Category: Bob Small

Castro For President?

Castro For President?

By Bob Small

Texan John Anthony Castro is running for President while suing the most recent ex-President.  He is a Republican with a history as a union organizer, who launched a successful living wage campaign.

At the onset of the Iraqui invasion, he resigned from West Point in protest of the “illegal” invasion believing Iraq was not involved in 911.

His anti-corruption efforts helped to bring arrests in Laredo. 

The graduate from Georgetown Law School has a wife and two children.

In his Plan for America he believes we must teach “the best of the best in every field from both a conservative worldview and a liberal worldview”. He would include civics and social studies taught by Noam Chomsky (my ital).

In another part, he asks “Why are we not feeding America’s students?”    His solution includes expanding “the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to cover our nation’s college students”

There’s also a Topic Heading entitled  “Universal Pre-K for Working Parents”

Reading all this, one has to remember he is a Republican.

Castro began his lawsuit against Donald Trump on Friday, Jan. 6th “asking a judge to declare Trump constitutionally ineligible to hold Office” under the 14th Amendment., which states that “No person”  ..”shall be a President” who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion “ 

Castro gives his rationale in this Newsweek article 

“Now we have this contest of who can be the most extreme, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. And it’s icing out the moderates, which actually make up the vast majority of the Republican Party. And then they wonder why they keep losing.” 

To see the docket report: Castro v. Trump 9:2023cv80015 – Justia Dockets & Filings 

Not everyone thinks Castro should be suing Trump

Castro holds enough interesting opinions that one hopes he somehow is included in some of the 2024 discussions.

Castro For President?

Marple Battle Continues To Rage With PECO

Marple Battle Continues To Rage With PECO

By Bob Small

Marple residents have been battling PECO since November 2020 concerning the power company’s plans to build a natural gas “reliability station” in the township.  There’s been a number of twists and turns. The Marple Safety Coalition (MSC) is the group leading the opposition.

If the anti-PECO signage seen as one drives through Marple is any indication, the MSC has a great deal of support.

WHYY has extensive  coverage of this dispute.

“What’s happening now in this community is beautiful. People are really stepping up.  All of our local and regional elected officials are supporting us,” said Julie Baker of MSC.

This includes Democrat State Representative Jennifer O’Mara and State Senator Tim Kearney.

PECO hasn’t helped itself by refusing to answer expected and reasonable questions.

“It’s against PECO’s policy, and industry standards, for utilities to share the locations of their facilities,” said the company.

For the record, the facility will be a Sproul and Cedar Grove roads.

PECO is part of Exelon Corp. and not, as many think, a public utility.

And thus, not held to the standards of a public utility.

Exelon is the nation’s largest energy delivery company.

In March of 2022, the Pennsylvania Utilities Commission in March 2022 gave PECO a special exemption to the neighborhood zoning code,

“(This) reinforces a precedent that energy companies can basically do as  they please, anywhere they want, because they have the upper hand in telling the PUC what they think is reasonable and in the interests of the public,” says Greg Fat of MSC.

The MSC says the proposed gas expansion plant is not related to natural gas production but to increase in residential gas consumption,”

Only Texas produces more natural gas than Pennsylvania though this may change soon.

Meanwhile Nether Providence and Swarthmore are battling PECO to save some historic trees.

That’s only 3 of the entities in Delaware County that have current disputes with PECO.

Are there more to come?

Marple Battle Continues To Rage With PECO

Special Election 7 For 2023

Special Election 7 For 2023

By Bob Small

In what will be the seventh special legislative election in Pennsylvania this year, the new state representative in the historically Democratic 21st District will be decided on Sept. 19.

Sara Innamorato resigned her House seat to prepare for her run against the GOP candidate, Joe Rockey, for the newly-created position of Allegheny County executive.

Lindsay Powell is the chosen candidate of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee to replace her. She is the director of workforce strategy at InnovatePGH and is a member of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh.

She would be the first African-American female to represent the 21st.

Erin Connolly Autenreith is the GOP nominee. She is a realtor who chairs the Shaler Township Republican Committee.

Her father, Thomas Connolly, was the Mayor of McKees Rocks (1982-86), and her mother, Olga, was on the Mckees Rocks Council for 30 years.

@qburgh • Allegheny County Republicans chose Erin Connolly Autenreith

Ms. Autenreith’s social media accounts indicate her participation in the January 6th demonstration, according to this claim, and other “extreme positions”.

