Welcome to our Group!
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Please submit all articles to [email protected]. All articles are subject to approval from the Writers Group.
The Group meets the 4th Saturday of the month at 3:00pm. For more information and meeting location, please contact Louis Sones at [email protected]
We Are Losing Our Democracy
By: Paul Arieti
Noble laurate economist Joseph Stiglitz has stated: “the only sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity; we pay a high price for inequality in terms of a divided society undermining democracy.” Inequality of wealth prosperity over the past several decades has increased significantly. A prime example is that the top 10% of households hold about 70% of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 50% hold only 2.5%. Another example is the number of billionaires increasing from less than 100 in the early 1990’s to over 1000 today! While the redistribution of wealth to the top slowed somewhat during the Biden administration, it has reaccelerated during Trump’s second term with reductions such as those in healthcare and food assistance programs affecting the bottom half. The unequal sharing of wealth and prosperity is a prime driver of the increasing divisions and the weakening of our democracy in our country.
Along with the risk of personal wealth inequality threatening democracy is the threat of increasing national financial instability. The national debt just passed $38 trillion with an ongoing annual deficit close to $2 trillion. Economists have estimated that approximately half of the current debt is due to the Regan, George W Bush and Trump tax cuts which mostly benefit the wealthy and corporations. Our annual interest payment on that debt is now over $1 trillion. The national debt continues to rise out of control and debt payments alone are consuming an increasing share of our annual expenditures.
Further loss of our democracy is happening on several levels. While increasing wealth inequality and national financial weakness continue to threaten our democracy, the current administration is adding to the erosion of democracy by forcibly sending into our cities inadequately trained armed government agents to remove immigrants. Wearing masks, combat gear and carrying machine guns they are arresting, in many cases, hardworking members of our communities who are trying to improve their lives. Many of the victims are citizens or have a legal right to be here. Many including children have been snatched from their homes, cars, and workplaces and then shipped to foreign countries or incarcerated in remote prisons without due process. Over the past several decades, including Trump’s first term, immigrant removals and returns to their native countries occurred at significant rates (400 to 500 thousand per year except during the Covid years) without the draconian tactics and with due process. The current administration’s actions are clearly undemocratic.
The financial policies and police-state actions of the Trump administration are seriously undermining our democracy. We must continue to resist and push back on these undemocratic actions and follow the lead of many protesting throughout this country. As the brave folks in Minneapolis demonstrate everyday “democracy is not a spectator sport.”
Can Drone Use Be Dangerous?
By Lois Troxell
In the next few years growth in drones is expected to explode to 2.4 million drones. Drone use in war leads to long-term radicalization and increased recruitment for extremists. Killing leaders that include civilian deaths creates more militants. Drones have on-board cameras for real-time targeting, but they frequently fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians. Although President Trump has cancelled casualty reports, estimates are 7,000 to 13,000 civilians killed since 2004 in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Constant fear of a drone strike leads to mental health issues in non-combatants. Pilots of drones in war suffer from emotional disengagement and exhaustion, burn-out, and PTSD. Civilian use of drones can lead to attackers injecting their own malicious codes. A single drone can shut down an airport. Hacking, noise, and spying are frequently reported but the most common hazard is a drone crashing into someone or something.
Are there political solutions to be tried in the countries where our drones are killing more civilians than combatants? Could we elect leaders who will try?
Once Again NO, NO, NO!!
By Lou Sones
I just heard Senator Chris Coons in an interview last night. He was saying that he wouldn't support funding DHS unless the administration agreed to certain conditions on ICE: No masks, body cams on ICE agents, etc.
No, No, No! What good are conditions? We all know that Trump and his cabinet will not pay attention to them. Or they will find a way to get around them. That's a given. Coons still thinks politics is civil and that compromise is still an option. NO, No, No! We need to cut off the money, plain and simple.
Oh, but what about FEMA, which is under DHS? Who cares? FEMA isn't doing shit anyway. FEMA might as well not exist. The Small Business Administration, which funds disaster relief programs, is gutted.
Excuse the cliché, but we have to play hardball, as we did in the last shutdown showdown. That got us somewhere. It made it clear that the Dems are for healthcare, and the Republicans don't give a crap.
