If only other entertainers would stand up and proclaim their disgust with Donald Trump and where his so-called “leadership” is taking this nation, I’m sure we will be in a much better place.
More respect to EMINEM for making his feelings known, and not being afraid of speaking out!
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We learned this week that the Republican Party is so concerned about religious rights that they’ll compromise women’s health and allow people who are supposedly committed to love and compassion to discriminate against fellow human beings who love differently than they do.
We also learned that the only suggestion they can come up with when scores of people are killed by altered weapons is to get rid of the alteration, thereby condemning the country to another mass shooting massacre, which I predict will happen sometime in the next 18 months. A bold prediction, no? Kind of like predicting the sunrise tomorrow.
And then of course there’s the ongoing dismissal of African-American concerns regarding police actions, employment discrimination and voter suppression.
OK, you’re right. We didn’t really learn these things. We already knew them to be true, but having to actually live their reality is a reminder that the party truly does want to undo 60 years of progress for those people in society who have consistently felt the sting of discrimination and hate.
I certainly understand that the Republican Party favors the free market, lower taxes, less government and, shall we say, traditional morality, but under the present administration, those polices have become meaner and less fair than ever before. Add in the gerrymandering that keeps the GOP in power even in states where they are a minority only compounds the problem and the inequity. We can only hope that the Supreme Court rules favorably in the Wisconsin gerrymandering case it heard this past week. Courts have been good at preventing the administration from completely fouling the environment,
There’s word that the president has reached out to Chuck Schumer about fixing the health care law, but that won’t pass the House, so it looks like we’re stuck with the stalling tactics that have made the health insurance market skittish and more expensive. The silver lining is that millions of people will not lose their insurance, but we’re clearly not going in the right direction.
It’s disheartening to know that this administration will not do the right thing when the opportunity presents itself.
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What’s going on with Trump’s cabinet members and their need to fly all over the place on the taxpayer’s dime?
Tom Price, Trump’s HHS Secretary was forced to resign because he billed the American people over 1 million dollars to pay for his travel costs, and now another cabinet member wants us to pay almost 1 million dollars for his travels over the last few months!
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has not violated any laws with his use of government-funded planes but should provide more detail on why he needs them in the future, the department’s inspector general found in a report released Thursday.
Mnuchin has flown on military aircraft seven times since becoming secretary, at a cost of approximately $811,797.81, and will do so again later this month, according to the report. He has never expensed a private charter flight.
Raise your hand if you thought the Trump tax plan would favor the middle class and the poor.
I see no hands.
Democrats in the House and Senate can fulminate all they want, and the responsible media – and you know who they are – can put banner headlines about economic inequality on their sites and publications, but in the end, cutting taxes for the upper class will always be the GOP’s number one priority.
What’s different this time around is that the deficit hawks who haunted President Obama for his supposed wasteful spending that saved the auto industry and basically the entire economy are…silent. Actually, they’ve defended the multi-trillion black hole that TrumpTax will blow in the deficit, with the otherworldly assumption that economic growth will pay for the tax cuts.
It will not. Yes, economic growth will likely rise in the first few months after the cuts are passed, but at some point the Federal Reserve, with or without Janet Yellin, will raise interest rates enough to cool off the resultant inflation. That will result in some more fulminating from the president who knows less about actual economics than he does about health insurance.
This assumes that the bill is passed as presented today, which also is not going to happen. There are too many moving parts and too many corporate interests that stand to lose for the law to stand. The home building industry is concerned about the mortgage interest deduction. People like me who live in states where state and local taxes are high will put pressure on legislators to put back the deduction for those taxes. The new proposed 25% tax rate for pass through entities could result in many people listing themselves as pass through entities, which would mean they’d pay a lower tax rate.
And, of course, there are other parts of the proposal (still only 9 pages long) that will come out soon that will benefit other groups. Tax bills run into the thousands of pages. I can’t wait to see who gets the breaks and who gets the shaft.
