The time is now!!! No more sitting passively on the couch watching the news host tell us that our democracy is being stolen. No more getting angry as we learn of another Cabinet appointee with a conflict of interest or a history of sexual misconduct.
We don’t have the time to wait until the Democratic Party finds a platform that works for a broader segment of the population. We don’t have the luxury of waiting until the Democratic Party develops a new pool of charismatic candidates that can inspire a broader constituency to vote for their own interests.
We need action now. The easiest resistance program is to create an economic pressure on the ultra- wealthy magnates and their corporations that supported the far-right agenda in this past election. We need a national boycott of their products. So easy. First and foremost, no one who is a Democrat or progressive should buy a Tesla. Let’s put Tesla out of business. And that goes for “X”… no more tweets by the left on X, just delete the app and move to Bluesky or Substack.
Then, we should make the major advertisers on Fox News start feeling the pain for supporting right-wing media: Some of the biggest advertisers on Fox News include:
Procter & Gamble: Advertises consumer products like Venus razor blades and Secret deodorant
Novo Nordisk: Advertises the medication Ozempic on Fox News
Scotts Miracle-Gro: Advertises on Fox News during commercial breaks
Balance of Nature: A supplement company that was a primary advertiser
Other top Fox New Advertisers: GlaxoSmithKline, Liberty Mutual, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Intuit, NortonLifeLock, Nestle, Kraft Heinz, Progressive, Charles Schwab, Toyota, and Subaru.
This such an easy form of resistance that results in little to no hardship for the boycott supporters. The only groups who will feel the pain will be the corporations that lose sales, and Fox News, which will lose advertising dollars. We all need to be on the same page….
No Tesla, no “X”, no Balance of Nature and no Scotts Miracle-Gro. Spread the word.
Not surprisingly, the economy takes center-stage this election year. Most of that focus, especially by the political party out-of-power, centers on the price of food and groceries. Based on Cato Institute report from earlier this, food prices increased 18% during the 11 years from 2010 to 2021. During the three plus years of the Biden administration, these same food prices have increased over 21%. Of course, we are all aware that the pandemic was the root cause of much of this inflation. The government began an aggressive monetary policy that put excess money in the bank accounts of many families. Many businesses shut down due to the pandemic reducing the supply of goods to all-time lows. When the economy finally re-opened, there was too much money chasing limited supplies. As we all know that prices rise when demand far exceeds supply.
Democrats are aware that prices are too high and Republicans are blaming the Democrats for these high prices. Some Democrats are suggesting that the next Congress pass legislation that punishes corporations for price gouging. This plan will be impossible to enforce and really has no chance of passing Congress. How do we look at price gouging? Does price gouging just apply to grocery stores or do we also look at the profits of the entire food supply chain including the producers of feedstock, the companies that produce the food for the grocery stores, the trucking industry that transports food to these stores, the companies that provided electricity to these stores, etc.? Are going to pass legislation to punish all these industries for price gouging?
There is a simple solution to attack this runup in food prices. Bring back competition. The federal government should create a web page that publishes the average price of foods in certain areas. The average price of ground beef in the Northeast is $5.50/lb while extra lean ground beef is $7.20/lb. The average price of a dozen eggs in Pennsylvania is $4.50 while the price of a dozen eggs in New York is $5.35. This web page can have a wide range of grocery pricing, from fruit and vegetable to all the various sources of protein that we consume, and can be updated regularly. This information will make us all smart shoppers and avoid over-spending at the grocery stores. As stores feel the pressures of high prices, they will begin to pressure on their suppliers to reduce costs and this pressure will continue down the food chain. This is a very simple solution to the high costs of food prices. Once this is established for the food industry, the same concept can be applied to many consumer goods and services.
No it wasn’t a double homicide…..not even close, nothing nearly as exciting or riveting. But the recent death of OJ reminded me of an event that I participated in back in the early 2000s and still has me pondering the social and racial implications. Somehow back then, I found myself stuck on a jury in a federal courthouse. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for a fifty-something white Jewish male, who had to be a bleeding heart liberal, to make it to the jury of a minority being charged of a federal crime.
