Category: Domestic Policies

Categories
Domestic Policies

Make America Great? Promote the Arts and Culture.

Had enough yet? Of course not. And it’s still February.

If the press conference wasn’t proof enough that the president still doesn’t have a handle on his facts, then let’s move on to those things that do not lie: the numbers.

Yes, it’s almost time for the president to issue a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, that starts in October, and word is that it’s going to include the GOP’s greatest hits. That means that social programs will of course be on the chopping or reforming block, such as Medicare and Medicaid, programs that actually do a great deal of great for their intended beneficiaries, while we are in for a massive infusion of money to the military because, well, we need a huge amount of new weapons to fight, well, ISIS? Russia? China? I’m not quite sure. I guess maybe after being at war for 16 years, many of our weapons have been used and we need new ones? We’ll come back to that one.

Some of the other cuts on the Republican wish list are oldies but goodies from the 1980s Reagan Revolution.  They include drug treatment programs and the Export-Import Bank, but the program cuts that really show where the right’s priorities are will fall on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. That these programs account for maybe a few hundred million dollars in a $4 trillion dollar budget doesn’t seem to matter. They will be on the chopping block no matter what that says about the ruling party’s priorities.

The CPB, the NEA and the NEH, quite simply, bring a certain level of calm, thoughtfulness, pragmatism, knowledge, intelligence and, yes, democracy, to the country. So naturally you can see why the right would want to get rid of them. Chaos and unpredictability are in. Sober-minded analysis is definitely out. But ever since Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano and “Tales of the City” made their way into the consciousness of the party of morality, they have tried to demonize publicly funded culture as elitist and leftist, arguing that if television programs and art exhibits can’t pay their own way, then they should be thrown onto the bonfire of the inanities.

A country that loses its culture is in more trouble than one that loses a war. And some culture will always need public support. Artists cannot always get exhibition space on their own and some television programs are worth seeing even if they can’t attract sponsors. The public benefits from programming and exhibits that supports new and vibrant artistic voices in areas of the country that might want or need to see different perspectives. This is what makes our country great. Democratizing culture serves everyone. And if you don’t like it, turn it off.

Even more damaging would be cuts to or elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This is where the United States shows its commitment to learning, academic research, and school programs that encourage people to read poetry and great literature, and to involve themselves in timeless and timely ideas that might not see the light of day without this support.

The NEH sponsors educational institutes for school and college teachers in areas that allow for significant pedagogical growth across the education establishment. Thousands of teachers, including me, have spent wonderful summers researching, studying, arguing, observing and learning something that they never would have learned without these programs. The NEH provides a lifeline to teachers and students and makes our schools richer in every way. Why would anyone want to cut that?

It would be terrible for this country to lose its creative could in order to save a pittance. We can’t afford not no have these programs. And once they’re gone, they’re gone for good.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

Time For the Main Event

I suppose it was inevitable that the first debate of the 2016 presidential campaign would be touted as a must-see, Super Bowl-sized audience extravaganza. This has been building since Dwight Eisenhower lamented that running for president was akin to being a product marketed across the country. Television and now social media has turned this election into the first full-force, multi-screen election. We will never turn back.

But the main concern is about the match-up. Who will win? How will they win? How will the debate shape the race? The conventional wisdom says that the debates in and of themselves will not change the dynamics of the campaign, but the research also says that the first debate has the most overall impact on shaping voters’ attitudes.

As of now, Hillary Clinton has rebounded from a bad couple of weeks and has seen her poll numbers improve. Trump has taken the lead in some of the key swing states, but that was based on his rise nationally, and those swing states should come back to Clinton. The reason for Trump’s rise, though, is interesting. Most of his rebound is based on Republicans deciding to support their nominee including, evidently, Ted Cruz, who endorsed Trump this weekend. The country remains as polarized as ever and there are a larger number of voters who say they are undecided and could be swayed by tomorrow’s debate. Then there are the Johnson and Stein voters, more of whom are Democrats who don’t want to vote for Hillary.

