Year: 2017

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Democracy Featured

Christie’s Last Stand: Bankrupt Bluster

Governor Christie is obviously not content with 15% approval ratings. He must want them to go lower. And he’s doing a great job, drawing a line in closed beach sand about the state budget that was supposed to be approved by June 30. The problem is that Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto refused to include Christie’s proposed grab of $300 million dollars from Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield. That money was supposed to fund the governor’s opioid addiction program, which has been the part and parcel of his entire second term agenda.

Even a proposed compromise, where the bill would allow the next governor to take none, some or all of the $300 million didn’t move Prieto who saw it as the power move that it was. And it lit up the previously dark, ugly, cobwebbed closet that modern Republicans would rather that voters not see because it contains the hypocrisy that has driven their bankrupt agenda for decades. They won’t dare raise taxes, and they pretend that businesses should make their own decisions without government regulations. But when it comes to funding that the state desperately needs, they will put their meaty fists on any company they believe makes too much money or does big business with public workers.

Hence, Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the state’s largest public worker health insurer. It’s not enough that many public workers, including hundreds of thousands of public school teachers, have had their take home pay reduced because of rising health insurance payments which, by the by, Chrtistie forced by taking away their collective negotiating rights (with some Democratic help. Thanks a bunch.) It’s now gotten to the point that Christie wants to weaken BSBC by taking away some of its surplus.

This is not all Christie, though. Senate President Steve Sweeney was able to get enough Democratic votes last week in that body, but the bill hit a wall in Prieto’s Assembly. The result is a nasty political fight that has real consequences for the public and for state workers. This is the kind of fake leadership that Christie has demonstrated for almost 8 years and it’s now spread to Washington. I’m assuming that Christie is just waiting for Trump to fire Jeff Sessions so he can move to Justice.

Which, in the present political atmosphere, really means just us.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Republican Leaders and Enablers Silent on Trump’s War on Women

The most powerful man in the world decided to resort to his natural instincts and blasted a woman on Twitter. A woman whose opinion the president doesn’t like, a woman who has used her platform to share her opinion with her listeners, felt the wrath of the president of the United States because she thought the First Amendment of the Constitution protected her free speech from the onslaughts of the president.

The most powerful man in the world, the man who is supposedly on par with Kings and Queens and Presidents, decided to use his personal twitter machine to express his male chauvinistic tendencies, telling the world that the woman tried to visit him at his home but she was bleeding because of a face-lift, so he said “NO!”

I heard poorly rated speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came…..to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

Now this isn’t the first time this man has referred to ‘a bleeding woman’ for lack of a better phrase. During his campaign, then Republican candidate, Donald Trump, accused another woman with an opinion of having “blood coming out of her whatever” because she asked him hard questions at a debate.

“She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous…” Trump said in the debate. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. . .” he said about then Fox host, Megyn Kelly. Mr. Trump received the usual criticisms from some, but most in the Republican party ignored him and in so doing, enabled the man they eventually elected president of the United States.

For a man who has a reputation of attacking women, talking down to them and talking about them as if they’re beneath him, as if they’re objects to be ridiculed and make fun of,  Mr. Trump has found favor in the Republican party. He is, and will always be, the leader of a moral-less group who will gladly go on television and proclaim their love of their fearless leader and nothing, absolutely nothing Trump say or do, will cause this love to diminished.

This is not your father’s Republican party!

 

 

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Trump Gets Huge Tax Cut in Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (L) gives a thumbs up sign as he walks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

CNN reports that those in the top 0.1%, earning $5 million or more, would receive an average tax cut of nearly $250,000 in 2026, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. Those in the top 1%, who earn $875,000 and up, would see an average tax savings of $45,500 a year.

Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare have been widely criticized as shifting money from the poor to the rich. The House and Senate bills would repeal the taxes Obamacare levied on the wealthy, while making drastic cuts to Medicaid and reducing federal assistance that helps low- and moderate-income Americans afford coverage.

Some 22 million fewer Americans would have health insurance under the Senate legislation, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Monday. That includes 15 million fewer people covered under Medicaid, the nation’s safety net program for the poor.

The GOP would also repeal taxes that Obamacare levied on insurers, drug makers and others. All told, this would reduce federal revenue by $700 billion over the next decade. Nearly 45% of that benefit would go to the top 1%, the Tax Policy Center found.

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Democracy Featured

Worst is the New Normal

Let me get this straight.

The president (shudder) lies in hinting that he might have tapes of his conversations with James Comey in order to make sure that Comey tells the truth when he testifies under oath in front of Congress? Comey says that this spurred him to have a friend leak information he hoped would result in the appointment of a Special Prosecutor because Comey believed that the president might have obstructed justice? The president now says that no tapes exist, but that his threat was enough to keep Comey honest, which proves that what Trump was saying was the truth?