Here is a summary of the case. After many years and numerous incidents of rowdy, inappropriate and often lewd and dangerous behavior, the City of Philadelphia finally instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for South Street, its center of counter-culture and offbeat establishments that always drew big crowds until early in the morning. Anyone found with an open bottle of alcohol would immediately be seized and taken to jail….no ifs, ands or buts.
So as the story unravels, three police officers were walking the beat of South at 1:00 AM which was still very busy. One of the officers happened to look into a parked car and saw a young African American male sound asleep in the passenger side of the car with an open bottle of whiskey between his legs. The driver side of the car was empty. The officer immediately informed his fellow officers who then decided to act immediately. The officers banged on the window waking up the sleeping passenger and told him to come out of the car with his hands up in the air as he is under arrest. The passenger slowly nodded as if he understood and moved very slowly as he reached for the door handle. Suddenly, he jerked the door open very quickly and jammed it into the three unsuspecting officers, knockings two to the ground . The passenger then took off up the street pulled a gun out waving at the officers. Coincidently, two different officers happened to be approaching the car from the other direction, witness the event and to then surprise of the fleeing passenger grab him and tackle him to the ground. They called for back-up immediately which arrived in seconds. The passenger was then handcuffed and taken to jail and later charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
Which brings us to the trial of which I am a jury member. The prosecution told the story through the officers at the scene of the crime as well as a number of people who had witnessed the events and volunteered to testify at the trial. All collaborated the story. The defense lawyer did not call any witnesses and the defendant did not testify in his defense.
The jury was then taken to a room and asked to decide the case. There were 7 white jury members and 5 African American jurors. We decided to take an immediate vote to see even if it was necessary to appoint a foreman. So we took the vote and we got the following results……7 guilty and 5 innocent. Not surprisingly, the vote coincided with the racial make-up of the jury.
How could this defendant be innocent? Where was the evidence? One juror claimed that she has a cousin that was falsely apprehended by the Philadelphia police and found guilty in a similar trail. Another juror has an uncle who was also falsely accused of a crime by the Philadelphia police and then sentenced to jail time. Another juror proclaimed, “All Philadelphia police are corrupt”. Another juror was positive that the police planted the gun on the passenger because she knew of another story where the same thing happened. The seven white jurors were all taken aback and had a hard time countering these arguments because none of them had to do with the facts of the trial. As time went on, more and more stories poured out about police corruption especially here in Philadelphia.
Needless to say, we were not out of there right away, or for that matter we were not out of there for the next two days. There was no countering these endless stories of police corruption. Finally, one of the jurors asked if we know who was the owner of the gun that the defendant was carrying when apprehended. After checking the records, we were told that it was registered under the name of the driver of the car. Bingo. That was the missing fact that allowed us to come to the conclusion that the defendant was in fact carrying a gun. We could not agree on the aggravated assault charge, but we were able to convict the defendant of illegally carrying a firearm as he was a previously convicted felon who had served time and was not permitted to carry a firearm. The crime carried a hefty prison sentence.
Of course, this is not nearly as juicy the OJ case. However, the experience really drives home how distrustful minorities are of law enforcement and how as members of the white middle class we do not understand and often doubt these feelings. This issue of racial profiling and and abuses of minorities by law enforcement slowly disappeared from front page news after the OJ case, until 2020 when a series of police misconduct cases came to the public attention including the George Floyd killing that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. I am not sure if we have made the changes necessary to regain the trust of law enforcement by minorities and I am not sure if those outside the minority community have come to realize the need for such dramatic changes in police conduct. The death of OJ reminded me again of these issues.
