Colin Powell’s Final Salute

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell passed away on October 18, 2021, at age of 84. Colin Powell was a Republican who served as the United States first African-American Secretary of State. Powell served twice in South Vietnam. He was wounded while patrolling the borders of Vietnamese- Laotian during his first tour, and he was injured in a helicopter crash during his second. He served under former President Ronald Regan as the National Security Adviser meeting with world leaders such as Soviet President Gorbachev. He later served in former President Bill Clinton’s administration as Chairman of Joint Chiefs briefly. It would be Powell who debated Clinton regarding whether or not gays should be admitted in the armed forces, which resulted in a policy known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” Powell eventually retired from the Army in 1993. 

In 2000, President George W Bush appointed Collin Powell as the 65th Secretary of State becoming the first African-American to serve in that role. Powell was strongly against the second war in Iraq. George W Bush was asked if he spoke with Powell if he should go into war. Bush responded that he did not ask because he knew Powell was strongly against the war.

There is so much that Democrats & Republicans could disagree with Collin Powell about, but what cannot be questioned was his love for country, his strong voice for the African-American community, and the rights for other communities to be treated fairly. In 2008, he shocked the nation when he decided to endorse President Barack Obama who became the first African-American President of the United States. He was very vocal against former President Donald Trump and his administration as well as standing up for many social justice issues. 

Powell was born in Harlem, New York to Jamaican immigrants, likely one of the many reasons he was very active in fighting for the people in Haiti. He also started the America’s Promise Alliance dedicating his life to the well-being of children and youth of all socioeconomic levels. Powell endorsed President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for President in 2020.

Powell was fully vaccinated, but passed away at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland (right outside of Washington DC.) COVID complications, in addition to having multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses your immune response, proved to be fatal for the 84-year-old American. He will be remembered for many things, but ultimately serving his country and her citizens, regardless of political party or ideology.

American Children in Mississippi?

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Mississippi immigration raid… FACTS 

1. On August 7th, 2019, U.S. immigration authorities raided 7 different processing plants in Mississippi and detained 680 undocumented immigrants. 

2. This was the largest single-state immigration enforcement action in U.S. history.  

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August 7, 2019, was the first day of school for many students in America. It was also a day some students will never forget. On this day, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 7 food processing plants in six different cities in the state of Mississippi. US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, Mike Hurst, has been quoted saying that the raids are “believed to be the largest single-state immigration enforcement operation in our nation’s history.” It has been reported that 680 undocumented immigrants were taken into custody while working.

Towns that were raided included Morton, Bay Springs, Walnut Grove, Carthage, Canton, and Pelahatchie. Many of these small towns rely on the labor of an immigrant workforce and the raids would greatly affect production if those taken into custody remained in detainment.

It is still unknown if the employers willingly hired alleged undocumented immigrants or if any knew at all. There will be a legal question of blame that will begin in the aftermath. However, what has been front and center are the children of these workers who woke up on a Wednesday morning and said goodbye after their parents dropped them off to school and waited in vain for their return. This is the American ICE system of 2019. The federal agency was created post the 9/11 attacks during the George W. Bush administration. With its passage in 2002, it is now one of the most powerful federal law enforcement agencies.  

And today, ICE is out of control. 

680 people taken into custody in a single day is unfathomable and the American justice system continues to push the envelope in what is deemed acceptable and outrageous. Americans are constantly being told that illegal immigrants are ‘raiding’ our country and are described as dangerous and criminal. While many citizens and immigrants in this country can be categorized as dangerous, it is unfair and disgusting that our country is seizing people without their due process of law. We are turning into an authoritarian county and labeling people based upon the rhetoric of President Trump. It is disgusting and undemocratic.

Children of parents who are taken into custody are left without proper guardians or care and this is the story we don’t focus on. Many of these children were either brought here or born here and had no decision about their assimilation into American culture. And regardless of their circumstances, where is the humanity in our federal government’s actions? Where is the humanity in policy? Of course, this country has a problem with illegal immigration, but what country doesn’t? We should work to figure out a proper way to address immigration and not use our powers to disrupt and interrupt the lives of immigrants who are actively contributing to the fabric of our nation because of pressure by the president. 

