America Is Dead, Long Live America

April 7, 2023

As one of America’s two major political parties continues to spew countless lies and threats against their perceived enemies, even as far down the ladder as members of school boards and board of elections, their rallying cry is always the First Amendment guarantees the right to do so. And yet Thursday, the Tennessee House of Representatives held a vote to expel three members of the opposite party for having the audacity to join a peaceful protest against Second Amendment gun violence just days after America’s latest school mass murder, this time in Nashville, in which three adults and three children died.

In a rather unexpected twist to this story, The Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Black Representatives, while allowing the third, a White woman, to retain her seat, even though all three were accused of the same wrongdoings.

The whole world has been watching for seven years now, in a state of shock, though many undoubtedly are enjoying every single bit of it, as America’s democracy teeters on the brink of total collapse.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

This Is Who We Are

November 20, 2022

Another day, another mass shooting in Second Amendment America, this time at Club Q, a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in which five innocent people were shot dead and another eighteen wounded. After every senseless mass shooting, political leaders at every level always declare, “This isn’t who we are.”

I have news for them, this is exactly who we are.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

Presidential Pardons

January 20, 2021

How is it possible, hypothetically speaking, a president can commit any crime they choose while in office, then grant him or herself a full pardon, exonerating themselves for every crime they may or may not have committed not only during their presidency, but from date of birth until date of pardon?

How is it possible that a president, or anyone, does not have to be charged with a crime, let alone convicted, to be pardoned? Making this scenario even more bizarre, is that a president can pardon a person who committed a crime on their behalf. Or a family member, or four who did so. How is it possible that a president can even pardon their own business(es)?

I’m no constitutional scholar, and far from knowledgeable, but there are only two restrictions to presidential pardons. One is that the crime must be federal, the other is that the crime must not involve impeachment proceedings. Making any such circumstances even more strange is that a president can pardon anyone, including themself in secret. Let me repeat that, a president can secretly pardon themself, and only be exposed if they were to be charged with a crime.

This cannot possibly be what our founding fathers had in mind two and a half centuries ago. Thankfully, this is just a hypothetical conspiracy and can never, ever happen here. Right?

Steven H. Spring
Earth

The Most Admired Man In America Is Donald Trump. Really?

January 1, 2021

How is it possible that a man who has told an astounding 250,000 lies in just four years chosen as the most admired man in America? Making this feat even far worse than it possibly can be, is that many of those lies have been about the COVID-19 coronavirus. What does this say about us as a society, as Americans, or as human beings?

Declaring at first the virus will mysteriously disappear by Easter, then pronouncing it to be a Democrat hoax that will vanish the day after the November 3 presidential election, Donald Trump has blood on his hands, responsible to date for the deaths of 346,500 Americans. If you compare America’s corona statistics to Canada or Germany, we should have a fraction of the death count. And, don’t forget his incredible announcement that we should drink some Clorox bleach followed by a shot of Lysol as a preventative measure or a cure, I forget which.

Donald Trump is the most admired man in America? No, Donald Trump is the most deceitful man in America. Not to mention the most corrupt and incompetent president ever. America is in the midst of a presidential coup d’etat, led by the current president who lost his reelection bid, and Vladimir Putin cannot believe how easy it is. Putin is conquering America without firing a single shot.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

Russia Cyber Attacks America And Not A Word Is Said About It

December 18, 2020

With the news getting ever more worse since breaking Monday regarding Russia (allegedly) pulling off a major cyber attack on America, involving maybe up to a dozen departments or agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for maintaining this nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, however, some experts are predicting the news could get even more horrendous in the coming days when the full extent of the attack is known.

I’m no nuclear physicist, nor computer programmer for that matter, and maybe it was due to watching one too many science-fiction movie or television show, but my first thought was if it were possible for a hacker to launch our nuclear arsenal against every major metropolis in America?

Even more astonishing, is that there has been not a single word said about the attack by anyone associated with this administration. With up to a billion dollars in loans coming due in the next few years, I guess the president doesn’t want to piss-off his banker.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

Presidential Pardons

December 2, 2020

With Trump administration pardons dangling more frequently these days than mistletoe, not to mention the truly breaking news late Tuesday night that the Department of Justice is investigating a potential bribery scheme involving presidential pardons, I guess it is only fitting the most corrupt administration in American history would go out in a blaze of glory. Or is it gory?

How is it possible, or better yet legal, for a president to pardon all of his pathological lying, criminal associates, along with his family members, of all crimes they committed on his behalf and most likely orders? Surely this isn’t what our founding fathers had in mind nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. This is what third-rate dictators in third-world countries do (apologies to third-rate dictators and third-world countries). This is not what America, once the world’s beacon of justice and democracy does.