For the past year or so, I have been pushing a strategy that I developed to end voter suppression primarily in the Southern states. We have seen the gap between white participation and non-white participation in presidential elections widen since the Shelby v Holder decision in 2013. My strategy to end such discrimination is to create a large, deafening public uproar that forces state legislatures to revoke the voter suppression laws. How could we do this? We would promote a boycott by top-tier and highly-recruited athletes. They would refuse to attend universities and colleges in states with voter suppression laws. The University of Alabama’s football team is comprised of approximately 80% minority players. Imagine the outrage if historically highly-ranked football teams like Alabama, Auburn or Georgia fall to mediocracy because of their inability to attract top recruits to their schools or to keep established stars from leaving the school.
I recently saw in the news that you encouraged a similar boycott of universities and colleges in states that bar DEI programs taught in the public schools. I believe that it would be easy to address both the issues of voter suppression and barring DEI programs with the same boycott program. The boycott has the potential to bring about many changes in race relations.
I envision a small non-profit organization to promote the boycott. The first and foremost responsibility of this organization would be to get national awareness and recognition of the boycott. This would require enlisting a number of well-known national figures to support the boycott. This organization would then reach out to the high-profile athletes and provide the support and advice they would need to help them matriculate to a different college or university than they had originally intended.
I have reached out to top athletes, sportscasters, politicians, and religious leaders trying to bring a big-name personality to the cause. Unfortunately, I have not had any success up to this point. I would like to have the chance to talk to you and outline how my boycott could be implemented. I am in still in need of a big-name or a prominent politician to help give my program legitimacy. I was hoping you might be interested in working with me on this boycott and could provide a contact to others who might join in the fight.
I appreciate your attention to this proposal and look forward to hearing from you.
It is time to end voter suppression. All voting aged Americans must have access to the voting booth and all votes must be counted fairly.
I am proposing a very simple program that strongly encourages top-recruited minority athletes to boycott universities with high-profile sports programs in any state that has passed voter suppression laws. We will call this social program for justice, The Boycott. The University of Alabama has won six NCAA football championships since 2009. Their success obviously generates a lot of income for the school and the state, and has contributed to a collective civic pride throughout the state. However, since the Supreme Court overturned Shelby v. Holder in 2013, voter rolls have been purged and many polling placed closed in Alabama. How well would the university team do if a very large number of the 80%-minority football athletes chose to pursue their education at a different university? This year Alabama, Georgia, Texas, LSU and Oklahoma are all in the top 20 in the NCAA football polls. Imagine the pressure losing those players would put on state legislatures, as these teams sink to irrelevance in the NCAA Football rankings.
How do we get top athletes to participate in The Boycott? First, there needs to be an organization, named perhaps led by a well-known and respected and perhaps even somewhat controversial national sports figure who could draw immediate media attention to The Boycott. Imagine someone like Stephen A. Smith who has a wide audience on ESPN and has a knack for drawing attention to social causes. The program would also need several well-known and highly-respected sports figures to go on sports talk shows to bring further national attention to the movement. They would need to speak to highly-recruited high school seniors to help persuade them to attend schools in states that do not suppress the vote. I am thinking of stars like Steph Curry and LeBron James for the basketball recruits, and Deion Sanders, Lamar Jackson, and Jalen Hurts for the football recruits. These top professional athletes will also be essential in raising funds and possible scholarship money to help support these athletes and families as they may be attending colleges a little farther from home than their state university.
A recent rule change for NCAA athletes gives The Boycott an immediate shot in the arm. NCAA athletes at Division I schools no longer need to sit out a year when transferring schools. Therefore, all college athletes can now be approached, not just incoming freshmen. The threat of losing a sophomore All-American quarterback or a junior star running back or dynamic freshman wide receiver next season would put much more pressure on the school and thus the state legislatures than losing incoming freshmen alone. No roster will be secure with the possibility of players transferring next season.
I recently read that young women are staying away from universities in states that do not allow abortions. The Boycott is a similar moral and ethical social movement, but The Boycott creates enormous economic and social pressures on these universities and states to change these voter suppression laws quickly. Imagine if the number one college QB in the country, on the top ranked football team in the nation, suddenly announces he will be transferring to a new school because the state that he represents does not give him fair access to the voting booth. It would be devastating to a state to watch its team drop from number one in the NCAA football polls to 50th the next year. The only way to affect change, maybe, is to hit ‘em where it hurts. I say let The Boycott begin.