Which brings us to debate strategy. Of course, the more compelling media story is which Donald Trump will show up: the controversial, offensive one or the moderate, less blustery one. This is a false choice. Donald Trump has shown that he can’t stay away from saying things that grab headlines and reinforces stereotypes, and I expect that this is the Trump we’ll see on Monday night. He can try to appear presidential and restrained, but he’ll still be talking about building walls and deporting people and what terrible shape the country’s in right now. The last time he had to make a consequential speech, at the GOP convention in July, he painted a dystopian picture of a country that really doesn’t exist. During the summer, after he hired a new set of advisors, his message did become restrained at times, but we were never more than a few days removed from his making an outrageous claim about things that were not supported by data. And further, he told so many untruths, it was difficult to keep up. He will not be able to get away with that on Monday.

Hillary’s job in the debate, quite simply, is to appeal to the Bernie voters who don’t think she’s got his back. If she can convince wavering Democrats that her agenda is liberal enough for them to vote for her, then she’s done her job. Along the way, she needs to look presidential and strong, and she needs to remind the audience about Trump’s, shall we say, discomfort with specific policies. She will face some rough spots over the emails and the Clinton Foundation, but if she keeps the focus on Trump’s questionable business activities that will blunt some his points. And if Trump really tries to bring up things like Bill’s affairs or Hillary’s looks or any other topic from the dark side, Clinton should just remind people that we have very pressing issues, but Trump is worried about THAT?

Of course, if either candidate makes a huge mistake or comes off looking anything resembling unpresidential, then that will absolutely damage their chances. It will be interesting television and I’m glad that so many people are expected to watch.

This race is still Hillary’s to lose. I don’t expect her to.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

Concerned About the Polls? Don’t Be.

CHARLOTTE, NC - JULY 05: Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on as U.S. president Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally with on July 5, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hillary Clinton is campaigning with president Obama in North Carolina. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

I know you. You’re a Democrat, or at least someone who believes that Donald Trump is a disaster waiting to happen, and you’ve been very concerned over the past week because the polling seems to indicate that Hillary Clinton’s once safe lead is vanishing with every news release. You also wonder how anyone, and I (you) mean ANYONE, could vote for that Trump guy, and it’s a travesty that he’s even polling in the forties, much less close to Clinton. And you also fear that not only can Trump say anything without being punished in the polls, but that Hillary is losing. LOSING.

With all of this in mind, I have a question for you: Are you daft?

Let’s calm down and look at some reality. First of all, Clinton has a lead in every national poll aggregation since, well, the spring and she continues to lead in the RealClearPolitics average of both national and state polls (sorry, but that CNN poll is an outlier. Like Pluto.). She also is ahead in enough states to have more than the 270 electoral votes in RealClear, FiveThirtyEight, Princeton Election Consortium, electoral-vote.com (where on Sunday Clinton was losing Ohio and Florida, but still winning the election) and..and…and every other reputable polling site in the media ether. Plus, the odds that Hillary Clinton will win the election are above 70% according to most calculations and above 80% in some others. Last week, the Washington Post released polls for each of the 50 states and found that…Hillary is leading in enough states, even Texas and Georgia, to win handily. But that’s clearly not enough for you weak-kneed liberals who must have your 90% win projections and a 400+ electoral vote landslide in the bag before Labor Day.

It’s not going to happen. Hillary is not popular enough and voters are in a foul mood and the country is locked in at about 45% support for each party, with the middle 10% the deciding voters. It’s striking to hear that some Republicans will not vote for Trump, but there are still Bernie voters who won’t vote for Hillary. Plus, it’s still relatively early. Political junkies have been mainlining the politics cut with baking soda for more than a year now. The pure stuff doesn’t arrive until September 26. That’s when most of America will pay serious attention.

Which brings me to the most noxious comment that people make about Donald Trump, that he can say anything and not be punished in the polls. He is being punished in the polls. His numbers are terrible and they continue to be terrible even with the race tightening. If you look, you’ll see  that Trump is still polling nationally in the low 40% range. The race is getting closer because Clinton’s numbers are falling a bit because of the email and Clinton Foundation stories. She also essentially took the summer off to raise money and to let Trump say ridiculous things without competing for air time.

