Frank J. Scarangello: September 10, 1942 – August 6, 2023 by Marie Wolf
The death of a parent is akin to a steaming locomotive. A great juggernaut, it always looms in the distance, yet no one is ever truly prepared for its arrival.
Hours after writing his last blog, Frank arrived at his proverbial “front of the line,” passing away in his home. He was alone. He fiercely (and perhaps foolishly) clutched his independence with both hands. I didn’t have the heart to take that away from him.
He didn’t linger like my mother did. He didn’t want to go like that.
In the end, he lived and died on his own terms. At the end of days, isn’t that what we all want?
I wanted to thank his avid readers. After my mother’s passing, you gave him an outlet, a community and a reason to go on. We never really get to know our parents, but I learned about my dad along with you, within this blog as well as the pages of his books.
I’m no religious zealot, but I hope my staunch Atheist dad was proven wrong. I hope everyone he ever loved and lost ran to him with open arms, in a place too beautiful for mere mortals to fathom.
Dad: Maybe I will see you on the other side. Maybe I won’t. But I will miss you for the rest of my life.
A celebration of life will be held in his honor at a later date, in Pasco County, Florida.
Well Trump was finally indicted for the 1/6 insurrection and for plotting to overthrow the results of the 2020 election by any means necessary. Why? Very simple. He wanted to stay in power.
In 2016, with the help of an archaic Electoral College (Trump lost the popular vote) this nation elected a reality TV show star, WWE professional wrestling shill, confirmed sexual assaulter and failed casino owner to the White House over Hillary Clinton. No matter what you think of Hillary Clinton, she is one of the most accomplished, experienced, and distinguished public servants in recent American history.
She certainly would have made a better President than Trump, who infamously made fun of a disabled reporter for the New York Times, standing on a stage waving his arms awkwardly as if they were damaged and speaking in a way that he thought impersonated a speech defect.
Where did that come from? Where indeed does his cruelty come from in general? His bullying as a businessman who didn’t pay bills he owed to the little people who did work for him, or the political bully we see practically every day?
We elected “grab em by the pussy” and got impeachments, his white supremacy and betrayal of our national interests at home and abroad in favor of his own interests.
In 2024, the American people will be faced with a third test of their civil responsibility, wisdom and collective intelligence. The future of the country as a democracy governed by the rule of law and the Constitution is almost literally on the ballot.
The indictment this week is certainly the most serious charges Trump faces, yet those of us so inclined are wondering why it took two and a half .to accomplish. Taking so long only gave the neo-fascist GOP time to try to re-write history. The vast majority of Republicans believe the 2020 election was “stolen” and the insurrectionists were “patriots” or “tourists. “I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!” as Sergeant Schultz used to say when it comes to the evidence. Republicans close their eyes because they love a strong-man, neo-fascist government.
The GOP has been bullied into submission. They believe the lies – or say they do. They have cushy jobs and don’t want to lose them to the rube voters back home, which they helped create.
Fixing a trial date will be critical with the primaries and elections coming up. The Trumpers will use every means to delay the trial until after the elections. If Trump is elected, he will make it all go away.
Yesterday he threatened the federal prosecutors on his social platform. “I’m coming for you!” The Justice Department asked the judge in the case for an order of protection. Trump has already been instructed not to make contact any witness without the presence of attorneys from both sides.
His bullying never ceases. He has threatened the DOJ openly with revenge if re-elected.
Donald Trump is currently the Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee. By the time of Election Day 2024, all indicators suggest that Trump will be embroiled in multiple criminal trials where he could potentially be sentenced to years in prison. Depending on the timeline and outcome of the criminal trials and appeals process, Donald Trump may even be in prison on Election Day 2024 – which would not disqualify his candidacy or presidency if he were to win.
Donald Trump has made Hitler-like threats to crush his and the MAGA movement’s perceived “enemies” in a campaign of revenge and terror targeting the Democrats, liberals, progressives, and others once he is back in power. As outlined in in his own words, he will become a type of de facto dictator if he takes power again.
