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Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black “A democracy for white Americans, but simultaneously a dictatorship over black Americans.”— MLK

January 19th, 2021

Part two of a series: – Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest

You and we have seen the power of one Episcopal priest – white. He was able to subvert the democratic process by using money and power. Not the power inherent in why he was called to the ordained priesthood nor giving a thought to what God was calling him to do.

Using his earthly power and money he did his own thing. Something that would bring him – Senator Danforth – more power and money and earthly prestige rather than something that would help bring in God’s kingdom on this earth.

He brought us one Josh Hawley. A man who did what he thought he was called to do, subverting and attempting to destroy American democracy. Senator Hawley saw himself, with the blessing of his backers, as being the one to lead the charge calling Americans to overturn a legitimate election for president of these United States and put a fascist, authoritarian government in its place. He was, after all, backed by the aristocracy of these United States. He was close to the powers which put Donald Trump into office as United States President.

Hawley has been living an autocrat’s dream and the nightmare of those who choose to live under a democratic government. Backed by One who used the money and power he inherited ( Senator Danforth) to help install a government more in tune to corporate America’s need for an authoritarian government which could subvert, overturn, patronize and so much more the lives of the people it needs to produce and carry to fruition its programs, projects, products and/or services.

Before there was a Josh Hawley to spend time, money and other resources on, for Senator Danforth there was a Clarence Thomas and probably even more. Clarence Thomas is a man who many believe should never have been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, but who was with the advice, consent, power and money of the Rev. Senator Danforth.

Clarence Thomas, a black man, widely disrespected in the African American community and even more so amongst many white Americans. By manipulating the system the way only one with power and money can manipulate, the objections to Clarence Thomas were cast aside. The people who could have shed more light onto who he was and his character were not allowed to testify in the hearing at which Anita Hill was allowed to testify and then nothing. Senator Danforth’s inability to see those he is moving to a more powerful place in the light of who they are and what they might contribute to or destroy the society over which he is majorly responsible for placing them carries a lot of negative weight for what he has done for and with Hawley and Thomas.

Thomas is a man whose wife recently sent her love to the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021 during their time of uprising against the government her husband serves as a Supreme Court Justice. The insurrectionists who tried to destroy democracy along with its Capitol buildings. Insurrectionists she has been encouraging and supporting for quite some years.

Clarence Thomas cannot be so above board with his actions, but he clearly supports his wife. As a Supreme Court justice, what does it mean when his wife goes the distance and sponsors 80 buses to transport those who were a part of the “Save America” rally on January 6, 2021. The Thomas family aided and abetted those trying to overthrow a legitimate United States election in favor of putting in place a government which was, apparently, not legitimate from its beginnings, but which had philosophies, beliefs, actions of which Virginia Thomas approved and for which she spends a great deal of time publicly backing. I think it can be safely said and by his own admission that Clarence Thomas is now a Supreme Court justice thanks to Senator Danforth – white Episcopal priest.

Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest – is the other American side of that story. The side on which he is vulnerable to white Americans who feel they can obliterate African Americans who step out of their place and have institutionalized ways to establish a dictatorship over even in 2020 and even in places like Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cities which constantly brag about their ‘openness’ and where Black Lives do not matter – especially those of consequence; those that dare criticize white Americans in power positions; those that are not subservient to the autocracy. In fact, many believe Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts are among the most racist cities in these United States.

We recently wrote many Bettina Network articles about what was happening to Dr. Bennett. We wanted everything to be public because we were taken off-guard by the way he and his wife were attacked and having had decades of civil rights experience we knew where those attacks were headed from the day Rev. Dr. Bennett, after brain surgery at MGH, was forced into Sherrill House against his will when he was told places like Spaulding Rehabilitation Center were not open to him and he had no choice.

After his discharge from MGH, Dr. Bennett and his wife were told an ambulance was going to immediately take him to Sherrill House. Neither Rev. Bennett nor his wife, Marceline Donaldson – who was his Health Care Proxy – had a choice in the matter. What was the problem? Two fold -Sherrill House was under quarantine for the flu at the time and they did not know about that and were not told Rev. Bennett was being sent to a rehab center after brain surgery which was under flu quarantine. When, having arrived at Sherrill House and they discovered the quarantine and they complained there was no doctor available. Not physically present nor available via telephone or other communication possibilities. So their choice was to go home where they had a set up which was far superior to what they were exposed to at Sherrill House.

What they discovered through that experience were the racial discrepancies between Sherrill house and Spaulding. Once you turn from Huntington Avenue into Jamaica Plain the medical institutions mostly turn from white to brown to black.

A black man – a black family which did not choose Sherrill House as a place for rehab was forced into that institution and told Spaulding Rehabilitation Center was not where they could go. When they checked, there was space available so what was the problem. No one ever said, however, their investigation showed a clear color problem.

That was not the first nor the last such situation with which Rev. Dr. Bennett and his family had to deal during some very difficult times in their lives. Because Dr. Bennett needed brain surgery, it was as though the society had gone crazy with glee over being able to be the dictators over this African American man and his family. Because Dr. Bennett needed surgery, he was exposed to the worse and discovered there were other elderly African Americans who had and were going through very similar situations with no help and had to face the overwhelming and very racist power of “Protective Services” in Massachusetts. This was supposed to be an organization to aid the elderly in need. In fact, it is an organization which pushed into families that do not need nor want their help.

Actually, elderly and protective services is out of control and their racism, sexism, sins against immigrants virulent and long standing. It is instead becoming the means of making the minority elderly vulnerable to many health care institutions with no choice of any kind as they enter or are pushed into this world. Most often their assets are drained and redistributed into the white community so the minorities die with a life of hard work spent accumulating assets for their children to have better and more comfortable lives taken away and given to the white establishment – the white autocracy/aristocracy with many in the middle to upper classes assisting, most without even realizing the damage being done and not interested.

That was the first in many steps to drag down and attempt to destroy the end of life of a man who achieved and received a Harvard University Doctorate; had a life of service to the Episcopal Church; taught in its seminaries; taught as an adjunct professor at Princeton University, Atlanta University and several more. A man who served on the National Council of Churches Lectionary Committee using his work and study to help edit scripture to make it more available to both sexes. Well, maybe that wasn’t so good since the FBI had to intervene at that point because the members of that committee received death threats – through the National Council as well as at their homes. The minorities we have heard from or heard about include African Americans, Jews, Latina’s, Immigrants, and more.

We could go on for pages with how Dr. Bennett spent his life, but that is all well documented. We are outlining here the way this society tried to strip him of the quality of his life, making horrible the end of his life, his assets, his reputation and so much more. Who? Which institutions? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts through its Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Particularly its ‘Protective Services”

Recently, they were dubbed #1 in the state. That was not even surprising to us because we knew the forces which support such institutions would be coming to their assistance to try to drown out what Dr. Bennett and his wife were exposing.

The real “tell” of what was in store for Dr. Bennett happened when 8 white Cambridge police arrived at Dr. Bennett’s home demanding to remove him from his home to put him into the psych ward at Mount Auburn Hospital. Besides the eight white policemen there were TWO ambulances, five or six EMT’s and assorted people. No one knew where all the people were coming from until a neighbor of the Donaldson-Bennett family saw and talked about all the attention the police and their coterie were receiving as people came running from the Charles River to see what was happening with all the police and people and police cars parked and left in the middle of the street around the Bennett/Donaldson home.

The police arrived to force Dr. Bennett into the Mount Auburn Hospital psych ward. He was just a couple days out of MGH after brain surgery and had no relationship to Mount Auburn Hospital. He had a very low opinion of Mount Auburn Hospital, had expressed his concern for the racism he knew about as a minister. His family insisted that if he had to go someplace it be to the hospital he left just days earlier. After some back and forth the police agreed. They did not, however, arrive with any Court papers to back up their demands. After quite awhile and with Marceline Donaldsons’ insistence they produced such a paper which was a Section 12 – used by the police to hospitalize people who have had too much to drink and were a public nuisance; people who overdosed on drugs; people having a psychiatric break of some kind and are endangering the public, etc.

Rev. Dr. Bennett did not fit any of those categories. In fact, once in MGH having been forced into the psych ward after leaving days earlier having been discharged from the Neurology Department and having undergone the indignity of having been examined against his will by one of the MGH psychiatrists, Dr. Bennett was found to be someone who should not have been so treated. They saw no reason for his having been picked up and forced into the hospital in the first place. No medicines prescribed no reason for his having been forced into MGH nor did they find any reason to keep him. So the Section 12 was lifted and Dr. Bennett was sent home.

Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services are the group – the state agency which signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett. No one at that agency knew Dr. Bennett – no one there had ever interviewed him – no one had any kind of relationship with him of any kind. They would not have known him if they passed him on the street.

Dr. Rebecca Warner, the psychiatrist who had Dr. Bennett so “committed” said on the papers she signed to send him to the hospital with which she was affiliated – Mount Auburn Hospital – where several African Americans have complained of their very racist treatment – that she did not know Dr. Bennett, had never met him, had never examined him, had never been to his home – but she claimed his home was ‘not safe’. So much for medical ethics and why does she still have a license to practice?

After Dr. Bennett was released from MGH it is as if enormous anger broke out amongst the people at Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Who did he think he was, after all. And then the fun started.

Attorney James O’Sullivan, who was given an award by the Archbishop O’Malley for the great work he supposedly does amongst the poor, especially the poor elderly, was in Court the very next day with an “emergency motion.” As we did research on Attorney O’Sullivan and the award he was given we discovered that the last recipient was ex-Attorney General Bill Barr. There is something wrong in the Diocese that this is the case, especially with the elderly because much suffering has happened and been condoned by Archbishop O’Malley with such an award.

O’Sullivan is actually someone known to use and from this experience abuse “emergency motions”. He asked the Court not to notify Dr. Bennett of the hearing, claimed he was not capable of participating, claimed Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and asked for “Protective Orders” so Dr. Bennett would not be further hurt, etc. Attorney O’Sullivan was acting on behalf of his clients, but he had never met Dr. Bennett nor his wife nor his adult children yet he talked knowingly about someone he was asking the Court to forcibly remove from his home and family and put into a psych ward for reasons not even clearly spelled out in Court.

The “Protective Orders’ were against Dr. Bennett’s wife who Attorney O’Sullivan claimed was abusive to Dr. Bennett and because of that Dr. Bennett was in grave danger. The Court refused to give Attorney O’Sullivan the “Protective Orders”.

What Attorney O’Sullivan did not tell the Court that this was not his first move against Dr. Bennett on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. He did not tell the Court that his first move failed because it should not have been filed in the first place. He did not tell the Court the hospital into which Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services tried to force Dr. Bennett dismissed and lifted the Section 12 his clients tried to get against Dr. Bennett. As we further investigated we found Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective services were trying to have Dr. Bennett committed for an extensive time in Mount Auburn Hospital’s psych ward and they had no reason, authority nor anything else to have pushed themselves into this family nor to try such a thing.

Leaving out the most important information when Attorney O’Sullivan went to Court, what he included was the lie which said Dr. Bennett needed to be represented by attorneys, but said Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and could not afford attorneys. Since O’Sullivan claimed Dr. Bennett could not afford attorneys and asked for a state appointed attorney, the Court appointed Cheri Myette to represent Dr. Bennett without Dr. Bennett’s knowledge – without anyone speaking to Dr. Bennett or his family about all of this and Dr. Bennett still not being notified of any motions filed in Court against him and with Attorney O’Sullivan moving ahead with an ex parte motion to take away Dr. Bennett’s freedom in violation of state law. To circumvent state law, Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of his clients constructed what we have been told has been done many times against elderly black people in Massachusetts and other places – a series of court events which actually did not take place as represented, but put in place to be able to “win” against Dr. Bennett who then had all of his rights taken away from him as though this was a fascist Court system which sets up a case without the defendant knowing anything about the case against him and putting in place what was needed to move against the Defendant giving a public relations set of motions, etc. so the plaintiffs – Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services could gain their ends without going through the democratic process, but coming out with the result they wanted with this very fascist way of functioning. It is common today and many are in great pain because of this allowed way of functioning violating everything this country and its court system stands for.

Attorney Myette immediately filed a motion – in Rev. Dr. Bennett’s name without Rev. Bennett’s knowledge or consent. That motion had Dr. Bennett swearing to the attorneys claims that he was “indigent” and needed the state to pay his bills and that his wife was guilty of elder abuse against him.

Dr. Bennett knew nothing about that motion. In fact, that motion stayed very “secret” for quite some time because it was immediately impounded by the Court as soon as it was filed by Attorney Myette. We found out about it when someone put the papers showing that through the mail slot at the Donaldson/Bennett home with copy of the motion and more papers having to do with the workings of SCES and some of the papers needed for Dr. Bennett which had been withheld.

Because the Court appointed an attorney for Dr. Bennett even though Robert Bennett knew nothing about any of this – the Court moved ahead and gave the attorneys who were clearly conspiring with each other over this the right to have Rev. Bennett picked up by the police, forced out of his home for a second time and forced into the psych ward of MGH.

When the police arrived with this Court order, copy of which they again refused to give to Dr. Bennett or his wife or to anyone else in the house at that time, but insisted on taking him out of his house and if he refused they would carry him out. They said to all present that if anything was broken in the process of chasing all over the house looking for Dr. Bennett to drag him out of his own home, it was not their fault or responsibility and they claimed the Court gave them the authority to go anyplace in the Bennett/Donaldson’s home that they had to go to get Dr. Bennett and drag him out if necessary. They claimed Dr. Bennett was in grave danger because of the abuse they accused his wife of and because he was alone with no one else to care for him.

That was March 6th at 6pm. A Friday. Dr. Bennett’s wife was not allowed to see him from the time he was shoved into MGH for more than a week. She had to have the attorneys they hired go to MGH to negotiate some way for her to see him. When she tried to see him she was told many different things like Dr. Bennett did not want to see her; Dr. Bennett had been to court to get a restraining order against her which said she could not come near him; Dr. Bennett was asked and declined to see her. In actual fact, Dr. Bennett knew nothing about this. He was told his wife had done this to him and didn’t want to see him ever again. All of this time, Dr. Bennett was being drugged apparently by MGH people getting him ready for his “independent Exam” by Dr. Rebecca Warner. When she was finally able to see him he didn’t recognize her, he was so groggy he couldn’t keep his eyes open and more.