I know that Trump and his court of evil jesters will still find a way to rain their cruelty on those who oppose them, but we have to slow this train down. At least till the midterms. We have to take a page out of Trump's playbook: delay, delay, and delay.
Please.
Senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
Lets All Go To The Bar
A Call to Action
By Lou Sones
Though I like my Bourbon, I’m not suggesting that you all join me for drinks. What I am suggesting is that we all write letters to the respective Bar Associations of Lindsey Halligan, Pam Bondi, and Todd Blanche, expressing our outrage at their highly unethical actions
Lindsey Halligan already faces disbarment or disciplinary action for filing meritless cases, as watchdog groups have already filed bar complaints alleging abuse of power.
Over 80 lawyers, law professors, and former judges have already filed a complaint seeking an
investigation and appropriate sanctions against Pamela Jo Bondi, a member of The Florida Bar,
who has engaged in serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the
administration of justice, including ignoring court orders, vindictive prosecution, and firing prosecutors who refused to break their oaths of office.
There have been formal complaints and significant criticism directed at Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche from bar associations and legal ethics experts, particularly the
New York State Bar Association, NYC Bar, the Legal Accountability Center (LAC), and others, accusing him of undermining judicial independence, misusing authority, and exhibiting severe conflicts of interest related to his role in reviewing cases involving Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Although these distinguished members of the legal profession have already written to the various Bar Associations, I think that flooding the zone with a constant stream of letters from ordinary citizens will demonstrate that many of us are aware of the malpractice of Trump’s Department of Justice. We should also cc our letters to the Legal Accountability Center (LAC) and send versions of these letters to all our local representatives, and a version to our local newspapers as op-eds.
One thing I’ve learned from my advocacy experience as a community organizer is that some pressure points are worth continuing to press on.
The American Bar Association recommends that all complaints of misconduct be addressed to the individual state bar associations for a particular lawyer.
For Lindsey Halligan & Pam Bondi.
For Florida Bar Association
Center for Professionalism
[email protected]
For Todd Blanche a member of the State Bars of
Indiana, New Jersey, and Alabama
Supreme Court of the United States Bar,
For Indiana
[email protected]
For New Jersey
Office of Attorney Ethics
[email protected]
For Alabama
Alabama State Bar
Center for Professional Responsibility
www.alabar.org
The Legal Accountability Center
[email protected]
Again, this is just one of many actions we can take to stand firm against Trump’s Department of Justice and to defeat Trumpism itself, which is the mission. Once we can say “Mission Accomplished.”, drinks will be on me.
Just Say No
Another Call To Action
By Lou Sones
Once again, we find ourselves on the verge of becoming a brutal dictatorship under Donald Trump and his cruel henchmen: Steven Miller, Christy Nome, Tom Homan, J.D. Vance, and a myriad of cowardly enablers in both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. And once again, we feel helpless to stop Trump’s Gestapo thugs – ICE.
But we are not helpless. We still have tools in our toolbox that all of us decent citizens can use. We have rallies; we have peaceful protests; we have our vote (hopefully) and our right to free speech (for now). And we have the power of the purse – Boycotts.
Companies with contracts to provide services and goods to
ICE/DHS. THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS IS ON THEIR HANDS
• Best Western International
• Chick-fil-A Inc
• Hyatt
• Kelly Services
• Lexmark
• Smoothie King
• Toyota Motor Engineering North America
• Starbucks Coffee Puerto Rico
• Tyson Foods
• Right Way Industries
• Accenture
• Amazon Web Services
• AT&T
• Boose Allen Hamilton
• Palantire
• Caci International
• Motorola Solutions
• Core Civic and GEO group
• Fed Ex
Also, lawmakers are staring down another deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown – Jan. 31. And this time, they have to decide how much money to give the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that funds ICE. Now that Congress has witnessed the recent atrocities of ICE, they also have the power of the purse. They can once again vote not to pass the budget unless ICE gets no more money or even gets defunded.
Yes, we are not helpless. We can just say “NO” by boycotting those companies that enable ICE, and we can petition our representatives to just say “NO” to any budget that gives more money to ICE. Better yet, they should say “NO” to any budget that funds ICE at all.
We are not helpless. We can just say “NO”!