That conclusion makes no sense. If anything, what Comey said was incredibly damaging and he actually hoped, prayed, that there were tapes to back up his testimony.  Trump says that he never asked Comey to stop investigating Micheal Flynn. Comey said he did. So how can Trump say that his threat about tapes kept Comey honest? If that’s so, then Comey being honest means big trouble for Trump.

And the worst part is that Trump created his own fake news.

But in an administration where truth is the second option, this story will go through many more twists and turns. In fact, it’s already becoming the cover story so the administration can continue to do other things like weaken consumer protections, cut taxes on the wealthy and generally cut back public services in the name of personal responsibility.

And speaking of person responsibility, the Senate’s absolutely awful TrumpCare bill not only will result in millions of people either losing their insurance or being priced out of any meaningful health care because the deductibles will be astronomically high, but assumes that if you took responsibility for your life then  you wouldn’t need a government subsidy or help with your whiny preexisting condition. Conservative orthodoxy has generally held that anyone who depends on public help must be scamming the system, so the new health care law will punish you by making you face a choice of high premiums or high deductibles.

Conservative orthodoxy apparently also holds that being a woman of child-bearing age is a liability and an expense, so the new bill is essentially going to make you pay for your contraception or your pregnancy, then make you pay even more for private child care because, well, it’s your fault your a woman.

That’ll learn ya.

It would be great if the economy was growing fast enough to create well-paying jobs with health insurance attached, but the Trump administration is doing virtually nothing to help other than to threaten companies that move jobs overseas. Trump was able to cow Carrier into keeping jobs in the United States, but now word comes that most of those people will be laid off by the end of the year. And Ford just announced that they would be building a plant in China, partly because the Chinese are committing their resources to electric cars.

The world, and the world of commerce, seems to be ignoring the president and his nonsensical isolationist, protectionist policies that have led to the United States leaving the Paris Climate Accords and generally disengaging from global politics except, of course, when it comes to supporting dictatorial regimes around the world who create terrorists, like Saudi Arabia, or suppress human rights, like Turkey. Then we’re best buds. And don’t forget that many American businesses are facing worker shortages because, oddly, Americans don’t want to do the dirty jobs that immigrants used to do before they became public enemies. Wages are going up, which is good, but shortages can lead to inflation, which is not good.

Could things get better? Not before they get a little worse. The health care bill will pass in some lousy form, even with some push-back by moderates, which will result in some terrible consequences. Democrats need to run on this issue hard for the next 18 months and remind people that what Trump promised his base is not what he’s delivering. Don’t fret about Georgia or South Carolina or any of the other unattainable special elections we’ve had. Be methodical. Win in VA and NJ in the fall. Then cultivate those who don’t vote in Congressional elections.

It’s the only way.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Keith Olbarmann – Trump is “Self-Destructing…” We Should Help – Video

And again, I agree!

Keith Olbermann made this statement on one of his “The Resistance” episode posted on YouTube. According to Olbermann, when it comes to the president of the United States threatening our freedoms, heritage or way of life, wanting that president to fail is perfectly okay, even if it means the president ends up destroying himself and his presidency.

“Ordinarily, the last thing in the world any American would want is a leader bent on destroying himself and ending his presidency. But the threat to our freedoms, our heritage, our way of life, our lives themselves, is so overwhelming and unprecedented, that putting aside the almost immeasurable anger and resentment this childish, petulant, selfish man engenders, it is still with genuine sadness that we must look at his self-destruction and say it simply and resolutely, better him than our country.”

Video

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Barack Obama’s Reply Following Otto Warmbier’s Death

Former President, Barack Obama, did not sit idly by while Donald Trump accused him of not doing enough to bring Otto Warmbier back home. Otto, arrested in North Korea in 2015 for removing a photo from a hotel, was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was released two weeks ago and arrived back in the U.S in a comatosed state. He died less than a week after his arrival.

Ned Price, a spokesman for former President, Barack Obama, brought Mr. Obama’s message and totally shut down Trump’s idotic claim.

“During the course of the Obama Administration, we had no higher priority than securing the release of Americans detained overseas,” Obama spokesman Ned Price said in the statement. “Their tireless efforts resulted in the release of at least 10 Americans from North Korean custody during the course of the Obama administration.”

Added Price, who was National Security Counsel spokesperson during Obama’s administration: “It is painful that Mr. Warmbier was not among them, but our efforts on his behalf never ceased, even in the waning days of the administration. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Warmbier’s family and all who had the blessing of knowing him.”

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Democracy Featured

Hail Caesar!

