Tag: #TrumpIsWeird

The Best Medal?

I’m not sure if this is tripling down, quadrupling down, or what … but Trump’s made more statements about how he’d prefer a Medal of Freedom because Medal of Honor recipients are gravely injured or even killed.

Beyond the incredibly absurd notion that he’d qualify for a Medal of Honor — his assertion boils down to this: a Medal of Honor winner gave something significant of themselves. They put themselves into an incredibly dangerous situation to allow the rest of us to enjoy our Constitutionally protected freedoms. They earned that medal, often with their own body or even their own life.

Medal of Freedom winners also did something — but the person to whom Trump was referring? Was a doctor, who did what many other doctors do without being awarded medals. The ‘extra’ that got the medal? They gave money. Some of which went to Republican campaigns and conservative causes. Now, I presume even DonOld realized you couldn’t actually award a Medal of Freedom to someone for donations to his campaign. She (and her husband) also gave money to research centers fighting substance abuse, medical research, and Holocaust remembrance — not a bad thing, but there’s a huge difference between giving your life for something and giving your time and money for something.

Of course DonOld would rather be lauded for handing over some money (or, in his case, creating a charity to allow him to get praise for handing over other people’s money to beneficial causes) than actually have to give something of himself.

 

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/medaloffreedom/

The following individuals received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump on November 16, 2018:

MIRIAM ADELSON. Miriam Adelson is a committed doctor, philanthropist, and humanitarian. She has practiced internal and emergency medicine, studied and specialized in the disease of narcotic addiction, and founded two research centers committed to fighting substance abuse. With her husband, Sheldon, she also established the Adelson Medical Research Foundation, which supports research to prevent, reduce, or eliminate disabling and life-threatening illness. As a committed member of the American Jewish community, she has supported Jewish schools, Holocaust memorial organizations, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and Birthright Israel, among other causes.

On Suddenly

I had a dual major in Uni: history and theoretical physics. My “history mentor” was someone who studied under Howard Zinn, so my knowledge tends towards a somewhat alternative version of history. And his thesis was on slavery — so many of the Project 1619 ideas were hardly new to me. Listening to Trump say VP Harris turned Black — beyond sounding racist weird — shows a remarkable lack of historical perspective and a stunning US-centric view of the world.

Harris’s father is Jamaican. To say she isn’t Black is to say Jamaicans aren’t Black. The University of the West Indies has some 76% of the Jamaican population being of African descent.

Does he think the entirety of the slave trade was built around the USA?!? Over 90% of enslaved Africans were sent to South American and the Caribbean. Jamaica, specifically, was a British colony — and somewhere between half a million and a million enslaved people were sent there. Why? Sugar production! There were about 400,000 enslaved Africans sent to the USA. So, based on historic records? More Africans were kidnapped and forced into slavery in Jamaica than the USA.

https://www.slavevoyages.org/