There is talk about Oprah Winfrey running for president, particularly after her speech at the Golden Globe Awards.
Oprah’s connection and support of the Time’s Up movement is greatly appreciated and I can imagine the numbers of women who have been affected, even retirees.
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This campaign will soon highlight the wide range of sexual harassment and abuse that is going on everywhere and it will even filter down to “undocumented immigrants” who fear even much more than people who are legally in America. Their risk must be revealed right now and Oprah’s interview with the founders of the women fell short for me.
I know that All Women Matter to these founders and Oprah, but America Ferreira was part of that interview and she supports the immigrant movement. Since immigration is one of the big issues of the moment, Ferreira could have spoken out for all those women who are being abused to make the presentation complete since they are part of the equation.
Men threatening women, who can be deported, with drop your pants or else must be eradicated from this earth. Natalie Portman, Jerusalem born and American raised, said “We’re humans, we’re all humans.” We must unite! Shonda Rhymes, mega-producer of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal on television, spoke about the fights or arguments that are taking place over the issue and that shows the great division that exists politically. That is why we must unite now to be stronger and to appeal more to independents and to opponents to bring them in.
The women that rally in the streets may be much larger the next time due to the star power of these women and the money that is behind it, but right now the main issues in Congress are DACA, building a wall that we should not build (the money should be used to fight the shootings of police and people in communities across the United States and helping veterans), and immigration reform.
Now the Department of Justice seems to be proposing locking up elected officials that oppose and resist the directives of the Trump Administration. This is all part of what I call The Sessions Effect which started when Senator Jeff Beauregard Sessions turned his back on a small group of visitors from N.A.A.C.P. to one of his Alabama offices. All that they wanted was a meeting to be scheduled and the brief confrontation led to arrests. African-Americans and immigrants need to be much more secure in this nation. The opportunity to create faster change to help should never be lost, especially when Americans defend their individual right to do whatever they please that insults the dignity of men and women.
People that I have talked to over the years have said that Oprah has turned off lots of African-Americans and I doubt if she could bring out the huge turnout that would be older voters that turn out in large numbers and newly registered voters (which would be crucial to victory). Keep in mind that Hillary Clinton lost important swing states that gave the victory to Trump.
Trump basically admitted recently that he did not have more votes than Clinton when he said that Hillary went for the popular vote and he went for the electoral vote. That is a typical adjustment of fact by Donald Trump. He made up the millions more votes that he claimed he had. From my point of view as an educator who offers solutions, there are distinctions that must be understood and Oprah has not been an integral part of that solution. You will read about Lebron James later and make up your mind after I reveal the facts. Here is a scene from my screenplay “El Quijote del GED” that goes back to the 1990s and what was going on in my classroom.
42 INT. MORNING
He sits down at the desk and sees that those students had to wait months to take the GED. He writes down the length of preparation and the mark.
Students come into the classroom.STUDENT
Mr. Danenberg. It may take me a year to take the GED in this place. You have to do something.DANENBERG
Why do you say that?STUDENT
I am in pre-GED math and we are hardly learning anything.DANENBERG
I saw the test that they gave as an intake test. It was the California Achievement Test and much of the stuff that was on that test is not GED material. We used a different test in the other program. Tell you what. I’m going to give all of you the Official Practice Test in all subjects. It’s going to take a few days to mark everything, but I know what to do. When I was teaching in Daytop Village, students were left behind in pre-GED just like you and then I retested them more than four students went to the GED class.OTHER STUDENT
Mr. Danenberg may I say something?DANENBERG
Sure.
The student is smiling from ear to ear.OTHER STUDENT
I was watching Oprah yesterday and she had the president of a college called Bard College on the show. He told her that students take tests and they never have the chance to go over the tests to learn from their mistakes. He was saying exactly what you have told us.DANENBERG
I swear I had nothing to do with it, but I really appreciate that you are sharing this important information with all of us.
Oprah Winfrey could have been a great voice for change back then, but she lacked the knowledge. Almost twenty years have passed and the number adults without a high school diploma or G.E.D. has risen significantly. The advocacy of hope that Barack Obama became famous for lost out to tens of millions of people in America and a younger generation has made things better.