I go back and forth about whether there is such a thing as fate. This is one of those weeks where I believe.

The shooting of the Republican congressional baseball team in Alexandria is terrible enough, and predictably, the right wing scream machine is in full blather blaming the Democrats and their anti-Trump rhetoric for setting a nasty tone. Of course, the conservative media treated Obama with kid gloves and honey for eight years and were really only kidding about his being a Muslim or not a citizen or being in league with his Arab buddies whenever oil prices shot higher. Or plunged lower.

Same reason, different day.

What was arguably worse than Alexandria was the Greek Chorus made up of cabinet members expressing their undying love and personal fortunes for the honor of serving the least qualified president we’ve ever had in the White House. This display undermined every philosophical and practical underpinning of our democracy. These people don’t work personally for the president; they work for the American people. You know, the ones who pay their salaries and upon whose behalf they serve. Remember serve? This is a government based on service. By turning their fealty over to one man, they have greased the slippery slope that the president (shudder) sits atop.

But wait, there’s more.

The Fickle Finger of Fate also pointed north of DC, aiming its digit squarely at Central Park, where the Public Theater is presenting “Julius Caesar” with a Caesar who looks remarkably like the president. Of course, this has caused controversy when Caesar is sliced and diced at the play’s ides, and has led Delta Airlines – you know, the airline that kicks families off of flights, and Bank of America, you know, the bank that never learned from a financial crisis – to cancel their support for the theater. Reason enough to abandon Delta and BOA.

As any high schooler can tell you, though, the killing of Caesar doesn’t solve Rome’s problems and leads to wars starring Mark Antony, Cassius and Brutus. The killing is the essence of the tragedy for all involved, but the Republican scream machine sees it as a death wish for Democrats and a scurrilous depiction of gratuitous violence.

Wrong.

It’s art, and art sometimes has to challenge and outrage us because it shows us a side of humanity that we don’t think about. Or want to see. Or recognize in us, but is too painful to say out loud. Worse is that Trump’s budget cuts spending on the arts and humanities so we can all get dumber and singularly praise him for being more effective than anyone except FDR.

But these are the lies that Trump thinks he can continue to tell and get away with. Praise he believes he’s earned for…700 jobs in Indiana? A health care plan he said was both “great” and “mean?” And now, an investigation into whether he obstructed justice.

As usual, though, it’s the Bard who gives us the fitting end, the speech that Caesar gives extolling his own virtue as the only one who can save Rome:

I could be well moved, if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire and every one doth shine.
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.
So in the world: ’tis furnished well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive.
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion; and that I am he
Let me a little show it, even in this:
That I was constant Cimber should be banished,
And constant do remain to keep him so. (3.1.64-79)

He is murdered soon after.

Exeunt.

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Democracy

The Snowflake Presidency

When are Americans going to wake up and realize that Donald Trump is like any other guy in a bar with an opinion and limited facts? That he’s essentially a guy who went into dad’s business, spreading his money around to anyone who would spell his name correctly in big neon letters, and that he knows virtually nothing about how the American political system works or the ideas on which it is based? As for his defensiveness and inability to take blame, that makes Trump not just the first snowflake president; it makes him a virtual blizzard.

Realizing this makes it easier to dismiss 95% of articles that are written about him, articles that register shock–shock!–at the things he says and the things he does.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump asked, indeed demanded, that James Comey stop the investigation into Micheal Flynn. I have no doubt that Trump knew virtually nothing about how his travel ban violated basic American values and legal norms. I have no doubt that he is unschooled in any of the vital public issues that confront our nation at this moment, including, but not limited to health care, the environment, taxes, job creation, roads, bridges, airports, technology information systems, the Internet, immigration or foreign relations.

He, and I assume many of his shrinking support base, sees himself as the great disruptor, when in fact he is clueless about how his words and actions damage him and even more, damage the country. Just in the past few days Trump has finally affirmed that the US stands firmly behind our NATO allies and that we will defend them under every circumstance. And he has said that he will address the issue of whether there are Oval Office tapes of his conversations with Comey and others.

But why wait? In the first case, Trump’s waffling and non-commitment in Italy only served to heighten mistrust of the US as a staunch ally. In the second, and under the same circumstances, you or I would immediately be accused of withholding evidence in a criminal investigation. What Trump is doing is not disruption or draining liquids or statecraft. It’s an ignorant guy in a bar watching cable news and spewing his uninformed opinion.

And it’s not going to stop.

The White House staff was able to keep Trump occupied throughout Comey’s televised testimony, which, if you have any experience with children who have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, is a Herculean task, and he generally stayed off Twitter for the day. But he came roaring back with venom, calling Comey a liar and offering to testify himself under oath with nothing more than…himself. And he’s his own worst enemy. Comey has witnesses and written notes. Trump has…beer and pretzels.

