[COPY] Free Newsletter Day: Texas Wants to Erase Voters' Voices & U.S. Under Trump Declared Civil Rights "Emergency"
August 8, 2025
Hey Friends, I’m back after a week’s vacation spent with my family. I’m feeling rested, relaxed, and ready for more kvetching. Let’s get to it.
Also, it’s a free newsletter day, so you are able to read this in its entirety with my thanks for being part of this wonderful community. Enjoy. (There is no audio in todays newsletter due to some technical difficulties we are experiencing)
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What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: The greatest threat to democracy isn’t evil, it’s stupidity.
Why many Black Americans are boycotting big-box retail stores. ‘Using my money to resist’: Average Americans fighting back against the anti-DEI bandwagon.
‘Disgraceful step backward’: USDA ends support for Black Farmers, saying it ‘sufficiently’ handled discrimination. This is what happens when racists get to define racism.
National Urban League declares ‘State of Emergency’ for civil rights in the U.S. under Trump: America used to have some sense of pride about its progress in civil rights. Now what does it have?
Trump wants 5-seat pickup from redraw of Texas congressional map: Gerrymandering is the last resort of those who don’t like democracy.
A former Obama official sponsored a government K9 in memory of his dead wife. Trump stopped him going to the graduation ceremony: This single act defines the pettiness of Trump’s character and his policies.
Kareem’s Video Break: An emu plays tag with dogs. I wish I could join in.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: Coca-Cola Kisses Trump’s…Let’s Go with Ring: Bullying for the sake of bullying. Another company loses its spine.
What I’m Watching at the Movies: Superman is the best of the Superman movies—and the best movie of the summer so far. Fantastic Four is not so fantastic.
Kareem’s Magical Moments in Sports: A rousing teqball exchange in a sport that may soon be part of the Olympics.
Art Blakey & Lee Morgan, “I Remember Clifford”: This homage to jazz great Clifford Brown is a jazz standard that is both mournful and celebratory.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force…Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed—in such moments, the stupid person even becomes critical—and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
From Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Lutheran Pastor and influential Christian writer
This may be the longest quote I’ve ever posted (and even then I cut some), yet Bonhoeffer makes such an articulate and timely statement that I wanted to include as much as possible. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and influential Christian theologian whose anti-Nazi stance got him arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was hanged by the Germans on April 9, 1945, a month before Germany surrendered. Even knowing they had lost the war, they still wanted to kill their critics.
In the end, his quote was prophetic. He was murdered by stupid people. Not just the true-believer Nazis but also the complacent Christians of Germany (95% of Germany during WWII was Christian) who found a way to reject their own beliefs to allow this malignancy to grow. The worldwide death toll of WWII was 70-85 million, all of which could have been avoided if the German people had simply stood up against stupidity. Not doing so, despite knowing the inevitable outcome, makes them just as stupid. I’m sure they had “smart” excuses.
If you watched the new movie Superman (review below), the apparent villain is billionaire Lex Luthor who is willing to sacrifice millions of lives to satisfy his own desperate and childish ego. (Sound like anyone you know?) While Luthor is a scientific genius, he’s also irredeemably stupid because the goal of life is to find maximum happiness, but everything he does causes him more misery. Is he not smart enough to realize that he’s the author of his own grief?
And yet, Luthor is not the biggest villain in the movie. The biggest villain is the general population. Luthor reveals something on the news that instantly has the people in the streets turn on Superman, even though he’s done nothing but good and there is no evidence he has any nefarious plans. Later, when the truth is revealed, the people are instantly back on Superman’s side. But the basic characterization of people is that they are stupid and therefore easily manipulated. They instantly turn on a hero and just as quickly restore him to hero status—all without any real proof or thought. These kinds of people can’t be trusted, even when they appear to be on your side, because they can suddenly switch sides without reason.
I don’t like to use the word stupid. It feels mean-spirited. But sometimes the right word is jarring because it reflects the mean-spiritedness of what it’s describing.
