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The retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy means President Trump has another opportunity to solidify a conservative/corporate elite/white supremacist agenda while the historic win of 28-year-old Latina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over 10-term NY congressman Joe Crowley, shows why the Republicans are fighting so hard to cement their ideology into the system with lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

And while the nation is transfixed by Trump’s three-times-a-day assault on the constitution, the citizenry, their children and their children’s children, are being robbed and their way of life degraded.

Commenting on the 2018 Long-Term Budget Outlook by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Michael Peterson, Chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation had this to say: “Today’s report confirms that our nation’s fiscal outlook is on a dangerous and unsustainable path. With substantial imbalances between spending and revenues projected well into the future, we are on course to burden America’s children with trillions more in debt and hurt their economic opportunities.”

Any claim we had to be the shining city on the hill has been lost, as the ruling elite, in tacit collusion with Russian oligarchs, work to control and use the citizenry of the United States, each to their own ends. The Russians want Trump, their useful idiot, to remain exactly where he is, effectively disrupting alliances and weakening the U.S. long term. Anything they can do to assist him and those who are with him in the midterm elections, they will do.

For the White supremacists, Trump is their Great White Hope come alive and giving them what may be their last taste of absolute power. Nothing will sway them from his side. And as for the rich, well, with the masses preoccupied with just surviving, the rich and their minion are able to romp through the tax laws and pillage like deed thieves, “all nice and legal-like,” and then retire to their estates to wallow in our money.

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The interesting thing is that as big and bad as they are, the African American community has proven we can stop them, and stop them all coming at the same time. Did it before and can do it again. That is why they are so afraid of us and make us the targets of voter suppression tactic all across the country. Serious voter suppression tactics aided and abetted by a Republicanized Supreme Court.

And we can safely assume that overt voter suppression is only the visible part of the agenda. The other and potentially more deadly, is the hidden assault through social media and the internet. Based on public testimony by all of the U.S. intelligences agencies saying that the Russians worked to subvert our elections and will be back at it, we should expect they may already have in place a campaign, or series of campaigns, ready to be responsive in a divisive way to a crisis in the community, or just a general campaign to make the viewer less likely to vote.  The only defense is to flood the digital space with positives vibes and actions, as a counterpoint to negative messaging. Stay alert out there and watch those hot buttons.

Cuomo / Nixon

I remember growing up and my mother saying that when something political was happening, a Jewish person always asks, “What does this mean for the Jews?”   And in looking at the contest for governor between incumbent Andrew Cuomo and challenger Cynthia Nixon, the question is, “What does it mean for African-Americans?”

One litmus test item would be ethics. Being anti-corruption is very pro-Black, because the corruption usually involves taking something away from Black people. Not only from the loss of tax revenue which hurts all, but from the real estate considerations and illicit deals that foster gentrification and corrupt development in our neighborhoods.

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Ethically, Governor Andrew Cuomo and President Donald Trump both have the same aspirations, to control any investigation of them and their associates. The difference is that Trump only wishes he could halt Special Counsel Robert Muller’s investigation as easily as Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission when investigators began to come too close to his office. Ethics reform is not coming from this governor.

One can imagine a second litmus test being education: Cynthia Nixon’s bold, aggressive and wholistic plan for education is not pie in the sky as the governor would portray it, but rather what must be done for Black children to achieve an equal shot at life, from birth to college.   To call that wishful thinking, is to say our dreams are impossible and that is unacceptable.

Like former actors-turned-California-governors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cynthia Nixon is no lightweight and she is not beholden to good-old-boy political and financial relationships and understandings. She’s free to fight the progressive fight and she has nothing to lose, except probably some sleep.

There’s about 75 days between this week and the September primaries and there are things that can change in the blink of an eye. Cuomo can ask soon-to-be former Congressman Joe Crowley about that.

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