GOP picks nominee for special election to replace Innamorato in 21st …

Ms. Autenreith says that certain issues, such as abortion, be decided through a referendum. She spoke against political polarization.

The 21st District includes parts of Pittsburgh as well as the adjacent suburbs of Etna, Millvale, Reserve and Shaler.

There has never been a GOP representative for the 21st District. Frank J. Pistella, a Democrat, served the longest, for 27 years from 1979 through 2006, and Dom Costa served for a decade, from 2009 to 2019.

An argument could be made for term limits, given all of this.

Special Election 7 For 2023

Oppenheimer Renews A-Bombing Debate

Oppenheimer Renews A-Bombing Debate

By Bob Small

The movie Oppenheimer has renewed debate over the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan on Aug. 5  and 9, 1945. In discussion of this “weapon to end all wars”, a recent Yahoo News 360 article lists seven other articles that examine the U.S. decision from various viewpoints. All articles are recommended.

“Like many Americans, I was taught growing up that my grandfather was spared the burden of invading Japan and very likely dying because Harry Truman dropped a pair of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ended the war. The main function of such stories is to justify a terrible war crime,” states David Klion of The New Republic.

The Washington Examiner  makes a strong case that a Japanese surrender was not imminent.

“For starters, the Japanese were not remotely ready to surrender to the Allies, and the alternative to dropping the bombs was a full-scale land invasion of the islands. Conventional attacks, including regular bombing, would have resulted in widespread civilian casualties as well as the long-term destruction of Japanese infrastructure.”

It should be noted that the Japanese deaths and injuries due to radiation should be included in the final calculation of the bombs’ toll.

This LA Times article reflects on other Hollywood films about the bombing.  

For some different perspectives, see these websites.

A director tackles the story of Japan’s own nuclear experiment

7 Most Devastating Movies About the Atomic Bomb to Watch Next

For some reason,  Godzilla  is not included in movies.

One of the incidents mentioned in this article is “the coup attempt”. “There’s a coup attempt—soldiers running to the palace, trying to break the record of the Emperor’s surrender speech so that he can’t surrender in the morning. It’s that close.” 

The Brandywine remembrance, which we have attended, will  be held on Aug. 9.

For thoughts on the myth that “military power prevents conflict”, see  What Does the Anti-Nuclear Movement Think of from Slate Magazine

Also from the Yahoo 360 article;

The Impossible Story of the Bomb – The Ringer

The dark — and often misunderstood — nuclear history behind Oppenheimer …

Oppenheimer Renews A-Bombing Debate

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

By Bob Small

Full disclosure: I’m a registered Green Party member having participated in Green Party presidential campaigns, those of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. I haven’t been active for a while, but Cornell West might just re-activate me.

There’s a lot to know about Dr. Cornell West.

He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and  taught at Harvard and Princeton. He has authored 20 books, the latest being Prophetic Fire, about 20th-century African-American leaders. He’s included in music albums and  movies. He is well known for his participation in various protest movements. He is married to a psychologist, Iranian immigrant named Dr. Annahita Mahdavi West,  a professor at Long Beach City College.

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

In June, West announced he was running to be 2024 candidate for the MPP (Movement for a People’s Party), which he founded  with other disgruntled Sanders supporters.

However, after some issues arose about MPP,  Chris Hedges introduced West to the Green Party and he changed his plan.

“America must be a nation among nations that is committed to justice,” and West. “I’ve said over and over again: if and when I win I’m not going to the White House until everyone has a house.”

Jill Stein, a former Green Party presidential candidate, is managing West’s campaign.

The decision does not sit well with all on the Left. Joan Walsh, writing in The Nation, doesn’t believe West should be running.

I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell anyone not to run for president.

With regard to West possibly taking votes from Trump, Caitlin Johnstone says this on the site formerly known as Twitter: One of the stupidest things all American liberals believe is that if the Green Party candidate drops out of a presidential election the antiwar socialists who would’ve voted for them will go ‘Oh darn, I guess I may as well vote for that warmongering capitalist Democrat then. . . .I guess it has something to do with Democrats believing they’re on the ‘left’. So they see a candidate running on a left-wing platform, and they think ‘Hey, they’re stealing our votes!’ When really they’re just a bunch of closet rightists who real leftists hate.”

Thanks to radical brother John Murphy for sending me this quote.

