Murder and Rapes of Indigenous Women and Women in General

by | May 24, 2022 | Life

Murder and Rape of Indigenous Women and Women in General

I recently read an article on violence against women, but especially indigenous women. Although we are 22 years into the 21st Century,  American women continue to be raped and/or murdered at a very high rate. However, as much as they are suffering, their plight pales when compared with attacks against native American women. Thankfully, a federal bill was updated, improved, and reauthorized back in 2013. More on that later in this article.

How much more likely are Native women to be murdered?  Indigenous Women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than all other ethnicities!

  • Murder is the 3rd leading cause of death for Indigenous Women (Centers for Disease Control).
  • More than 4 out of 5 Indigenous Women have experienced violence (84.3%) (National Institute of Justice Report).
  • More than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native adults (83 percent) have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime.
  • Slightly more than 1 in 3 Native American Women [34 percent] are raped in their lifetimes.

Who is committing these crimes?

Although the exact number of victimizations per person is unknown, it is clear that most American Indian and Alaska Native victims have experienced at least one act of violence committed by a perpetrator who is not an Indian (97 percent of women and 90 percent of men). Fewer victims (35 percent of women and 33 percent of men) have experienced one or more acts of violence by an American Indian or Alaska Native perpetrator.

These statistics illustrate the need for the sovereign right of federally recognized tribes to criminally prosecute non-Indian perpetrators. Until this bill was updated 9 years ago, federally recognized tribes did not have this authority, even for crimes committed on tribal lands. This gap in jurisdictional authority provided immunity to non-Indian perpetrators and compromised the safety of tribal communities.

The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 partially corrected this problem by providing special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction to federally recognized tribes. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that women in general, are victims of numerous assaults and murders. In 2013, the following federal bill was updated and reauthorized.

REAUTHORIZING THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT: KEY PROVISIONS

While tremendous progress has been made since the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was first enacted, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking are still significant problems facing women, families, and communities.

  • Domestic violence causes 3 deaths a day to women
  • 1 out of 4 women have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner.
  • 1 out of 5 women were raped in their lifetimes.

The VAWA bill, signed into law by President Obama, made targeted expansions to address the needs of especially vulnerable populations. Here are the Key Provisions.

  • Researchers estimate that for every woman killed in a domestic violence homicide, nine more are nearly killed.
  • The bill integrates screening for homicide risks throughout existing VAWA programs and requires states to develop goals and activities to reduce domestic violence homicides.
  • Native American women suffer from one of the highest rates of domestic violence. The bill closes gaps in jurisdiction and recognizes the authority of tribes to prosecute domestic violence crimes against Indian and non-Indian perpetrators
  • The bill addresses high rates of dating violence and sexual assault on college campuses by requiring colleges and universities to provide information to students about domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and inform students and staff about the number of these crimes that occur on and near campus.
  • Colleges will be required to create and disseminate policies describing the protections, resources, and services available to victims to help them safely continue their education.
  • Sexual assault is one of the most underreported violent crimes in the country, and victims often suffer long term physical and emotional trauma.
  • The bill creates state grant funding for law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim services to work together to respond to these crimes and helps law enforcement agencies tackle their backlog of rape kits.
  • The bill addresses the high rates of dating violence and sexual assault experienced by teens and young adults. The bill will help schools, youth organizations, and domestic violence agencies work more effectively with youth and engage young people in stopping violence before it starts.

Although we’ve seen tremendous progress over the years reference opportunities for women, and women’s rights, it’s very said to learn that some things never change. I wish I could come up with a solution, but I don’t have one.

The Impact of Alcohol On Our Lives

by | Apr 8, 2022 | Life

The Impact of Alcohol in Our Lives

Everyone knows having fun and/or celebrating in our culture is almost always associated with alcohol. Hey, someone just graduated or got a new job, let’s open a bottle of wine and celebrate. When single men or women want to meet someone, where do they go? It’s almost always suggested that can happen at a bar. I never perceived meeting the woman of my dreams at a bar, but that’s just me.

The relationship between alcohol and fun is a concept almost everyone accepts as perfectly normal. But I never understood why people think like that. I’m one of those rare Americans who never consumed a single drink, and I don’t believe having fun or celebrating means alcohol is an integral part of the process. I never had a glass of wine, I did taste beer once on very hot day, and I never tried whiskey.