The real impact, though, will mean the most when the bill is written and the true measure of what each group in this country will get out of it is measured in pizzas.
That’s right, pizzas, as in, “the average person will see a $1,600 tax cut, which comes out to $31 per week, or about 2 pizzas.” Right now, the average middle class worker will get about a $660 tax break per year which comes out to $12.70 per week, which is…one pizza. Are you ready to create a multi-trillion dollar addition to the deficit for your pizza? If we need to, we can pool our money together and add pepperoni. Or an anchovy. After the bill passes in its final form, I would not be surprised to see the middle class share fall from a whole pie to slices. And not fat Sicilian slices either.
No matter how you slice it, though, it ain’t gonna to be much for the voters who thought Donald Trump was on their side or that the swamp would be drained. This bill is already fueling the lobbyists who are anticipating a windfall. And the president will still not show us his tax return, so any of his claims that tax reform will not help him are specious at best.
But this is par for the course for our golfing executive. You know: the one who’s currently blaming Puerto Rico for its devastation.
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While Donald Trump foolishly wasted precious time attacking black players in the NFL for peacefully protesting the slayings of black people by police, former president Barack Obama continued his efforts to bring attention to the suffering in Puerto Rico.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the former president shared a video he made with other former presidents and asked Americans to donate.
“We’re expanding our efforts to help Puerto Rico & the USVI, where our fellow Americans need us right now. Join us at oneamericaappeal.org.”
The current occupant in the White House has been under criticism lately for manufacturing the NFL controversy while ignoring the Puerto Rico catastrophe. He got carried away last weekend while speaking at a rally in Alabama, and called on NFL owners to “fire” any “son of a bitch” that keeled in protest during the rendition of the National Anthem.
The man who took an oath to protect Americans and our rights to peacefully protest, who took an oath to uphold the Constitution clearly knows nothing about the Constitution and people’s First Amendment.
We’re expanding our efforts to help Puerto Rico & the USVI, where our fellow Americans need us right now. Join us at https://t.co/o5oCWOtiJS https://t.co/L2xArjc9N7
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 26, 2017
Take that, you John McCain you.
And NFL players who kneel for the national anthem? You need to speak the way we want you to speak. And hit harder, man! Be like Aaron Hernandez.
But what’s happening with Stephen Curry you ask? We don’t want your NBA Championship demeanor and terrific play and ambassador-like personality anywhere near the White House. You’re not invited!
Kim Jong-un should not, in any way, feel singled out. But I certainly understand how hurt he must be that the old man in the White House is yelling at him for having a nuclear program and firing missiles into the air above our allies’ heads. ‘Rocket Man’ is a good song. He should see it as a compliment.
In other words, international diplomacy has been reduced to name calling and 6th grade playground theatrics. Remind me again; who thought it was a good idea to elect Donald Trump? Yes, I’m sure the base loves the muscular response, which they see as a refreshing change from those pantywaist presidents named Clinton, Bush and Obama. Threatening a scurrilous, dangerous, immoral dictator will get us what we want because, after all, we’re the United States and all dictators cower when the president tells them he is unhappy.
Just look at Iran. They can certainly see that Donald Trump is going to decertify the nuclear agreement we signed with them two years ago. What the president doesn’t see is that this is going to make him an unreliable deal-making partner with Iran, North Korea and any other country who might have an interest n United States’ affairs and trade. The simple, elegant “No” will be this year’s most diplomatic response, and one that will not make the White House happy. Not that the past 30 years of State Department public and private efforts have done much about North Korea. They’ve ignored agreements, broken them and generally thumbed their noses at us. But we could always say that we acted in an adult, dignified, internationally-approved manner while it was happening. In short, we were a role model for the democracies we represented. This administration has spent all of that political capital in nine months. Pregnancies should go better than this.