Trump’s numbers didn’t budge. His supporters remain who they were during the primaries (and by the by, Hillary is essentially right about them). He’s doing abominably with women, Hispanics, African-Americans, college-educated people and those with middle and upper middle class incomes, and he’s saying nothing that will win them back. To go even further, even with Clinton’s troubles, more voters support her for president than Trump. It’s terrible that this election seems to be a race to the bottom, but Trump is winning that race convincingly.

Starting this week, Hillary Clinton will be more visible and she will begin to actually run for president. She’s clearly the best qualified, and she’s the candidate with the answers that most other Americans agree with on the issues of the day. They don’t agree with mass deportations or banning Muslims from the country or Trump’s view that the country is a cesspool of stagnation, violence and decay run by a president who might still not be a citizen, but is definitely a Muslim. Hillary will make her case and make it forcefully. I also think that the debates will be an eye-opener for Trump because he’s going to be called on every one of his contradictory comments and will be forced to actually take a stand on issues he’s clearly not studied. Hillary will also have some zingers of her own and she’ll show a sense of humor that many voters don’t think she has.

And that’s ultimately why Hillary Clinton will win the election. She’s ahead in the polls now and my take is that she’ll still be leading by this time next week and the week after that. She will use the debates to reintroduce herself, her qualifications, her vision for the country and her steady realism and that will enable her to win.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Education

Back To School: A Different Kind of Division

The great divide in American public attitudes is most evident during Presidential election years, and this year is no different. Republicans and Democrats seem to be living in two different countries when it comes to their views on how much the government should be involved in people’s lives, the role of religion, support for social issues such as marriage equality, reproductive rights, voting laws, immigration and, of course, the bathroom.

Now this divide is becoming more evident in education. More specifically, the latest PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools shows that Americans cannot agree on the purpose public schools should serve in our republic. Less than half, 48%, said that the purpose should be to prepare students academically, 25% said schools should prepare students to work, and 26% said that the main purpose should be to promote citizenship. As a teacher, I’m sure that the public schools can do all three, but they really should be doing one thing very well, and my preference is with the plurality of the public that came down on the side of academic skills and knowledge.

This divide, though, says a great deal about our country. We seem to have convinced ourselves that it is necessary to go to college to get a job. Any job. The educational establishment has bought into that attitude and many public schools have eliminated non-academic courses and programs or shifted them to the nearest vocational, technology or career-ready establishment. Are we doing our students a favor by focusing on getting them into colleges? I would say no. Continued academic study is not for everyone, but we seem to be asking every student to follow one path. So while I agree that the main purpose of schools should be academics, we do need to focus on each child’s needs and get them on the road to a career or interest that plays to their strengths. Finances, poverty and whether a child’s family members went to college all have something to do with their success in higher education, but it doesn’t mean that all young adults can succeed in college, and we are wrong to push them there when the evidence is against their interests.

As for citizenship, that is also a key component of our education system, but it shouldn’t be the main focus. We can certainly do better: the arguments I see in the media that revolve around the Constitution or what it means to be an American are sometimes based on a shocking level of ignorance of our basic ideals. I cannot count how many times I have been in discussions with adults and listened as they confused the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution or were ignorant of the Gettysburg Address or how we elect a president or how a bill becomes law. I am not talking about opinions, but rather, about the basic facts. Clearly we need to focus more on the basics of citizenship and what it means to uphold basic American values. Of course, we seem to disagree about what those values are and how to exercise them. See Kaepernick, Colin.

Where do teachers fit in to this? We need to advocate for high-quality curricula and continue to educate the public about the over-reliance on standardized tests. At a time when many states are cutting back on PARCC and other tests, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was handed a victory by the State Board of Education when it resolved to make standardized tests count for 30% of a teacher’s yearly evaluation. This will only make things worse for districts and teachers as they now must spend more time on testing and preparing students for tests in order to keep their jobs. It’s no wonder that we’ve seen stories like this.

We have highly effective teachers in this country who need the public’s support, and have earned it by influencing the lives of generations of children. And we need to attract more qualified people to the profession to ensure that the United States continues to lead the world in innovation, creative thinking and the freedom to think, explore and exercise one’s rights.  The school year has already begun in most parts of the country and Labor Day marks the end of summer for the remainder of public school teachers. I am proud to be an educator and I have been lucky to work with some of the greatest teachers working today from all over the country. We have one of the most important paid jobs in the country and we need to continue to do it with professionalism, passion and persistence.