What was happening at the Bennett/Donaldson home at the time Attorney O’Sullivan was in court describing Dr. Bennett as being alone, destitute with an abusive wife and no one to care for him or protect him? Dr. Bennett, his wife, his adult daughter, his adult son and his wife were about to sit down to a candlelight dinner. They spent the day cooking and preparing for this celebration meal because Robert’s surgery was a success and they were giving thanks. Robert Bennett did not have dinner that day because the police and hospital were so concerned about him they shoved him in a corner of a room and left him there.

When Dr. Bennett arrived at MGH and was shoved into a room, he was immediately started on anti-psychotics; anti-seizure medications, hallucinatory drugs, blood thinners forced on a man just days from brain surgery, plus 10 more medicines. 10 days later Dr. Rebecca Warner shows up at MGH to do what she called an “Independent Exam” although she is affiliated with Mount Auburn Hospital. She – the one who signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett for which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid her $2,000 because, after all, Dr. Bennett was “indigent”. So many people and institutions road that “indigent” gravy train that our minds have been twirled around many times trying to nail down all of it.

Dr. Warner appeared 10 days after Dr. Bennett was forced to take all of the above drugs, which he did not want, but did not have a choice. Examining him those 10 days later – a man who did not want to be there and constantly wanted to leave, but was kept on an alarm blanket on his bed so nurses would be notified if he tried to get out of bed; he could move to a chair next to the bed, but that was also alarmed and he could not move without someone moving him; being forced to take medicines which could do serious and long term harm to him was then given an “Independent Exam” – which he already had been given the first time he was taken to MGH, but the circumstances were very different. This time, Dr Warner found him to be “incapacitated”. Those drugs were not put on his medical chart until months after Marceline Donaldson discovered the discrepancy and insisted on an answer as to why. They knew about the drugs because they were sent home with him with MGH insisting that he be required to continue to take them daily or he would be brought back to the hospital for a more “permanent” commitment.

How did would they know if Dr. Bennett was not taking the drugs? Dr. Bennett’s family was forced to accept a Home Health Care Company coming to the house daily – 5 or 6 people each day going in and out of the house during the time of the Pandemic. They were supposed to give him the pills and watch while he swallowed them. And – one thing that resulted from this – Dr. Bennett was sexually abused in the process. His family reported all of this to the Massachusetts District Attorney and the Attorney General’s Office and to the office of Elder Services. None of them paid any attention and in spite of the fact that there were witnesses, none of those institutions bothered to contact and/or interview those witnesses.

Before his transport to the MGH he was walking, talking, in a good state of mind and friends interacted with him – he walked to Harvard Square – sat by the river to soak up the sun and more. When he was sent home from MGH some 5 weeks later he was in horrible shape. He had no shoes on – his feet were swollen and his shoes didn’t fit – he hadn’t been able to get out of bed for five weeks and at Dr. Bennett’s age that could have been a death sentence or one which would have produced an “incapacitated” person for the rest of his life. He looked as though he had been homeless on the street for years. and he could not walk. That is what MGH and SCES contributed to Dr. Bennett’s “health”. It was disgraceful and heartbreaking.

The Court Order said Dr. Bennett was being taken to MGH not for medical reasons, but because of elder abuse and because of that they had to immediately take him from his home. They treated him in a disgraceful way. He spent the five weeks in a space 7 by 9 feet and he shared that space with unused hospital equipment. He shared the room with someone else who had two beautiful picture windows, the sun coming through, a chaise lounge kind of chair he could sit in during the day and a lot more. Dr. Bennett didn’t see the sun because curtains were kept drawn around his bed. If you entered his room you would not know anyone else was in that room.

We are finding others who have gone through the same thing. The elderly are particularly vulnerable because most who have gone through this have not fought civil rights battles the way the Donaldson/Bennett’s have nor have they had any other fights so they are ‘taken over’ by people like Nora Al Wet-Aid and Angela Clary with the acquiescence and consent of their superiors.

During the entire time no one talked to Dr. Bennett. They did what they wanted to do and what they felt they needed to do pursuing the goal they have for people like him. Being moved from a psych ward into a nursing home for life with the Court’s permission to feed him and others like him anti-psychotics for life along with others drugs which ruin their health and the quality of their life. Why? Assets!

Dr. Bennett’s wife was told – and a letter to other lawyers attest to the fact – that she would be given a small stipend and could find a room someplace – maybe even with her own bathroom because the family’s assets would be needed and taken over by a Guardianship Corporation – drained down by that Corporation to supposedly pay for Dr. Bennett’s bills.

It gets worse from here so we won’t go through all of the gory details, but as you read this can you imagine Senator Danforth being so treated? Or reaching out to help someone like Rev. Dr. Bennett? And how have others in the Episcopal Church reacted?

As you read this we hope you realize the very authoritarian system in which the health care institutions are functioning and the way it is so much easier to have blacks put out of commission with their assets stripped so their children cannot inherit and therefore lose the edge in this society that assets inherited would bring to them.

Add to that the very aggressive stripping of the vote from minorities which is what Senator Hawley – who was backed by Senator Danforth – is trying to do with his attempted takeover of a democracy turning it into an authoritarian government.

Dr. Bennett, who hired attorneys to represent him was not able to be represented by the attorneys of his choice. The Court appointed an attorney to represent him before he even knew he needed any kind of representation. Dr. Bennett was not “indigent” and paid the retainers requested by those attorneys. Didn’t matter. The attorney appointed by the Court in an “emergency motion” about which Dr. Bennett knew nothing – he was not served or contacted in any way; the attorney so appointed by the Court did not contact him she simply did what others told her to do, resulted in the “dictatorship over” way he was treated during every moment of what must have been a nightmarish experience for him. He was treated as though these United States are a system of “dictatorships over” in the areas necessary for whites to keep control.

There is talk of “defunding the police”. The problem is much more serious than what is happening with the arrest and killings of blacks and other minorities who supposedly have committed some kind of crime. When the police can push their way into your home without your knowledge of why or what for and can forcibly take you out for no reason the ‘police problem’ in this society needs to have its entire structure and what it can do unearthed before any solutions are sought or rendered.

When the people, like Senator Danforth, with the power and money are calling the shots on who is elected; who is appointed to important positions in this society which can bring substantial changes to our individual and collective lives those people need to be highlighted and call out on what they are doing and why they are allowed to wield so much more power and have so much more money than the rest of society.

We are still living in a “slave society” which we inherited from the many generations who went before. Instead of looking at that and making major changes, we are playing games with “riots” and attempting to force those changes in physical ways which will most hurt those making the physical and psychic sacrifices to bring in a new way of being in society, which will simply bring a more concentrated form of wealth and power to the aristocracy at the top calling the shots – manipulating the strings of the puppets who are dancing without any thought to what it is they are doing.

Don’t you think it is time to stop all of this? Don’t you think it is time for us to live in some other kind of community which benefits all? That is such an incredible threat to most we are afraid to even go there. We might encounter people who don’t look like us – talk like us – have our history – etc, etc, etc. and isn’t that the greatest threat of all?

Tags: #Dr. Rebecca Warner, #Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett, #SCES, #Senator Danforth, #SomervilleCambridgeElderandProtectiveServices, Angela Clary, Archbishop O'Malley, Attorney Cheri Myette, Attorney General Barr, Attorney James O'Sullivan, Dr. Rebecca Warner, Episcopal priest, Massachusetts General Hospital, MGH, MLK, Nora Al WetAid, Protective and Elderly Services, SCES, Senator Danforth
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #MedicareFraud, #racism.in.hospitals, #racism/in/hospitals, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, #sexism.in.hospitals, Archbishop O'Malley, Attorney General Barr, bigotry, Clarence Thomas, Dr. Rebecca Warner, Forced Medical Treatment, Health, health Industry, Hospitals, James O'Sullivan, attorney, Jewish, Jim O'Sullivan attorney, Josh Hawley, Marceline Donaldson, Martin Luther King, Mass General Hospital, Medicare Fraud, politics, racism, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, Senator Danforth, Senator Hawley, Senator Josh Hawley, Sherrill House, Somerville Cambridge Elder Services, William Barr | Comments Off on Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black “A democracy for white Americans, but simultaneously a dictatorship over black Americans.”— MLK

A Great Dish to Help You Survive Tough Times – A Pasta!!

January 13th, 2021

Survival is always possible through “comfort foods”.

We discovered this pasta during a particularly difficult day, not knowing what to eat or cook and trying to resist sugar and chocolate, I went back to my childhood and out came this quick, easy and absolutely satisfying dish.

A PASTA

All ingredients, of course, need to be organically grown. A requirement for any good dish.

In a large cast iron skillet put at least 4 tablespoons organic butter

While that melts, slice an onion very thin and put those circles of beautiful yellow onions in the butter on a low light and let them bubble for many minutes until they are soft, but don’t let them brown.

However, if you are one of those who does not want to see your onions in your pasta sauce, cut the onion into four pieces and add it to the food processor with what follows….

Into your food processor put three stalks of celery – one green pepper – and optional would be to also add one red pepper and one orange pepper. Not necessary unless you want to ‘gild the lily’.

Add those ingredients to the slowly cooking onion and let all of them cook with an occasional stirring. If you chose not to have onion rings in your pasta then all of the above ingredients would be added at once.

After a time, add one pound organic and pasture fed ground beef to this mixture and stir to break up the ground beef.

To continue gilding the lily you can add shrimp, oysters, ham. Not necessary, but that depends upon your condition at the time. One or all of the shrimp, oysters and/or ham adds tremendously to this dish.

After that has cooked and begins to come together add three tomatoes which you have put through either a food processor or magic bullet to turn the tomatoes into liquid.

Add an equal amount of water and then the seasonings.

We like to add – oregano, thyme, turmeric, salt, and either pepper or tabasco sauce to taste. If you have a cultural tongue which likes other kinds of spices feel free to eliminate any of the above and add your favorites. We have tried adding rosemary to the above along with sage and that was a good combination but not when we wanted food as comfort.

While that simmers away get ready to add the ending of this dish – handmade, homemade organic noodles. It is crucial that you add handmade, organic, homemade noodles or the dish will suffer. The difference between these noodles and the ones you buy not organic – which means made with flour processed so there is nothing left to nourish you – it is dramatic and the taste difference will astound you.

Once upon a time we would have had water boiling to cook the noodles and when cooked and drained, put them on a plate and cover with the sauce. We have found, however, that this dish is best by putting the uncooked noodles directly into the cast iron skillet with a top on and let the dish simmer until done.

You will know it is done and ready to eat when you see oil accumulate on top.

Serve with an organic baguette just out of the oven. To make this as though it was freshly baked, quickly run the baguette through water and then put it in the oven to dry out. It will be fantastic – especially if you serve it hot out of the oven! We rarely serve bread which is not directly out of the oven.

With this secret you can take stale bread, put it quickly under the faucet and then into the oven and you will always have what feels and taste like freshly baked bread.

We don’t have nearly as much bread crumbs or as many servings of bread pudding as we used to before discovering this. It is something my great-grandmother Bucksell used to do. She insisted on freshly roasted coffee beans, ground just before making the coffee, but her bread could be rock hard she would pass it quickly under the faucet, into the oven and voila! – a great bit of freshly baked bread to accompany her coffee.

Enjoy!

Tags: Organic noodles, Pasta
Posted in Great Bread Tip, Organic Noodles, Pasta | Comments Off on A Great Dish to Help You Survive Tough Times – A Pasta!!

Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black

January 12th, 2021

A two part series: Part One – Senator Danforth.

Two different people – two different lives – two different lifestyles – two different sets of ethical choices to live by.

I heard Senator Danforth preach at Harvard University’s Memorial Chapel and it was a stunning sermon in hypocrisy, upper class morality putting self first, and a huge emphasis on how what is happening in politics today – especially Republican politics is not evil it is simply……..

Senator Danforth, white Episcopal priest, is today loudly proclaiming his “error” in being the mentor and backer of Senator Hawley. A not unexpected loudly proclaimed admission and chest thumping comment. Considering that Senator Danforth is one of the main reasons for the success of Clarence Thomas becoming a Supreme Court Justice, it is not only Josh Hawley for whom Senator Danforth should dress in rags covered in ashes and sit in a corner in repentance for trying to move Christianity – in which he claims to believe – away from the far evangelical white right. Which is better, a far right white evangelical christian or an upper class white ‘priest’ person who uses religion to justify their cultural lifestyle and beliefs as “better than” and the way the world should work.

Senator Danforth has lived what most would consider a “successful” life. We would consider it an abject failure because he does not even try to get out of his upbringing and his way of thinking about himself and his own as the good people of society – why can’t we all be like them (and him). The world would be a much better place.

Danforth is explicit in these thoughts, but it doesn’t take long observing his career, reading his books and seeing the people he has mentored to realize the horrific damage he has done to these United States.

Senator Danforth chose to back Josh Hawley for the Senate in 2018 over then Senator Claire McCaskill. One had a substantial career in the Senate and lives out of a set of ethical beliefs which show her thoughtful, careful life in a serious Christian context. The other showed his instincts and needs for power and money putting him in a place where it clearly showed there was no limit to what he would do to achieve those goals of being “better than”, having “more than”, being an important person at whatever the cost – and clearly we have now seen that the cost the rest of us would be expected to pay so Senator Hawley could achieve his goals in life would be loss of our democracy. To see those instincts in another human being does not take a genius who is skilled in observing such and who has a deep knowledge of human beings.

Senator Danforth also backed Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. He did not just back him, he was his mentor and guided the way removing whatever he had to remove so Danforth’s person would be successful in becoming the black justice to replace the likes of Thurgood Marshall. This time, a black person who was not as clear about his identity as ‘equal’, who was not a great thinker, and whose ethics were those that a black man should have out of which he lived his life.

Clarence Thomas’ flaws were many and very publicly known. How Senator Danforth justified overlooking his abuse of women, his attempted sexual assault on many, how he even was able to ignore the extended testimony of Anita Hill, who was one amongst several women who charged Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment. Anita Hill worked for Thomas and so it was aggregious to have her testimony, but with Senator Danforth’s blessing and support Thomas was passed on and became a Supreme Court Justice. Was it also with Danforth’s interference that the other women, who had similar claims were not allowed to testify and so passing along and confirming Clarence Thomas would not seem so horrendous to the rest of society who had not heard the many testify to very similar sexual abuse and harassment claims?