As I’ve said, my life has become lighter and less fraught since I committed to the obvious and judged Trump, correctly, to be nothing more than an uninformed blowhard.  The real problem with my assumption, though, is that the other people in the White House and in Congress must step up and make sure that Trump’s worst excesses do not become law.

What happens when Rex Tillerson and others with some modicum of knowledge resign because Trump has contradicted them one too many times? What happens if Senate moderates can’t defeat the ruinous Trumpcare bill now in front of them? What happens if Paul Ryan continues to excuse Trump’s behavior because, essentially, he doesn’t know any better?

Obviously, the first thing is that I will become heavier and more fraught, but it will also mean that the country will be in an even more spectacular danger. That’s why those who oppose the administration’s direction must organize and coalesce around candidates that will take back the House and/or Senate in 2018. That’s got to be the one indivisible goal for those of us who see the danger that’s plainly in front of us.

Otherwise, we will continue to be buried under the billions of snowflakes already descending upon us.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

New Lows for Trump’s Approval Ratings

Olbermann called him “our national embarrassment, our international disgrace.” And it seems the rest of the country concurs. Let’s see how low Trump’s poll numbers would go.

The new Quinnipiac University poll finds Trump has a job approval rating of 34 percent, compared to 57 percent who disapprove of the way the president is handling his job.

In a poll released at the end of last month, 37 percent of respondents approved of the job the president was doing and 55 percent disapproved.

The new poll also finds 31 percent of voters think Trump did something illegal regarding his relationship with Russia.

Another 29 percent of respondents think the president did something unethical, but not illegal, regarding his relationship with Russia. Thirty-two percent think the president did nothing wrong.

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Georgia Republican – “I do not support a livable wage”

The Georgia run-off between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel is set for June 20. Today, however, we learned that Handel does not want the people of Georgia to make enough money to survive!

Among the questions posed to Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff during a televised debate was whether they favor of a minimum wage increase.

Ossoff, who came just shy of receiving enough votes in the April primary to avoid a June 20 runoff against Handel, said he does — that “the minimum wage should be a livable wage.”

“Look, if somebody’s working a 40-hour workweek, they deserve the kind of standard of living that Americans expect,” Ossoff said. “That’s part of the American dream, and there are too many folks having trouble making ends meet.”

Handel followed up by saying the issue is “an example of the fundamental difference between a liberal and a conservative.”

“I do not support a livable wage,” she said. “What I support is making sure we have an economy that is robust with low taxes and less regulation so that those small businesses that would be dramatically hurt if you imposed higher minimum wages on them are able to do what they do best: grow jobs and create good paying jobs for the people of the 6th District.”

Georgia’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, the same as the federal minimum wage. The minimum livable wage for a single adult in the three counties that make up Georgia’s 6th District is $12.01 per hour, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.

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Olbermann on Trump – “Our National Embarrassment, Our International Disgrace” – Video

Olbermann began this episode of The Resistance by apologizing to the rest of the world for the mistake America made, a mistake called Donald Trump.

“Let me apologies again to the world, particularly the United Kingdom on behalf of the United States of America,” Olberman said. He continued. “Donald Trump is not of sound mind. We are working to correct the problem as soon as possible.”

Olbermann then went on to explain why Donald Trump, who Keith referred to as “our national embarrassment, our international disgrace” would have already been fired if he worked this incompetently anywhere else in the private industry.

“His complete incompetence, his complete failure, and his complete inability to see his incompetence and his failure, is anything except personal brilliance, would get him fired everywhere from the boardroom at Microsoft to the deep fryer at McDonald’s.”

Video

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Top Law Firms Turned Down Opportunity to Represent Trump

Mainly, because the man has a reputation of not paying his bills. He also can’t pay attention long enough to stop putting his foot in his mouth.

Among them, sources said, were some of the most high-profile names in the legal profession, including Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly; Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Paul Clement and Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis; and Robert Giuffra of Sullivan & Cromwell.

The lawyers and their firms cited a variety of factors in choosing not to take on the president as a client. Some, like Brendan Sullivan, said they had upcoming trials or existing commitments that that would make it impossible for them to devote the necessary time and resources to Trump’s defense.

Others mentioned potential conflicts with clients of their firms, such as financial institutions that have already received subpoenas relating to potential money-laundering issues that are part of the investigation.

But a consistent theme, the sources said, was the concern about whether the president would accept the advice of his lawyers and refrain from public statements and tweets that have consistently undercut his position.

“The concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’” said one lawyer close to the White House who is familiar with some of the discussions between the firms and the administration, as well as deliberations within the firms themselves.

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