Month: June 2017

Gladys Noruto (June 30, 2017) could benefit a great deal by learning that liberal social issues are hardly limited to “gay marriage, women’s rights, etc.” Actually, these are not liberal issues, anyway, but apply across the political spectrum. Liberal issues, on the other hand, are such things as: a living wage, universal healthcare, food security for the poor, racial justice, voting rights, a progressive tax code, tuition free college, fully funded public schools, affordable housing, to name a few. Sadly enough, while Republicans are beginning to accept LGBT and women’s rights as legitimate, they are almost universally opposed to these other social issues. And therein lies the difference between the two major political parties.
By the way: when do you think people might stop bashing Obama? It was old hat already when Mitch McConnell started it in 2009, and it still is.

The handwriting is already on the wall. Trump’s selection of cabinet members and department heads gives a clear indication of how he intends to govern. He clearly wants to dismantle the presidential administration so that nothing gets done that he doesn’t want done. And nothing whatever gets done that does not originate with him.. He has not needed to use his veto power yet because Congress has given him nothing to approve or reject. His refusal to fill hundreds of important government positions leaves us vulnerable to unforeseen calamities that are always, constantly, brewing somewhere, at home or abroad. And calamitous incompetence is not what you want when calamity does strike, as it unavoidably will sooner or later.

Shame! That is the only way to put it, the way Republican politicians rationalize and justify the Senate’s so-called healthcare bill. It reallyIn is nothing less than shameful. Everyone knows by now that this legislation is not about healthcare at all, but is merely a way of squeezing money out of a very important social program— Medicaid– which provides a crucial benefit for poor and elderly citizens. And all for the sole purpose of providing a multi-billion dollar tax break for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Tell me if you can think of anything more shameful.

Donald Trump says: “Dreamers won’t be targeted.” That can only mean one thing: if you are a DACA, watch out! Bitter experience is a harsh teacher and if it tells us anything, it is that whatever Trump says, expect the opposite. Review the rules that apply to your DACA status and be certain to follow them to the letter. Even so, be aware that ICE makes up their own rules as they go along and interprets existing rules to fit their actions. You have been warned by Trump himself, so be extra careful.

Everyone knows how weird and incompetent Trump is, but he has something that effectively shields him from any corrective action his Republican Party might consider. And that shield is his very personification of the characteristics of so many Republican voters. He is, after all, a generic Republican. His actions and statements are exactly what rank and file Republicans want to see and hear. He is one of their own in every sense of the word. As long as Republicans hold all the cards, and the Donald holds the trump card, impeachment is not very likely.

The notion that private enterprise can do a better job of running things than is possible through government bureaucracy is an ideology, not a fact. Witness the disaster of privately-run fire departments, the cost overruns and human rights abuses of private prisons, and the failure of private charter schools to outperform their public school counterparts. So, whenever you hear a conservative politician advocating privatization of anything to improve outcomes, simply say “show me”.

Are you a Republican or Democrat? Green or independent? Except for the way you are registered to vote, does it really make any difference? If your entire family: parents brothers sisters cousins aunts uncles nieces nephews, everyone, are rock-ribbed Republicans, staunch supporters of Donald Trump, but you simply cannot abide his many personal faults or regressive politics, does it matter? What if you changed your voter registration to “decline to state”? Could you limit your political discussion to specific issues: immigration, tax policy, abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. without resorting to political party talking points? Could name-calling and hate speech be avoided altogether? What if you lived in a community where no one wore a label, where political talk focused on the issues, with emphasis on who wins and who loses? Would there be more serious discussion? Would more people show up to vote on election day? If we achieved nothing else, could we at least achieve understanding?

In the New Yorker magazine of May 22, 2017, writer Jeffrey Tobin had this to say: “it is a certainty that history will look unkindly upon the moral blindness of contemporary Republicans.” When you look at what McConnell’s Senate did to obstruct the Obama administration, and what they are doing now to repeal Obamacare, it is easy to appreciate the wisdom of Tobin’s prediction.

When Obama was elected, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, declared it would be the Republican Party’s mission to see to it that he, Obama, was a one term president. There followed a massive, well-organized and financed campaign (elements of which continue to this day) to demean, degrade, and obstruct the Obama presidency. No opportunity was or is missed by any Republican politician to badmouth Obama, to blame him for any problem, no matter how remote or trivial, and to block any constructive effort lest Obama received credit. When the Democrats lost control of Congress in 2010 the government of the United States of America effectively shut down, making McConnell’s prophecy self-fulfilling. By 2016, the voting public was so disgusted with Washington, they voted for change, change in whatever form they could get. It came with Donald J. Trump, through the quirk of the Electoral College, despite an almost three million popular vote advantage for Hillary Clinton. Now, Trump’s pigeons are coming home to roost, and America is having a bad case of buyer’s remorse. Impeachment talk is in the air, and Trump’s very low approval ratings mean that he may not be able to count on popularity to shield him from this radical method of getting him out.

We knew Trump was a con man, a grifter, a demagogue, gifted in the art of delivering applause lines and appealing to the bigots in his audience. Republicans, for their part, also new that his fairly solid 37% of the voters, when combined with the tribal loyalty of registered Republicans, plus the unmeasured, but obvious anti-Clinton vote, would likely put Trump over the top. What we didn’t know was what kind of leader Trump would make, how he would operate as President of the United States. Now we know. We should not be surprised. In his years as a real estate dealer and TV personality, Trump has been known to snooker a lot of people,(contractors, employees, vendors, etc.). We can now add to those victims the entire population of the United States of America. We have been snookered, big time!