Nobody thinks they’re stupid—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Instead, they find “proof” of how intelligent they are. Usually, it’s by how much money they have, or crowing about their “common sense” over all the eggheads and their fancy critical thinking. Every time someone mentions either of those things, it’s an admission of their own idiocy. The fact that they can’t see that proves the point. As the old saying goes, “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
This isn’t about making a case for intellectual superiority. Quite the opposite. It’s about making a case for survival of our values, our country, and our lives. Stupid people have elected stupid politicians into office for stupid reasons. Those elected people have proven their incompetence, irrationality, and danger to the health and lives of our families. The mounting evidence is presented to us every single day. Yet, there they stay, continuing to destroy what we value. We cannot survive if we put people in charge who don’t have the intellectual capacity to use logic and knowledge to guide us.
To not do something active about this danger to our survival through protest, boycotts, and at the ballot box would be…stupid?
Quick Takes
Why many Black Americans are boycotting big-box retail stores: ‘using my money to resist’ (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: …[A] growing group of African Americans…are ditching corporate big-box retail stores who rolled back their DEI programs and instead are shopping at small, minority- and women-owned businesses they believe value their dollars more. In February, more than 250,000 people signed a pledge to boycott Target after Rev Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Baptist church outside of Georgia, called for a 40-day Target Fast that started at the beginning of the Lenten season… The boycott has become a movement across social media and within community neighborhoods nationwide with the shared goal of rejecting systems that do not value the African American community, and it has already impacted Target. In the first quarter of the year, the company reported a $500m loss in year-over-year sales, citing reaction to the boycott and lower foot traffic.
MY TAKE: People complain about injustice the way they complain about the weather: as if it’s a natural force that can’t be controlled. It sure can seem that way when we see so many people so eager to perpetuate rather than to fight injustice. Yet, there are groups of resistance of average people who refuse to let those profiting from the misery of others turn our country into a gilded vault to store all the riches and rights they’ve taken from us.
There was a time when corporate America, whether out of conscience or as PR to come across as compassionate human beings, wanted to do the right thing. In 2020, after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and the 20 million who marched that summer in support of Black Lives Matter, many of the big retailers, corporations, and tech giants were pledging to embrace diversity in an effort to overcome systemic racism and level the playing field. Target promised to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses. It increased the number of Black-owned suppliers and doubled the number of Black-owned brands on its shelves.
Then came Trump, and racism was back in fashion. The government dumped all DEI programs, and all the corporate stooges followed, as if relieved they didn’t have to pretend to care about racism anymore.
But Rev. Jamal Bryant wasn’t having it. He scolded that Target had “made a commitment after the death of George Floyd that you would invest $2 billion into the Black community before December 2025.” And because they had abandoned that commitment, he was going to encourage the Black community to abandon them:
Bryant partnered with the US Black Chamber of Commerce to provide a digital directory of more than 150,000 Black-owned businesses across the US and asked the more than 250,000 people who registered to buy directly from the Black-owned businesses’ online platforms and not Target. And during the Easter weekend Bryant said that five mega churches turned their spaces into retail malls so congregants could support Black-owned businesses.
And that, gentle reader, is how everyday people fight injustice.
FYI #1: This month the U.S. Department of Agriculture reversed a 35-year-old policy meant to help “socially disadvantaged” farmers or ranchers who had been subjected to racial, ethnic or gender discrimination, including Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian groups. (“‘Disgraceful step backward’: USDA ends support for Black farmers, saying it ‘sufficiently’ handled discrimination.”) The USDA justifies this shift by claiming the department has “sufficiently” addressed its history of discrimination. Based on what evidence? What does “sufficiently” mean? Farmers of color comprise about 4% of the country’s 3.3 million producers. The programs that had been set up to help these farmers were there to reverse systemic discrimination that put them at a continuing economic disadvantage. The Trump Administration thinks that’s unfair to White farmers who never suffered the same discrimination. Systemic racism is meant to keep people from thriving, so this is like stealing an acre of land from a Black Farmer every year for a hundred years, then suddenly saying we’re going to stop stealing your land. That makes us “sufficiently” even.
FYI #2: The National Urban League has been at the forefront of civil rights since 1911. That’s why it’s such a powerful statement for them to declare a civil rights “State of Emergency” in the U.S. (“National Urban League declares ‘state of emergency’ for civil rights in the U.S. under Trump.”) They accuse the Trump Administration of being “increasingly determined to sacrifice its founding principles” and “threatening to impose a uniform education system and a homogenous workforce that sidelines anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow, exclusionary mold.” They add that “If left unchecked, they risk reversing decades of progress that have made America more dynamic, competitive, and just.” When we look at all the GOP politicians across the country openly supporting this level of racism because they don’t fear any backlash from the people, that makes for a scary place for People of Color to live—as well as anyone who is fearful of their rights being systematically curtailed.