Last question — why do only Democrats use the term “spoiler” ?

Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler

Small Town Controversy In Country Music

Small Town Controversy In Country Music

By Bob Small

So when I do yard work, I tend to change the radio stations on my headphone from classical music to sports to KYW to country music, depending on what’s on. I get bored easily.

WXTU 92.5 is in the mix, but my liberal friends don’t know. So on a recent afternoon, the lyrics of Try That In A Small Town grabbed me and made me listen:

“Got a gun that my grandad gave me,

They say one day they’re gonna round up”

This was written by four people other than the singer Jason Aldean.

Then I had to watch the music video,  a mash-up of Antifa, BLM, Jan 6th and whatever, along with some actual crimes featuring both Black and Caucasian perpetrators.

So the commentariat has been all over this, few quotes worth repeating:

Lebron Hill from the Nashville Tennessean said: “For a second, if you could, take away the left or right, liberal or conservative and ponder this question: Is the only way to push our values to fearmonger about the other side? (my italics)

At this point,  let Jason Aldean speak for himself. (Warning: he’s more eloquent than the song he sings but didn’t write.)

He says, “I was present at Route 91 where so many lost their lives, and our community recently suffered another heartbreaking tragedy. NO ONE, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart”

Route 91 was the site of a mass shooting in 2017, at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, where 60 people were killed. Aldean was performing on stage when the shooting started.

Of course there is a response song, “Sundown Town”, a parody by Adeem the Artist, who actually wrote his song! 

“I just read the words and say ‘That was good’

As long as it implies a gown and hood”

There’s a lot more on the internet about these two songs, but the unanswered question is how do we get people from all political sides to discuss the problem that everyone agrees is real, of daily violence in our society, without resorting to useless solutions?                          

Small Town Controversy In Country Music

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

By Bob Small

One of the more well-known second-tier candidates for the upcoming presidential race is African-American Larry Elder, aka Lawrence Allen Elder, the 72-year-old California radio talk-show host of The Larry Elder Show. In the “crime” section of his campaign web site, he says that one reason he’s running is to support “the Enforce-the-Law Act” to rein in the George Soros-backed prosecutors and hold them “accountable”.

He’s known for his candidacy in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, in which he garnered an astounding 48 percent of the vote!

Elder grew up in South Los Angeles and is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School. This article lists 14 links at the end, including one to an article stating that Elder’s ex-fiancée has become his biggest critic, and another one entitled “Elder and Newsom: A Special Relationship”.

He opposes college-admission racial preferences as “hurting more qualified students” and says that “the people that supposedly benefit end up dropping out. You put somebody on a campus where the pace is too fast, and they’re not going to be able to keep up.”

When he was first offered a job as a talk show host, he discussed it with his then-wife, Cynthia, a physician. According to him, the conversation went like this:

Larry: “I think of talk radio as stupid, shallow, and glib”.

Cynthia: “It is, you’d be good at it”.

Elder later stated that this “gives you an idea of that marriage”.

His private life has taken several twists and turns since then.

For another view of Larry Elder, see Opinion | The Off-Mic Moment That Changed My View of Larry Elder

Larry Elder is also a prolific author.

Note: Only a Black man could get away with titling a book Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card — and Lose.

Lastly, Larry Elder is challenging the RNC debate limits.

RNC debate limits are bad for the party and the American people

“Restricting speech is the way of the regressive left, obsessed with censorship on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms. Republicans have long championed free speech.”

Hopefully, some of the second-tier GOP candidates will be included in the upcoming debate(s).

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

Larry Elder Time Has Arrived?

Was Allen Ginsberg A Pedophile?

Was Allen Ginsberg A Pedophile?

By Bob Small

There have been a number of accusations — such as this Substack article — that Allen Ginsberg was a pedophile.

Ginsberg was a celebrated Beat poet. He died in 1997.

There is no  evidence of  “a smoking gun” such as someone coming forth with a claim that Ginsberg raped him while a child.

Everything is circumstantial.

Let’s start with Ginsberg’s explanation for joining NAMBLA which stands for North American Man/Boy Love Association and is an advocacy group for pedophilia.

“I joined NAMBLA in defense of free speech,” he said in an essay. “. . .NAMBLA’s a forum for reform of those laws which members deem oppressive, (it is) a discussion society not a sex club. “

And then there are the accusations by writer Andrea Dworkin — who went from being an admirer of Ginsberg to wanting him dead.