The Democratic Party just revised their 2024 primary schedule removing Iowa from the top spot and replacing it with South Carolina on February 3, 2024. I would guess that this is a reward to Jim Clyburn and South Carolina for giving Joe Biden a much needed primary victory in 2020 after three mediocre finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in 2020.
Let’s face it…..South Carolina will be meaningless in the Presidential race in 2024 for the Democratic nominee. After winning this primary and gaining the momentum to secure the nomination in 2020, Biden lost South Carolina to Trump in the general election 55% to 43%. And so why do we believe that 2024 will be different and why put South Carolina first?
As we all have come to learn….there are Red States and Blue States and approximately a dozen or so Swing States. The presidential election is ultimately determined by which candidate can carry the majority of these dozen Swing States. However, both parties seem to miss this point in their primary process of selecting a candidate for the Fall contest. Both parties have similar primary schedules and systems, but for this essay I am only concerned about Democratic Party. And so we have primaries and a few caucuses in all 50 states and then we select the winner who has won the primaries in major Democratic states of New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and the other Democratic states like Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Now we just hope that this nominee will appeal to the voters in those 12 Swing States. This is ass backwards.
Let’s have a process that determines which candidate can win these Swing States. Let’s have the first primary date in early March consisting of the 5 states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Let’s have the candidates spend a good part of 2023 and early 2024 traveling to these States so we can which candidate strikes a chord with the blue collar workers of this heavily industrialized region, which candidate can relate to the large minority populations in the big cities in these States and which candidate can relate to the small farmer and small business owners in these regions. The candidate that wins this primary might have a good chance of carrying these Swing States in the general election. The second primary in early April would consist of the 4 states…Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. The candidate who wins this primary will obviously be a strong candidate with the growing Hispanic population in our country. The third primary in early May would be in the 3 states of Virginia, North Carolina and New Hampshire. The winner of this primary will have to appeal for the white collar worker and “suburban mom” that has become an important part of the Democratic base. Finally, on the first Tuesday in June, we have a real Super Tuesday with all other states holding their primary on that date.
You may say, what is the difference….all voters in all states cast their ballot and we are at the same place as our current system by the end of the primary season. This is NOT true. This primary schedule is set up to determine which candidate can win the Swing States. This is the key to winning the general election. The candidate that does not perform well early will likely lose support in later primaries as voters see their weakness in the Swing States.
With this system in place, Democrats should not be surprised the results of the Swing States and therefore, the outcome of the election.
The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.5 billion years….half of a certain quantity of this radioactive element will decay in 4.5 billion years. Blueberries have an even longer shelf-life meaning you can buy blueberries, put them in the refrigerator and travel to Mars and when you return, they are just as fresh as the day you bought them.
This is not true with many other of our favorite fruits. How many times have you longed for a perfectly sweet and juicy peach during the hot days of summer? However, when you go to the market all the peaches are hard and need a few days to ripen. When you try to claim your prize, you find that the peaches have over-ripened and now are soggy globs. The same thing happens with plums. Bananas might give you a week or so from being green and firm before ripening and quickly turning into brown mush…not bad, but you still end up throwing out half the bunch in two weeks. We are all familiar with strawberries turning into a mold culture in your refrigerator. Not so with blueberries which are ready from the day you purchase them through the next millennium.
And blueberries are consistently tasty. They are delicious and taste exactly the same whether you buy them in July of January. Strawberries are totally hit or miss. It is possible to buy a basket of strawberries that have no taste at all. Watermelons which you can only purchase in summer, are delicious about 50% of the time and honeydews are only good if you are eating them in the tropics. Cantaloupes are good some of the time and have a very short season and they don’t make oranges the way they used to.