Trump wants 5-seat pickup from redraw of Texas congressional map (Politico)
SUMMARY: “President Donald Trump wants lawmakers in Texas to redraw the state’s congressional district map to give Republicans five more House seats, he told reporters Tuesday… “There could be some other states we’re going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one.” he said. “Just a simple redrawing we pick up five seats.”
MY TAKE: Gerrymandering is one of the most outrageous political activities we practice because it so clearly undermines the spirit of a democracy. It doesn’t matter which party engages in it, it’s corrupt. It takes away the vote and therefore the voice of voters simply because they aren’t part of the majority party. In the case of Texas, the idea is to redraw districts to create five new Republican strongholds that will send more Republicans to Congress to maintain GOP majority that will support Trump. Five more cowering sycophants.
Remember how Trump managed to gain so much Hispanic support in the last election? Here’s his payback. Though Hispanics make up the largest population segment in Texas (40%), only 20% of the state’s 38-member congressional delegation is Hispanic. The new map strips many Hispanics of their voting power. According to Lydia Camarillo, the president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, “The map as proposed clearly violates the Voting Rights Act and is unconstitutional. It’s canceling out districts that are part of the Voting Rights Act … and it’s not giving Latinos the right to represent their voice based on their population growth.” Greg Casar, the first Hispanic to represent Austin in Congress, may lose his seat because of the redrawn lines. Said Casar, “If Donald Trump is able to suppress Latino voters here in Austin, he’ll try to spread that plan across America.”
Trump has encouraged other Republican states to follow Texas’s example to ensure his continual reign without interference. Some Democrats are fighting back. California’s Gov. Newsom has responded by threatening to redraw his state’s congressional districts to counter Texas. “We can act holier than thou,” Newsom said. “We can sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be. Or, we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment.” The problem is that in 2010, 60% of voters approved a measure that removed the task of drawing congressional districts from politicians in favor of an independent commission. Newsom’s threat would require changes he may not be able to make. Plus, it doesn’t stop the heinous act of gerrymandering. Still, it may be a Band-Aid to the situation.
It would be better to encourage other states to adopt the same measure of banning politicians from redrawing districts. That should be the focus of the people in every state—if they truly believe in democracy and the sanctity of the vote. Gerrymandering to silence voters may be legal but it is unethical, and any politician willing to marginalize voters should not be in office. It’s cheating to win, something Americans say we’re against.
UPDATE: Texas Democrats in the legislature left the state to deny a quorum to allow the gerrymandering of their state. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott then threatened to replace them as well as have them arrested as felons because, as guests of other states, they are being given food and lodging. His legal justification comes from a non-binding opinion from his attorney general Ken Paxton, who was accused of securities fraud and sentenced to 100 hours of community service.
A former Obama official sponsored a government K9 in memory of his dead wife. Trump stopped him going to its graduation ceremony (The Independent):
SUMMARY: “A former Obama Administration Official and Trump critic was barred from attending the graduation ceremony of a K9 officer he had sponsored - and named after his dead wife… James Clapper, who served as Director of National Intelligence from 2010 until 2017, was informed by the nonprofit dog-training group that his name had been taken off the list for the event…The 84-year-old had sponsored the yellow Labrador, named Susan, as she completed her CIA training for ‘detection canines.’ Once deployed, the dogs help to sniff out concealed explosives…Clapper’s late wife, Susan, a former National Security Agency employee, had been a great animal lover and had volunteered at a local animal shelter.”
MY TAKE: This story gets to me for two reasons. First, the level of pettiness that is required to deliberately keep a man from attending the graduation of a dog he sponsored in honor of his late wife reveals a person filled with such venom and lack of humanity that it’s truly frightening to think he’s making decisions that affect us all.
Second, and maybe more important, I worry about a man who is supposed to be involved in handling domestic and international crises having enough free time to punish an elderly man of 84 in a way that is no benefit to him except the satisfaction of causing pain to another human being. If Trump has the time for this kind of childish activity, we should wonder who is really running the country regarding major policy decisions. While Trump is distracted pulling wings off flies and denying he and Epstein were buds, his clown car of an administration is making decisions about the real issues.
