4/28/2021

My Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I hope your speech goes well tonight. May you have the grace & the strength to persuade our nation to heal.

As you well know, people are suffering. Most recently, the families of Mario Arenales Gonzalez (MAG) of Alameda, CA & Andrew Brown, Jr (AB) of Elizabeth City, NC. Both killed at the hands of the police. MAG was drunk & delusional so officers pinned him facedown for 5 minutes. AB was executed by police while sitting in his driveway with his hands on his steering wheel. It seems that our police force has become like the junta in Myanmar with sadistic, cruel individuals who are able to get away with murder because they wear a badge. I know that only a few officers behave in this manner, but their unions write their contracts in a way that protect them, so that folks like George Floyd’s murderer can have 22 complaints against him & continue to walk the beat. We have the toxic combination of a 400-year history of racism, coupled with a police force with a warrior mentality & as Robin Givhan writes in today’s WP, Black & Brown families have to publicly grieve with dignity to prevent further violence. Civilian oversight of police is a step in the right direction, but those boards need the power to subpoena so they can do their jobs.

            I’m getting a little worried about your spending spree. It’s getting so wild that I can’t keep track of it any more. Am I right that if you had your way we’d have 3 big spending bills this year: The American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan & the American Families Plan which if passed would total $5.95 trillion. That’s almost as much as the US federal government spent last year so you are talking about doubling our expenditures for 2021. That’s about $18,000 extra spending per US resident, so if we add that to our ordinary expenditures, we’re up to at least $30,000 of spending per resident. Seems excessive. If you got of the $721 billion for military spending, I might feel a bit better about it.

            BYBS,