I wish all teachers a great year for them and their students.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

The Last Quiet Week

You do realize that this will be the last week that food stores will be listing summer fruits, vegetables and other items in their sales flyers, right? After Labor Day it will suddenly be soup, oatmeal and cold/flu medicine time even though it’s likely to be near 80 degrees where most of us live. Such are the vagaries of the seasons and the need to sell stuff.

But it also means that the political races will turn for home as people return to work after a vacation, if they can afford it, and politicians return to their capitals for a fleeting moment of relevance before spending full time campaigning. For all the talk about how this year was going to see a different campaign with different rules, it has been a remarkably stable presidential race, and the Senate is coming down to a few important races to see if the Democrats can take control of the chamber. Donald Trump has changed the tenor of the campaign somewhat, but most of what he’s done has not helped him and I can’t see future races taking serious notes from his playbook.

At this point, the polling for the presidential race shows that Hillary Clinton has a solid lead that hasn’t really changed much since the Democratic Convention in July. According to the RealClearPolitics national average, she has a 6 point lead as of today and is ahead in enough states to garner 272 electoral votes if the election was held today. Which it is not. Other state polling sites like electoral-vote.com,  the Princeton Election Consortium, and Electionprojection.com show Hillary with a bigger lead.

Most polling shows Trump with about 42% of the national vote, and that has been his ceiling since July. If anything, this is his biggest problem. He will somehow need to expand his appeal significantly if he is to seriously challenge Hillary over the next month, before the first debate on September 26. This will likely be his last chance to help himself since most research says that the first debate is the most important for possibly changing people’s minds.

Of course, this all presupposes that Trump’s potential pivot on immigration doesn’t cause him to lose support from his base, or that something overly consequential is lurking in Clinton’s email server or that we are attacked at home or abroad. Enjoy the last quiet week of August. Next week the real show begins

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics

I Will Always Tell You the Truth… And Other Lies…

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio, Monday, Nov. 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)
AP Photo/Paul Vernon

Which, of course, is an absolute lie, no matter who says it. But the fact that it was Donald Trump, all-of-a-sudden apologizing and blabbering on about how in the heat of a campaign he might have said some nasty things about, oh, African-Americans, women, Hispanics, judges, pollsters, Bush, Republicans etc., makes it doubly ironic and self-defeating.

This is the Trump Pivot; the moment in the campaign where he gets serious and presidential and wants to be judged by what he says from this point forward and for us lowly voters to forget what got him the Republican nomination in the first place. That would be hate, accusation, blame, xenophobia, denial, sexism and blaming the victim. The only thing that would make his standing worse in the eyes of many Americans is if he publicly insulted the family of a fallen United States soldier because of some ethnic slur or ignorant remark.

Oh, wait.

And then the first issue he publicized was Hillary Clinton’s health. Which turns out to be rather fine, thank you very much. And that came straight from her doctor. But I guess if you’re going to deny climate change, you might as well double down and dismiss all scientific inquiry. So go ahead and smoke, right?

There will be no Trump Pivot. His new Breitbart-led campaign will be the height of cynicism and chock full of the right’s 1990 greatest hits list, which includes the Clintons murdering Vincent Foster, trying to manipulate the money supply and all of the other untruths that the fringe has been dying to run on since 1994. Dump in a heavy dose of Benghazi and e-mails, and you pretty much have the Trump campaign’s tactics right in front of you. It’s the campaign the far right has wanted to run since the Reagan era began, but the party kept nominating politicians who actually had ideas. Not good ones, but actual governing experience. With Trump, they have their perfect front man–a huckster who only cares about spreading his name and enough ignorance to just say stuff and hope that it leads the news cycle.

The truth will unfortunately have to wait its turn, if it comes at all.

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

Categories
bridgegate Domestic Policies Donald Trump News Politics

Lock Him Up

Don’t you just love politics and politicians? Here’s a group of people who seemingly do not ever consider that what they say about their opponents will even happen to them. And yet…
This week’s ridiculousness comes, not surprisingly, from the Trump-Christie branch of what used to be one of America’s great political parties; the GOP. These days it’s difficult to see how they were able to elect George W. Bush, much less get through a week without one of their candidates self-destructing.