There’s a prevailing myth that a small amount of alcohol, such as one glass of wine a day, is good for you. More on this later in the article. But let me start with a boyhood experience which helped formulate my lifelong attitude towards drinking.

When my brother and I were growing up in Brooklyn, we literally lived in the schoolyard, where we played basketball and football every day.  When I was about 13 years old, I remember going to the schoolyard on a Sunday morning to play basketball. There was a guy named Billy, who was about 19 years old, and he wasn’t playing with us as he normally did. Billy was sitting on a park bench looking miserable. I asked the older guys what was wrong with him. They told me Billy went out drinking Saturday night and had a hangover, that’s why he doesn’t feel like playing basketball.

I then asked the older guys, if drinking gives you a hangover and makes you feel miserable, why do people do that. Of course, I never received a good answer.  Many decades have passed since that boyhood experience, but I still vividly remember the visual of Billy looking like a zombie. After all these years, I still don’t understand why people do that to themselves.

Thankfully, I never had any desire to smoke or drink. When I was a young guy in his early twenties, I would go to dance clubs or parties and have tons of fun dancing and laughing. I always wondered why so many people felt the need for alcohol in order to relax and have fun. When I was at those dance clubs or parties, I often saw one or more people, who were drunk, slobbering over themselves, acting like an imbecile. As an impressionable young man, I would ask myself why someone would do that to themselves. Of course, I never came up with a good answer. But I knew that I would never become one of those fools.

It’s essentially the same mind-boggling question I ask about cigarettes. If smoking causes cancer and an array of serious health issues, why do people smoke?

I regularly watch real life murder mysteries [Dateline, 20/20, Investigation Discovery, 48 Hours] and I’ve seen so many stories about people who are murdered, and alcohol played a major role. Family members of the murdered victim often describe alcohol as a major factor. Sometimes if she was lucky enough to be a survivor of an attack, the wife or girlfriend would tell us the relationship with their husband or boyfriend was normal, unless he was drinking. Of course, the boyfriend or husband was almost always drinking. That’s when the verbal and physical assaults started, and often led to murder.

Putting aside murders, how many marriages were destroyed because of alcohol?

Many murders are committed by a perpetrator who is under the influence.

We know, or you should know, that DWI motor vehicle accidents cause over 10,000 deaths annually in America. In addition to fatalities, how many serious injuries and/or property damage accidents are caused by drunk drivers every year? I’m sure the number is huge.

We become very righteous when it comes to illegals drugs, but we accept the negative impact of alcohol as a routine part of our lives. Yes, I realize I’m talking about people who take it to an extreme, but it’s still something worth thinking or talking about.

Just as with the health issues caused by smoking, I read many articles which discussed the impact of alcohol on your body. I remember reading several research articles which talked about liver and brain damage as a result of routine drinking. Man, even if I had a desire to drink, those articles scared me so much, I would never consider it.

My father, who was not a heavy drinker, enjoyed having a few beers after he came home from work every night. He died at a relatively young age, primarily from cirrhosis of the liver. Mom, who was not a drinker, was 22 years older than dad when she died. Was there a correlation? If there is, would you want to live an additional 22 years?

There’s been a medical myth being spread for over 2 decades that a small amount of alcohol was actually good for you. One of the myths was moderate drinking helped protect you against heart attacks. I never believed it and now we know that isn’t true! For more than two decades, I’ve been reading health and fitness research articles from a guy named Dr. Mirkin. His summary of the latest scientific research on the relationship between smoking and liver damage, destroyed that myth. If you want more info, visit his website at https://www.drmirkin.com/ where you will find a wealth of articles on medical research reference health and fitness.

Finally, nothing I said in this article was directed at anyone who enjoys an occasional drink. Come on, virtually everyone I know has a glass of wine or a beer when they go out. I’m not criticizing somebody who derives pleasure from an occasional drink. If you enjoy a glass of wine or an occasional beer, go for it. I just want people to think about alcohol and how it negatively impacts our lives in so many ways.

JFK Assassination – Another Delay in Releasing Government Records

by | Oct 23, 2021 | Life, Politics

On October 22, 2021, President Biden, just as Trump did during his administration, delayed the planned 2017 release of the remaining information on the Kennedy Assassination, still hidden in the National Archives. The new deadline for releasing the remaining records is now December, 2022. Biden blamed the latest delay on problems at the agency with Covid-19. Maybe that is a legitimate concern, but it once again raises the question of why and/or what is the government hiding from the American public.

