The government of the United States of America is the most corrupt and incompetent in the world. It is leading the country in a backward direction into the dark past when the rights of the few were protected and the majority ignored by the old, white men in Washington D.C. Oh, wait! That is exactly what is happening in the nation’s capital today.
One of the most backward and unconstitutional changes in the nation took place over a few months during the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.
It began when then-Senate Majority Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell refused to conduct hearings for Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee, Merrick Garland. Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death required action to fill his seat on the Court. McConnell claimed that the seat should not be filled before the Nov. 8, 2016 election. This was in February, nine months before the American people went to the polls.
After Donald Trump’s illegitimate election, Moscow Mitch rushed approval for Neil Gorsuch. Months later, Justice Anthony Kennedy resigned, and Brett Kavanaugh was nominated. Although allegations of sexual misconduct surrounded him, and the public opposed his confirmation, he was confirmed by a biased Republican-controlled senate.
Finally, with the 2020 election just a few months away, Moscow Mitch rushed the approval of Amy Coney Barrett through the senate after the death of the incomparable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, violating his own previously stated policy. As always, he proves himself to be the biggest hypocrite in America.
The Court is now stacked 6-3 with conservative extremists. A fact not lost on those waging war against women from the right side of the aisle.
Recent state laws in Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi virtually voiding legal abortions will be heard by the Court in the following months. I believe that this politically biased Court will abolish Roe v Wade, which guarantees a woman’s right to legal and safe abortions since it was deemed to be Constitutional on Jan. 22, 1973. Women will once again be forced to use dangerous methods to abort an unwanted pregnancy, even if they are victims of sex trafficking, rape, or incest.
Make no mistake about why and who is behind this attack on women’s rights. The Christian Religious Right is funding lobbyists whose sole purpose is to demand politicians’ votes are aligned with their distorted beliefs. This is a direct violation of the First and 14th Amendments. Old, white men will once again have the right to tell women what to do with their own reproductive systems.
When the Trump administration was in control of the nation’s future, many advancements designed to improve the lives of the majority were abandoned. The beginning of equal treatment under the law for all Americans, which began with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was repealed for all intents and purposes.
As the profits of corporations became of greater interest than the quality of life for all Americans, the gap in income inequality grew wider. Although most Americans were devasted by Trump’s failure to lead the fight against a pandemic, 20 million losing their jobs, the number of billionaires increased from 650 to 788 in the United States. In 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus, America had 11.6 million millionaires. Today that number is 20.27. Can you say “plutocracy?”
President Biden wants to repair every aspect of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. However, McConnell and his cronies would rather give additional tax breaks to the wealthy and offer additional funds to the Pentagon to waste on their failed but expensive toys.
With only 331 million people, the United States spends more money on healthcare than any other nation in the world. Yet, millions of the country’s people continue to be unable to afford the best available care: my wife and I are two of them. We cannot afford all of the available parts of Medicare.
Attendance at the nation’s colleges and universities has become limited to the upper-middle class and above because of rising costs. As a result, some of the greatest minds are lost every year because half of the people in the world’s wealthiest nation fall into the low-income or impoverished categories.
There are more mass shootings in America than days on the calendar every year. With the assistance of the NRA gun lobby, the profits of gun sellers and gun manufacturers are soaring. Congress has literally turned its back on the crisis as domestic terrorism, similar to what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, continues to grow. The FBI has determined that domestic, white terrorism is now the greatest danger to life in the United States.
Across America, racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and anti-Semitism are growing and will soon surpass the numbers approximated in the 1950s and 1960s.
While the rest of the developed nations move forward into the 21st century, the country is running in the opposite direction. While Europe, parts of Asia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand focus on all of their people, politicians in the United States’ concern is protecting the wealth of the one percent and the bloated profits of our largest corporations.
Op-ed by James Turnage
Sources:
New York Magazine Intelligencer: All These Crises in Congress Are Self-Imposed; by Ed Kilgore
The Examiner: Congress needs changes, needs to scrap some bad habits
Planned Parenthood: Roe v. Wade: The Constitutional Right to Access Safe, Legal Abortion
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Carole Waller’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Tim Evanson’s Flikr Page – Creative Commons License