“Not since the mid-19th century before the Civil War has the country’sgoverning structure faced such disunity and peril, given the unprecedented nature of a federal criminal indictment of a former president compounded by the fact that Trump has been charged by the Justice Department in the administration of the Democratwho defeated him in 2020 and who is his likeliest general election opponent in 2024, if Trump is nominated again by the Republican Party.”
Many fear that the 2024 election will not overcome the distrust of many Americans in their government and its pillars, almost no matter the outcome.
A conviction and a decisive defeat at the ballot box might force Trump from the political scene and cause the Republican Party to move in a different direction, although in an era of close elections, the prospect of 2024 producing a blowout in either direction remains doubtful — and even that would not necessarily cleanse the system.
“Such a calculation is no victory for the long-term health and safety of American democracy. In the end, Republican and other Trump voters have been so radicalized by their leaders, news media, and other right-wing influentials that they will rally around Trump on Election Day no matter what because they have been programmed to hate the Democratic Party and “liberals”.
“As others have warned, today’s Republicans and conservatives hate the Democrats and their voters (especially black and brown people and the LGBTQI community) more than they love the country and real democracy.”
The GOP base in literally every public and private poll does not give a rat’s ass about the truth viz Trump at all. Zero. Nada.
The base is irredeemable. No ad strategy, alternate candidate, impassioned op-ed, or heartfelt speech will release them from the spell of Trump, Fox, and Facebook.
“They’re not economically anxious. They’re not the Forgotten Workin’ Man. They’re not Ordinary Folks Who Just Don’t Like All These Progressives Ideas.”
They’re willing members of an authoritarian personality cult. The fact trump is way ahead in GOP polls says less about Trump and everything about GOP base. The GOP has become the enemy of democracy and freedoms. We are confronted by a full-blown fascist movement.
Defeating Trump at the polls will not be enough to save our democracy. He must also be found guilty by the Courts. Then and only then will we perhaps be able to breathe again.
Well, our Governor, now known in some circles as the Mussolini of Tallahassee, continues to “reboot” his campaign against the criminal Trump, whom he is trailing badly. He’s not even close.
Oh well. How’s that war on “woke” working for you Gov? Apparently not so well. The neo-fascists constituting the former Grand Old Party want a genuine neo-fascist. One from the old school.
He won’t be finished until he is convicted AND defeated in 2024. In any other outcome it is we who will be finished as a democracy.
Back to our Governor. Lately he has been crowing about how good things are in Florida. About how much he has accomplished.
You know. Slavery was an apprenticeship. Cleaning out the libraries. A six-week abortion ban. Attacking Disney. Now he’s talking about banning Tik-Tok statewide. I’m sure that will go over big.
But today I want to talk about a few things he’s ignored while clutching his pearls about drag shows.
Let’s start with our foster care programs.
A year ago, a local sheriff discovered foster care kids sleeping in office space and cars in fast food parking lots. It’s still going on – at least in the offices at night. A local activist working voluntarily with a non-profit working for a better foster care system, visited a local welfare office in Tampa recently.
“In every single visitation room, there’s five visitation rooms, and every single one of them is filled with children, stuff, clothing, there’s air mattresses and beds there’s no shower there.”
“One is too many, three is definitely too many and seven you’re getting to inexcusable levels,” said Kelley Parris, Children’s Board of Hillsborough County Executive Director.
Last January, a foster care home in Clearwater was shut down as a result of a criminal investigation. Police said the home was shut down because of allegations of sexual nature. Nine foster care boys were removed’ The police were called when video of several of the kids trying to run away was seen by a neighbor.
“Efforts to deinstitutionalize foster care have significantly reduced placement capacity and forced older children and those with higher levels of need to live in a range of inappropriate settings—child welfare offices, emergency rooms, hotels, and homeless shelters.”
Florida depends on contractors to run its foster care system. It took the local sheriff who found kids sleeping in cars in a fast-food parking lot to get the last contractor fired. Meanwhile kids are taken from what are judged to be unsuitable homes and put to sleep on an air mattress on the floor of an empty office.
