We have another New Year. This one will be my 70^th. I remember as a child playing board games with my brothers and sister and banging pots and pans on the front porch to welcome in the New Year. I have lots of great memories of New Years. This New Years I am going to be in Tampa to watch the Wisconsin Badgers play LSU in the Reliaquest Bowl on New Year’s Day. It should be fun.

This last year has been a very eventful one that will be remembered in the history books. It has given me a ton to write about. I have been reviewing and reposting some of my post that I have written throughout the year. We had our Governor Ron DeSantis campaigning all around the World months before he declared himself a candidate for President in May. The whole world knew months before so there was no surprise or suspense when he finally did declare. He continued to have his feud with Disney that really kind of backfired on him. Under DeSantis our Educational System has floundered more than it was before DeSantis. His message was an anti-woke message which has so far proved to be a very unsuccessful message because I think there are still people around this country that actually want to know the truth and know that history will always be searching for it. I have seen the people struggling trying to recover from the Hurricane that hit Southwest Florida in 2022. We have needed real leadership and that is in very short supply from our State and Federal Representatives. We are still years away from a recovery. We have had the Mothers of Liberty banning books from school libraries that have been available to children to read for decades. It turns out that one of the founding leaders of Mothers of Liberty, here in Florida, was into threesomes along with her husband who just happens to be the head of the Florida GOP. We had to have a School Administrator resign because students in the school studied Michael Angelo’s sculpture of David, one of the greatest most perfect sculptures in the World but reading about threesomes by conservative leaders in the paper is ok. We have seen attacks on Black History just because it makes White people uncomfortable. That is like saying that the Holocaust shouldn’t be taught in Germany because it make Germans uncomfortable. The bad things in history should be studied and they should make us uncomfortable so maybe we won’t repeat them.

This year Donald Trump has been indicted multiple times, in Florida, New York, Georgia and Washington D.C.  No President has ever been indicted before but then there has never been a President like Trump before. He took classified documents with him when he left the White House he shouldn’t have and when asked to return them he refused. We have no idea what classified information he shared and with whom but we do know that he shared some information. He has been charged with racketeering in Georgia for his attempts to change the election along with 17 of his followers. Some of his followers have already pleaded and have promised to turn State’s evidence. In Washington D.C. he is being charge among other things for the part he played in the Insurrection. Trump is being sued for illegal business practices in New York and has been found guilty of sexual assault in civil court and ordered to pay 5 million dollars. Trump has been found to have betrayed his Oath of Office for his role in the Insurrection and two states have enacted the 14^th Amendment declaring him ineligible to run for office. I think that if every state followed our Constitution they would all say that he is ineligible. In 2023 I learned that many want to see our Constitution come to an end and the Republic for which it stands. Trump is a criminal and history will write it that way.

We have had another year of record gun violence. Thoughts and prayers have turned out to be just as ineffective in 2023 as they were in 2022. Our children are dying because the Supreme Court has twisted the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment and I think that the violence is going to be impossible to stop in the near future. The more violence there is the more guns are being bought which will only bring more violence. It will be those guns that will take away many of our freedoms in the near future. Our freedoms are under attack and women’s freedoms are at the front of the line. Some call it an abortion issue. Not me. I have always called it a freedom issue. Women should have the freedom of choice when it comes to their body and the liberty to keep it private. When the Supreme Court becomes a tool for the oppressor the Country is in trouble and when it comes to women’s freedom the Supreme Court is the Oppressor. We have seen Fox News and Rudy Giuliani sued for lying. Even with the liars being sued and losing the lying still continues. In the case of Fox News lying really must pay, they agreed to pay three quarters of a billion dollars so they could continue to lie. Rudy lost for defaming a couple of Poll Workers to the tune of One Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars and he continues to lie. We have seen our immigrants being used as political pawns to spread hate and racism around the country. We have seen the Evangelicals turning their backs on the teaching of their Christ and worship at the feet of the man that preaches racism and hate. It has been a hell of a year.

Every New Years people make all kinds of resolutions for the following year. This year I will not make any resolutions. I will just continue to write and call them as I see them. I think that it is going to be a year that will be harder and harder to know what the truth is. Why? Because I really believe the press is failing in their primary duty and that duty is to assure us that the American public is hearing the truth and reading the truth. 2024 may go down as the year of the decision. What is being decided? I think it will be the future of our Democratic Constitutional Republic. I am not thinking of the direction of our Republic but if it will survive at all. Do we want the Democratic Republic that our Forefathers wrote the Constitution for or are we going to just let Trump and the Republicans just burn it all down?