These are two of the men Senator Danforth has used his considerable influence and resources to back and move along to the top of the United States government. You don’t rectify those kind of mistakes by making a public statement when something extremely ugly has happened and you have to either make such a statement beating your chest over your bad judgment or be quiet and hope you are overlooked in all of the upheaval and publicity around the huge mistakes you made – people judgment mistakes. However, what calls Senator Danforth into question is the people judgment mistakes he made as an Episcopal priest with training – supposedly – to help him avoid such and the consistency of the kind of people Danforth sees as ‘great’ who he can mentor and help move to the top of this society.

In both instances, Senator Danforth severely rejected the women involved on the other side calling into question the men he chose to mentor. – Claire McCaskill as Senator running against Danforth’s chosen person Josh Hawley and Professor Anita Hill who risked her reputation to come forward because she thought the American people needed to know of her experience with this man – Clarence Thomas – being considered for a position on the Supreme Court of these United States.

Anita Hill had nothing to gain and everything to lose, but she followed her ethical beliefs in not closing her eyes to what was happening. Besides Claire McCaskill, how many other women has Senator Danforth shoved aside and helped to humiliate because of his ethical base which shows clearly through his choice of people to mentor and push ahead to the top positions in American government.

In his sermon at Harvard’s Memorial Chapel, Senator Danforth argued strongly for those in attendance and all others in the world to not classify what was happening and beginning to show up in this American Government as evil. It was simply – what – people doing their jobs in the best way they could? Or something like that. No moral judgment on all of those missteps. Especially nothing seen as “evil” done by the people he mentored. The recent killing of five people in the process of a planned take over of the American government by a group of people egged on by one who Senator Danforth mentored. Nothing evil about that – just a Senator doing his job as best he could.

And through it all, very substantial support of Senator Danforth by the Episcopal Church.

Here ends the first lesson in this two part series.

Tags: #Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett, Episcopal priest, Senator Danforth, Senator McCaskill
Posted in Claire McCaskill, Clarence Thomas, Harvard's Memorial Chapel, Josh Hawley, Senator Danforth, Senator Hawley, Senator McCaskill | Comments Off on Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black

Donald J. Trump – Mentally ill or evil!!

January 9th, 2021

There is a huge difference between someone who is mentally ill and someone who is just plain evil. Looking back and through Donald Trump’s life, it is clear he is not mentally ill, he is clearly evil and has practiced his craft for decades. Who in literature – especially biblical and spiritual literature do you find has to hold the Bible upside down? Isn’t that what Trump did during that spectacle he created in Washington, D. C.? Why was it so important that he called out all the important military and others to create this show? To announce who he really is? To unmask himself? He said nothing – he simply held up the Holy Bible UPSIDE DOWN and in doing so identified himself to all who could see.

What is amazing to us is that before voting for him and electing him president we knew him. We knew his history. We knew his family. We knew his friends.

As a young adult, Donald Trump, working with his father was sued by the United States Government for their racism. They built apartments and refused to rent to African Americans and other minorities. The Trump response to the law suit was quite telling as to how Donald Trump would lead his life into the future. The way he responded to the law suit was amazingly evil. He clearly had no intention of changing or adhering to the laws of the United States. He just spent a lot of Court time to make sure he would not have to and could continue not renting to minorities. The pattern for future response was set in that law suit. Look it up. See how far Trump went to create the kind of confusion, hatred, arrogance and a show of extreme white supremacy that he and his father showed to the United States Government through the process of that law suit.

In the literature, books, newspapers we learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. kept the Bible and a copy of Howard Thurman’s “Jesus and the Disinherited” next to his bed and his bedside table. That told us a lot about the ethics, commitment, interests, spirituality of the man. His life reflected his choice of readings and of the books he kept close.

By contrast, the same media outlets told us – as they reported on Donald Trump’s divorce from Ivana Trump – that Donald Trump kept Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” next to his bed. That also said a lot about the ethics, commitment, interests, spiritiuality of the man. Trump’s life has reflected his choice of readings and of the books he kept close. Yes, he does read. We just do not understand his choices and we choose to say he is the way he is because he does not read. Just one of the many times we have provided the Trump’s with an escape hole for what should be talked about honestly.

And as his life moved along, Trump’s friends of choice show more of who he is becoming as his ages. At one point Roy Cohn, attorney, was his very close friend. Speculation at the time was that Trump was gay. Roy Cohn, a man who was well known to be gay and Jewish was also someone who was known for his unabashed hatred of Gays and Jews. Someone like Donald Trump was perfect as a cover for Roy Cohn and as someone with the same anti-Gay, anti-Jewish proclivities. It made their closet seem safe from exposure.

Cohn was the person who brought Trump and his business to Manhattan and taught Trump everything he knows about how to fight. The rumors about Trump being gay floated around because if you lived in New York at the time in the “right neighborhood” you saw Cohn and Trump having dinner by candlelight in restaurants many times – just the two of them, clearly “spooning” and enjoying their time together.

Trump’s throwing his friends and those who followed him under the bus became a clear trademark of Trumpism as one could see observing his friendship and working partnership with Cohn, which went along swimmingly until Cohn lost his fortune, was fairly destitute and ill. Even at Cohn’s funeral, the best Trump could do was to appear and stand at the back of the Synagogue for a few minutes before disappearing. Helping a friend financially who was responsible for most of what Trump had and was able to do in New York is not something that was and is a Trumpian thing to do.

The talk of New York at the time was how much Cohn had done for Trump and when he was in need how little to nothing Trump did for Cohn. Trump was happy to “spoon” with Cohn over those candlelight dinners when Cohn was an important and feared part of New York. That ended as Cohn neared his end and had nothing more to offer Trump. – sound familiar? Cohn also introduced Trump to Joseph McCarthy and there created the trinity and the time during which Trump learned at McCarthy’s knee a lot of what you see him practicing today and a lot of what he used to move himself into the position he current holds. Our amazement is how someone with that background – which, as Trump moved along in life, included sexually assaulting, raping and abusing women which screams of an incredible hatred of women. He showed how he was not too above board with his business dealings, doing one thing in plain sight while deflecting and turning your attention to another place so when he did what he actually was about you had to do a total about face to keep up with the evil being spewed all over everyone.

Trump and his family have a history of strong, positive, relationships with the mafia. At one point in time in the United States that would have been an automatic disqualifier for being even considered as president of the United States.

At this point in time, the only thing relevant to the next president of these United States was how racist is he – and she would not even be considered? How far is he willing to go to destroy African Americans, Jews, Latina’s, LGBTQ people, Muslims and so many more not Northern European-ancestry people?

We are in this country “divided”. But very few will go the distance in describing just what that means. Blaming Donald Trump and holding up his sins is about as far as many will go. We need to look more carefully. We went from slavery – which was destroyed by the Industrial Revolution – which structure was destroyed by Corporate America – which is now being destroyed by the White Male Institutional structure being put in place by this new way we are moving.

Corporate America is clearly “authoritarian” in its structure. One could go further and say it borders on fascism. How does such a structure which affect every part of these United States survive in a democratic structure. What we are seeing is that it doesn’t. The structure that Corporate America has developed works hard to be the “hegemonies” in what has been created as a hegemony over all. Isn’t that what created Donald Trump and his father?

That structure is giving way and the question is – what next? What will control this society? And there are the divisions where one side latched onto Trumpism and gained enough time to anchor its foot hold and pull the wool over the eyes of those fighting to live and work in a democracy.

Whenever democracy threatens to take over Corporate America and its fascist structure those efforts are loudly claimed to be “Socialism” and that is look on as the devil itself.

That label has been created to put fear into many so democracy will not succeed in changing the corporate structures taking hold in this world.

Want to see what corporate america has wrought? Take a look carefully at Josh Hawley and his rise to the Senate. We wondered how he was able to win his seat against someone like Claire McCaskill who was well respected and with a substantial reputation. As we looked at Trump and how he made his rise, we began to understand. Try taking a look at the “money and power” which backed Josh Hawley in his run replacing McCaskill. When he took his stand with his raised fist and started this business which resulted in the incredible destruction, insurrection, attempted coup that we have just witnessed we did not know his history nor the enormous amounts of corporate money behind him.

Clearly, when one is so funded and supported as Hawley has been, the piper does come calling and expects you to perform for that investment – and Jose Hawley did more than what was expected of him and is still going to great lengths because he knows he is connected to the money and power which put Donald Trump in office and whoever chose him knew who he was and of what he was capable.

Once Hawley has made a total fool of himself as he lets his greed and power needs get out of hand, he will be cast aside and someone not quite so ‘obvious’ chosen to do the same job, backed by the same power and money that brought us Josh Hawley and dissed Claire McCaskill.

As a country, we have been split, but we are not coming up front with just what is the split. It is being talked about as Democrat vs Republican and even putting the blame on race. We need to look at the real genesis of what this is all about. We have a billionaire group which has involved itself in politics far more deeply than the wealthy in this country used to in years and decades and generations past. Those who have obscene money and power and pushing hard to gain more and to reshape the world so they and theirs will live forever.

There have been some failed attempts in years past to get government, industry, ordinary people to sit and reason together. Those attempts failed because Industry would not sit together, but saw itself sitting above and calling the shots which government and ordinary people were not allowing.

The reason for the bigotry-racism-better than can be traced directly to this corporate group. Take a look at the immediate result providing money to groups like the “Proud Boys”. We have had to take a stand and object to J. P. Morgan Chase making its tools of trade available for them to raise money to continue their fight. And Chase’s response will be to plead ignorance and more.

Take a look at what is and has happened with entrepreneurship. Look at who gets funded by the Venture Capitalists and their ilk and who doesn’t. All of that is to support the current structural divisions – the institutional divides which are becoming stronger and which all of this Trump business is simply deflecting from what is really happening in these United States. Many, if not most, of the fledgling businesses which become the multi-billionaire groups were formed – their genesis came out of the minority and female communities. Immediately upon their recognition and future potential becomes noticed along comes young, white male Northern European-ancestry types – although lately other males are finding themselves sprinkled among the white boys – and the businesses started and brought to the point where their potential is obvious are ripped away from minorities and women and funded to the tune of enormous amounts of money so their histories can be changed and credit taken and given to those white male Northern European-ancestry types, who are then able to bring them to fruition as multi-billion dollar corporations which recognize and acknowledge and build according to the fascist needs of corporate america which is putting itself out of business for this new and upcoming group dictating the future and using the Donald Trump’s of the world to confuse, obfuscate, muddy the waters until this new structure is safely in place.

One such group destroyed was being put in place by Marceline Donaldson and Rev. Robert Bennett. For 20 years they worked on a business and structure which pointed the way to the future. Funding was not there. Instead the corporate funders sent – the Venture Capitalist sent- the white male Northern European-ancestry types into their home to discover what they were doing – how they were doing it- etc. etc. And now we have Airbnb safely white male with everything possible being done to destroy the Donaldson-Bennett’s so they cannot put in place any kind of competition.

They are not alone. We have been looking for and finding many minorities and women whose ideas have been clearly and upfront stolen with others – white male Northern European-ancestry – put in place to bring forward the businesses they have spent years working to develop and beginning to be very successful in a structure and business that would change the way business is being done.

Those businesses have brought back and are continuing to bring into being a vicious racism and sexism in their structures which rivals what many fought to change in this country for generations. The “Proud Boys” and those like them may be crowing and running around “proud” of what they consider their success in their mission without realizing their time in the spotlight is already over and others are being moved in to take their place.

Trump has been the shield behind which a Russian-style American Oligarch group has been formed and which is destroying the structure of the U. S. so the structure which is most congenial to them can be put in its place and they are succeeding admirably.

Josh Hawley and what has happened to him – and what will happen to him in the future is just a small way-station on the way to their complete and total control over the means of production and everything else in this country.

Some think slavery ended because of the abolitionists and all the others who fought against that institution. Is that true? Or did slavery end because the Industrial Revolution was moving into that space and the machinery being developed was much more controllable and cheaper than slavery and so much more.

We are now in the middle of another such turn in the economics, culture and more in this world. The little people aren’t tall enough to see the structures being put in place to replace what is no longer working.

The bigotry is going along because it is extremely useful in keeping those same little people under control. Tell them they are better than – let them believe such lies and they will be able to be led around like human beings with nose rings and a long chain from their nose ring to the hands of those put in place to lead them.

The large billion dollar corporations did not come about via the people who have re-written their company’s history to show themselves as the founders. Most of the great ideas now funded and grown into such behemoth corporations came from minorities and women and were stolen and put in the hands of young white males who showed the most promise as racists with a bit of a “noblesse oblige” spirit – but not too much. Got to keep them in chains, just camouflage the chains and ignore those who see what is really happening.

We could go on for pages. But if you want to know more and to see this for yourselves take a look at the senate campaign of Josh Hawley and Claire McCaskill. Follow the money and promises and talk to a few people around and involved in what happened. Many who look like the little people have great analytical abilities, but they are into self-preservation and won’t share what they see and know with many.

That would make a good book for someone – especially as it is now unfolding what Josh Hawley is willing to do and how far he will go, even to destroying the country he has taken an oath to serve because he sees a future of money and power and himself beyond his ability to resist.

That is just one story. There are many others. Trump’s story is ending and all of his dreams for his children to follow him and to become the lifelong president of the United States which would give him and his family unlimited power – that is over. His usefulness is over. His future is prison along with those who supported and followed him and they will probably never see or know what happened to them.

All of us, human beings, are subject to evil. We have that tendency and we mostly ignore it. What we need to do is examine it and keep the evil within us out of our lives and walk that path which is far more beautiful than any power and money can bring. That is not a lifestyle our marketing and advertising people portray. Maybe where we really need to start cleaning up this society is with them.

Tags: #DonaldTrump, Claire McCaskill, Josh Hawley
Posted in #DonaldTrump, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, advertising, Airbnb, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligarchs, Bettina Network, bigotry, Claire McCaskill, Donald Trump, Immigration, Joseph McCarthy, Marceline Donaldson, politics, racism, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, Roy Cohn, sexism, Sexual Assault, Spiritual Reflection, U. S. Presidential Campaign, venture capitalists | Comments Off on Donald J. Trump – Mentally ill or evil!!