How about giving some thought toa new approach Gov? Not “woke” enough to get your attention?
Next, we have a camp for registered sex offenders in the woods no one knew about.
A camp powered by solar panels and a generator is home to about a dozen sex offenders who claim they were sent there by probation officers, but there is no indication the public was alerted. Land records indicate the tents that sit under a structure made from branches is on land owned by the Florida Department of Transportation. An FDOT spokesperson said they were “not aware of this.”
What’s this about the left hand not knowing?
A DOC spokesperson denied offenders are told where to live by probation officers. Several sources, including a defense attorney, told to local media that anyone on probation is still “under sentence” and that telling them to live outdoors violated state administrative code.
These guys were on parole, wearing ankle monitors and had to follow instructions from their parole officers. They are living in the woods just off U.S Highway 19 in Pinellas Park. None of the local residents knew the camp was in their neighborhood either.
“They told me there’s a spot that you need to go to,” an offender said. “So, I drove around for a while trying to find this place and eventually, I did.”
The sex offender registration law was put on the books to let the public know where these types of offenders live. Notwithstanding, no one knew diddly-squat; not even the state government landowner.
And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind these parolees were told to go there by their parole officers. They were wearing ankle monitors and visited by their parole officers for crissakes.
Paying any attention Governor or too busy discussing the corn crop in Iowa?
Finally, for today we have Florida’s home insurance crisis. Insurers are either leaving the state or going insolvent. Currently the largest home insurer in the state is Citizens which is the insurer of last resort and owned by the State of Florida.
In June of 2022, Southern Fidelity was ordered into liquidation, causing some 80,000 Florida homeowners to scramble for new home insurance coverage. In early August, Weston Property & Casualty Insurance of Coral Cables was placed into receivership, forcing the company to cancel all policies effective Sept. 7, 2022, and in late August, United Insurance Holdings Corp. (UPC) announced it had filed plans to pull out of the Florida market.
UPC had just over 200,000 policies in force in Florida according to its last Annual Report.
On September 23, 2022, FedNat followed other companies into insolvency just ahead of the onslaught of Hurricane Ian, a few months after reducing its business in the state due to financial trouble.
July 2023 saw an announcement from Farmers Insurance that it was pulling Farmers-branded policies from the state; Farmers subsidiaries like Bristol West and Foremost will continue to write policies, but the move leaves 100,000 homeowners in search of new coverage. Progressive has dramatically cut its business in Florida and AAA just announced that it will.
Why are private sector insurance companies leaving?
No. 1 is the impact of soaring litigation costs. The Insurance Information Institute (III) published a brief on the Florida insurance crisis last August. It noted that a 2017 State Supreme Court decision allows courts to award a plaintiff’s attorneys 2-2.5 times their hourly billing rate when courts rule in favor of policyholders. The result is more frivolous lawsuits; Florida is on pace to have more than 130,000 property policy suits filed this year.
In fact, III says Florida accounts for 79% of all insurance lawsuits filed in America, with only 21% in the rest of the entire country. Our airways are filled with advertisements from lawyers. An increasing number of reinsurers have chosen to retreat from the state in the face of rising litigation.
Florida accounts for only 9 percent of the country’s home insurance claims but 79 percent of its home insurance lawsuits, many of them fraudulent. Because of the fraudulent lawsuits and the high overall claim risk in Florida, insurance companies have faced two consecutive years with net underwriting losses over $1 billion.
Further contributing factors include the fact that the Florida market is home to several smaller insurers who rely heavily on reinsurers and the booming housing market along coastal counties, which are more prone to flooding and hurricanes.
The state recently required insured homes in flood-prone areas along the coast to also carry flood insurance though mortgaged properties are required to have flood insurance by the bank holding the mortgage. The flood insurance rule mainly applies to unmortgaged properties seeking home insurance which normally does not cover flooding.
All in all, the home insurance crisis is essentially man-made, with insurers fleeing because of litigation and fraud. The state is working on “stableizing” the market but we may not see “any benefits for years.”