Just to show that a lack of diplomacy should not be limited to the world stage, the president has now picked a fight with Senator McCain for rightly opposing a disastrous bill that’s not really related to health care, but to the tax savings it can generate for the $1.5 trillion dollar giveaway to the rich that the GOP has been salivating over since January.
Our federal system is a wonderful creation, but health insurance should not be subject to the whims of governors and state legislators who have, shall we say, a spotty record when it comes to science, women’s health care, birth control, budget-balancing tricks and recognizing that religious belief will not cure all of our ills. All Americans should receive health care that takes into account their basic needs and doesn’t allow anyone to charge them more for pre-existing conditions, maternity care, mental health or addiction services. What’s worse is that this bill would penalize those states that expanded Medicaid to cover their most vulnerable citizens and give more money to those that shunned Obamacare.
Which means, in our contradictory world, that those states that despise federal involvement in their affairs will be the largest beneficiaries of…federal largess.
And really, some people, like the president, should just stay away from sports. Yes, the man plays golf. Oh, does he play golf! But in every other way, he misunderstands the professional sports culture in the same way that he misunderstands larger American culture. The athletes and teams that have decided not to visit the White House are doing so because of the president’s words and actions, rather than as a result of some media cabal his supporters blame for his low poll numbers. Because, really, will professional football become a better game by having more players suffer concussions and brain damage and CTE?
As for the national anthem? Until 2009, NFL players used to stay in their locker rooms when the national anthem was played. You’d think the players had stood on the sidelines since 1814, when the song was written, but in fact that is not the case. You’d also think that they were the first athletes to cause controversy around the anthem, but that isn’t true either, if you take Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and a host of other athletes into account. The opposition to the president’s words have come from players, coaches and NFL owners, many of whom are staunchly Republican. They get it. The president does not.
I understand that Trump is angry because it looks like the health scare law will lose, North Korea will not back down and his preferred candidate in the Alabama Republican Senate primary is behind in the polls. He’s not the first president to face multiple crises.
But he’s not helping himself or the country with his shameful responses.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Is it just me or is the political circus breaking for an intermission?
Yes, I know that the president watched FOX News, then tweeted that the British knew who the suspects were in Friday’s terrorist attack. And he also reiterate his position that civil rights agitators are just as bad as Nazis and Klan members.
But somehow, it feels different.
Maybe it’s that the president struck a deal with Democrats about the debt ceiling and agreed with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi that we shouldn’t deport 800,000 people who were brought here by their parents, have generally lived fine American lives, and now risk having their worlds upended because, well, why? There was speculation that the president was concerned that his poll numbers were just too low or that throwing hard-working people out of the country was too egregious even for the right-wing media, who generally opposed his proposed policies.
Or it could be that John F. Kelly is actually doing a decent job as White House Chief of Staff and was able to get through the haze and appeal to the president on a level that Trump’s children, spouse, past advisers, conscience, sense of decency and humanity, and presidential behavior have not. Or maybe he was just havin’ fun, and next week he’ll go back to ravaging the truth, reacting and tweeting about news stories he hear, and calling for the wall to be built.
In the end, it won’t matter. Another eruption is always just around the corner. But, again, it just feels different.
And this week, the diplomats come calling for the annual opening of the United Nations. The president is scheduled to give a speech and of course anything goes, and will, when he takes the podium. Then he and his staffers must give some kind of explanation as to what his foreign policy will look like, but when you have no clue or knowledge about that it’s difficult to be…cogent.
The great fear among those who oppose the president’s agenda is that his behavior and utterances will become normalized. Perhaps we are seeing that. That’s why this new feeling can be dangerous. This is no normal Republican administration.
And I don’t think it ever will be.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
No, it’s not the Apocalypse. That happened last November. This is just weather.
Just weather. And the earth. How quaint.