The only question remaining is; Will the president grant himself a pardon come the morning of January 20? As a former reality television star, why not do it live on TV?

Steven H. Spring
Earth

Can America Survive November 3?

September 24, 2020

How is it in America, which likes to boast that it is the world’s all-time greatest democracy, that one of the two major political parties has for at least the past decade, if not much longer, is doing everything it can to ensure that registered citizens cannot exercise their constitutional right to vote? Their tactics include purging of voter rolls, eliminating voting machines in Democrat-heavy areas, or removing entire polling locations, again in Democrat districts. These last two acts have resulted in people being forced to stand in line to cast their ballot in past elections up to eight hours.

Now, the current occupant of the White House, who lost the 2016 presidential election by nearly three million votes, is upping the purge even further by declaring he wants to eliminate absentee voting entirely, despite the nation being in the mist of a world-wide pandemic, in which it leads the world in both the number of cases and deaths. If he cannot do that, he is threatening to shut down the counting of actual votes election night. With an attorney general, who will go down in history as the most corrupt, supporting his every move, it doesn’t take a political scientist to conclude that scenario entirely possible.

The president has even started talking to state officials about ignoring the vote of the people and directly declaring him the winner on the grounds of mass voter fraud. Republican leaders stand idly by, obviously lying to appease their dear leader, fearful of being ridiculed in official presidential tweets. Making matters worse, the president is constantly lying about how fraudulent mail-in voting is, despite no evidence supporting his claim. Compounding the situation even further is the fact that Russia is once again participating in our election process.

America should be doing everything possible to ensure that all citizens can cast their ballots, yet the Republican Party is doing everything possible to see that they cannot. With the president having recently declared there will be no peaceful transfer of power if he loses, we are facing a historic catastrophe come November 3, with the fate of the nation hanging delicately in the balance.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

To “B” Or Not To “b” (Apologies To Willie Shakespeare)

July 2, 2020

Before reading the op-ed column in last Sunday’s Columbus Dispatch by Jenice Armstrong, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, in which she detailed the new custom of capitalizing “B” when referring to Black people, I had noticed this practice for several weeks in both the newspaper and on television. My viewpoint regarding categorizing people by the color of their skin, although convenient still seems racist even if capitalizing the first letter. Ironically, for the most part, black nor white does not really describe one’s actual color of their skin.

Why is it that skin color is only used to describe Black people or White? We no longer refer to Oriental people as being Yellow. Nor do we refer to America’s indigenous people as Red, except, that is for the National Football League’s Washington Redskins. I have written numerous letters to the NFL, NAACP and Washington’s owner during the past several decades regarding the derogatory nickname, calling for its banishment.

While reading Armstrong’s article, the thought occurred to me if this new capitalization procedure would apply to the word white. Before the week was out, I found the answer when reading an article by Ben Walker of the Associated Press that appeared in Wednesday’s sports section when he wrote former baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain “Landis broke up exhibitions between Black and white All-Star teams” in his article about why Landis’ name should be removed from Major League Baseball’s annual MVP award.

The non-capitalization of the letter “W” in the word white did not bother me as a White person; it just looked funny capitalizing one color and not the other. That bothered me as someone who suffers from being a neat freak, perfectionist and OCDer.

Steven H. Spring
Earth

Will COVID-19 Help Elect Joe Biden Or Re-Elect Donald Trump?

May 6, 2020

With the president pressuring the fifty governors to open up their states from self-imposed stay-at-home economic shutdown, in an attempt to improve his probability to win re-election, steps need to be taken now to insure all Americans get the opportunity to cast a ballot safely in the November 3 election, an election that just might be the most crucial in this nation’s history.

All along, medical experts have been opining that a second wave of the coronavirus will strike come fall, and considering everyone of the thirty states that have started opening up their economies this past Friday are in violation of the president’s virus task-force guidelines (i.e., fourteen days of declining new cases (several states had their highest number the day before opening) and extensive testing (there isn‘t, as the U.S. ranks forty-second worldwide per capita)), the only thing that experts might be wrong about is that it will probably occur much sooner. During the 1918-1920 incorrectly named “Spanish Flu” pandemic, in which an estimated 50 million people died, including 675,000 Americans, it was the second wave that was responsible for the most casualties. That second wave was blamed on massive troops movements during the final year of World War I.