President Biden said, “Some of the information regarding Kennedy’s death on Nov. 22, 1963, remained off limits to “protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” Hmmmm…….

JFK was killed on November 22, 1963. That was almost 60 years ago, and our government is still hiding assassination records. Let’s review a timeline of the investigation and the release of government records.

  • The Warren Commission Report, otherwise known as a “Rush to Judgment”, a report very few believed was credible, was released on September 27, 1964.
  • Here’s what really sparked interest in the assassination. The government decided to hide the Warren Commission filles until 2039. Are you serious? Everyone immediately asked why.
  • In 1976 The House Select Committee on Assassinations was commissioned to investigate the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Their investigation stated there was probably a conspiracy to kill JFK
  • I’m not positive, but after Oliver Stone released his award-winning JFK film in 1991, a public outcry actually worked. The Assassination Disclosures Act, otherwise known as the JFK act of 1992, directed the release of those Warren Commission files to the American people.
  • October,1992: The House passed the JFK Act, which required the creation of an Assassination Records Review Board to review which records should be released. A deadline for the release of the records was given, 2017.
  • From 1994-1998: During these four years, millions of pages were released to the public, but then the ARRB was disbanded. Although a large cache of information was in fact released to the American public, much of it was redacted. Those redactions were allegedly set to expire in 2017, but I don’t believe that happened.
  • The JFK act passed 29 years ago, but the process hasn’t been completed. Almost 16,000 documents still haven’t been released to the American public. And much of the redactions, which were supposed to be removed, still exist. Any reasonable person should be asking why.
  • The CIA allegedly retains approximately 7 key records on the assassination.
  • Just as his predecessor, Donald Trump did during his administration, President Biden delayed the release of remaining records until December, 2022.

The above hopefully outlines what happened to the JFK investigation over the past 58 years and where it stands today. I must admit, like many people my age, I’ve always been fascinated by this highly flawed investigation. Now I’m going to explain why after all these years, I’m still interested in the case. Here we go.

Almost every reliable investigation proved that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. There is no reliable evidence contradicting this conclusion, or even indicating, there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.

But here are several key questions which have never been answered. This is why many people are clamoring for the release of the assassination records, which have been kept secret by our government for almost 60 years.

  • What was Oswald’s motive?
  • Did Oswald act on his own or was he hired to assassinate JFK?
  • What was Jack Ruby’s role?
  • Was Ruby a concerned citizen who angrily reacted to the assassination by killing Oswald?
  • Or, as many people believe, was Ruby acting on the behalf of organized crime members? That would be Florida Godfather Santos Trafficante Jr, who had a connection with Cuba, and New Orleans Godfather, Carlos Marcello. Many believe those two hired Oswald, and then ordered Ruby to silence him after the assassination.

I’m confident we will never know what really happened. But I would feel much better if the U.S. government would stop hiding almost 60-year-old files and release them to the American public.

The Alternate Reality of Trump World

by | Aug 4, 2021 | Life, Politics

I often talk about the alternate reality of Trump World where facts, logic, documentation, and the truth are irrelevant. Their inability to deal with reality and facts in a logical manner, seriously places our democracy in jeopardy. How scary is that? But it’s even worse than I imagined. They listen to FOX and an array of right-wing websites, which repeatedly push absurd information, such as conspiracy theories, which they readily believe. I don’t know if it’s stupidity, or if the false info simply jives with their personal beliefs about those who despise their hero, Donald Trump. I suspect it’s a combination of both.

Let me start with a caveat that millions of Trump voters are NOT part of an alternate reality. But in my opinion, a very significant majority definitely make up a cult where their hero can do nothing wrong. It’s no different than the Germans who worshipped Hitler in the 1930s. Yes, it can happen in America. Remember, just as Hitler did, Trump spent 4 years successfully imbedding the following thoughts into the minds of his supporters. The Free Press is an “Enemy of the People”, you cannot trust anything they say. That mindset has grave implications for our country.

You should always remember the Supreme Leader of a cult is never wrong. Members of the cult are not allowed to disagree with or criticize their Supreme Leader. When Trump tells his followers something, they do not require proof, documentation, or evidence. In addition, they perceive attacks on their leader as personal attacks against them. Hence, they readily believe the entire government, including the FBI is corrupt, and only Donald Trump stands between them and a corruption. Even though Trump surrounds himself with FELONS, they see nothing wrong with and it does not change their beliefs.