Just as long as I don’t see any drag shows. What me worry? I’m 15 miles from the coast and 69 feet above sea level in an all-concrete home. Best one can do around here. Millions along the coast are rightly concerned about the sky rocketing cost of home-owners insurance.
The state should have acted years ago – in the Governor’s first term.
Those retiring to Florida will be shocked to find the hidden cost they didn’t expect. Insuring that retirement home.
Good job getting rid of those woke library books Gov.
“A group of religious activists who want to inject their brand of Christianity into government are planning a rally at the Idaho State Capitol on Sunday. Sean Feucht and his group Hold the Line, along with Turning Point USA Faith, are holding rallies at the state Capitol buildings in all 50 states. This week, they’re descending on the buildings in Boise, Olympia, Washington, and Salem, Oregon, as part of their so-called Kingdom to the Capitol Tour.
“One of the reasons why satanists are infuriated is that we’re bringing worship to the state capitols,” Feucht is quoted as saying in The Washington Times. “We’ve experienced some resistance before, but it’s on a whole different scale now. We’re bringing worship to places where abortion decrees are made and where perversion laws (proposed and passed) enable them to get to our kids.”
The above is a quote from the Idaho Times in Boise.
Most of you who have read me for a time figured out long ago that Toritto is an atheist. I don’t go to church. Don’t even think about it. My parents didn’t go. My children don’t go. No one I know is religious. We were not indoctrinated as children with what I believe is myth as so many of today’s religious were. I view it as akin to believing in Santa and never learning the truth.
I’m not a believer in any “gods.” Not Zeus, Apollo, Amun or any of the current deities. I do not believe we were “created in the image of God” along with the rest of the universe notwithstanding that Mormons believe the Garden of Eden was in Missouri. We are animals (as opposed to being plants) sharing most of our DNA with our dog or cat.
I do not believe anyone “made” the universe unless we are living in some kid’s computer matrix in another dimension. Not likely.
I do not believe the world is only five thousand years old or that dinosaur bones were somehow “planted” where they were found. I do not believe that any religion is literally “true” notwithstanding that each of the major religions claims to be. I do not believe in a “god” that needs to be obeyed, worshiped and adored – kind of like an emperor of ancient times, which was when all the holy books were written.
In Europe, 25% of Czechs are openly atheist. Meanwhile religion has had a string of victories lately at the Supreme Court – you know – you don’t have to do it if it is against “sincerely held” religious belief. There are so many beliefs lately!
Now this is nothing new. All my life there have been 20 somethings singing to Jesus, arms reaching to heaven with the look of the rapture on their faces. It doesn’t bother me at all. I just shake my head and go about my life. It only becomes troublesome when these folks try to impose their beliefs on everyone else.
But now we are seeing something new.
Luke Saint, (I wonder if that’s his real name) the author of the Sound Doctrine of Theocracy was a recent guest on the podcast of the Lancaster Patriot, a far-right publication based in Lancaster Pennsylvania, an hour-and-a-half drive west of Philadelphia.
In his dystopian vision of a Christian nationalist America, the laws of the Old Testament have been substituted for the constitution and the community is responsible for executions, including for people who cheat on their spouses.
Saint advocates stoning adulterers, the public act of hurling rocks at a condemned person until they are bludgeoned to death. For Saint, a key part of this revived biblical justice, is recognizing which trespasses truly merit this death penalty. “First off,” he says, “we need to realize that whatever sin requires stoning is more barbaric than the act of stoning itself. Christians have lost that idea,” he argues. “We’re like, ‘Oh, stoning is worse than adultery.’ No, no, no! Adultery is worse than stoning.”
Ehh, right.
Stoning is not “an anarchy” or “mob violence” because civil “magistrates” would be involved in the process. And then the trial participants would have to carry out the judgment. “Those same people have to throw the stone. It makes it difficult,” Saint says, calling stoning a “high maintenance event.”
I guess he never read “Let he who is without sin….” Oh sorry. That’s the New Testament.