By Your Fruits You Shall be Known

January 7th, 2021

The United States has had an amazing ride on this earth for several hundreds of years. Many of those years have been punctuated by horrendous racial violence.

We have created a very wealthy country on the backs of black Africans for a few hundred years. Where blacks began to thrive after the civil war we had massacres like Tulsa, Oklahoma and many other places.

We have a history complete with the slaughter of many of the innocents because genocide denied has been rampant in these United States for generations. We have had genocide in this country almost from its beginnings. Need I mention American Indians, Jews, Chinese, etc. etc.

The anger, hate, resentment and more flowing from the veins of the whites who were out supporting Donald Trump shows how deeply rooted is the assumption that whites are the ones with privilege; the ones who can vote and whose votes are to be counted – how dare we consider and allow blacks to vote; who ‘own’ the top jobs; who can live in declared white only neighborhoods where most of the city services are placed; who are the privileged, the entitled, the ‘better than’ people in this country. AND, it is no accident that Trump has been tied by his naval cord to Russia – a white country, or to Turkey a country which also has some of those color problems. It is no accident that the Chinese were great as long as we could use and abuse them economically by having the goods made for corporations in China at rock bottom prices enslaving the Chinese for generations – along with other countries of color who have also experienced the same economic treatment from the United States.

It is time for a reckoning. A truth telling time. A time to tell and hear the stories of those who have suffered this violence for generations. It is also a ‘make amends’ time. A time for those who have destroyed to make whole those they used so they could be great without doing the work of greatness.

Today, what we saw in Washington, D. C. looked like the kind of “carnage” we saw in places like Chicago decades ago when the Italian Mafia split and there was fighting and destruction in the streets. Washington, D. C. was that kind of “carnage” on steroids.

It was a time which showed us clearly racism, sexism and all the other ‘isms and bigotries are not dead they are alive, well and in your face.

As a result of yesterday it is time for the Department of Justice to revisit its “memo” which does not allow the president of the United States to be arrested and jailed during his time as president. That is a piece of paper written by someone with the president and not the United States’ best interest at heart. That “memo” needs to be destroyed and the president arrested for inciting the riot, the killings, the destruction of property and all the rest. At the same time those also involved like Rudi Giuliani need to also be arrested and jailed for their part of what they have done to these United States.

It is interesting that such a discussion has not and is not taking place. It is out of the picture because we don’t want to solve the problem, we simply want these United States to go back to “normal” with everyone in their proper place doing things in the cultural way we have approved of and enjoyed for generations.

That is possible. It is not, however, what we need to do.

It is clear that what happened in Washington, D. C. was intentional and meant to wreck havoc with the United States. It was meant to create horror and shock. It was meant to scare the Congress into doing what “President” Donald Trump wanted Congress to do, but instead it caused the death of some four people and so much more.

The 25th Amendment is a ridiculous way to treat Donald Trump after what he has done over the past four plus years. Four plus years because his “carnage” started years before the killings and destruction and attempt to tear down the American democracy started. Was being elected president Donald Trump’s reward for making sure the American citizens and the world were always kept aware of the fact that Barack Obama was, in these United States, not as good as whites? By constantly making life ugly for President Obama with Trump’s claims about his citizenship and so much more – Trump has not stopped from those activities. Why should he, because of them he was rewarded with the presidency. The rest of us could continue being and feeling better than because we were able to wash our hands in that bowl of soap and water presented to us so we could pretend to be free of any complicity and/or guilt.

Take a look at history. We can directly trace Donald Trump’s walk through life with several very close friends and mentors who helped to set him on his way. There was his grandfather who taught him about business, mafia style, and the abuse of women for financial and other kinds of gain. Most, if not all, of Donald Trump’s friends – those he is closest to – engage or have engaged in the kind of sexual assault and abuse and rape of which so many have accused Donald Trump.

There was his father who taught him about racism and more lessons on building a business. Both guided him into the mafia as the way to become wealthy at the expense of others.

There followed Roy Cohn who brought Trump and his business from Queens, New York to Manhattan where he met and learned at the foot of McCarthy. So, we have McCarthyism followed by Trumpism and Trump has passed all of his learnings and doings on to his children who are showing they are happy and skilled at following in their father’s footsteps.

What stops that? What has not yet happened. Donald Trump needs to be immediately arrested and jailed for what happened in Washington, D. C. and with other charges added as time passes.

Unless Trump is above all other American citizens then his actions do not allow him to be passed over – he needs to be treated as an equal amongst equals along with his co-conspirators and co-workers.

There is nothing in the United States Constitution which says an American President who has caused the death of others, the kind of horrendous destruction of the American democracy Trump very clearly caused goes free from having done such and cannot be immediately arrested whether he is still president or not.

What an examination of what happened on Wednesday will show is who caused those riots and insurrection to have a clear field in which to function because they made sure there would not be the police to stop it. With all the police forces around the Capital to have allowed the unleashed Trump-ites to roam and rummage and destroy the way they did on Wednesday could only have happened if someone high up slow walked any police involvement. That alone is a reason to arrest Donald Trump. He is the one who set the crowd on its way and was he also complicit in the lack of police preparedness to mitigate and/or eliminate the violence and destruction!

All of the people involved in the group doing the destruction when interviewed talked about Wednesday being only the beginning, there would be daily attacks to reverse what they considered a “stolen election” and those attacks would be severe. Trump followers interviewed in other places far away from Washington, D. C. all said they did not believe Biden “won” the election and when asked what they would do since he really did and there was no alternative – several in all the tv interviews said “civil war” was a good alternative. That was usually passed over by the interviewer. What else could be said or questions asked?

What Wednesday also showed was the fact that bigotry is alive and well and living in the many police forces in Washington, D. C. which are around the Capital for its protection. Not only are police still killing blacks and walking away free, but the way the Black Lives Matter demonstration was treated as compared to the Donald Trump president for life movement was treated on Wednesday is stark in your face racism.

To push the envelope just a bit further, one shot was fired into someone’s body as a killing shot and into whose body? A woman’s! Just like another demonstration where one person was killed by having been run over by a car – whose body was so treated? A Woman’s!

What are we hearing as the aftermath of what happened which is drowning out everything else? Denial of the racism involved and the horror that the American image is being destroyed around the world. What are people thinking of us with all of this now happening in the United States.

Tags: #DonaldTrump, American Carnage, Insurrection in D. C., Roy Cohn
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A Quick Lunch – Wild Pink Salmon Salad

December 29th, 2020

AS USUAL ALL OF YOUR INGREDIENTS SHOULD BE ORGANIC! Otherwise, why bother?

This is a quick and delicious dish. If this was not COVID-19 time I would say it is perfect for a few friends. It takes almost no time and the results are stunning.

Empty a can of wild salmon into a bowl. You could also bake a wild salmon steak with a little salt and pepper until done to use instead of the canned variety.

Put an onion and three stalks of celery into the food processor and turn it on until they are chopped fine. You could also use a large knife and chop these by hand if you prefer. The food processor gives a smoother salad. The hand chop gives a salad where you can identify all of the ingredients – which adds its own goodness to what you are eating.

Add the onion and celery to the bowl of salmon and add organic mayonnaise to taste.

Add enough salt and cayenne pepper to bring up an even better taste.

Once mixed well, put a leaf from a small head of lettuce on a salad plate. The lettuce leaf should have a nice “bowl” shape.

Put a mound of the salmon salad in the middle of the lettuce leaf.

If you want to continue adding – thinly slice an organic tomato and add the slices around the mound of salmon salad. You could also cut the tomato slices in half to give a different look to the salad.

Add organic crackers around the outside of the lettuce leaf. Garlic Crackers or whatever kind you like will make this wonderful.

You can eat this by scooping a bit of salad onto a cracker. OR – Use a fork to just eat the salad including bits of tomato and lettuce together on the fork.

To spice things up you could add tabasco to the sliced tomatoes and let them sit a moment in the tabasco sauce before placing them around the salad mound.

It is a dish which allows your creative juices to flow and it is delicious to eat, especially since you invested less than 10 minutes into its preparation.

If you used a can of pink salmon this will serve about 4 people – depending upon their appetites and your generosity.

Tags: A Quick Lunch, Salmon Salad
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Christmas?

December 28th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

We have been raised with Christmas and all the trappings. The Christmas decorations in the department stores; the characters who make up the story like Santa Claus, Jesus, the reindeer including Rudolph and so many more.

As you grow into adulthood, one of the first things that happens is a questioning of all of the stories of a child’s Christmas beliefs.

I used to love going to bed on Christmas Eve with much anticipation of waking up the next day with every wish fulfilled and a Christmas tree with every toy I ever wanted under the tree.

As an adult, however, I have questioned it all.

The only thing left is Jesus, Mary and Joseph surrounded by the Shepherds, the Wise Men and the animals around this baby in a manger. Today I realize all that surrounds the “Holy Family” is romanticized because Jesus, Mary and Joseph were homeless but for whoever let them stay in the barn. We portray this as a wonderful scene all warm and cozy and beautiful. In reality?

Christianity came into being in the Near East. It came into this world through Judaism. These were and are very un-American type religions. But Christianity, in particular, spread across the world and particularly across these United States. Something had to be done or capitalism as it developed , arm in arm with slavery and later with the Industrial Revolution would be jeopardized as it pulled together that underbelly group of people who were always at risk of losing their jobs and who always lived on the edge because that is what capitalism requires to control inflation and to grow again quickly when the warning signs are gone – people, lots of them, grateful for a job alternating with the misery of being out of a job and how will we eat! Christianity morphed as it grew in these United States and a structure was superimposed on the religion which put it under the control of Santa Claus and his henchmen.

That was a religion in which one could believe and not have it interfere with ones day to day necessities of living. Jesus, Mary and Joseph would not interfere with the growing influence of the great white father – the huge, older white gentleman with flowing white hair, a happy demeanor, who took care of all those who were “good” and Santa and his helpers defined what it meant to be good. He was not the great spirit talked about in Scripture and Christianity, but enough like him that we could live with this religion and it would do our bidding. This religion with the Santa Claus structure built around it to tame it would maintain the world’s sexism, its racism, define its ethics and we would not have to deal with the values, ethics and more of Jesus. Santa Claus flying through the air in a huge sleigh full of goodies for those who followed what he laid down under the guise of partnering with Jesus over Christmas and the birth of this God made man. Santa would be the one left standing when Jesus had been emasculated and put in “his” place. Something had to be done as Christianity spread so this Santa Claus developed to maintain “white” culture and values and everything else which Jesus and his crowd threatened.

I remember stories and pictures, especially from Texas of German prisoners of war being brought to the United States, during Hitler’s time, and put into the prisons constructed to hold them. What most of us don’t want to remember are the stories which circulated and which were well documented about U. S. citizens who went to the German prisons on Sundays to ‘check out” a prisoner and take them to dinner at a lovely restaurant. In Texas most of the stories were about these dinners in the restaurants where black GI’s could partake of the food, but had to do so by going around to the back door of the restaurant – placing an order – paying the same amount for their food as those who were inside seated at tables with their German prisoner of war guests – but who had to eat their dinners in the back yard of the restaurants or take their food someplace else because they were welcomed on the battle fields in Europe and other places, but not in the restaurants and such other places in these United States where the Nazi Germans could go.

And so enters Christmas and Jesus and that entire story.

As I grew older I began to understand a lot more. With family who were clergy and/or totally devoted to the Christian Church – Episcopalians, AME, Congregationalists, Catholics – I began to look around and realized the spiritual world in which we were living was totally skewered. We in these United States had created an identity of being “better than.” Better than anyone – blacks, jews, latinas, LGBTQ people, people from other countries we did not consider culturally equal to, but less than ours. We have paid high prices to maintain that identity. One has to be constantly at war to maintain such – peace is not an option.

Those “better than” were recently threatened with the possibility that maybe we were all equal and these United States went crazy. Most recently 74 million citizens stepped up to the plate to say they were irretrievably better than and would vote for whoever guaranteed they would maintain that fiction for us all. As it was at the time of Jesus’ birth, so it is today.

This Middle Eastern religion – this Christianity as it grew and spread broke into two parts. Many denominations, but two major groups. One group spread throughout the European countries into the United States and South America. The other spread along with it into the same countries, but the theologies differed. The teachings changed. The belief system of the two groups were so widely different I didn’t understand how they could all fly under the same banner of “Christianity.”

We lived and live in a very racist, sexist, bigoted world. A religion like Christianity could have changed all of that. Instead, we changed the religion.

We took the theology and superimposed on that simple religion, on the faith and belief system which Jesus brought – the religion in which today we claim to believe and have ordered our lives around. A religion with a set of beliefs which maintained and helped grow the structures of capitalism and slavery which walked hand in hand. Later on as slavery gave way to Jim Crow – and even later as Jim Crow gave way to the sophisticated bigoted structures under which we now live we still espoused this “sort of” Christianity suffering under the institutional structure we superimposed on it for reasons of control. These institutions were constantly structured and re-structured to hide the truth of who we are and in what we believe and the world we have created. It has a picture it puts out to help us maintain the belief that it is all good.

We live in a sexist/racist/anti-immigrant society – in these United States, extremely so. To make that palatable and a structure with which we have made peace we created Santa Claus – a very large, older white Northern European-ancestry male who overcame God and Jesus. Santa Claus dressed in the red of joy, living comfortably in the most inhospitable of climates with amazing powers. A man – a superman who every year gave gifts to the world, but only to those who in the world adhered to the rules he put down for this society. The United States created Santa Claus, his sleigh and reindeer who flew around the world delivering gifts to the “good little boys and girls” and bad things into the stockings of those who did not behave properly.

The idea of this huge white man who had access to every home in the world was scary to many, but we kept our peace because to say such things about Santa Claus was unacceptable. He could enter your house at will whether you wanted him to or not and indeed this Santa Claus went into every home on Christmas Eve to deliver “gifts”. In the mythology you had no way to keep him out nor would you want to.

Take away what the marketers and advertising people have given to Santa to make him acceptable and you are left with a very autocratic, ugly, and pushy man who didn’t make it into many homes because they were not “good” enough or supposedly left sack cloth and ashes in those who didn’t fit Santa’s mold for “goodness.” Nothing was ever said about what Santa did to the homeless, but it was not good because they received nothing. They didn’t have the beautiful stockings to put up to receive Santa Claus’ largesse.

