ENOUGH!

The question facing Republicans is no longer whether or not to support Donald Trump's candidacy.

Today in North Carolina, the ante was raised. Trump obliquely suggested that "Second Amendment people" might take matters into their own hands to end Hillary Clinton's presidency. 

His inflammatory comments pose a whole new question: Should the Republican Party and its leaders demand that Trump step down as the party's nominee?

Further, the Secret Service ought to be looking into whether Trump's remarks constitute incitement to commit a crime. Positing the notion of assassination before a crowd that includes rabid gun zealots may meet the test of dangerously yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater.

Is a restraining order called for?

Here's what Trump said with regard to gun possession, Clinton court appointees and the Second Amendment: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Oh yes he does know.

The remark can be paired with one he made during the primary campaign.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" Those are the kind of voters Trump was speaking to today. That is the kind of behavior he condones. He's done so on numerous other occasions as well.

With Trump, referring to violence is simply another macho rhetorical device. It is time he face the potential consequences of his words.

So where are you on this, Republicans? Will you call for Trump's resignation as nominee of your party?

The answer should be clear. It's time to get the hook out to yank this dangerous fanatic off the political stage before someone gets killed.

"White House" Slavery and homelessness

For many the most searing line in the speeches given at either political convention was delivered by First Lady Michelle Obama when she said, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.”

In another way, she and all of us are enslaved in this “White House” called America. We are, in a sense, our own slaves to a history and culture of slavery.

We are slaves to debt, slaves to war, slaves to consumerist desires, slaves to ignorance, slaves of an economy destroying the planet, slaves to wealthy elites, slaves to false, unquestioned values.

That was my extended take-away from the Obama speech until, without giving it much thought, I shared my heady little exposition with John Brown.

John is the homeless Street Roots newspaper vendor who sells the advocacy tabloid in front of the Food Front grocery in Hillsdale.

John is homeless because of crippling disability.

He is also whippet smart. The man is encyclopedic in his knowledge of the arts and literature. He recites Shakespeare with ease and affection. It’s as though he is on first name terms with The Bard, whom he calls “Willie the Shake.”

So I am rambling on with my boundless thoughts about the First Lady’s speech with John when I get to the part  waking up in a house built by slaves.

Suddenly I am confronted with the fact that John doesn’t wake up in a house at all.

Nor do his fellow Street Roots vendors and the hundreds for whom the Street Roots publication speaks so powerfully.

They are slaves to extreme poverty on our streets, in our parks and under our bridges.

Their plight today is another “White House” disgrace. Each day, with our eyes wide open, we witness their plight…and do nothing.