“The Bible not only offers a better path to a just society than our current American system does, but it offers the only path to a just society.” As for making the non-crime of adultery a crime punishable by death, he wrote: “there are other things that the Bible classifies as crimes that society would recognize if transformed by the gospel, for the good of neighbor and the glory of God. Adultery,” he insisted, “is one of those crimes.”
I figure three quarters of the men and women in his “congregation” would need to be stoned to death.
Meanwhile, Brother Duncan Urbanek of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas said that if the U.S. started executing gay people in public, then other countries would have a better opinion of the U.S. and see the country as a “wise nation.”
“Hey, Leviticus 20:13: ‘If a man also lies with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them,” he said in a recent sermon.
“You know what ‘Their blood should be upon them’ means? They’re dead! They’ve got their blood all upon them because you just rocked them to sleep,” he said, pantomiming throwing a stone to drive the point home. “Cuz they just threw a bunch of stones at them till they died and they’re just bleeding all over them, their blood shall be upon them.”
Does Toritto hear “Hallelujah Amen?”
“They should be arrested. The police should arrest them, go to court, provide the evidence and then perform a public execution. And then all the nations would look at this nation and there’s no homos? They’d be like, ‘Wow, that is a wise nation!’” he continued.
“I mean, the world should just be looking at Uganda right now and be, like, ‘Man, Uganda? Y’all know what’s going on!’” he said, smiling, referring to Uganda’s recently passed bill that bans people from even identifying as gay and allows the death penalty for homosexual acts.
Urbanek is far from the only violently anti-gay person at Stedfast Baptist Church, which is part of the extreme New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (New IFB) movement. Last year, Jonathan Shelley, also of Stedfast, said that six million Jewish people weren’t killed in the Holocaust, that he’d consider himself “lucky” if they were, and that he wants mass shooters to kill gay people in bars.
“These Jews that are out there, they want to destroy everything that is holy, everything that is righteous,” Shelley said. “In our culture, it is not acceptable to say anything negative about them.”
Would our rotted Supreme Court consider these “firmly held religious beliefs?”
He then mocked people who oppose antisemitism: “The Hol- Haven’t you heard about the Holocaust, Pastor Shelley?”
“Yeah. Why do I care? I mean, if someone walks into a homo bar and shoots ’em all, shoots a bunch of homos and kills all of them, you know how many tears I’d shed for that? Zero,” he said, adding that he doesn’t “care how many of them die” because they “worship the devil.”
“Hitler was an Antichrist. You know what? If an antichrist kills another antichrist, I don’t cry even one second. “‘Well, he killed six million,’” he said in a mocking tone. “I doubt it. Only if we were lucky.”
Also last year, Shelley told the city council of Arlington, Texas that gay people should be executed as the council was considering a resolution to acknowledge Pride. Some people in the crowd said “yup” and “amen” as he ranted against LGBTQ+ people, saying that Pride “would promote disease and AIDS in our community.”
“According to God we should hate Pride, not celebrate it,” he said. “God has already ruled that murder, adultery, witchcraft, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality are crimes worthy of capital punishment.”
This is the kind of myth-based bull shit that goes on in those small little “churches” out in the middle of bumble-f..k nowhere. This is the bat-shit crazy “religion” indoctrinating some children by f..ked up parents and money grubbing “pastors.”.
And thus, generation after generation, in the 21st century, this claptrap from a book written two or three millenia ago by men who didn’t know why the sun rose in the morning, goes on.
No one is coming back. There is no heaven or hell. You’re not going to see your loved ones again. The universe was 13.5 billion years old before I opened my eyes. I missed all of it. After my 80 some-odd years I will close my eyes and another 13.5 billion years will go by.
We exist and only exist now. We didn’t exist before and you won’t exist after.
As for the “end times” we are doing a great job of bringing those down on us all by ourselves.
Now I don’t force my beliefs on anyone. Millions do not share my belief. Each of us is free to believe or not as we see fit because of the constitutional separation of church and state. The church however never seems to stop pushing. Some of the crackpots are no different from the Taliban. When they begin discussing Christian Nationalism, it is time to speak out.
C.C. was here last weekend visiting Papa. Here he is all ready for the water park! He’s growing up too fast. It’s hard to believe he will be seven in November.