The once-and-never-again national candidate, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is on even thinner ice (consider that image) concerning the traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge that not only killed his presidential chances, but is also resulting in crater-like approval numbers across the state. Now we have some evidence that Christie “flat-out lied” when he said that his political team knew nothing of the bridge closure. He’s denying it of course, and I can’t see that this would lead his leash holder, Donald Trump, to dump him as his transition boss since at this point it looks like Trump’s transition might be to a different floor on Trump Tower, as opposed to a move-in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The bigger issue, though, is that it was a during Christie’s speech at the Republican Convention that  the crowd chanted that Hillary Clinton should be locked up for, well, unspecified crimes against, um, someone. Now Christie has leapt the queue and is looking more likely to be the one facing an actual indictment. Not that I expect one, but still. Christie has no one to blame but himself after endorsing Trump and tying his political future to a man who, at best, will lose the presidency for himself and the Senate for his party. Christie’s fall is a monumental one, and after November he will be the lamest duck in the land as the Democrats jostle to pick someone to replace him.

In the meantime, the road projects are still stalled, NJ Transit still has one train track in and out of Manhattan, the public employee pension system is still massively underfunded, property taxes are sky high, and social services are lagging. Yet Christie still finds time to campaign for a candidate who accused Christie of knowing about the bridge closure and who Christie hopes will save him from a life of retired bliss in…Mendham. A nice town, to be sure, but certainly not where Chris thought he should be.

Outside the state, Donald Trump is mystifying the political press with his antics, which include saying that president Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS, then saying, as most ignorant people do, that he was just being sarcastic, questioning the need to get his supporters out to vote in November, saying again that the only way Clinton can win, this time in Pennsylvania, is by cheating, and by traveling to those hotbed competitive states, Maine and Connecticut  instead of, say, Ohio or Florida where Trump absolutely must win in order to be elected (shudder).

If anything, these two gentlemen deserve each other, and it looks like they’ll destroy each other in the process.

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

Categories
BLM Domestic Policies News Police Shooting Politics

We Need to Calm Down

If we need anything now, it’s to stop talking and let the investigations into the tragedies of the past week move forward. After all, in the overwhelming number of big news stories, the early information is usually the least reliable, but that’s the information that becomes the narrative. Then when we get contradictory evidence, it’s much more difficult to alter our thinking and change our views because it doesn’t reinforce the narrative.

So let’s calm down and stop talking across each other. We should mourn, grieve, cry, reflect, breathe, consider, reconsider, and learn. This country is divided enough and social media isn’t helping. As a matter of fact, it’s hurting us right now. My conservative friends are full of bile and contempt for President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter. My liberal friends have turned up the hate, if that’s even possible, on Donald Trump, the NRA and racist police officers.

Please stop.

This is our collective problem and we all share the blame for creating a society that has no patience for different perspectives. I abhor racism and justice denied, but I also detest making scapegoats out of police officers and people who legally carry firearms. I despise what Donald Trump and his supporters have said about women, Hispanic groups and African-Americans, but I also loathe the dismissal of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her misjudgement and rationalizations for setting one up at her house.

Enough.

In the absence of someone who can bind up the nation’s wounds or appeal to a vast majority of Americans, we will need to get through this ourselves, so we’ll need to be a little more rational about this. The first step is to reach out to people you know who don’t share your political philosophy and to engage them in discussion without calling them an idiot or a Neanderthal or a mouth-breather. When you talk to them, describe what you feel and ask questions, as opposed to labeling and accusing them of being part of the problem. We are all part of the problem, and to deny that is to deny reality. Neither side has a monopoly on the truth.

Try it now while we wait for information that might make today’s news headlines obsolete and wrong. This is too important to let emotions rule the day.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump Foreign Policies News Politics

If Only We Could Trexit

If only Donald Trump would Trexit. Before November, when he’ll likely Trexit anyway.

