracing" the Cream of Wheat box since before my grandmothers were born. (For perspective, one of them died in 1988 at the age of 97.)
Together with Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth, and Uncle Ben, Mr. Cream of Wheat may finally get some relief from the gawking eyes of a century of shoppers. The Black Lives Matter movement and a newly awakened realization that America is more racist than we'd like to believe are sending these poor victims out to pasture where, I hope, they can find peace and serenity with the Land O'Lakes lady, Chief Wahoo, and Joe Camel.
I have no idea how Little Debbie gets a pass from little people, or Chiquita Banana hasn't been de-hatted by anyone from south of the border, but those are battles for another day. Bon voyage Jemima and Butterworth—take a Sunday morning off.
THREE
Speaking about police reform yesterday, our lying president said this: “President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period. The reason they didn’t try is because they had no idea how to do it.”
Oh my! Twitterboy should have tried Google. Then he'd have known that in 2014, after the police shooting in Ferguson, then-President Obama issued an executive order that created a task force on “21st century policing." (Twitterboy tweeted about it.) The final report was delivered in May 2015. It sought more data on police-involved shootings and any in-custody death; aimed to improve assessments of community attitudes toward police; and attempted to remove incentives on police practices such as a predetermined number of tickets, citations, arrests, or summonses.
There's more, but it's interesting to note—as I said in these pages once before—part of the Obama plan was to disincentivize the acquisition of military weapons. Despite that, roughly 40% of the nation's largest law enforcement groups signed on to all or some of the recommendations. But in 2017 Trump voided the embargo on military weapons, the results of which we saw near the White House two weeks ago. And yesterday following a rash of police killings of unarmed black men, Trump stole Obama's report diluted it to make almost unrecognizable, and called it his own. It's what liars do, and Trump is a master.
Go now, your hands are virus-free, three times over.
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