Growing up there was always the shock between Jesus, Mary and Joseph and God’s promises and the reality of what we turned Christmas into. Going to the Churches as a child growing into adulthood it was the same across the United States. Some Churches were for whites only. Some Churches allowed non-whites to come in, but you had to sit in the designated spots in the back of the Church and there was the requisite sign which indicated “For Colored Patrons Only”. Some Churches – especially in the north didn’t have the signs and you could enter and worship, but in the balcony and you had an etiquette about how and when you entered and what you did and how you acted. Always in a very subservient way so you could be assured of being welcomed back.

And – that was not generations ago. Coming to Cambridge, MA. Christ Episcopal Church in Harvard Square with its then rector the Rev. Murray Kenney referred to his “plantation” and there were blacks very proud to be members of Christ Church who saw nothing wrong with being able to attend only if they sat in the balcony and did not interact with those whites who were real members of the church. A pattern practiced across the north.

Today, we have that same separation.

Years ago, I had friends – Mary and James Tillman. They had “sensitivity” sessions on racism for corporations and churches. If you were a member of the Southern Baptist Church back in the 1960’s or 1970’s or there-about and you were elected to a national office in the Church you could not serve in that office until you had been through the Tillman’s course and they said you were ready to serve in the Church because your racism would not handicap your service.

Their sessions were amazing. I went to a few – in spite of the fact that they generally did not allow blacks to attend. They couldn’t because most blacks would defend whites showing their racism and block Mary and Jim from moving to help that person deal with and understand their racism. It was tough and the sessions put you through much to get you to face and deal with your racism. All done in the context of Christianity.

Problem is – Santa Claus and his henchmen intervened and after that incredible and incredibly brief period of time the Souther Baptists reached the point of not allowing women to be ordained – who prior to that could be ordained – and moving Blacks into those spaces of oppression which they could not fight against without being moved out of the Church. That has changed a bit today, but the blacks so moved into leadership positions still are surrounded by the wisps of smoke which come from the racism/self-hatred/self-negation they have to practice to stay in their positions.

Sort of reflective of what happened in these United States when Barack Obama was elected president and we looked forward to moving into a time of wonderful equality, justice and God’s peace only to have the rude awakening of Donald Trump whose racism would have made him comfortable around Hitler and Santa Claus. As President Obama was replaced by President Trump who, while claiming the office of president actually acted more like a foreign agent of Russia – a country in which most of the people, especially those at the top, were white.

So where do we go now with all of this. How do we walk in the sunshine again without the shame our history could dump on us?

I have no answers – make no proposals – have spent a lifetime fighting for justice and trying to live as an equal amongst equals and have not been very successful at it.

This last bout, that Robert and I suffered was enough to make us realize the extreme racism in these United States is alive and well and will overtake anyone at anytime and feel justified in the act. We spent our lives trying to bring about justice – trying to help people see the beauty of truth and how it most helps you live a great life – how much better it is to be equal than better than or less than and opt out of responsibilities which face others.

We made many sacrifices for our children so they would not have to experience what we have had to endure. When we stepped back we saw that we simply did for them what our parents did for us – a life of sacrifice which produced less than nothing and we and they still had to go through horrors. A lifestyle generations before us practiced without realizing the hopelessness of such sacrifices.

As young people working hard to acquire an education and all the other accouterments this society claims are necessary we were sure footed and thought we knew the answers. Today, we are just as sure we don’t have the answers and those we put out there were only given to us to insure our blindness and deafness and that we would not impede the growth of the white culture of Santa Claus violating Jesus and all the teachings of Christianity.

Tags: Barack Obama, Christian Church, Christianity, Christmas, Donald Trump, James Tillman, Jesus, Mary Tillman, Nazi Germany, Santa Claus
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FINAL INJUSTICE

December 26th, 2020

https://vimeo.com/digspat/review/296754905/eee042cb95?sort=lastUserActionEventDate&direction=desc

This is a must see video. Hope you will watch it to the end and send back your comments. It is one of a series of 10 videos.

It is a look at what is happening on the southern border of the United States. This is something we avoid – don’t hear much about except in passing – and have not felt moved to take action to remove the inhumanity, the evil, the horribleness being foisted on other human beings because they find themselves in untenable, scary, violent circumstances and look to the United States for help. Here you will find the kind of “help” we are now meting out.

We are open to your comments. Send them to bettinanetwork@ comcast.net

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A Petition to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

December 12th, 2020

We took on this campaign a couple years ago when Donald Trump announced he would not honor President Obama’s plan – already set in place with the currency plates created and the date set to run this new $20 bill. He did not feel Harriet Tubman was someone who would do anything good for the United States and, indeed, would be an embarrassment. Trump cancelled the run of this new currency.

Since we started this campaign, many others have taken it up and adopted and adapted it as their own. Several people designed and created stamps for sale so you could take the currently available $20, stamp over the picture of Andrew Jackson before spending your money. That $20 could be spent with good feelings that the person on it representing the United States was someone who sacrificed much for her country and, indeed, as the end of her life was given military honors for the work she did leading many slaves to freedom – hundreds of slaves as the risk of her own life.

We just signed the petition “Replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20” and wanted to ask if you could add your name too.

This campaign means a lot to us and the more support we can get behind it, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can read more and sign the petition here:

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/replace-andrew-jackson-with-harriet-tubman-on-the-20

Thank you!

Marceline and Robert

P.S. Can you also take a moment to share the petition with others? It’s really easy – all you need to do is forward this email or share this link on Facebook or Twitter:

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/replace-andrew-jackson-with-harriet-tubman-on-the-20?share=b3d7f54b-5f01-4e2e-95b4-9e52a62bad05&source=email-share-button&utm_medium=&utm_source=email

Tags: $20 bill, Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, Harriet Tubman, Pres. Barack Obama, Pres. elect Joe Biden, Replace $20, Tubman $20 petition, U. S. Currency, VP Elect Kamala Harris
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #DonaldTrump, #meToo, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, Barack Obama, Feminism, Growing Old, Harriet Tubman, Historical Support, Joe Biden, Marceline Donaldson, racism | Comments Off on A Petition to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and the elderly!

December 4th, 2020

As many of you know, we have been through some horrifying times over the past few months.

What we learned is that the elderly are at risk in this society and many are being exploited with their assets, freedom, health and more increasingly attacked and stripped away for the benefit of others.

We are adding “Project Old Age” to what the Foundation is doing and hope you will support our efforts. Of all our projects, this one will most assuredly touch your life because we all, finally, move into Old Age.

The project which took a lot of time, money and other resources is coming to an end. The Harriet Tubman Project. We hope you will sign the petition which we are sending to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris telling them about our efforts and all of those who helped and asking them to re-start and bring to completion having the image of Harriet Tubman printed on the next print-run of the $20 bill.

It was, after all President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden who started this effort and brought it almost to completion. When they left office in 2016 they left everything needed for the next printing of the $20 bill to be one with the image of Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson.

That was scheduled to happen, with even the printing plates all done and waiting to be used, at the very beginning of Donald Trump’s time as president. However, Trump canceled that printing and was very clear there would be a woman on the currency one of these days, but it would not be someone like her.

All of that means the effort we put into the Tubman Project will now go into “Project Old Age.”

It has so many paths to take:

We were horrified to discover how easy it is to have the police pick up a citizen of the United States and shove him or her into the psych ward for no reason – except their assets look good and they are moving ahead with civil rights activities that some folks think need to be stopped – or some other personal or civil rights reason.

2. In addition, we discovered that many taxing areas – like cities which tax real estate – made a lot of noise and took credit for helping the elderly stay in their homes. They passed laws making it possible for people over 65, or in some cases over 70 or over 75 to be able to lien their real estate taxes to their property – paying interest, of course.

That has become a joke. The cities have almost no one who has been able to take advantage of that possibility. Why? Because working with banks, the bank refuse to allow such and the city, working with the banks, will obfuscate and confuse to make sure that such a lien process does not happen. Especially if the property is one developers want to buy; or the person is not wanted in the neighborhood for race or other reasons; or fifty other reasons we are uncovering.

3. Elder and Protective Services are also very problematical, being used to destroy, incarcerate, abuse and do much more and worse to the elderly they are supposed to be protecting. People are beginning to call us with problems that are horrifying. Elderly forcibly taken out of their homes for no reason and usually by the police with defective instruments. When they have no protection from these “Protective Services” they are shoved into nursing homes and there – under constraints – end their lives. They just disappear. These days they become a part of the statistic of some 40% of the people dying from COVID-19 are dying in nursing homes. Our experience is that the elderly are placed in nursing homes – even ones already under quarantine, insuring that their lives will be at risk.

We could go on, but we want you to know what this “Project Old Age” is about because it will take in all kinds of problems and sub-projects. It seems to be where society is focusing. Why? Seems to us because with the elderly that is where a very large percentage of assets have always been and because it is easy to get out one’s racism, sexism, and more against families and look “legitimate” in the process. Destroy the assets of the elderly in a new immigrant family and the next generation does not have as great a chance at success as they would if the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents were to come to fruition in their generation helping them through the education and other needs we require as a society for many to move up.

We had no idea what was waiting for all of us out there as we move into “old age”. We are asking that you take another look. Think carefully over our requests and information as all of this unfolds and work with us to rectify and block and eliminate all of these problems so our old age comes peacefully and we can enjoy our last years instead of having to go through what so many have worked hard for and don’t get to experience because others decided to steal, destroy, oppress, and more those reaching the end of their lives.

And lets look at assets with a different definition. When you become elderly – assets include insurance, etc.

JOIN US! It is becoming one of the most meaningful things we have done and we intend to put as many resources into this as possible.

“It is a formmula for newly forming Guardianship Corporations to drain the assets of the elderly. They were mostly interested in Jews – it was a way to make sure the assets of elderly Jewish families would not go to the next generation – making sure their families would not be able to accomplish as much in life as would be possible if they had what in many cases has amounted to millions of dollars.

It is bizaar, but it is also life ending prematurely. We think this is a criminal conspiracy. They isolate – medicate – liquidate everything you own.

It is an issue where you will find extreme right wing Republicans taking it on as well as extreme left wing Democrats because families of all political persuasions are negatively affected. Not only are they moving showing their anti-semitism, but they are also moving showing they are not respectors of political parties and have a sharp eye out for minorities – all minorities, African Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslims, etc..

To go along with the above we are pulling together a “Legal Defense and Education fund for the Elderly.” We are starting it under Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and will hopefully be able to move it into its own non-profit soonest.

We are looking for attorneys who want to affiliate with this Elderly Fund and are willing to take cases; do research, etc.. Local Massachusetts attorneys, but also attorneys across the country.

I guess I am following family history – my grandfather worked with Thurgood Marshall – Jack Greenberg and others to found the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I have pictures from way back in the 1940’s. How different a society we would be if the creation of the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund had not happened.

Hopefully, what we leave in place will be an organization that works with the elderly on these legal issues. Having people picked up by the police the way Robert was and illegally so because those doing the “incarcerating” have been to Court without the other side present or knowing anything about the “emergency hearing” making sure the case was set in place before anyone on the other side even knew there was a case. The elderly are defeated from day one and don’t know that because the papers so filed are either impounded or under seal. A couple cases we found the people had no idea how what happened to them got started and defended against the wrong thing because they were led to believe something which was not true. We found motions from attorneys like the one filed in Roberts name as though Robert was filing it when Robert knew nothing about the motion, did not know there was anything in court about him, had not been notified that the Court had appointed an attorney to represent him. How could that be attorney representation when no one knew on Robert Bennett’s side about such an appointment and the person appointed and the Court appointment came from Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – so they then had attorneys representing them on both sides of the issue.

The state is implicated because the claim of “indigent” opens the state pocket books so they can be picked to be able to facilitate what we strongly believe and everything we find backs up our belief that this is a “criminal conspiracy.”

The police were and usually are involved on the wrong side of these issues. In Robert’s case they forced him out of his home and into a psych ward with a defective instrument. One signed by a psychiatrist testifying to the fact that she had never met Robert, knew nothing about him, had never examined him, had never been to his home which she described as “unsafe” and yet out of the blue and violating all of the rules and regulations of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services she signed out a Section 12 to have him picked up by the police.

The proof of the defectiveness of the instrument the police were given and used is proven by the fact that the hospital sent Robert home with no problems found, no reason for him to have been forced into the psych ward in the first place. That kind of proof after the fact followed through in everything that happened to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and what happened to him turns out to be a pattern used to do the same thing to other elderly people who have something the people sending out the police want and which they move to get through these defective legal means. And on from bad to worse.

So far, we have been blessed with many people cooperating and working with us. We owe a huge thank you and gratitude to the person who put legal papers through our mail slot which showed us what was really happening with Robert and we were able to break that case and now have what we need to file a substantial law suit against all involved.

Work with us – let us know the problems – send attorneys to affiliate with this new Legal and Educational Fund for the Elderly.

Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

617 497 9166

Tags: Bettina Network Foundation, Civil Rights, Defund the Police, Harriet Tubman, Old Age, Police, Project Old Age, Protective and Elderly Services
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #MedicareFraud, #racism.in.hospitals, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, #sexism.in.hospitals, Banks, bigotry, Boycott the $20 bill, Donald Trump, Feminism, Forced Medical Treatment, Growing Old, Harriet Tubman, racism, Real Estate Taxes, Steven Mnuchin | Comments Off on Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and the elderly!

Bettina Oracle talks about Donald Trump!

November 22nd, 2020

So much time spent on such a small, mean-spirited human who is turning the world’s attention towards himself. What is going on in the United States is simply the country being exposed for all to see – its history from its beginnings is being highlighted. Those most hurt by the choices made as these United States grew into a super power being held up and given the chance to call for the destruction of the United States or its spirit being renewed into what it could have been from its beginnings.

At the same time what is happening is its last chance for atonement. It is time to say “God forgive” and do what’s necessary to become the country you could have been generations ago.

Now, however, Donald Trump has a serious mission in what he is doing with the United States presidential election. He has been given the chance to atone for the misdeeds of those who went before in his family or to be destroyed for eternity.

So much conjecture, on earth, going on about what Donald Trump is really doing when it is simple and should not be using all of the energy it has used. The media is leading this charge and it needs to take a look at its goals and make some serious changes. Research and report the truth – not the facts turned into ways to extend and gain money and power. That is just as evil as what Donald Trump and those around him are doing.