Kareem’s Video Break
You haven’t lived until you’ve watched an emu play tag with dogs.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: Coca-Cola Kisses Trump’s…Let’s Go with Ring
A couple weeks ago, Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey announced that the company plans “to expand our trademark Coca-Cola product range with U.S. cane sugar to reflect consumer interest in differentiated experiences.” (“Coca-Cola says it will use 'U.S. cane sugar' in a new drink offering.”) This came days after Trump said he’d talked Coke officials into making the change: “This will be a very good move by them—You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Better for whom? Not the consumer. Many studies have concluded that the health effects of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are similar when consumed in similar amounts. The Food and Drug Administration stated “there is no evidence of any difference in safety among foods sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and those [using] sugar, honey or other traditional sweeteners.” So, if there are no health benefits, why the push?
Due to high tariffs, the “U.S. sugar industry enjoys substantial market protections against foreign rivals.” That has resulted in American sugar costing twice as much as it does on the world market. Which means the consumer is not only not receiving any health benefits from this switch, but paying more for the product. Who wins? The sugar industry.
Who loses? Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode warned that replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar makes no sense and would cost thousands of American manufacturing jobs. Shares in one manufacturer of HFCS dipped immediately after Trump’s announcement.
The biggest losers are Americans in general because their president has forced yet another company to bend its knee to him just to show he can do it.
What I’m Watching at the Movies:
Superman
Henry Cavill was a terrific Superman, with the right look of power and the gravitas that comes with wielding such power. David Corenswet’s Superman is a more naive, optimistic character with a genuine love for humanity, not just a sense of obligation. That difference helps make this new version of Superman the best one. This is one of the most gripping openings of any superhero movie ever: Superman comes crashing to the ground, battered and bloody, wheezing—defeated by a more powerful foe. But, before we think this is going very dark very fast, Krypto the super dog bounds to the rescue, but not before jumping all over the wounded Superman. The tone is suddenly lightened and we know we’re in for a fun but intense adventure.
This is the first time they get Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) right. She’s not just a tough-talking reporter, but she’s intelligent and rational. Even though they are already lovers when this starts, she bests him in an argument in which she is clearly the rational one, while he’s more emotional. There’s one exceptional scene in which they are having a discussion while we can see through her apartment window a colorful jellyfish-like alien floating in the sky, fighting Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific.
Lex Luthor is a brilliant but infantile villain, whose envy of Superman’s popularity drives him to mass murder. Clearly, his character is a combination of Trump and Elon Musk, the worship of power with no love of humanity. Ma and Pa Kent are a little too over the top as Clark’s simple but honorable adoptive parents. But that is countered by the startling secret that is revealed about Clark’s Kryptonian parents.
Best movie of the summer so far. (Grade: A)
The Fantastic Four
This is the fourth time around trying to bring this comic book staple to cinematic life. This is the best attempt yet, but it still falls short. The story is set on an alternative Earth that is a combination of The Jetsons’ style and a retro 1960 society. That’s the best part. The problem is pacing. The first twenty minutes are slow as they try to world-build and develop characters. Unfortunately, the characters are too one-dimensional and the humor is sparse and a little flat. Ironically, the movie shares Superman’s villainizing of the public as an easily manipulated bunch who idolizes their heroes, then turns on them, then idolizes them again. It begs the question of whether these people are worthy of being saved. Still, it’s a pleasant afternoon’s diversion. (Grade: B)
Kareem’s Magical Moments in Sports
I’ve shown teqball before, but for those who don’t remember, the sport combines soccer and ping pong. Players can use any part of their bodies except hands and arms. It was recognized by the Olympic Committee of Asia in 2018 and is quickly moving toward becoming an official Olympic sport. It originated in Hungary in 2014 by three former professional soccer players. I love watching new sports.
Kareem’s Jukebox Playlist
Art Blakey & Lee Morgan: “I Remember Clifford” (1959)
“I Remember Clifford,” written by jazz tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, is a jazz ode to trumpeter Clifford Brown who died in a car accident in 1956 when he was only 25. Many of Brown’s compositions have become jazz standards. “I Remember Clifford” became a musical memorial from the jazz community to honor Brown. It has been recorded by dozens of jazz artists, including Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Sonny Rollins, and Dinah Washington.
I love the mournful tone infused with a lively spirit that pays homage to Brown’s achievements and recognizes our sense of loss. The song will make you thoughtful—and appreciative.