Barack Obama wants Kamala Harris, United States Senator from California to run for President of the United States. California went easily to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and did not get her over the top. History could show us just how victories were assured in the past through more precise calculations. The Kennedy-Johnson ticket, for example, convinced many states in the South to vote for John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon and that had little or nothing to do with the famous debates.
Harris comes from a state where about 5.5 million adults do not have a high school diploma and neither Democrat nor Republican has done much to help all those people find greater opportunities in life through continuing education and beyond. This is a wakeup call to that state and other states that are underperforming.
Lebron James, in my opinion, could beat Donald Trump easily. He is a hero to the people of Ohio, an important swing state. He left Miami where he played basketball and may not be quite as popular there as he was, but Florida is another key state that could swing in James’ favor. How would he match up against Donald Trump? He is a much more successful athlete than Trump ever was. His business acumen has launched him into both film and television and very successfully. He would surely take a huge part of the male vote from Trump and assure an even bigger turnout of African-American voters that turned out for Barack Obama in 2012.
Lebron James and I have a little in common and that is the key for me. I used to consider myself the biggest individual in the world in the field of G.E.D. I even created an additional acronym for G.E.D. in Spanish which is la Generación de Educación y Deportes. That means the Generation of Education and Sports.
I am not even close to six feet and Lebron James is six feet eight. So he is bigger. What did Lebron James do to be held up so high in my eyes? He donated money in Akron, Ohio so that the parents of the children in his program there could obtain the G.E.D. That was big news! I continue to fight to educate parent and child in America and I wish that other great professional athletes would do the same thing. It is that badly needed.
The only thing that I learned about years before James’s donation was that Verizon, the telephone company, donated $50,000 in West Virginia so that about 1,000 people could take the test. West Virginia at that time was widely known for a large high school dropout rate and high poverty. By mobilizing tens of millions of adults Lebron James can assure himself that he will be the President of the United States in 2020. His retirement is imminent and that could put himself right under the hoop to perform the greatest slam dunk of his life.
The 2018 Elections to the Congress are right around the corner and Lebron James could help bring out the vote across the United States. We need new voices and that is a good reason to reject some people who have either become toxic and/or lost credibility with voters. In 2008 Barack Obama obtained almost 50 percent of the nation’s youth, not the highest percentage ever obtained but the highest in recent history. The inauguration of Donald Trump and his policy of divide and conquer has united people.
The demonstrations that took place in 2017 showed that and those energies only need to be channeled into voting. The Republicans control a mega-majority in county governmental seats, but all of that can and will be meaningless when 2020 comes around. And those youth recognize the name James and need only a short amount of time to make up their minds as the Iowa Caucus takes place to start the ball rolling in James’ Court.
Fuggedaboutit (when leaving Brooklyn is it Fuhgeddaboudit) Bernie Sanders was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He, just like Kamala Harris, comes from a state that is not one of the best G.E.D. states in the nation. It is a tiny state and not as relevant to the discussion as Ohio. Hillary Clinton was often considered the lesser of two evils, but as it turns out Donald Trump has destabilized the world and the Republican Party. The future really does not look good for both, especially if Lebron James does amazing things like bring our nation’s police together in peace with Colin Kaepernick to deflate that notion that Kaepernick dishonored the flag and the military by kneeling for the national anthem. Lebron James can do it and he and Kaepernick can play basketball and football with the cops to defuse lots of youth who cause so much trouble for the police across our nation. This would be a win-win situation for communities and the police. Fuggedaboutit Cory Booker as Lebron James heads for America’s greatest title as POTUS. Booker and Kamala will have four to eight years to sharpen their skills and develop a real base of power by providing solutions in the Congress such as greater income tax refunds than the Republicans just gave the American middle class.
Lebron James has done a lot to help the residents of Akron, Ohio which is his hometown. Recently with the University of Akron, he has committed scholarship money for qualified students in his I Promise Program in which 2,300 students will be able to attend the school, paying approximately $9,300 per year for their tuition, books, and fees. This announcement came after the University of Akron experienced a $40 million budget cut.