Donald Trump is doing his best to help a friend. A friend who means everything to him and is responsible for Donald Trump having become President of the United States. That “friend” is Vladimir Putin of Russia. They have common goals and needs for power, control and mostly money. Putin is one of Donald Trump’s mentors – someone he would dearly love to imitate.

The shock Donald Trump felt when it became clear he had lost the election was, at first, unfathomable to him. He knew his friend was going to “fix” the election the same way he did in 2016, but these results said something different. Had he offended?

Having absolute trust in his friends power and need to have Trump in his orbit as President of the United States with all the plans they made for the future, Donald Trump knew something was wrong. He also knew this was his chance to show “Vlad” his loyalty and who he really respected and to whom he would give his life.

The world is conjecturing that this is now about Trump trying to protect his family and others. No – this is about being the bridge across which Vladimir Putin can cross or rest until he is able to move along with the plans they made for the future.

For Donald Trump, he could not “concede” this election until he heard from Vladimir that everything was fine and he would return as President from 2021 through 2024. Even if this was a real loss, he still could not concede or make other decisions about moving forward until he heard from his love – Putin.

Vladimir, however, has not been able to produce for Trump because Vladimir himself is in trouble in Russia and. in addition, having some physical problems, things have not gone as smoothly as he had hoped.

Putin was distracted from concentrating on Trump and the U. S. Election. It was a very bad time for his to have his concentration weakened because those in the U. S. who have that power threw a curve ball by making such a push on “Mail-in ballots.” Mail-in ballots can’t be hacked and the plans made to throw in the number of votes in the places needed was not possible. With Vladimir Putin in a position of weakness from physical and other problems Trump was almost, but not quite, on his own.

Trump disappeared from view because he needed to be immediately available in case messages came telling him what to do to salvage his presidency. In the meantime, he would do what he could to pull his own weight and show Vladimir how great he is as someone who can be relied upon for the jobs ahead. If he was not president then he needed to go about the process of tearing down a country – even one as large and old as the United States – so he and others could flourish.

So far, Vladimir will probably have to retire soon because health and other issues are about to surface and retirement is the best route for him to take.

That leaves Donald Trump on his own without someone else taking care of him for the first time in his life. This is really his last test. Either he will come through and use his God given talents for good or he will show the world and the universe that he is really thoroughly evil and has other directions in which he must go. That would be tragic for Trump.

The United States has its own “proofs” to make and we shall see how well that goes.

Slavery of Africans; genocide of American Indians; using the Chinese to build the railroads in the United States in a form of slavery; sex trafficking of the children of immigrants and so much more.

How will you ever cope to fulfill your promise America. Especially when the first thing you have to do is to stop calling yourselves and feeling as though you are the best country and people in the world. That by itself is evil – can’t you see? Won’t you change?

If not, there will be another Donald Trump in your lives in the not too distant future and that will your end time.

Tags: American Indians, Chinese, Donald Trump, Genocide, Russia, Sex Trafficking, Slavery, Vladimir Putin
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DONALD J. TRUMP ATTEMPTS COUP D’ETAT!

November 12th, 2020

We need to make this an article, but what else is there to say!

We remember when there were articles about Senators taking money from the NRA for their political campaigns. Could that be why they are now so quiet about this Trump ‘Coup d’Etat’ thing? And why they are so quiet about so many other things they were elected to address? Isn’t it time for them to check themselves to see just how naked they are – in imitation of this Emperor and those who went before him, in whose path he is now walking?….President Andrew Johnson…..President Andrew Jackson….Adolph Hitler….Mussolini…..Stalin…..and back to Rome and further?

One of the attorney generals in the U. S. has just about stripped the NRA of its power and money in these United States and it has to either fold or work hard to re-grow. It seemed to be clear when that happened that the NRA was a channel through which Russia (and probably other fascist states) funneled money to intervene in the U. S. elections. However, today, with this Trump thing we have totally pushed that part of the story out the window.

It is very sad to see the United States going through such trauma. However, think for a few moments of the trauma experienced for hundreds of years by American Indians, Africans, Chinese, Latinas, Jews, LBGTQ peoples and more because of the kind of bigotry that has been rammed down the throat of the U. S. and the world by the likes of Donald Trump.

Why has that bigotry been so strong and lasted so long? If you can count you can see the strongest reason being the 72,000,000 millions of people who voted for Donald Trump. Keepers of the flame of slavery, bigotry, greed, hatred and so much more.

If you are bigoted and want a fascist government in place to ram your extreme prejudices into and throughout society so you can feel that you and your country are “better than”, Donald Trump must have seemed like a glass of spring water for someone dying of thirst.

He pulled no punches. Donald Trump showed all during his run in the primary and throughout his presidential campaign and when he came down the escalator to accept the nomination of his party for president of the United States. No one could hide from the ugly racism, the putrid sexism his hatred of Mexicans when he announced how the Mexicans were rapists and more. That should have sent those in attendance running and screaming out of that place. But they applauded. Given that, we understand that a very large segment of the United States population is about as bigoted as they come. Some try to hide their prejudices behind an elegant demeanor, an intelligent mind, an ivy league education, their surface devotion to the sacredness of their definition of motherhood and more, but when they pulled that lever or scratched in that circle voting for Donald Trump they exposed themselves to God and everybody .

What is amazing to us is the two sided nature of human beings. The president of Mexico is one of the few international leaders who has not come out to congratulate Joe Biden and to welcome him into the international community as a partner. What is that all about? Did he not hear? Did he not know? Is he trying to be neutral and in the end will go with the winner?

The United States will recover from the trauma of Donald J. Trump’s Coup d’Etat, but will the handful of us who are not prejudiced – who are not bigots – who have not seen the United States as a “better than all the rest” country – how are we going to survive?

If you had any doubts – any questions – any hesitations that you were judging “the Don” harshly? Your questions have been answered. If you want something, some kind of measuring device, with which to judge those you elected to govern take a look at those standing with “the Don” and then take a look at those working hard to try to help this United States move to a democracy, a better – healthier – happier place.

The Emperor has no clothes and the patches over the eyes of the Emperor’s subjects which have been in place doing a job of not allowing his followers to recognize his nakedness, have been removed. Do they create and put on new blinders so they don’t have to deal with a government structured and run according to good and true ethics? According to justice for all? According to kindness, understanding and helping those who need help? Or do we continue to accept this Emperor and continue to play the game of “better than” because it is easy, taking money from those in need and giving it to the wealthy along with all the other games we have been playing for generations.

The Emperor truly has no clothes and his naked body is the ugliest thing we have seen in generations. He is a negative walking living stereotype from his hair to his ballet dancer hands to his walk to his daytime diapers. Do we applaud as he passes by or do we let him know we see him as he is and it is time for him to get dressed and join the rest of society!

Tags: Adolph Hitler, Donald Trump, Mussolini, Nazism, U. S. Congress, U. S. Presidential Election
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #DonaldTrump, #meToo, Adolph Hitler, bigotry, Feminism, Nazism, NRA, racism, Russia, sexism, U. S. Presidential Campaign | Comments Off on DONALD J. TRUMP ATTEMPTS COUP D’ETAT!

How we cook rice!

November 10th, 2020

Potatoes seem to be the accompaniment to all dishes. Very seldom do we find rice at a friends’ homes; restaurants; other places to eat.

We found what we believe to be an extraordinary way to cook rice – some say it prevents cancer. We don’t know that, but we will put it out there for you anyway.

Using Jasmine Rice, put a bit of butter in the pan in which you are going to cook the rice. Add one cup of rice and let it cook in the butter a few minutes – stirring all the time.

Using a “Magic Bullet” or some other device which turns food like tomatoes into liquid – put two tomatoes into this or a blender or etc. and let it turn the tomatoes into a liquid. Add this to the rice which is cooking in butter. Two tomatoes cut into four pieces are perfect for one cup of rice. Add a cup of water, a bit of salt to taste and let this mixture cook until it becomes rice as you know it. I have reached the point of never cooking rice without reaching for a tomato to add to the rice.

You could also add seasonings. We have tried a bit of thyme – excellent. A little bit of oregano – even better. A teaspoon or so of turmeric – now that’s health. Whatever you like and it will add tremendously to the rice. This is not fried rice, this is regular ordinary rice cooked a step beyond just rice and water.

You might want to be careful that the rice you choose is always “organically grown.”

As a side dish this can’t be beat. You will soon give up your potato addiction for something else.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on How we cook rice!

Girl, that could be you!

November 9th, 2020

Marceline, don’t just read this and cast it aside, I am writing it and sending it to you for Bettina Network’s Blog. Someone should write your biography. As I saw Kamala Harris I thought about you and had to sit down with my pen before I got involved in something else and this moment would not come again.

We need a Truth and Reconciliation moment as all of this will only accelerate. It is a time during which much history will be forgotten or re-written to satisfy those who want to keep society as it is, but will effect change – for the moment.

When I saw Kamala Harris on that stage, I thought of Marceline Donaldson. I know, I know, you like to write, talk and think about others, but it is time you reflected on your life.

My first thought was that the two of you look enough alike that you could be mother and daughter. And then I realized that was a racist thought because what you have in common physically is your hair and color. Otherwise, you are very different and to realize your hair commonalities one had to know you way back when – before you turned gray.

We have been friends long enough for me to know your first analysis of Kamala Harris would be her clothes style – not southern, not new england, not mid-western, but very decidedly California.

Your second thought was probably to think – she didn’t take ballet lessons and all the rest as a child to force herself into that ‘constrained southern lady’ thing. I say thank goodness. Don’t remember what you would say because you were usually all over the map about that.

I thought immediately of the Truth and Reconciliation Task Force because when I first saw Kamala Harris come onto that stage I started crying and couldn’t stop. I knew I was not alone because I was sure you were doing the same thing. I remembered all the many times this white woman cried with you, for you, and for myself. We will probably be crying for months at the least little things because much of what we experienced has been pent up for decades. It will take more than this for the dam to break, but hopefully, shortly, enough will happen for all of those pushed down feelings that we all have, to erupt.

My pain does not begin to be the huge pains you carry, because I didn’t put myself out the way you did – and probably still do. I want to put out in public just a few because what individual women have gone through just to exist and move ahead in this world needs to be aired. I hope others follow this example and will send you their stories. That kind of pain needs to be shared because those who caused it go around without a thought as to what they did and what they are doing to other human beings just because those others are women. And I mean women and men have caused enormous pain and agony to each other.

The memory I won’t ever forget = can’t forget was being in your brokerage office – Dain, Kalman & Quail, inc. – trying to become one of your clients. You had just become the first African American stock broker in Minnesota. I believe you were the first in the country, even though several African American men have been knocking themselves out to prove otherwise. Don’t know if you knew that, but they approached me trying to get my cooperation. A book or something like it is being written to wipe you out of history.

In that stock brokerage/financial investment office, that day I began to realize the enormity of the problems you were facing and would face and the almost insurmountable obstacles that are thrown in all of our paths on a daily basis. Just to keep us in our place – “less than”. And you as a black woman have had to face unbelievable times. Well “almost black woman” – (howls of laughter from me – a sort of private joke).

Into the office, while I was waiting to see you, came a group of black men. They demanded to see the president and were apparently known by a couple people in the office. They were ushered right into the presidents office. I didn’t know them, but as talk went around me I understood they were the heads of the local offices of a few national civil rights organizations and one was there – brought by the others – to be your replacement. They were in the office that day to demand that you be fired and this black man be hired in your place because of the incredible, horribleness of your having been hired over a black man in the first place.

They expressed their indignation at your being a stock broker and what an insult that was to Black men all over. They wanted you fired and they brought along with them one of the Babington-Johnson brothers as someone who should have been hired instead of you. The fact that you walked into the office and applied for the job, backed by Lillian Anthony as your reference and a few other black and white brothers and sisters meant nothing to them. The fact that the Babington-Johnson brother hadn’t thought about applying for such a job and wasn’t doing that now, but was going along with this kind of awfulness meant nothing to them.

One was head of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition – on which you were a member of the board. We went to a few board meetings together. Another was head of the Mpls Urban League. One was a “gad fly” who worked for one of the large companies – a utility company, I think – whose demeanor I never liked. Never did learn who the others were.

While I sat and waited for you – thank goodness you were no place near to hear all of this – I got to hear the meeting and it was a list of grievances and outrageous insults and put downs of black men with this one topping the list.

I hadn’t thought of that before. I had always thought of black men as allies in this fight for women’s rights. That day changed all of that.

When they left the office, I did too. I couldn’t face anyone after that so I went home. I was so upset it took days for me to settle down. I left that office a strong feminist, although that was not who I was when I went there looking for you. I had been to a luncheon panel discussion on investment at a local hotel – don’t remember which one – an investment luncheon which you organized and led and I was high on women now being equal after that brief time. I should have known better, but I was quite young and ‘unexposed’ never having been in a civil rights fight or organization before that.

Those black men demanding you be fired and a black man hired in your stead did something to me from which I have never recovered. Before witnessing that meeting I was quite shy about calling myself a feminist. After, I have been a proud feminist to this day. And as such a supporter of Kamala Harris for as long as I can participate in this society’s politics.

I hope others follow this example and let the Dam break with the flood of stories of what women – white, black, brown, yellow, red, etc. – have experienced in this life so men could assume the mantle of “superiority over” women and not have to work hard for their “better than” identity. And I hope all women realize it is not only white men who have this “better than” need and whose egos can be bruised quickly by a woman exerting the fact that she is their “equal.” To break the stereotype of women as always held up and respected “on a pedestal”, “motherhood uber alles”, our job being to take care of the home and family while men go out to work, etc. And lets not even begin to go into the stereotype of black women.

Haven’t used your “better than” quotes, but I will do so now extensively. Maybe a little late to the party, but my memories are going to flood out to whoever, wherever I can share them. Unfortunately, they are the memories of an observer rather than of someone who participated in change, but maybe today I can correct that before I leave this earth.

Tags: Dain Kalman & Quail inc, Feminism, financial investment professional, Kamala Harris, Lillian Anthony, Marceline Donaldson, meToo, Minnesota, Racism, Sexism, stock broker
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #meToo, American Corporate Businesses, Dain, Kalman & Quail, inc., Feminism, financial investment professional, Kamala Harris, Lillian D. Anthony, Marceline Donaldson, meToo, Minnesota, racism, sexism, stock boker | Comments Off on Girl, that could be you!