Yes, I know that the British vote to leave the European Union is being interpreted as a warning that the angry, anti-immigrant, anti-trade, build-an-entire-sea-around-the-country (which the British actually did at minimal cost), xenophobic population in England is heading towards the United States, but I don’t necessarily believe it. The forces that created the European Union to begin with were far more elitist than the Democrats and Republicans who supposedly rigged the country with unfair trade deals and lower taxes on the wealthy in the United States. After all, we actually got to vote to lower taxes and everything else that the angry electorate wants to undo. The Europeans didn’t get to vote on the Union. And by the by, don’t let the fact that it was the Conservative government of David Cameron, in an effort to mollify the far-right, that brought on this vote. There really is a lesson about giving ultra-conservatives a referendum on their beliefs. Will we learn?

Clearly, change is in the air and has been for a few years. The United States economy has stalled, the middle class, and what used to be called the working middle class has seen its income stagnate, bankers and Wall Street types got bailout while others were losing their homes, and public workers have been vilified for having too much in the way of collective bargaining rights, pensions and benefits. Mix in terrorism, mass shootings and a sense of unease because of technological change, and the brew is getting quite yeasty.

It’s at this time that we need to be very careful about the electoral choices we make. I understand anger, but I do not want an angry person, or a person who is leading an angry movement to become powerful in this country. I want someone who is going to be able to manage that anger and make it productive. Someone who can lead us to a safer place where we do not turn on each other. President Obama is such a level-headed leader and I applaud his attempts at calming the waters and asking Americans to think before they act. I also see Hillary Clinton as the best choice in November to lead a country who is one demagogue away from violence, recrimination, blame and disaster.

This is why we need a Trexit. Donald Trump is exactly the wrong person to get anywhere near the White House short of a tourist pass. He has certainly tapped into much of the anger and frustration that many people in this country feel, but he has yet to harness it. He continues to scratch the raw wound and is enabling Americans to suffer from the pain without actually administering some medicine that will cure what ails us.

And he continues to utter what I consider the most destructive phrase in the political lexicon: We need to take back our country.

This is a potent saying, but one that is built on hatred, mistrust, creating “the other,” separating us from each other, and overtly saying that there are anti-Americans in our midst who should either not be here or should be dealt with harshly. And we all know who he is talking about. The British were able to render a decision peacefully and without blame because the question they were being asked to vote on did not have a name attached to it. In some ways it was a referendum on David Cameron, but this was an idea. What Trump is doing is giving a face to the fears we have and tapping into our worst stereotypes. All Muslims. All Hispanics. There is no nuance. That’s dangerous.

Besides, although the reporting will continue to follow the day-to-day effects of the British vote, the real issue is not that they voted to leave, but whether that was actually the right decision. Donald Trump thinks it was. That’s all I need to know.

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

Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump gun control Gun Control News Politics

One Week Later

It’s been a week since the attack in Orlando and much of what’s happened is predictable. Both political parties have rolled out their positions on gun control, and both are very familiar. Democrats want new background checks and to ban sales of guns to anyone on the no-fly or terrorist watch lists. Republicans counter by saying that more people should be carrying guns and that denying anyone their second amendment rights is abhorrent. Further, the man responsible for the massacre wasn’t on any list when he purchased his guns, so changes in the law wouldn’t have stopped his actions.

It’s a tiresome debate, and the more it drags on, the more we will see horrible scenes like the one in Orlando. Remember that there was an armed guard at the door to the Pulse nightclub, and he couldn’t stop Omar Mateen from entering the club. The NRA fantasy is that a nightclub full of armed patrons would have killed Mateen before he could have done damage, but the reality is that it’s likely that far more than 49 people would have died if there was a shootout because most people just aren’t very good shots. I could imagine bullets being sprayed all over the club and more innocent club-goers losing their lives. More guns is not the answer. It’s a punchline.

The most sensible reform would be to know who has guns in this country. Background checks, licenses, and ones that need to be renewed like driver’s licenses, and mandatory safety classes should be the law of the land. More than that, the culture needs to change. This was an attack on gays, plain and simple. It was a terror attack too, but only insofar as Omar Mateen’s personal and religious views were hostile to the LGBTQ community. Despite the positive changes in marriage laws and more widespread acceptance of gay rights, we clearly have more work to do.