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Breakfast at Pancake House!
One of my crane friends came to visit this morning while I had coffee on the lanai. He stood and stared at me for about 10 minutes. I haven’t seen too much of them lately since it is nesting season. Soon they will come bye, the couple that mates for life and their new little chick.
Well there hasn’t been much excitement emanating from Congressional hearings lately, what with Dems and the GOP sniping and snarking with one another. Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Donald being unfairly persecuted, the latest conspiracies. blah blah.
Obama’s chef drown while paddle boating in a shallow lake. Good swimmer. Was it really an accident? What did he know?
Like good young swimmers don’t drown every day.
All the excitement this week came from the hearings on UFOs. You know. Space aliens.
Several Pentagon “whistleblowers” shared explosive claims of alien technology defying laws of physics and pushback from military leadership against those reporting such sightings in a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Three witnesses took part in the hearing – David Grusch, a former intelligence official and whistleblower who said last month that the US has “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles, David Fravor, an ex-Navy commander who reported seeing an object flying across the sky during a 2004 training mission, and Ryan Graves, a retired Navy pilot who claims he spotted unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.
Mr Grusch claimed individuals have been injured while working on reverse engineering UFOs, but he said he couldn’t get into specifics of how that happened.
They never can.
He added that non-human “biologics” were found along with recovered crafts. Like alien body parts, I guess.
At one point, Congressman Tim Burchett asked Mr. Grusch if anyone had been “murdered” as part of government efforts to cover-up information.
“I have to be careful answering that question,” he responded, citing an investigation into whether or not he was the subject of retaliatory action for whistleblowing. “ I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.”
Hmmm.
Basically, our whistleblower testified that the U.S. has “been aware of non-human activities” since the 1930s and is concealing “a multi-decade” program that captures UFOs.
Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot stated “Unidentified aerial phenomenon are in our airspace, but they are grossly under-reported. These sightings are not rare or isolated. They are routine, military aircrew and commercial pilots – trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena”.
“Parts of our government are aware of more about UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) than they let on by excessive classification practices to keep crucial information hidden since 2021. All UAP videos are classified as secret or above this level of secrecy, [which] not only impedes our understanding but fuels speculation and mistrust.”
Well, I guess they’re here. Or maybe not.
Someone may see something which can’t be explained. Doesn’t mean whatever was seen is a non-human constructed space craft. There are many phenomena we simply don’t understand. Wasn’t that long ago we didn’t know why the sun rose in the morning or the crops grew. Must have been the Gods.
What makes space aliens unlikely?
If they were here, they didn’t come from our solar system. They had to come from the stars. Our own species requires a very specific planetary structure – atmosphere, gravity, temperature, water and above all, it must be rocky and not gaseous.
Data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive indicates the closest possible world we MIGHT be able to inhabit is 12.5 lightyears distance. The next closest is just over 100 lightyears distance.
If we assume “they” are ANYTHING like us, then they a very long distance away. Even traveling at light speed, 186 thousand miles per second, it would take more than a decade to reach us from the closest potentially habitable planet and a great deal longer beyond that one.
This assumes “they” could travel at light speed. Unless of course, you believe in worm holes and bending space. Not very likely.
Considering the massive undertaking it would require to make such a journey, do you think “they” made it in those little objects holding a couple of aliens flying around our skies? If not, then where is the “mother ship?” Such a craft, capable of lightspeed would be massive and would be visible.
It ain’t there.
And if “they” are so far advanced, why do they crash?
Ok. Let’s assume “they” are nothing like us. What does it take to build a craft capable of reaching us from the stars? There are millions of life forms on our planet incapable of building anything other than a nest or digging. a hole. Life alone on another world doesn’t infer scientific capabilities.
Humans can build things because we (a) walk upright (b) have intellect and consciousness and (c) have an opposable thumb. Most living things on earth do not have one. Certain apes do but lack the necessary level of intellect.
Considering “they” must be from somewhere very far away, having traveled very fast, one can wonder why such a life form is pointlessly flying around our skies in small craft about the size of an airplane with no mother ship in sight.