Blueberries have been treated as a second-class fruit in our diet. They don’t get the love of apples, peaches and oranges. They are very healthy as they are loaded with anti-oxidants. I just wanted to give blueberries their proper recognition and hope that you come to appreciate their reliability and consistency and make them a regular part of your meal planning.
Paid for by the Hammonton Blue Berry Growers Association.
How is this for a bipartisan slogan, “Yes we can…Whip Inflation Now!”
The potential for runaway inflation has been brewing for a few years now as the federal government handed out trillions of relief dollars to individuals and businesses during the two years of the pandemic. At the same time, the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through its Quantitative Easing programs. The combination of these strategies has resulted in an additional $2 trillion in personal savings accounts that is creating excess demand just when inventories are depleted after the pandemic and supply chain issues have prevented these inventories from getting replenished. This is happening as gasoline prices surge due to the oil shortages brought on by the embargo of oil purchases from Russia.
The Democrats throw up their hands and claim that the confluence of these forces are out of their control……..a perfect storm of economic calamities. The country is looking for dramatic action and is not satisfied with the totally passive approach of letting the Federal Reserve slowly raise interest rates, promising only a economic slowdown, not a recession of a “soft landing” for our economy.
There are over 700 million barrels of oil stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for emergencies. Joe Biden announced on March 31 of 2022, that the US would release 1 million barrels per day for three months to help ease the oil shortage. That amount is obviously not enough and Biden should look to release much more oil to glut the market and force the price of oil back down to more normal levels due to this excess supply. Biden is scared of offending the oil companies (as they experience record profits). Biden should also immediately drop the federal tax on gasoline at the pumps. Although this is only about $.30 per gallon, it will still help offset these soaring gasoline prices.
Biden should immediately go to China and announce that the Trump 25% tariffs will be removed from goods shipped to the US. This ill-conceived tariff was supposed to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Realistically, these tariffs increased the cost of goods from China by 25% (inflationary) while moving manufacturing jobs from China to India, or Vietnam or some other low cost manufacturing country. Biden has been scared to end these tariffs as he fears Right Wing backlash for working with China and being depicted as a weak in our dealing with China. While meeting in China, Biden should offer to supply China with our Covid vaccines which have proven to be much more effective against the virus than the Chinese vaccines. I am sure that supplying China with 2 to 3 billion vaccines should help promote new pharmaceutical jobs here in the USA. Biden might use the leverage of providing China with vaccines to promote trade of other US industries into the Chinese market tat previously have been blocked by Chinese import restrictions.
The invasion of Ukraine had a six-month build- up. Our intelligence kept telling us that Putin would invade Ukraine so we had six months or so to prepare for the imposition of sanctions which would include embargo on Russian oil. The world, mostly Europe, would need a new source for 5 million barrels of oil per day. However, this preparation never happened. Iran is the most logical country for this replacement source of oil to Europe. All efforts should have been to re-start the nuclear non proliferation negotiations and find a framework to get a new treaty going forward that would bring Iran back into the global community while providing an additional 4 million of barrels per day for European consumption. I believe that the Biden administration was again afraid of Right Wing backlash from dealing with Iran and has let this opportunity slip away. It is hard to believe that a deal could not have been worked out given that a new treaty would benefit both sides. There was a previous deal to provide a structure and current sanctions are hurting Iran while at the same time the West needs additional supplies of oil.
Venezuela has over 300 billion barrels of crude oil in reserves making it thenumber one country with oil reserves. In the mid 1990’s Venezuela produced over 3 million barrels of oil per day. Today, after nationalization and mismanagement, Venezuela is producing one tenth of that amount. The US should be negotiating with Venezuela on a plan to revitalize this moribund industry so that it can help to contribute significantly to the world shortage in oil production and help relieve the pain and the inflation that the oil shortage is causing. But, again I believe, that this administration is scared to confront the Republican 1980 mentality that states that communism is evil and that we should be doing everything possible to keep Venezuela isolated from the world market.
Finally, we need to reverse the Quantitative Easing that put trillions of new dollars into the economy as the Federal Reserve printed about $80 billion per month and bought bonds on the market over several years. It is now time to reverse this process and sell these bonds on the market offering high interest rates to take much of that $2 trillion out of personal savings.