Three hurricanes, and a major earthquake that very few people outside of Mexico are paying attention to, are taking their physical and psychic toll on a country that does not need any more bad news. Add in a cleanup that will be expensive, daunting and political, and you’ll see more partisan bickering in addition to the usual American disaster response which will include astounding stories of bravery, generosity, and poignancy.
Coming on the heels of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the earthly events of the past few weeks are instructive and worthy of reflection. For as a much as we consider ourselves as the vanguard of technology, knowledge, wealth, sophistication and freedom, we need to remind ourselves that nature ultimately holds us to account. There’s just no way to stop a hurricane or to predict an earthquake in time to safely evacuate residents. We are really at the mercy of our own limitations and our uncanny hubris when it comes to assessing risk. Just as we overestimated our safety 16 years ago, and unconscionably put the New York disaster assessment agency in the World Trade Center, so have Houston and, I’m reasonably certain we will find out, South Florida, will find that they were unprepared for events that stretched the vocabulary of every weatherista in the media.
And the political lessons? Please. Just ask anybody in New Jersey who remembers the Texas Congressional delegation’s incomprehensible opposition to federal relief for Superstorm Sandy in 2012, how they view the Ted Cruz FEMA telethon and screechy request for funds to rebuild, and they’ll tell you quite a story. Just don’t stand too close. And I hope you’re not offended by salty language. There’s also more money to be spent on Florida, and in the end I expect that both states will get what they need.
What these storms ultimately should tell us is that we are pretty good at reacting to disasters (right, Brownie?), but we are terrible at planning, execution, building codes and, yes, infrastructure. We simply cannot continue this way. Other countries, such as the European low countries and Great Britain, have made adjustments and not simply rebuilt up the affected areas. Dunes on the New Jersey shore will help, but building more houses on stilts will just set up homes as field goal attempts the next time we are pummeled with a 100-year storm that comes 95 years too soon.
The last piece to all of this is how we react, long-term, to these challenges, and the main component is the effect our activity is having on our atmosphere. Climate change is real. It is being influenced by choices and actions that humans have made since the industrial age. You can’t believe in meteorology and astronomy and physics, but deny the atmospheric chemistry that is making the earth warmer and holding more moisture. It’s time that we realized that we need to make adjustments and to not put people in danger that is avoidable.
That will require leadership that, at present, we just don’t have.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
“I can stand in the middle of Fifth Ave and shoot somebody, and not lose any voters!” That was ‘amnesty Don’ back when he was campaigning for president. With all the foolish things he said and all the love he received from Republicans for saying those things, Donald Trump felt invincible.
What changed? If you listened to the followers he has left, talking
#AmnestyDon #burnmyMAGAhat pic.twitter.com/xECHLI1XZn
— Nathan Simms (@ClevelandSimms) September 15, 2017
Steve Bannon, leader of the conservative right, and most recently known as the man who whispered in Donald Trump’s ear as his Chief Adviser, explained his feelings on DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – and the Catholic church.
In a recently published interview, Bannon told CBS that Trump’s recent decision to end DACA – which would lead to the deportation of children and young adults who were brought to this country at by their parents – would not go over good with Catholics. Not because the decision is a terrible and insensitive one, but because the church need “illegal aliens” to fill their pews.
Steve Bannon tells CBS Catholic Bishops are opposed to what’s happening on DACA because “they need illegal aliens to fill the churches.” pic.twitter.com/WYSyXQYUhJ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 7, 2017
New school years always bring new challenges for children, parents and teachers. This school year, though, promises to be much trickier, because we are now debating United States History.
Remember history? That’s the class that isn’t tested at the end of the year by the great national testing monopoly, Pearson. The PARCC tests focus on non-fiction readings, which allows for more use of historical documents on the test, but there’s no real history or context that a student has to master in order to answer the questions.