We are happy to announce and introduce the Newly Elected President of the United States – Joseph Robinette Biden

November 7th, 2020

It is with great jubilation that the Bettina Network Blog, inc announces the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.

Joseph Robinette Biden has won the election and will become president on January 20, 2020. Senator Kamala Harris will become vice-president in an election which will be studied, analyzed, dissected and more for generations.

President Trump stayed true to one of his idols – President Andrew Jackson – the entire time of his presidency of these United States. He has done quite a bit for this country bringing its racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry to the fore causing President-elect Biden to have to keep this at the top of his agenda over the next four years and beyond.

It is now time for those who tried and are still trying to start a civil war in this country to go back underground and stay there until a vehicle can be built to take them to another planet.

The United States went into apoplectic fits after Barack Obama was elected president and many worked hard to bring about basic changes after President Obama’s presidency so that would never happen again. What they actually did was to re-enforce for many the superiority of President Obama’s tenure – African American, over President Trump’s tenure – German American. One prominent American said “if we had only known we could have been electing many different minorities over the years and America would be the country she has pretended to be from the beginning.”

With President Obama’s presidency starting in 2008 – young people born in about 2000 have a look at race very different from others born in this country and, indeed, others around the country. It was an elegant, efficient, substantial presidency which while not perfect is the kind of representation most of those in America want from their government. Those same young people born about 2000 have lived to see what the presidency is like when a white American – from a German family who immigrated to these United States starting with President Trump’s grandfather, has wrought.

They were able to see that one does not have need to have a perfect family to be elected president. President Trump comes from an immigrant family who came to these United States and started building a fortune, which I am told that first generation of immigrant did using prostitutes – and from that beginning the hotel interests of the Trump family had its beginnings. The hotel which started it all was alleged to be a bordello, but the money was green and Trump’s father continued in that vein by making a substantial fortune in partnership with a family reputed to be a part of the Italian Mafia.

Coming to adulthood, the young people born during that 2000 – a little before and a little after – are now making up the citizenship which will elect the next presidents of these United States and having as their example the contrast between Barack Obama – African American and Donald Trump – German American, racism in these United States will probably take a tumble downhill for quite some time.

Unfortunately, the current president – Donald J. Trump – will not be at the inauguration to congratulate the new president. He will have left to start his new life in Turkey.

Expectations were that Trump would go to Russia after his tenure as president because of his alleged service as a foreign agent for that country while he served as U. S. President under the Russian President Putin. However Putin is retiring and himself making plans to move on.

With a Trump Hotel in Turkey and his rumored presidential election strategy sessions with President Erdogan of Turkey having gone on for many months, a friendship has evolved which will create a major business alliance between Turkey, Erdogan and Trump.

There were hopes in the Trump family that a Trump Tower Moscow would come out of Donald Trump’s presidency, but that presidency has been such a horrendous mess that will not now happen.

Our congratulations to President-elect Biden and we commiserate with President Trump as he leaves office to start another venture.

Tags: Donald Trump, President Erdogan of Turkey, President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Trump Hotel Moscow, Trump Hotel Turkey, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on We are happy to announce and introduce the Newly Elected President of the United States – Joseph Robinette Biden

Interesting and very nutritious Recipes to rev up your immune system!

October 19th, 2020

Try this hamburger with kale chips – you won’t believe how good it is.

First, the kale chips.

Take the “spine” out of the Kale. Just rip the leaves away from the middle tough spine and put the leaves on a baking sheet.

Pour a very little melted butter or peanut oil or olive oil (only use olive oil if you don’t have any of the others) If you use olive oil you will have to bake these kale leaves at 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 250 tops. Olive Oil goes rancid quickly if used with too high heat. Rancid oil does not help your immune system become healthier and in great shape. In fact, it does exactly the opposite.

We love very good Olive Oil on salads and other things not cooked. Keep my Olive Oil away from the stove.

Sprinkle himalayan salt (that beautiful pink salt), Old Bay Seasoning, maybe a little thyme, turmeric and sage over the kale leaves.

Mix with your hands turning the leaves over and over until they are all evenly coated with the oil and seasonings.

If you have other seasonings you like, don’t hesitate to use them instead of what we suggested. That comes from our taste. You probably have a culturally acquired taste for specific seasonings – by all means use them. You will find the kale chips much more to your liking if you do.

We have tried this with butter and with peanut oil. We prefer the peanut oil, but you probably will have to go to China Town to get it. Most groceries don’t carry peanut oil anymore or they carry a really inferior brand.

Put the baking sheet in the oven at 300 or 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake them until they are very crisp. Check them periodically – ours take about an hour sometimes an hour and a half to cook.

To assemble the hamburger:

Put a hamburger bun in the oven to heat. Make sure you are using an organic hamburger bun. That means only organic flour and preferably made with whole wheat flour.

Once heated, spread things you like on the bun – mayonnaise, mustard, organic bread and butter pickles, etc. Make sure everything is organic, don’t ruin it at this point.

Use ground beef which is organic from grass fed beef and shape into patties.

Fry them in a cast iron skillet – briefly and on medium heat. You can oil the pan, however if you use 85-15% meat to fat you don’t need to oil the pan. And, if you keep your cast iron skillets well oiled you really don’t need to ever oil the pan – they are non-stick in that instance.

Put the cooked ground beef pattie on the hamburger bun. Top it with a slice or slices of tomato. Put the kale chips on top of the tomato and close the bun.

The kale chips take this way upscale. We used to like lettuce with the tomatoes on the hamburger bun, however this has more nutrition and adds dramatically to the taste.

We use mayonnaise on these buns because that lets the taste of everything else come through. Mustard could be too strong a taste, but if you are one of those people who needs your mustard – go ahead.

Enjoy! And feel this great nutritional dish surge through your system running out everything that does not belong and that will cause you “ill” feelings.

DO NOT USE store bought kale chips no matter how tempting and make sure you are using organically grown kale. It takes less than five minutes to prepare the kale for the oven and you will have leftovers to use as we suggest below.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Once you have enjoyed this hamburger you will be more ready to follow our next suggestion. We keep kale chips and bake them fresh every week to use as seasoning in many dishes. Sometimes we use kale chips instead of salt in different dishes. Other times we find the taste is great with rice. Just about any dish is improved if you sprinkle a bit of kale chips in the dish.

Not only will the dish be improved, its nutritional value will also be stepped up and your body will benefit.

_________________________________

Tags: Hamburger, Improve Immune System, Kale Chips, Sage, Thyme, Tomatoes, turneric
Posted in Hamburger, Improve Immune System, Kale Chips, Old Bay Seasoning, Olive Oil, Organic Hamburger, Peanut Oil, Sage, Thyme, Turmeric | Comments Off on Interesting and very nutritious Recipes to rev up your immune system!

Waldorf Astoria/Park Plaza/Donald Trump – share what?

October 17th, 2020

There is currently going on in Taunton, Massachusetts at 2 Galleria Drive an auction, which is one of the largest held in recent memory and the items include all of those which were inside the Waldorf Astoria before its current rehab started. The sale is being held by Kaminski Auctioneers of Beverly, Massachusetts.

https://auctions.kaminskiauctions.com/viewuserdefinedpage.aspx?pn=waldorf-astoria-auction

This is the largest auction held – so far. The auction which held that title, until Kaminski came along with the Waldorf Astoria auction was the one which sold items from the Park Plaza Hotel, which was owned by Donald Trump. He went bankrupt, so the hotel and its contents were auctioned.

Trump purchased the hotel in 1988 and paid some $400 million plus. It was purchased in its bankruptcy in 1995 for some $325 million. It was sold by the purchasers in 2004 for $675 million.

Joe Brancatelli wrote an article about Trump and the Plaza Hotel along with his foray into the travel industry March 3, 2016. That article was written when Trump was running to win the Republican primnary for president of the United States .

A quote from that article

“After a series of primary wins on Tuesday, Donald Trump is the man to beat for the Republican Party nomination for president. And as you surely know, Trump voters are enamored of his carefully burnished reputation as a businessman supposedly worth ” in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS.”

But like his all-caps boasting on Federal Election Commission financial forms, Trump’s record doesn’t translate to the travel industry. His travel forays over the past 40 years have been a strange brew of missed opportunities, dreadful timing, questionable financial maneuvers, swaggering braggadocio, tear-down-the-competition innuendo and outright failure.”

To read the entire article go to: https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/blog/seat2B/2016/03/joe-brancatelli-donald-trump-travel-deals.html

The article is very enlightening because it talks about the many tries and failures of Donald Trump, some of his bankruptcies and the time he partnered with the Pritzker family in a hotel in New York which was apparently the beginning of the Hyatt chain.

That partnership was fraught with fights, law suits, and more negative stuff. The Pritzkers ended the partnership and they went their separate ways. The Hyatt chain in New York developed eight Manhattan hotels, including the Grand Hyatt while Trump’s own chain over the same period had two New York hotels.

Trump then went into the casino business and, according to this article, left banks, bondholders and other investors holding the financial bag. then came the casino bankruptcies and now Atlantic City, where his casinos were built, is a mess.

And now so is the United States.

The article is a must read if you would like to know the real story of Donald Trump as a business man. What amazes us is that all of this was known before Trump was elected President, yet none of it mattered to those who supported Trump for president.

Most interesting for us was the 1989 purchase by Trump of the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle. A Bettina Blog talks about Trump’s foray into the airline industry by using the work of an African American man who went back and forth from Boston to New York thinking Trump was interested in working with him on a shuttle. In reality Trump was interested in getting into the airlines business on the back of his work leaving him in the dust for all of his hard work and travel back and forth to New York to meet with Trump at his own expense. From our knowledge the man was never compensated and Trump simply took his work and used it as his own.

His history, character and personality prevailed, however and he overpaid for the planes, received a practically destroyed market share and cut costs by putting out “upgrades” of flash rather than actual, substantial, business improvements and of course, he tried to increase his market share by smearing his competitors with unfounded accusations.

It is a “must read” article if you would like to see just how much the United States voters who supported Trump were willing to overlook because they had a candidate who, they thought, would keep and move ahead to ever higher places their identity as “better than”. It is quite a story when you realize by who, for what and how Trump was elected.

This country was founded and became great through slavery. Those fighting the idea trying to move the United States to greatness through other means have constantly had to fight those who didn’t want to put in the work, but wanted an easier, quicker, filthier way to power and riches.

Trump has become a symbol of just how that has been done over the generations. He has also shown just how ugly are those goals and what one has to do to achieve such supremacy over others.

Trump’s pattern of life and its results have been documented, not only in this article by Joe Brancatelli, but in many others.

Today, the conspiracy theories, the lies, the mess, the upheavals all necessary for Trump to maintain in the way he tries to recreate the world in his own image, are all out there. Amazingly, even with history to show the results of following such a person there is still a large percentage of the United States population doing just that and feeling “better than” and justified as they spill and spurt filth, evil, brutality, lies, pain and suffering all over the world.

Make sure you read the article to its end where it points out that while Trump was calling for a ban on Muslims, Trump Hotels were aggressively courting Muslim business with an Arabic-language website.

There are other articles which outline what was happening in “Trump Business World” and they all read very similarly.

They all point to what bigotry can and has produced, yet we still engage.

One of Trump’s most horrendous legacies is his stamp on the United States Supreme Court. He is leaving a nominee who will keep his character, values, his brand of ‘integrity’ solidly enmeshed in the United States through almost everything the Supreme Court does.

That could be changed by the Senate finding its way back to a better, more truthful, more substantial place and vote to not confirm Trump’s nominee, but after watching what happened with the Kavanaugh nomination, that possibility has O% chance of happening. Real, substantial values are hard too restore once compromised and destroyed with others put in their place to achieve specious goals. The United States has not been able to work its way out of the morass it created and refuses to get out of from its beginnings.

A beautiful dream – unrealizable?________________________________________________________________

Tags: #DonaldTrump, Amy Coney Barrett, Kaminski Aucioneers, Park Plaza Hotel, Supreme Court, Waldorf Astoria Hotel
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Waldorf Astoria/Park Plaza/Donald Trump – share what?

A Publicly Acknowledged Bigotry acceptable for Supreme Court Justices.

October 16th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is not only acceptable but a required part of your resume´ to be seriously considered for a substantial position within this Trump administration.

We have watched such happen for four years and each time a new set of nominations comes along we know the people so nominated have made Trump comfortable with the fact that they are full of prejudices and ready to act on them to bring about the ‘Northern European-ancestry white person’ as better than anyone to create the society Trump and his followers envision. After all, he did not have the Bible, nor Thurmans ‘Jesus and the Disinherited’ on his bedside table as did Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others. On his bedside table – according to testimony in his divorce hearing – was a constant copy of ‘Mein Kampf’. Today, he does not have to go back and rummage through to come up with ‘what would Hitler have done’ – he has so internalized that way of being that it just oozes from him automatically in just about everything he does.

That can be clearly seen as we have lived through the many which this current Trump administration has nominated for top positions, middle and ‘at the bottom’ positions to maintain the bigotry which has existed in this country since its beginnings in slavery.

if you are full of racist, sexist, homophobic, immigrant, religious and all the other bigotries which we have been and are forced to live with to create and maintain one group ‘better than’ all others, then you have a chance of making Donald Trump’s list of nominees for government positions.

If your lifestyle shows you live that bigoted life as normal and everyday, you are certainly in line for promotions. If you assault women, have sexual problems disrespecting and forcing yourself on women or getting involved with all kinds of sexual deviancy and show your disdain and disgust for women who are independent and demand to live a life ‘equal to’ then you are also meant for greatness in this Trump government. If not, you are just cast aside and blocks thrown in your path even if you are far from the center of power. You still have to struggle so you won’t do much damage to the bigoted lifestyle required of you.

Currently, the topic is the Supreme Court nominee – Amy Coney Barrett.

What a great jurist she could be if only she wasn’t so imbued with the extreme bigotry which has been her lifestyle choice. What a destruction of the talent God gave her to use for good instead of for the evil path she has chosen.

That affects the rest of us because we do not have the internal strength and fortitude and honesty to call her out on her bigotries because we are afraid that in the process we might also be outed for all to see. Or, at the very least, have to endure shame and embarrassment as others rush to her defense.

