UNPRESIDENTED: The Last Convention

All and all, just another brick in the wall?

Senator John McCain championed American values and left the U.S. Senate as a winner! This week an historically silent majority, 4 in 5 living U.S. presidents, must join #WeThePeople in an UnPresidented movement for the Soul of America.

By Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, August 23, 2020 – Republicans are “very excited” about an unprecedented political convention.  Factions of the RNC will leave the event with either a new vision from a surprise nominee or the reality of repeating history as just another brick in the wall.

"We are going to have the opposite,” said Lara Trump of the Trump Campaign. “Ours will be hopeful and inspirational and patriotic, and you want people at the end of our four days to be reminded that America continues to be the greatest, most exceptional nation in the world.  So, we’re very excited for it," she added.  The Republican National Committee's Executive Committee voted on June 10, 2020 to adopt the same platform the party used in 2016.  “Building the wall” remains as a key component in an agenda to “Make America Great Again.”

According to Reuters, as many as eight Trump associates from the 2016 Trump campaign have been arrested and or convicted.  MAGA Mastermind Steve Bannon has been charged with defrauding Trump supporters in a campaign to the help build Trump’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, prosecutors said.

Some unlawful acts emerging from the Bannon-Trump strategy might actually be defendable in a hybrid form of Republicanism.  For example, Russia claims to be a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government.  However, it hardly reflects the spirit of glasnost (openness and transparency) envisioned during the Reagan-Gorbachev era.

According to the New York Times, Former President George W. Bush won’t support the re-election of Mr. Trump.  People familiar with their thinking suggest that Jeb Bush isn’t sure how he’ll vote.  But, on August 19, @JebBush tweeted, “Why in the world would the President not kick Q’anon supporters’ butts?  Nut jobs, rascists, haters have no place in either Party.”  Senator Mitt Romney of Utah won’t back Mr. Trump and is deliberating whether to again write in his wife, Ann, or cast another ballot this November.  Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, is almost certain to support Mr. Biden but is unsure how public to be about it because a son is eying a run for office.

Prominent Republicans are resisting, though not necessarily engaging in the resistance, to become just another brick in the wall.  They have read the writing on the wall and are looking into political action committees such as The Lincoln Project.

The Lincoln Project, founded by a group of Republican operatives including George Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, brought in $16.8 million.  AB PAC, the super-PAC arm of American Bridge 20th Century Foundation, which was co-founded by David Brock, a one-time conservative journalist, topped $10 million. Both say they are running ads attacking Trump, including in battleground states.  But, with American lives at stake, it’s neither brave nor responsible to just stand against Trump.  Republicans will need to stand up for America.

As more Republicans say they oppose Trump, and raise money to do it, how do #WeThePeople know who to trust?  Democrats tend to rely on grassroots infrastructure and influencers to address the historic “gulf of mistrust.”  As demonstrated in the 2016 the platform, the Bannon-Trump strategy distorts faith to support an alternate truth for a 30% minority.

There’s never been a better time or reason for becoming an envisioned “more perfect union.”  After several draft concepts for a United States, this year’s political conventions could be the last and first move from chaos to community.  

 

Politics as usual between January 2019 and July 2020 has sucked more than $12 billion from the economy.  According to fundraising reports by the FEC, political action committees account for $6,151,777,554.  One PAC among the growing number is one that promotes an alternative to being counted as “just another brick in the wall.”  

Priorities USA presents liberals and conservatives a progressive pathway to nation healing.  The Super PAC is building permanent infrastructure to engage Americans of all backgrounds at all times — not just on the eve of an election. Perhaps some enterprising leader will consider applying some of the $12 billion to end poverty.

Secrets of America’s Dead Presidents

AMERICA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS -- Tucked inside Lincoln's frontal lobe at Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota, is a secret, inaccessible-to-the-public chamber. The vault was designed by the monument's sculptor, Ku Klux Klansman Gutzon Borglum, who envisioned it as a room dedicated to the “history” of the United States.

By Stephanie A. Stradford and Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS July 4, 2020, Trail of Tears, Turtle Island – @realDonaldTrump’s dream for July 4^th   Independence may be his scariest nightmare. More secret service agents have tested positive for COVID-19 as “the beast” moves beyond his 42-month grant of power. On the way to Mount Rushmore, advisors are discovering America amidst secrets of dead presidents.

Pilots for Air Force One plotting a course for the nearest military airstrip must consider real facts about the hallowed Black Hills of South Dakota and somehow present security options in reality TV terminology.  

Ellsworth Air Force Base is named after one of their own.  Brigadier General Richard Elmer Ellsworth (July 18, 1911 – March 18, 1953) was a United States Air Force commander during the early part of the Cold War.  

Ironically, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on 7 October 1952, just five months before Ellsworth died. Ellsworth died on a simulated mission where the terms “Celestial Navigation,” along with “Kairos” and “Chronos” time may unlock some secrets of dead presidents and perhaps quantify reparations for America’s legendary stolen people.

Celestial navigation is the use of angular measurements (sights) between celestial bodies and the visible horizon to locate one's position in the world, on land as well as at sea. At a given time, any celestial body is located directly over one point on the Earth's surface. The latitude and longitude of that point is known as the celestial body's geographic position (GP), the location of which can be determined from tables in the nautical or air almanac for that year.  All true, perhaps, unless air almanacs recorded partial truths about the geography below. 

For example, the infamous Trail of Tears was established 190 years ago when President Andrew Jackson signed Senate Bill 102, i.e., the Indian Removal Act (IRA) of 1830.

Here’s the scary part that’s bringing living presidents to their knees.  You might recall @realDonaldTrump lighting the first firecracker of the season, threatening to rally white supremacists near Black Wall Street.  Imagine, if you can, the lone ranger behind his COVID-19 mask, beneath his inherited sheet, crash landing on the Trail of Tears on his way to the Black Hills.

The Indian Removal Act forced primarily five Southeastern indigenous nations, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, as well as the Fox, Kickapoo, Lenape, Miami, Omaha, Ottawa, Potawatomie, Sauk, Shawnee, and Wyandot (along with a few other smaller ones), to trek up to 2,200 miles- on foot!- from as far as Florida to what’s now known as Oklahoma where the government’s newly created so-called Indian Territory was established.

The term, “Southeastern” in indigenous geography, relates to a significant region on the planet Earth.  The name  “Turtle Island” is a name for North America, used by some Indigenous and First Nations people and by some Indigenous rights activists.

On another part, in the same “Southern” region of “Turtle Island,”  The Lakota Sioux camped in the winter in the Black Hills, following the bison migration from Canada to Mexico.

The first recorded history of occupation came with the Lakota’s first interaction with “America” in 1804.  That’s around the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Lewis and Clark refrained from entering the Black Hills because they lacked governmental jurisdiction and feared the deadly consequences of entering sacred land.

Moreover, the Teton Sioux first embraced Lewis and Clark with gifts and food and in return, Lewis and Clark notified the Indians that the United States controlled much of the Sioux lands under the newly obtained Louisiana Territory by distributing medals to symbolize peace and American citizenship.

@realDonaldTrump’s dream of becoming the fifth face of Mount Rushmore is now his nightmare and an invaluable lesson learned for all the little children learning how to “Make America Great Again.  The fifth face on what we know as Mount Rushmore is either the image of its sculptor’s vision of America, or a reflection on values for #WeThePeople.