Similar Read: “Newspeak”  

My Fellow Republicans, We Need to (Finally) Have This Talk

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Dear Fellow Republicans,

This is not something I want to do. I’ve hinted about this for years, but my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. This is not something pleasant to discuss, but it is long overdue. I am not doing this because I feel pressure to please ‘the other side’, it is because my faith has convicted me to speak out, and when you feel the Holy Spirit leading you, this message will reach the people it needs to reach.

For too long, we have allowed a darkness to linger in our party. During the early Bush (43) years, we ignored it. In fact, most of our party leaders tacitly confronted it. Fueled by a growing evangelical movement that was less partisan and more racially diverse, there was a movement in the Republican Party to build upon the gains made in previous elections with minority communities, especially the Latino community. George W Bush rode this momentum to two terms by capturing Hispanic-heavy states like Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada. Then something changed, and it opened the door to something that spread like wildfire and has a chokehold on us at this hour. 

It started with several protests that lead to the defeat of Bush’s comprehensive immigration reform. Anxiety about border security was stoked daily by national talk radio hosts and personalities like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. A so-called conservative uprising, fueled by resentment to millions of people who were here illegally, seized control of the party and set the table for something far, far worse. Opportunistic political candidates leaped at the chance to further stoke this anger for electoral success.

Dan Patrick was a provocative state Senator from the Houston area. He owned a talk radio station, and he had a talk show on the channel. Perhaps the most infamous event his show is remembered for is getting a vasectomy on his live show. In 2014, he challenged the sitting Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst, and two other statewide elected officials in the GOP primary. His candidacy, fueled by Tea Party-affiliated groups like Empower Texas, was built upon one slogan, “Stop the Invasion!” He ran ads of people with darker skin climbing over a fence to further stoke the smoldering embers, and by the time the TXGOP convention came around, he was received like a rock star, completely overshadowing every other speaker. 

One year later, another media personality with his own show used the same template and rode it to the GOP nomination and the White House. He took the foundation that Dan Patrick and others had laid and built a national campaign that convinced rural people in midwestern states that illegal immigrants were crossing the border to rape and destroy our country. Now, most Americans believe we need competent border security. In the post-9/11 world, our national security is not negotiable. This does not mean we need to scapegoat groups of people. 

Originally, the consensus argument was, “We support legal immigration, not illegal immigration.” Never mind the intermixing of the terms ‘illegal immigration’ with ‘immigration’, this was the party line used to deflect claims of xenophobia or racism. Then over time, there was a backlash against legal immigration as well. When deciding on what kinds of immigrants we should prioritize (skilled, unskilled, college-educated, etc.), the same people oppose any changes or increases because immigrants would drive down wages. Basically, we are ok with people coming here legally, but we are going to put up every roadblock to prevent you from coming here. Last October, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a survey that measured American attitudes towards immigration. Some of their findings are startling, though not surprising.  They found that “74 percent of Republicans think immigrants are a burden, while only 35 percent of Democrats do.” The generational divide on this point is also significant, with 62 percent of seniors believing immigrants are a burden, but only 32 percent of young Americans. As the Republican party sheds young professionals and college-educated voters to market to older White working-class voters, these attitudes are solidified in the party’s structure. 

In the last 15 years, I’ve had a front-row seat watching the progression (or regression) of the party from a suburban, middle-class party with an interest in Hispanic voters to an older rural, working-class party who openly questions if the person speaking Spanish at the booth in the coffee shop in town is here legally. The reality is the racial and xenophobic anxieties were always there. Party leaders like the Bush family, John McCain, and many others did a good job at diffusing these impulses, or at worse, muzzling them. With the rising influence of social media, these anxieties have been fed by talk show hosts like Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Lou Dobbs. When you combine it with daily Twitter diatribes from the President, you have a nearly unbreakable support system.

Now I realize that many of you have stopped reading out of anger, and some have created new profanities, and most believe I am a gutless RINO sellout. I also owe you an apology. When I saw these cancerous symptoms a decade ago, I did not actively confront it. I would mention it bothered me on a Facebook post, but at political events, I normally walked away instead of pushing back. I let my political ambitions trump what I knew was wrong. I would defend the party against outsider attacks because while my team has its faults, it is still MY TEAM. I knew one day this intervention would have to happen, and the tragedy that took place at the Walmart in El Paso was the final straw.