So much of inflation is fueled by expectations……people will go out today and make purchases if they believe prices will be rising rapidly in the future. This increases current demand. We must establish policies that convince the public that prices are leveling off so that there is no need to immediately go out and purchase these good. This obviously reduces immediate demand. Our government can start right now.
Mark your calendars. May 28,2022.This is the day we start to fight back.
Approximately 70% of this country supports a woman’s right to an abortion. A number as high as 70% must include Democrats, Republicans and independents. There is no way a ruling reflecting the opinion of 70% of Americans should be overturned based on a very loose interpretation of a document that was written 250 years ago. That document gave an unbalanced leverage to “small” states such that a minority faction with unpopular positions could dominate the Supreme Court. We currently have a Supreme Court consisting of three justices that were appointed by a President that lost two popular elections: first in 2016 and then again in 2020. This partisan Court should not be allowed to decide the law of the land.
It is time for a march on Washington representing these 70% of Americans. We need a big crowd, a vociferous crowd, an energetic crowd and a crowd that will demand to be heard not just by the Supreme Court justices, but by our elected officials in Washington. Our elected representatives must recognize the rights of all people including women, minorities and other non-mainstream individuals without cowering to the conservative right with their extreme religious beliefs and their undue financial influence over their selected candidates. We need a government that represents a much wider spectrum of beliefs.
“STOP the REPEAL” march should be scheduled for May 28 of this year. Roe will be overturned in June and the mid-term elections are this November. Time is of the essence. This is a holiday weekend so folks will have an extra day to travel and make arrangements to attend the march. Let’s meet in front of the Supreme Court Building and then we’ll storm the building when the speeches are completed as all good “tourists” do. Let’s give John Roberts a real breach to worry about. Do you think this time that Republicans will be horrified as people march into these hallowed halls and demand justice for the perpetrators?
“We are getting madder by the minute!!” This phrase does not really work when hundreds, if not, thousands of lives are at risk everyday. It is time to act. The Russian invasion into Ukraine is bogged down and the Russian military is now targeting civilian population centers trying to intimidate the Ukrainian people into submission as their defending army is holding off the Russian military advance. As we have all seen on the news every night, the city of Mariupol has taken the brunt of the Russian bombing, and a once beautiful port city has been reduced to a massive rubble. Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in bomb shelters with provisions rapidly depleting, unable to escape as Russians artillery fires on them as they try to find a safe way out of the city.
The world no longer wants to hear that “NATO is strong and standing together,” something akin to “you are in our thoughts and prayers.” Ukraine borders directly with four NATO countries. It is a country that has asked to join the Alliance several times, most recently, just last summer. The Alliance delayed Ukraine’s admission into NATO for several political reasons, but we still have to ask ourselves, “Are Ukrainian lives less important that lives in NATO nations?” It is time for NATO to act.
The leaders of the NATO Alliance are meeting in Brussels this week. NATO should announce that they will immediately be conducting a humanitarian evacuation of the innocent civilians trapped in the city of Mariupol. NATO will send a fleet of Navy boats to the port of Mariupol. This evacuation will incur as soon as the flotilla can arrive at the port. An immediate ceasefire should be announced throughout the city. Russia must honor the ceasefire. Any violation of the ceasefire by Russia will be deemed a direct attack on NATO and will bring about an appropriate military response by the Alliance. The ceasefire shall be in place as long as the evacuation continues. This declaration by NATO will give a pause to the constant air strikes on Mariupol and allow innocent civilians the chance to escape onto the waiting ships of the NATO Navy.
This declaration by NATO is essential this week so that we can begin to bring relief to the several hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Mariupol. We have let Putin dictate to the world the terms of this invasion. We cannot let Putin intimidate us into a passive responses when so many lives are at risk. We can then use these ceasefire talks as a starting point for a broader and more lasting ceasefire in the region.
H O W A R D S B E N D 