As for politics, this past week was a terrible one for Donald Trump, as he acted as though this was a personal referendum on whether he was right that we’d have a terrorist attack on American soil. He also repeated his call to bar all Muslims from coming or returning to this country until…well, he hasn’t said. Polls show his appeal to women, Muslims, Hispanics and African-Americans dropping like a stone. Hillary has rightly been supportive and empathetic, and she’s smart enough to get out of the way when her opponent is imploding.

It’s been a sad week, and one full of national and personal reflection. Can we please not do this anymore?

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

Categories
Gun Control shooting

Report: Orlando Shooter and Wife Texted Each Other During Massacre

In the beginning, Noor Salman, wife of the Orlando shooter, insisted that she had no idea what her husband was up to when he gunned down 49 people at a Pulse night club. Now, reports say the two were communicating via text during the terrorist attack.
The Orlando shooter and his wife exchanged text messages during the Pulse nightclub rampage, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. Around 4 a.m., about two hours after he started the attack and while holed up in a bathroom, Omar Mateen texted his wife, Noor Salman, asking if she’d seen the news, the official said.
At one point, she responded with a text saying that she loved him. Salman also tried calling her husband several times during the standoff, a second law enforcement official said. The timing of her calls came after reports of the attack had emerged, and apparently after she realized her husband might be responsible. He didn’t answer, the official said.
Categories
Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump Foreign Policies News Politics

The Endless Election Finally Begins

Good news: The primaries are over. Well, except for the DC primary this Tuesday, but that one really won’t count for much.

Bad news: The general election is on our doorstep, promising us five months of mudslinging, advertisements across numerous screens and multiple forms of media, and, oh yes, some policy prescriptions.

At this point, Donald Trump is in the midst of a bad media week, what with him questioning a judge because of his ethnic background, and a continuing ignorance of American foreign policy. In fact, if I was Xi Jinping, I’d be very excited about the prospects of Donald Trump being elected because then I could get into a trade war that I’ll win and reap the benefits of an American pullback in Asia. China will be happy to fill that vacuum and make life pretty distressing for Japan and South Korea.

And that’s on top of things that Trump has already said about Mexicans and women and Muslims that didn’t seem to disqualify him in the minds of the slice of the GOP that stood with him during the primaries and that forms the basis of his electoral hopes come the fall. The big problem, though, is that Trump has not unified the GOP, and even though his poll numbers increased briefly, he’s fallen farther behind Hillary Clinton and hasn’t won a horse race poll since the middle of May. And that’s even before Hillary gets her Democratic unity bounce after Bernie leaves the race. Things ain’t looking up for Donald and I think he knows it.

Hillary Clinton has had her bad weeks, but this one was not one of them. She won the Democratic nomination, even without the super-delegates, and she made a blistering speech that savaged Trump as the know-nothing that he is. This woke up many Democrats and Independents who figured that only Trump knew how to manipulate the media. His feeble attempts at belittling her as not looking presidential only showed how un-presidential he is. And for all the talk about his getting the better of her during debates, he’d better understand that she actually knows what she’s talking about on policy, and that’s what people look for in the fall. I have no doubt that Hillary will slice, dice, set it and forget it during the debates, leaving Trump to fulminate and call her names. Good luck with that.

So much has also been said about both candidates being rather unpopular,. but really, most Republicans don’t like Hillary and most Democrats don’t like Trump, so what did you expect? Americans thought Gerald R. Ford was a nice guy, but where did that get him? By the end of a presidential campaign, nobody likes anybody. This time, we’ve just gotten a bit ahead of ourselves.

At this point, it’s Hillary’s to lose. President Obama is finally popular and Elizabeth Warren is the best thing to happen to the Democratic social media feed ever. Trump tried to raise some money over the weekend and many GOP donors followed Nancy Reagan’s advice and just said no. Much of the money will go to saving the Senate and the House from absolute devastation. Hillary will raise an obscene amount of money, win, then appoint a Supreme Court justice who will vote to eviscerate the Citizen’s United decision. Unless the e-mail thing gets worse.

But for political junkies, it’s the mainline, and no matter how this election takes shape, we will follow it. And it’s not even Father’s Day yet.

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

Exit mobile version