And they crash! All by themselves! For us to find!
I mean do they eat? I presume not.
The testifying witnesses complained of push-back from superiors, trying to silence them. It’s because they are spreading more disinformation; they have no proof of anything they said to Congress. They never do.
There are undoubtedly phenomena seen in the skies we do not understand. But there is a hell of a greater chance that what we are seeing are American or Chinese made and not the arrival of the Klingons.
The boat carrying migrants before it sank, near Kalamata, Greece, on June 15. More than 600 people are believed to have died after the boat sank in international waters of the Ionian Sea. The Greek coast guard rescued more than 100 people and recovered more than 80 bodies.
All of you know about the implosion of the Titan submersible which disappeared in the North Atlantic. After all, it was the lead news story of the week everywhere and commanded the attention of three national militaries (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) for at least five days. That same week the Adriana, carrying 700 migrants to Europe trying to better their lives, sank off the coast of Greece. Most of the people on the Adriana drowned, including 100 children.
So why was the world glued to the story of rich men who paid $250K apiece for a seat on a craft, which any skilled observer would have told them was a treacherous journey, but far less about hundreds of migrants determined to better their families’ lives, even if they had to risk life itself to reach European shores?
The chance of rescuing the occupants of Titan were slim to none at best, especially since the craft was ludicrously bolted shut from the outside. Yet navies were marshalled for the rescue, millions were spent as the world watched unbored about the military’s latest underwater rescue vehicles.
Now don’t get me wrong. Glued to the coverage like many Americans, I certainly didn’t think they should be ignored, since every life matters.
But why the massive difference in MSM coverage? Didn’t 700 migrants matter as much? Even Europe was watching the Titan while too many shrugged their shoulders at thesinking of the Adriana.
Apparently, the Greek Coast Guard seemed preoccupied with whether the migrants on that boat even “wanted” help, ignoring the fact that many of those aboard the small trawler were children trapped in the ship’s hull and that it was visibly in danger.
No one doubted that the men in the submersible wanted help. Why would anyreasonable person doubt that the migrants needed help?
“We live in an era marked by mass migration, which has increased over the past five decades. In fact, more people are now living in a country other than where they were born than at any other time in the last half-century.”
Among the major reasons people leave their homes as migrants are certainly the search for education and job opportunities, but never forget those fleeing from armed conflict and political persecution. And of course, another deeply related and more significant reason is climate change and the ever more frequent and intense national disasters like flooding and drought that it causes or intensifies.
Anyone still denying climate change, except fossil fuel barons and their lackies?
The records now show the migrants on the Adriana had left Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Palestine and Pakistan for a variety of reasons. Many of these were places where America waged the war on terror. Others suffer under serious political oppression and human rights violations. Places where the poor cannot get an education, where the dream of being a doctor is just that.
“The route taken by the Adriana through the central Mediterranean Sea is a particularly common one for refugees fleeing armed conflict and its aftermath. It’s also the most deadly route in the world for migrants — and getting deadlier by the year. Before the Adriana went down, the number of fatalities during the first three months of 2023 had already reached its highest point in six years, at 441 people. And during the first half of this year alone, according to UNICEF, at least 289 children have drowned trying to reach Europe.”
“A painful history almost invariably precedes anyone’s decision to embark on a journey as dangerous as those the migrants of that ill-fated ship undertook. “One Syrian father had been heading for Germany, hoping to help his three-year-old son, who had leukemia and needed a treatment unavailable in his devastated country, an area that the U.S. invasion of Iraq first threw into chaos and where war has now deprived millions of health care.”
He drowned.
Three hundred fifty Pakistanis fled their country where the U.S. still maintains counter-insurgency operations via drones and air strikes. The influx of Afghanis and the insurgency has seriously damaged the local economies prompting men to leave in order to make a living to support their families.
To make this treacherous journey the migrants had to leave from Libya. That country has quite a grim history to be the debarkation point for so many migrants. A U.S.-led invasion in 2011 toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi, leaving Libya divided between two competing governments and a collection of affiliated militias.