During the hearings, to determine if Ms. Barrett should be confirmed, what was missing were questions about her extreme sexism. How can someone be a Supreme Court Justice in these United States when you believe women are inferior to men and cannot do the things a man can do or rise to the level to which a man has an automatic right to attain.

And then immediately comes – from many of you, even as you read this – DENIAL, DENIAL, DENIAL, EXPLANATION, EXCUSES, etc, etc ,etc.

I have heard those denials and explanations and excuses my whole entire life and today, being over 80 it is beyond enough already. But because I am losing the ability to continue to tolerate such doesn’t mean it will go away. My mother reached that point – so did my grandmother – and my grandfather – and I could go on listing all of my ancestors. But who would care? A few of you would give lip service and commiserate for a moment or two, but that would be the extent of it.

My family has achieved much, but their achievements have been in the midst of incredible sacrifice – ‘on all sides’.

To come from generations of people who intermarried and tried to be family under the stress and weight of this society’s bigotry has been an unbelievably difficult, painful, searing life experience.

I identified with Amy Barrett as I watched her demeanor, her dress, her way of speaking and recognized them all from my New Orleans upbringing. She certainly does not dress like a New Englander and I was just delighted to see that.

However, as who she is and the choices she has made through her life were exposed during these hearings my New Orleans upbringing at its most painful was also exposed.

New Orleans was and is a place where the most liberal and most conservative can co-exist and that goes through the generations. There were slave markets and free blacks with substantial assets. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood – white, black, rich, poor, mafia, police all lived within a couple blocks of one another. Three white families on my block.

By the time I went off to college, Eisenhower had started his extreme geographical segregation of whites from blacks and turning middle class ‘mixed’ neighborhood into all black, drug infested blocks with the beautiful boulevards with their trees and picnic tables in those mixed neighborhoods into filthy, crime ridden places where expressways – freeways – whatever they are called were built over those boulevards and became areas where you would then find abandoned cars under the freeways and the trees and picnic tables and white and black small businesses on both sides of the freeway gone and bars and other such places even today existing in their place without even a historical reminder of what went before.

Children assume that is how it ever was and ever will be because as they become adults they see what their efforts amount to – nothing except pushing them down and holding up those who are quiet and appear to be satisfied with the status quo.

Amy Coney Barrett comes from a neighborhood which I remember well and I am sure with a little prompting you will also. “Old Metairie” – where those who were ‘wanna-be’ lived in cultural constriction and extreme racism. Turn the pages to the time of Katrina and remember when people in New Orleans trying to escape the fast rising flood waters ran to escape by attempting to cross the bridge from New Orleans to Metairie and were met by those with guns determined that “those people” are not going to threaten and rape our women. And what happened? “Those people” trying to preserve their lives were stranded at the top of the bridge and had to stay there for very long periods of time in the heat, the blazing sun, no food, water, shelter because they couldn’t turn around to go back from whence they had come – the flood waters now prevented that.

That would have been one of many events which shaped Amy Barrett’s life and life choices.

How did she respond? She became, on the one hand someone who adopted Haitian children, which gives her some “street cred”, but on the other, where her identity lives she became an extreme sexist – which by definition is a hatred of women.

Her Catholicism, in which she was raised, gave way to belonging to “People of Praise” – a paraChurch, where those belonging run back to their identity within the Catholic Church when that is more comfortable, but do not leave behind their beliefs as “People of Praise.”

One of their most basic beliefs is in the inferiority of women and that is shown clearly in their structure. Men only on the board of those who governs Women subjected and under the governance of their husbands. Things most of us have not had to deal with for decades.

Women getting the vote; LGBTQ rights; equal pay; and so much more has come from our moving beyond by light years from where Amy Barrett decided to sit and make her life and out of that life her choices and now she is being promoted as someone who can make choices for millions of others for decades and where are we – talking about not criticizing her religion because that wouldn’t be right and so much more nonsense. Nonsense to allow the status quo to exist while we claim to be in another place fighting for equality.

Equality does not come from putting a woman or a man on the Supreme Court as a jurist who does not believe in equality and whose “integrity” will allow her to vote in such a way as to insure that equality does not come and the racist, sexist, structure of this society which we have all fought to change remains in tact. Maybe a few cosmetic changes, but with Ms. Barrett’s beliefs, not even that, especially since those questioning her demurred from the most basic issues – do you believe in the equality of women or do you equivocate on that and are not willing to step out and be counted.

My husband and I pray for this society daily. All we have left is the hope behind those prayers – that the next generation will not have to endure and go through the kind of horribleness we have been put through because some people’s egos and identities were so weak they could only survive believing they were better than and insisting that the society in which they live continues and maintains its structure which allows the bigoted to be sated and not threatened with having to go through the emotional trauma of moving from ‘better than’ to ‘equal to’.

We have so much to atone for and every time we make a start, the fear rises and the future without the identity you were raised to believe was your birthright comes forward and does not look good so we take a side curve and move in a direction where ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’

It would be tragic for Amy Barrett to be confirmed as it was tragic for Kavanaugh to have been confirmed. We saw the pattern, but when it happened again we decided to walk the same path because it was easy and those who stood up to say it is time to change this were martyred – and that is normal for us. We do that so well we have even hidden the mechanisms by which that happens and we look the other way.

Sadly, in this society, our excuses come down to money. How much will my doing this cost me – how much will I gain from being silent – how much will I get to rake in from going out on the limb just a short distance making sure I am always safe enough to be able to get back to the trunk in case the branch shows signs of breaking.

God forgive!

________________________________

Tags: #AmyBarrett, #DonaldTrum[p, Donald Trump, LGBTQ rights, Mein Kampf, New Orleans history, Racism, Sexism, Supreme Court Justice nominee
Posted in @AmyBarrett, Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump | Comments Off on A Publicly Acknowledged Bigotry acceptable for Supreme Court Justices.

Donald Trump and Jim Jones – HERD IMMUNITY and KOOL AID

October 14th, 2020

Kool Aid and COVID-19. What do they have in common.

The people in Guyana who were followers of Jim Jones had a better chance of living after Jim Jones had his trusted Lieutenants begin to serve them a poisoned concoction because he saw that his rule as head of the group was coming to an end than the people residing in the United States have after Donald Trump put out his order for the COVID-19 virus to be met head on with HERD IMMUNITY.

Trump is out in front having gatherings which will do the maximum at spreading the virus quickly around the country and he has many people working with him to achieve his goal. As did Jim Jones. It is time for “head in the sand” people to take their heads out of the sand and look around.

Rather than face life without the power and control he had experienced as head of this group, Jones had them all killed and his chief lieutenants obliged and carried out his wishes. Donald Trump has done the same thing using the Coronavirus and his chief lieutenants are following his orders.

What are you going to do about this? Wait to die? We, at Bettina Network, inc. are clearly being harassed. We have been experiencing much harassment. After this blog I expect there will be more. We survived being out there during the 1960’s fighting for civil rights. We were out there in the middle of the women’s movement in the late 1960’s through the 1970’s. We have been out there fighting for equal rights for everyone because that is how we were raised.

Today, our telephone constantly rings and there is no one on the other side. The last call was from “Nicholas Gary 1-813 289 8225. at 9:50pm. When you dial that number an interrupt signal comes on and the recorded voice says – “this number has been disconnected.” That is a common response from the telephone calls with no one on the other side we have been receiving for months. Minutes before that the call came from 617 691 2429. The recording said “the number you have reached has been changed. Please make a note of the new number and there then happens a busy signal.

Minutes after that a call came from “Blue Ox Bistro” 215 728 9440 with a long recorded message ending with a busy signal. 714 942 9957 with a message that says “we have determined that you are a scammer. If our info is wrong you may email us at info@ scammer blaster.1” and it goes on and on with calls every few minutes.

We are not the only people being harassed and threatened – and now it goes across the country threatening everyone. Don’t you think it is time to put a stop to this? Pelosi? Schumer? and the rest of you? What will it take to remove this man from office and move him to some safe place where he will not be able to do harm to the citizens of the United States? With his announcement that there would be no COVID relief bill until after the election when he is re-elected – how much more is needed to remove him along with his lieutenants from office?

Mark Meadows looks and acts very much like Jim Jones’ chief lieutenant during the Guyana event. How much more is needed to act? We had no thought that we would be in such a place to say such things, our Harvard Business School education put us in line for great things – or so we thought.

However, these are crucial times and friends, family and colleagues are dying because of Donald Trump. We have had a “thug” in office as President of these United States. His grandfather was the first to come to this country and he made a substantial living on the backs of women who he used as prostitutes and built a bordello. His son, Donald Trump’s father, made a substantial living partnering with someone who many claimed to be Italian Mafia. Together they succeeded wildly and made it possible for Trump to become president.

Trump himself sent out the dog whistle to all of those who could not face life without being “better than” and that dog whistle got him elected. There are still those who see themselves as supporters of the one they claim has been sent by Hitler to restore the Nazi empire and we sit and wait.

How long, O Lord, are we going to sit and wait for the powers of evil to do their worse while we keep our hands clean to be able to wait until others do the dirty work and we can then come out of hiding breathing a sigh of relief? That is how it has ever been – would it be so beautiful a world if that could/would change?

We were raised with the belief that “I am my brothers’ keeper.” We sang that hymn – “Send me”. Were those only words to feel good by or words to live by? Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped out and with him were a number of people, but not as many as claimed to be there when the air cleared and he was declared one of our heroes. His army of supporters at that point, after he was long dead, multiplied by the millions, still doing nothing, but laying claim to being a part of his sacrifice.

When will that attitude change. We have caused many wars and much suffering for generations. We fled the “old country” for freedom in the new and we simply put in place to live by what we fled from.

If ever there was a time to stand and be counted – this is it.

Where were you when the United States was being destroyed by its “democratically elected” president? Were you on the front line? Or were you cowering behind waiting for others to clear the path so you could join them at the victory party as though you had been there all along!

With this White House declaring its way to go is through “Herd Immunity” it is time to stop sidelining and it is time for you to join those on the front lines. What can you do? What do you have to give? How are you going to protect your family from such a threat? Is your need to be better than – which you hide under all kinds of deflecting rhetoric – worth this?

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Supreme Court Nominee – Amy Barrett. Really!!!

September 29th, 2020

Amy Barrett is a woman being appointed to the Supreme Court who does not believe in the equality of women. Equality does not happen when one lives in a community and one’s first loyalty is to the content and structure of that organization giving deference and obeisance to men. In this case living under the board of governors who can only and always be men.

In Ms. Barrett’s case, her entire life is structured around the concept of women always under the authority of men. She has accepted that and lives with it as her life’s mantra. It is not spiritually or emotionally possible to then have a job outside that community which requires you to be a person who sees others as equals.

She believes a career in the law is a means to the end of serving God. God, the way she lives in that concept, is one who structures society with men on top and women in, at best, secondary – lesser people who cannot handle the responsibilities given to that male board of governors.

Someone who has purposefully elected to be a part of a community such as People of Praise should not get a pass to rise in other groups where their community beliefs can be set aside to make decisions which are disparate to what they are taught and teach and live by in this community. Their tendency will be to undermine that group to which they do not belong as a lifestyle choice so that it becomes and its members become a part of POP.

Human beings cannot do that without waking up the evil side of their lives, which will increasingly become the side they use to make decisions in their vocation outside of POP. Your life beliefs – especially if they are as strong as those in People of Praise and as different from the concept of this Republic called the United States as is the lifestyle demanded by the People of Praise – do come into account and totally influence your decisions.

Barrett does not see herself in an equal marriage. Her husband is the head of the family. This is re-enforced by the larger community in which she lives, works, breaths. That community is headed by an all male board of governors and women are identified as those who cannot serve on that board of governors. Their lives are lived on a very secondary plane because they do not have what is necessary to take on that first level?

Its institutional structure, economically, is one of a communist organization or a very developed socialist organization on its way to being communist.

To be fine with women excluded from the highest leadership positions says a lot about how she would rule as a Supreme Court Justice. The economic lifestyle of her life group also says how she would rule if she were confirmed.

To question Amy Barrett on her membership in the People of Praise and her ability to be a justice who sees equality as the guiding principle of the U. S. Constitution is not questioning her on the Catholic religion since People of Praise is a non-denominational paraChurch group.

It is totally like Donald Trump and his beliefs in the inferiority of women and their use as objects to have appointed someone like Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court. To have someone with the belief system of people of praise as a Supreme Court Justice is one way to destroy and undermine the Supreme Court as Trump has done to the other parts of the u. S. Government.

How much money is he receiving and from what quarters to make this decision.

This is an extremely authoritarian group where each one reports to someone higher up and there are no secrets and no decisions made solely by one person – apparently, even in their career. Who plus Amy Barrett would occupy her seat on the Court?

Republicans has gone into fits and one of the worse threats possible seems to be the threat of having someone in government in these United States – either elected or appointed – who lives in a Socialist and/or Communist political structure, especially someone at the top with major influence.

Donald Trump has made it his choice to appoint people in high places who would contribute to the downfall and destruction of the Republic of the United States and who would most likely be instrumental in replacing that Republic with a very authoritarian, fascist system. This nomination of Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court is no exception.

Bill Barr – the Attorney General is either closely affiliated with or a member of Opus Dei – a group which encourages its members to promote their faith through their everyday lives.

They live in a controlled environment and all the while Opus Dei hides behind the Catholic Church.” It is claimed they are not free to make their own decisions.

Mike Pence is a member of a similar group and it may be the People of Praise. He has not identified the group to which he belongs, but what we have gleaned is that it is the same type of authoritarian, evangelical/catholic group which requires the same kind of sell-out of the U. S. Republic as those apparently belonged to by Bill Barr and Amy Barrett, amongst others in the Trump government.

These are cultish groups. Pence cannot meet alone with a woman without someone else present. Members do not make their own decisions, but have others pulling the strings of the people so appointed. To have the president of the United States appointing people who have the tendencies that one must have to maintain membership in such groups is chilling.

It suits his extreme authoritarianism, but these United States were founded by people running away from such. These appointments and others say much and go along with the type of person Donald Trump chooses to appoint and with whom he chooses to work.

Their economic structures are also all mostly communist.

Tags: Amy Barrett, Bill Barr, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, People of Praise, Supreme Court Justice nominee
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