“He was exceptionally aggressive about his right to fuck children and his constant pursuit of underage boys,” she said. “I did everything I could to avoid Allen and to avoid conflict.” 

In defense of Ginsberg, a lot of academic and literary celebrities who weren’t pedophiles were speaking in support of pedophiliac rights five decades ago.

Among the signers of a 1977 petition that called for sex between adults and children to be decriminalized were Michael Foucalt, Jaques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

In my senior year of high school my eighth period English Teacher, invited us to stay for a short post-class session on “Modern American Poets”.  Ginsberg was the first one, followed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, etc.  

Over the years, I met Ginsburg at seminars and poetry readings, and though I never was able to present him at any of our Reading Series, I did present his husband, Peter Orlovsky, at The Painted Bride Arts Center.

I said all that to say all this — as a Philly poet, now deceased, would say– I don’t believe, a quarter of a century after his death, that we have any real proof of his pedophilia. 

I do hope I’m right.

Some other websites to peruse:

Who We Are · NAMBLA

The Legacy Of Allen Ginsberg: Poet To Pedophile – Cosmoetica

Is there any proof that Allen Ginsberg was a pedophile?

‘I’m a pedophile, but not a monster’: Man writes confronting essay …

Was Allen Ginsberg A Pedophile?

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

By Bob Small

Fifty-five-year-old North-Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley feels “we have to be unified” and “it’s time for us to believe”, and that he is the person to lead us.

Blinkley is among those running for president in 2024

Binkley is president and CEO of Generational Group, which has a dozen regional offices in the US.

He co-founded the Create Church with his wife Ellen, where they are the lead pastors. They have five children.

He also founded the Way to Freedom. The Way to Freedom is a 501 (c) (4) organization that seeks to rejoin conservative voices with compassionate voices.

A quote from his interview with D Magazine is “when we return to God, return to trusting each other, and return to wisdom to govern, our nation will never be the same.” 

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

Binkley contrasts the time he has spent working for various companies with a 1995 church mission trip that he made to Guatemala, and discusses the ways in which the business part of his life intersects with the church part. He adds that “God really spoke to me that business was really part of my calling.”

He had some interesting ideas that he describes in the Word and Way interview.

While supporting the GOP’s positions on marriage and abortion, he says that, as a pastor, he believes that “the Democratic Party, in some ways, has a stronger position” on issues like “caring for the immigrant or for the poor”. He adds that “God is neither Republican or Democrat”.

A Google search for “articles about Ryan Binkley” yielded a list of fifty-some web citations spanning twelve pages. Among these is the Daily Beast article Texas Pastor and Businessman Ryan Binkley Announces Run for President.

Binkley’s ability to get his name out there online and his financial backing are both impressive. But it is doubtful he will become the first “Pastor-in-Chief” since Jimmy Carter.

On the other hand, the article below points out that unlikely things do happen.

Nobody Thought Jimmy Carter Had a Chance in the Presidential Primary

Could we end up with a President Binkley?

Could Ryan Binkley Be Pastor-in-Chief In 2024

New York Times Fear Of Transing

New York Times Fear Of Transing

By Bob Small

The  New York Times,  “the newspaper of record”, seems to have a fear of transsexuality itself, more than a fear of being dubbed “anti-transexual”, according to FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting).

Nine front-page articles were surveyed from last year; six were anti-trans, and only two dealt with the issues that human beings who transitioned would face. Transexuality is a multi-faceted issue deserving even-handed coverage, as gays and lesbians are  now  covered by the  New York Times. If the  New York Times  can’t provide this, maybe it should stick to sports.

In February, “about 200  New York  Times  contributors signed an open letter calling out the legacy newspaper for its coverage of transgender issues.”

The demand that the  Times  should “hire at least four more reporters and editors who are trans” smacks of blackmail.  Can only a transgendered person can be fair on the issue of transgenderism?

The  Vanity Fair  piece  quotes a town hall speaker who said, “There are people high up on the paper who think we are on the wrong side of history, and there is no public indication that anyone is grappling with that seriously.”

The Guardian  has another perspective.  Guardian  reporter Arwa Mahdawi says, “I do think the  Times  possesses a unique haughtiness in thinking it is above everyone else and that it performs ‘pure’ journalism that has nothing to do with advocacy.”

New York Times Fear Of Transing