I read a summary of a recent study which revealed, the more Trump supporters are presented with evidence, or facts which contradict their beliefs and opinions, the more they cling to those beliefs and opinions. Hmmmm… very interesting, because those who live in the real world, repeatedly try to disprove those numerous lies perpetrated in their alternate reality by producing facts, evidence, or documentation. But they don’t understand that producing facts and documentation have no impact on the beliefs of Trump supporters.

For example, about 96% of Covid-19 hospital patients are not vaccinated and about 99.5% of those dying from Covid-19 are not vaccinated. Do those scientific facts have any impact on Trump Cult members? Obviously, they do not, I’m confident they perceive scientific data as Fake News. My research reveals Trump supporters believe his speeches, statements, and social media posts are the sole source of information they can trust. They believe the only person with the ability to lead our country back to the 1959 version of America they want, is Donald Trump.

They are people who believe they’re losing their country and their identity. They feel they’re being displaced by communities of color, by feminists and by immigrants. These people are motivated by what they see as an existential threat to their way of life, which is an attack on everything they believe in.

Researchers are constantly trying to analyze Trump’s loyal base via an array of factors. But I would stipulate this isn’t as difficult, or as complex as they try to portray it. Yes, we know people from a variety of economic backgrounds voted for Trump, but in my opinion, the primary determining factors are one’s level of education and race. Please read the following carefully and do not forget this.

  • Eighteen of the top twenty states with the highest levels of education voted for Biden.
  • Eighteen of the 20 states with the lowest levels of education voted for Trump.
  • There are some small exceptions, but Trump’s Republican Party is virtually an ALL-WHITE PARTY.

One doesn’t have to be a research analyst to understand that one’s level of education plays a huge role in their ability to ignore facts, documentation, and the truth. If you add racial identity to the equation, you will often find a Trump supporter. Their inability to understand logic and scientific methodology, places them in a position where they readily accept and believe conspiracy theories. They will not engage in independent research to verify what they are told by Fox, Trump, and/or right wing websites.

But there’s one other huge factor which is almost universally embedded in Trump supporters. Studies of conservatives reveal the FEAR Factor plays an important role in how they think. Thanks to Fox and right-wing media, they believe liberals and Democrats are a major threat to American Democracy. They steadfastly believe those two groups are trying to destroy much of what they perceive as American values. As a result, they have a strong hate and fear of people whom they classify as liberals and Democrats.

I’m going to post a list of comments, which I’ve read on more than one occasion, which comes from Trump supporters. I could create a never ending list you wouldn’t believe, but I think this small sample is more than enough. They are very easy to find as his support forums are everywhere.

  • Let’s start with the obvious. The majority of them believe, despite zero evidence, that Trump won the election.
  • God sent Donald Trump to save America
  • On January sixth, Nancy Pelosi stopped the National Guard from responding to the U.S. Capitol.
  • Many Trump supporters believe the January Sixth attack on the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Capitol Police was a peaceful demonstration.
  • The Pelosi comment reminds me about the old, non-stop bogus Fox story that Hillary told the military to stand down after the Benghazi attack.
  • They refer to Covid-19 as the China virus, because in their world, Covid-19 is a plot by the Chinese government to attack America.
  • A significant number of his supporters believe the federal government is using the vaccine to imbed a micro chip in them. Unbelievable!
  • A significant number of Trump supporters believe the vaccine doesn’t work, is dangerous to their health, or is part of a plan to make Biden look good.
  • The federal government is waging a war against gun owners.
  • All investigations linking Trump to Russia are nothing more than a plot crafted by a Deep State and the FBI. We know they never read the Mueller Report.
  • Trump should have the power to overrule court decisions.
  • Obamacare is horrible, while Trump’s healthcare plan is fabulous. Of course, their preference isn’t impacted at all by the fact that Trump has no healthcare plan. Why would one allow a minor issue like that to get in the way?
  • The actually believe the numerous Republican “voter suppression laws” are just more stringent “Voter ID” laws. As a result, they don’t understand why many Americans are outraged by their party’s attack on the most precious right in a democracy, the right to vote.
  • They believe it is their duty to take their country back. This reminds me of the Tea Party theme when they were formed after the election of Obama in 2008. Their slogan was “Take Our Country Back”.
  • They are the MAGA crowd which believes everything their hero, Trump, does or doesn’t do, is part of making America Great Again.
  • One of Hitler’s themes was “Make Germany Great Again”.