For decades we’ve focused on language arts and mathematics as the key components of K-12 education, relentlessly testing students in those subjects. And what has your school district likely spent a good deal of money on over the last few years? STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or STEAM (ibid., but add Arts). Coding classes are now part of the curriculum in many states as required business and personal finance courses. They get lots of press. And, yes, United States History is required in all states, but far too many of them require only one year of it. And with no summary test, save for a final exam at the end of the class, history has lost a good deal of influence in the curriculum.
We are now paying the price.
As this new school year begins, teachers will be asked to address the explosive issues that are daily in the media concerning our history and what it means. How should we treat Confederate statues and monuments? What place do hate groups such as the KKK and the American Nazi Party have in a country with a strong First Amendment? What should we do about immigration and children who were brought here by undocumented parents? And of course, we seem to be debating President Trump’s behavior, tweets and spur-of-the-moment policy declarations on a minute-by-minute basis, not to mention his speculative knowledge of historical events.
This is the environment in which America’s school teachers must operate this academic year. We are the ones who will be the first point of contact for many children who are feeling the anxiety and divisiveness that has taken hold in our society. Remember that as much as any adult is trying to make sense of what’s happening in our society, children experience these events on a magnified scale. They have less of the emotional regulation necessary to confront explosive debates that adults have and they have little context by which to weigh the consequences of what they’re learning. Great teachers recognize these deficits and conduct their classes so as to support students, to teach them civil behavior, to make sure students respect differences, and to calmly appeal to their students’ intelligence, humanity, and sense of justice.
Of course, some would argue that if teachers had done this in the past, then we wouldn’t be at this place in our history where there is so much disagreement and division. This would be a tragic conclusion. Did any of your teachers teach you to hate? To insult your classmates? To steal? To plagiarize? Of course not.
The simple truth is that teachers can only be as effective as the communities in which we teach, and if a community, or the country, is dysfunctional, then that will be reflected in the schools. We see students for only a portion of the day. The media, social and otherwise, takes over from there. Together with parents, teachers can only plant the seeds of knowledge; society and common sense have to do the rest.
That’s why this school year will be more of a challenge than most years, but I have no doubt that America’s school teachers will do their best, keep their emotions in check, teach from the heart and the head, advocate for every one of their students, and proudly represent themselves as doing one of the most important and difficult jobs in this country.
I wish all of my fellow teachers a happy new school year full of joy and wonder. May we learn as much about our students as they learn from us.
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In the Trump Administration’s best approximation of Friday Night Lights, the president (shudder) treated two of his main constituencies to a Shabbat treat. First by throwing civil rights and equal opportunity to the floor when he banned transgender Americans from serving their country in the armed forces, and then when he pardoned convict Joe Arpaio, a move that sent a solid message to those who believe that medieval treatment of prisoners is not just for the 14th century.
Trump’s defense? That Joe was following the law. We should note that Joe was convicted of contempt for not following the law
The silver lining is that in order to receive a pardon, the person has to admit that they committed a crime. So Arpaio is now an admitted crook. Just the kind of guy that Trump admires.
These actions would be bad in any administration, but for one that is committed to really turning the clock back to 1946, before the armed forces were desegregated, these new twists are simply the method by which this country, ruled by white men, informed by white men, and acculturated by white sensibilities, will be…returned to white men.
Pardon my confusion as we slowly twist in the wind.
While the media focuses on the president’s foibles and twitter follies, he and his minions have done real and present damage to the country. They have sent the message that it’s fine to exclude people from participating in and benefiting from our democracy, opened up public land for economic exploitation, set us back at least 75 years as far as pollution and the environment are concerned, rolled back civil rights protections, and essentially made us a non-player in world affairs. And they’ve shown that they have no shame in perpetrating these policies. In fact, if it’s what the ultra-conservative base of the Republican Party wants, then Trump is eager to give it to them.
I would expect more pardons, more executive orders and more erratic and unpresidential behavior in the weeks and months to come. President Trump’s approval ratings are low enough that he doesn’t have to care about what the opposition thinks. After all, how much worse can things get?
Exactly my point.
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