In such a chaotic setting, as you might imagine, conditions for migrants transiting through Libya have only continued to worsen. They were awful to begin with. Now they are simply dreadful and terrorizing.
On the Adriana at sea, some 13 hours after the first migrants first called for help, the Greek Coast Guard finally responded, sending a single ship with a crew that included four armed and masked men. Many on the trawler, seeing masked men, probably thought they were smugglers or working with them. They also might have feared that they and their children, however young, would be set on rafts to continue drifting at sea, as had happened recently with other migrant ships approached by the Greeks.
If that sounds far-fetched, then consider how you would feel if you’d been adrift at sea, hungry, thirsty and fearful for your life, when men in another boat, armed and wearing masks, approached you, further rocking your boat?
Their bodies will not be recovered from the depths of the Mediterranean. Nobody gave a rat’s ass about the drowned.
Meanwhile at America’s southern border, the migration north continues for those needing to seek a better life. They come from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela and Cuba. And, of course Mexico.
Ask yourself this: Why is there’s no one from Costa Rica, Belize or Panama?
The migrants fleeing north to our border are leaving political repression, oligarchical dictatorships, gangs and abject poverty. They have nothing to lose.
These migrants are not “illegals.” They have only to reach the United States and request asylum. That is the law. Old Joe tried to make it “easier” by allowing asylum seekers to register in their own country at our diplomatic facilities and also required that anyone that did not do so must seek asylum in a country they pass through on the way here.
That ruling was struck down last week in Court. Old Joe is appealing.
The oligarchical dictatorships are countries we have supported of decades. We didn’t want them to be “leftist” – you know – like supporting land reform or such. Gangs run rampant in these countries. If the citizens of these countries could see their way to a better life at home, they would stay there.
Meanwhile, Texas installs razor wire on the border, puts blocking floats in the Rio Grande and apparently encourages guards to push men, women and children back into the water. I’m sure Governors Abbott and Desantis would be more than willing to put troops at the border to fire on the “invaders.”
Meanwhile no one is picking our tomatoes and oranges and young “illegal” boys are dying in meat packing plants.
“Give me your tired, your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”….”
Today’s tale is about Marty Decole Wagner, assistant to Lt. Gov. of Alabama Will Ainsworth who once called Cole Wagner “a whiz-kid” and a “bright, young guy”. Cole managed the Lt. Governor’s relations with the Alabama state Senate. During his time with Ainsworth’s office, Wagner attended events with the lieutenant governor,. ”I’m proud of my staff and their hard work serving the people of Alabama.”
Cole, 32 was also a major force in the anti-abortion movement in the state. He was chair of the Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama, as well as an Alabama Department of Education employee in government relations.
The Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama announced in 2018 that it would campaign for the passage of a state constitutional amendment against abortion rights on that year’s November state ballot. Abortion is now illegal in Alabama following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last year.
“Passage of Amendment Two on the statewide ballot will allow Alabama to begin protecting unborn life as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Wagner said in 2018.”
“The Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama is tasked with educating voters about the constitutional amendment and providing them with accurate and truthful information while, at the same time, refuting falsehoods and misinformation that may be disseminated by pro-abortion forces within the state” declaring the state recognized “the sanctity of unborn life and tod he rights of unborn children.”
Indeed. a bright, up and coming good Christian man, fighting to save the unborn. Working for the Lt. Governor. Liaison with the Alabama Senate. Working with the Department of education. Chairman of an anti-abortion group.
A good right-winger. Probably bans books, attacks gays, doesn’t believe in teaching true history, opposes “woke.”
Well, last week he was arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a child younger than 12.
“The allegations against Mr. Wagner are serious, tragic and shocking,” the state education department said in a statement. “While he was employed by our department for only a few months, Mr. Wagner has been terminated effective immediately.”
Cynical old man that I am, I can see him now. After a hard day spouting the usual right- wing bullshit, working to turn women’s bodies into government incubators and desperate to save the “unborn,” he relaxes that evening in front of his computer watching kiddie porn.
toritto 