What a week we had last week. The Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action. The Supreme Court said discrimination was “ok”. The Supreme Court said that the government could not forgive the student loans. That was one hell of a week for the Supreme Court sending us back decades. We can’t achieve time travel so the Supreme Court is doing it for us. Do you know how you get a song going through your head and you just can’t stop it? The song from Huey Lewis, “Back In Time”, from “Back To The Future” is constantly going through my head right now. You put the Supreme Court and then all the smoke from the Canadian Wild Fires and we have had on hell of week.

My wife, the dog, and I are on vacation for the next couple of weeks. I am originally from Wisconsin and that is where my two sons live and my four grandchildren. Our first stop was Milwaukee to drop off an outboard motor at my brother In-law’s house and then to Kenosha, where I grew up. I had read about all the smoke from the Canadian Wildfires choking the east side of the country but watching it on TV and experiencing it in person is something else. I was told that we had the worst air in the world. I don’t know if that was accurate but it was really bad. I haven’t had a cigarette in over 15 years but when I woke up Wednesday morning my mouth felt like I had just had smoked a couple of packs the day before. That is how bad the air was. My throat is still scratchy and I have a little bit of a smoker’s hack. When I would look up at the moon it was yellow. I can only assume that it looked like that because of all the smoke. I have been on this earth for almost 70 years and I have never seen anything like it. We still have all kind of Climate Change deniers in our Government and most of them are Republican and some are running for President. Donald Trump has said that Climate Change is a hoax. His administration attempted to roll back over 100 environmental policies and withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accords. Of course Trump is so smart he knows better that the other 195 countries that know that Climate Change is real. You don’t have to wonder why he is hated around the world. Governor DeSantis of Florida ran in 2018 as kind of an environmentalist. During the 2018 primary he attacked his opponent for his ties to the sugar industries that has been blamed for the water quality issues in South Florida. He was stated that “We need to leave Florida to God better than we found it”. This is a man that signed legislation prohibiting public officials from considering clean energy and climate change when making investments. When asked in May on Fox News what his views are on climate change and the role of government in combating it?  DeSantis called it the “the politicization of the weather”. Florida is one of the states most affected by weather and he in reality just wants to turn his back on it. He stated the government should focus on energy independence and that Florida has been able to dramatically reduce emissions through market-based solutions. What in the hell are those? I don’t know and I live in Florida. I went through Hurricane Ian. Florida better start building a lot of sea walls because they are going to need them. By the way, DeSantis also approved a bill that would allow the experimental use of radioactive waste in road builds and repairs.

This is the week of the 4^th of July and when I post this it will be the actual 4^th of July. As all you know or I hope you know the 4^th of July is when the Continental Congress signed a document written by a young Thomas Jefferson that was call the Declaration of Independence. We were not the United States of America; we were just 13 colonies that knew we no longer wanted to live under the tyranny of a Ruler that was proclaimed as appointed by God. We wanted Representation in some form of government of our choosing and were willing to leave the British Empire to accomplish that. Words like “liberty” and “freedom for all” were words that were being thrown around, at the time they had real meaning. They didn’t know yet what type of Government they would create but they wanted one that created equality for all. None of the so called Patriots were Indigenous to North America. They were all immigrants or descendents of immigrants. You could say that we started out as a nation of mutts and we still are today. We are Dutch Americans, Italian Americans, German Americans, Irish Americans and many other nationalities but what we all have in common is that we are Americans. We are a mix breed of people that built a great nation.

That great nation that has evolved to what we are today is under attack. The very principles of what we fought for are under attack. We fought for representative government but many states are working to suppress the people’s right to choose their elected officials. Gerrymandering is voter suppression to silence people’s voices. Making it harder for people to vote is just trying to silence people’s voices. We have groups like Moms For Liberty that only want to bring hate to the table. They throw around words like Freedom and Liberty but what they really want is suppression and oppression. We again have people that wish to have a Dictator or King that they feel is appointed by God and is free to commit the same atrocities that the tyrants of the past have. We now have entire groups and cultures being demonized in the name of God and the Government.

We were not founded on religious principles but on the rights and freedom to all. The definition of what “all” is has changed over the years to include women and minorities but it is still freedom for all. Those freedoms are under attack. In some cases those freedoms are under attack by the very people whose job it is to protect those freedoms. We must never waver in our commitment of Freedom and Liberty for all.