If these educated predictions come true, our state and national politicians need to start preparing for the coming election in which mail-in voting just might be the only safe way for all Americans to cast their ballots. Unlike Wisconsin, which forced its citizens to stand in line for several hours to cast a ballot during their recent primary, Ohio took the opposite approach, conducting their primary mostly by mail-in voting. Despite optimistic rhetoric espoused by members of the Republican Party, I tend to listen to medical experts and their warnings are dire. As such, I recently wrote Ohio’s Secretary Of State, expressing my concern regarding the November general election.

I concluded my letter to Secretary Frank LaRose with the assumption that mail-in voting, and especially mailing out ballots to all registered voters, in lieu of having to submit an application to receive a mail-in ballot, will never happen, and we both know the reason why. Let the president explain why; “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”

The following is my letter to Secretary LaRose.

Steven H. Spring

 

April 24, 2020

The Honorable Frank LaRose
Secretary Of State
The State Of Ohio
22 North Fourth Street, 16th Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215

Dear Secretary LaRose,

Having submitted my mail-in ballot a couple of weeks ago, and especially after reading an article in the April 22nd Columbus Dispatch with the headline “Mail-in voter turnout looks low,” I wanted to write to express my concern regarding the upcoming November 3rd general election. As a life-long political junkie, growing up on the south-side of Columbus, the 1968 Hubert Humphrey vs. Richard Nixon contest was the first that I can remember, as I became a teenager eight days after that election.

Even though I watch roughly ten hours of news daily (less during weekends before COVID-19 put an end to all sporting events) and the first thing I do every morning is to read the paper, I had no idea that I needed to submit an application to receive a mail-in ballot until my next door neighbor told me. That might be because I no longer watch local news, with its “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Since the vast majority of Americans no longer read a newspaper or watches much televised news, if any, that might explain why only twenty-two percent of Ohioans who are registered have already voted.

Even during non-pandemic times, the percentage of Americans who vote is usually dismal, especially so during non-presidential election years. People in other countries risk their lives in order to cast a ballot, yet the majority of Americans could care less. If twenty-two percent of registered Ohioans have voted this primary election, what is the percentage of eligible voters having done so? I first raised this question with then Secretary Of State Robert Taft way back in 1996.

Our government officials, both national and state, should be doing everything possible to make it easier for Americans to vote, yet be it purging of voter rolls, eliminating polling locations and the number of voting machines, cutting back the number of early voting days or photo ID requirements, one political party is doing everything they can to prevent citizens from doing so. During the past two presidential elections, many Americans waited in line for hours, some up to eight, to vote.

What occurred up in Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago during their primary was a disgrace, when the Republican-controlled legislature overturned Governor Tony Evers executive order instituting state-wide mail-in voting because of the pandemic, which was eventually ruled in the Republicans favor by the United States Supreme Court after going through first the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then the United States District Court.

With numerous medical experts opining that a second wave of coronavirus will attack our nation this fall, which based on the results of the so-called “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918-1920, could be disastrous since we are barely capable of handling the initial wave, I write to urge you to have your office ready for another mail-in ballot election and have all Ohioans be aware of what it takes to vote in this manner. Instead of having voters submit an application in order to receive a ballot, why not just mail a ballot to all registered voters.

We both know that will never happen, and the reason why.

Sincerely,

Steven H. Spring

Copy: Governor Mike DeWine
Representative Warren Davidson
Senator Sherrod Brown
Senator Rob Portman

COVID-19; What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

April 21, 2020

With the president in the process of convincing the forty-three percent of Americans who believe every word he says (did he really have the audacity to state during Monday’s press briefing that “I cannot tell a lie”), that it is time to put America back to work, urging governors to rescind their stay-at-home orders, one must remember what happened during the 1918-1920 pandemic.

After the initial wave of the so-called Spanish Flu, which was originally thought to be only a very serious case of the common flu, it was the second wave, attributed to massive troop movements during the later stages of World War I, which resulted in most of the estimated 50 million deaths worldwide, including 675,000 Americans.

Medical experts say the key to getting the nation up and running is extensive testing, yet so far we have tested only slightly more than one percent of the population. Clinical testing of the numerous COVID-19 test kits on the market show false-positives and false-negatives are at least fifteen percent. One expert stated that due to high worldwide demand for testing, we could run out of the chemicals needed to process the tests in three weeks. Then, there is the scenario of what happens when a person accurately tests negative one week, yet becomes infected the next?

With a president who seemingly is more concerned with his re-election campaign than the welfare of this nation’s citizens, are we doomed to prove truthful the old maxim that those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it?

Steven H. Spring
Earth