The terrorist responsible is a 21-year-old man from a middle-class Dallas-Fort Worth suburb that is best known for having the most expensive high school football stadium in the country, and it is the home of Kyler Murray, the 1st pick in the NFL Draft this year. This person drove 600 miles to a majority-Hispanic city because he wanted to ‘Stop the Invasion’. From what has been discovered from his social media activity, he was inspired by the terrorist that executed 9 people at the church in South Carolina, and he was a passionate believer in the anti-immigration rhetoric used by our president. No, I do not believe the President is liable for the shooting, but it needs to be a wakeup call. A mentally disturbed racist using identical language of one of the most powerful political figures in the state, killed fellow Americans because he was blinded by hateful rhetoric that is used interchangeably by many political activists and elected officials. 

In the youth group room at my childhood church, there are walls painted by students as an expression of what it means to be a Christian. On the wall behind where my youth pastor would preach is a school of fish pointing one direction, with one fish facing the other way. Sometimes, you must buck peer pressure because your peers want you to go along with something you know is wrong. Right now, this could be that moment, and I accept that.  

I will leave you with this. Ask yourself this one question. Is an illegal immigrant a human being? I am not asking what you think needs to be done to solve this complex issue. This is a simple yes or no question. If you asked this question on your social media account, will your friends and allies be able to answer this simple, basic question? If your answer is ‘yes, but…’ or anything other than a simple ‘yes’, you have successfully dehumanized a group of people. If you call yourself a person of faith and fail this simple test, you need to ask yourself what idol you are actually worshipping. The world and this country needs a vibrant, healthy Republican Party. We cannot treat or ignore the symptoms any longer. We must treat the disease instead. I am under no illusion that the treatment will be tough, and the immediate side effects will not be pleasant, but we can choose to take our medicine and start the recovery or let the disease kill us. The choice is yours.

 

Your loyal friend,

 

Luke

Your Opinion, Please LEAVE Home Without It

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On June 26, 2015, my birthday by the way (shameless plug I know), the United States Supreme Court decided to amend the US Constitution and grant same-sex couples the right to marry. I think it’s important to note that this decision was made despite the United States Supreme Court being headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was a George W Bush appointee and very conservative. Even if a particular state did not have gay marriage, all states had to recognize gay marriage. In its aftermath, contrary to the opposition belief, civilization and traditional marriage hasn’t faltered in the two years since the Supreme Court decision. Despite the world turning out just fine, some people’s opinion on the idea of legalized same sex marriage is an issue that must take precedence over stuff that actually matters. Unfortunately, those same people have real power and influence.  

On Friday June 30, a mere two years and a few days removed from the watershed Supreme Court decision, the nine-member Texas Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court’s ruling favoring the city of Houston’s decision to extend health and life insurance benefits to the spouses of city employees in same-sex marriages. The court ordered the case sent back to the trial court in Houston. In summary, the Texas Supreme Court said that while same-sex marriage is legal, the reach and ramifications of the rights of gay couples have yet to be determined. Whatever that means. Here’s the thing, if the United States Supreme Court states same-sex couples have the right to marry, that would mean there aren’t any contingencies. Right? So what is the issue?

I can tell you. Sexual orientation and the opposition to it in any fashion is usually wrapped in someone’s “faith”. I really don’t buy that, I think its pure bigotry, but I’ll go with “faith” for the sake of argument. Even still, that’s your opinion. Your faith is your own theological taking, not the worlds. More importantly, no one should suffer or have their life altered because of your faith, especially when those alterations come via the hands of the government. There are real world consequences when someone’s benefits are altered.

A common phrase people throw around when stating off the wall political references is “well it’s just my opinion”. No it’s not just an opinion. An opinion is Pepsi or Coke. LeBron or Jordan. Nas or Jay Z. A political opinion is a DECISION, its impactful, it’s alerting. A kneejerk political opinion has real world consequences. In our country, political opinions have gone unchecked, more extreme, polarizing, and caused national issues to become stagnate.  

A viewpoint and an opinion is worthless when a same sex couple walks into a doctor’s office in Houston next week and unbeknownst to them, their coverage is frozen and they have to pay out of pocket. That $250 out of pocket cost now causes them to be able to get a part on their car fix, and have to only use one car. And then and then and then (in my “Dude where’s my car” voice), but in all seriousness, one unneeded decision on the part of the Texas Supreme Court alters countless lives. For what? There’s nothing wrong with having an ideology, we all have them. From taxes to foreign aid, we must have different viewpoints to have lively debates and discussions. There’s something very dangerous when that ideology becomes fixated on stances that are non-secular, separatist, denies access to services, and quite frankly wastes time.