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If the Children Are to Lead, They Have to Vote

You’ll excuse me if I’m somewhat skeptical, but all this talk about how the young people of this country are going to lead us into a new era where the adults have failed seems vaguely familiar. Many older Americans had the same feelings when the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971 and they braced themselves for a new generation of activists who would change the way this country was run.

Instead, they gave us the Reagan Revolution which, by the by, coincides with a precipitous decline in the fortunes of the middle class, an explosion of money at the top of the income scale, and racial, economic and educational inequality that has resulted in a lost generation of African-American men and a coarsening of public discourse as a direct result of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

In other words, the mythical bar in on the floor, ready for anyone with a half-considered idea to walk confidently over it.

Ok, Ok, maybe that wasn’t fair or was a bit dark. After all, the baby boom cohort has given us technology that was only a dream 40 short years ago, which has revolutionized work, entertainment, grammar and the speed at which society hurtles forward. We have better food, more of it, and at lower prices than we;ve ever had it. Is it any wonder that we’re gaining weight? We also have more breweries in this country than at any time since the 1880s. So we got that going for us.

And here comes the new youth. Hello and welcome. While the rest of us boomers get older, and I am shockingly aging at the rate of one year per year, the country seems to be getting younger and younger. This is natural. This is good. This works for me.

But I am not yet convinced that it will mean that meaningful change is close at hand.

First, the new young people will need to register to vote on or before their 18th birthday depending on their state’s law. Then they will need, and this is the big one, to vote. In every election. Every one. Without fail. I haven’t missed an election…ever. Not ever. I voted in person, by absentee ballot and by mail-in ballot. They can too. It’s easy. And fun.

And not just voting in presidential elections. Young people need to vote in local state and Congressional elections as well. This is how to transfer the energy and emotion into policy and representation. It’s a lesson in civics. Which we don’t require much in schools these days? Connection? Anyone? Anyone?

It will be difficult to maintain the present energy until November, but that’s natural. The initial awakening will settle down into organizing and spreading the message. Then the real slog comes in the fall when people will need to go door-to-door and get out the vote. But we have a good start. The energy is building and so is the outrage over the senseless violence that has now invaded schools.

To make a change, though, young people must register and vote. No Excuses.

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

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Top Political Scientists Voted Trump the Worst President in America’s History

Nearly 200 of America’s top political scientists have voted Donald Trump the worst president in US history, Yahoo News reports

According to the 2018 Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey, Mr Trump ranks even lower than disgraced President Richard Nixon – even among conservatives. Abraham Lincoln, unsurprisingly, takes the top prize. Mr Nixon sits at 33.

The study, conducted every four years, surveys social science researchers from the American Political Science Association’s section on presidents and executive politics. It asks the experts to rank each president’s greatness on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being great, 50 being average, and 0 being a total failure.

Mr Trump averaged a score of 12.34, bumping James Buchanan – the president who saw the US descend into the Civil War – out of the bottom spot. The result comes just months after Trump finished his first year in office as the most unpopular president in modern history.

Mr Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, jumped 10 places since the survey was last conducted in 2014, to spot number eight. George W Bush also climbs in the rankings, making it five places up to number 30.

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NRA? Forever. NEA? Not Ever

West Virginia Teachers are on strike.

Students are being shot in schools.

The Secretary of Education self-assesses herself a B+ or A- on her first year of work.

Boston University is the latest college to forgive students who are disciplined if they walk out of school on March 14 to demonstrate for school safety.

The president and the NRA want teachers to carry a gun in school.

This is the state of education today.

In a way, this doesn’t surprise me. After all, I lived through 8 years of Chris Christie and the Know-Nothings bashing teachers, ridiculing our concerns and generally creating a toxic environment for all public workers. Now that we’re living with the greatest worst president in the history of our country, it would make sense that we have the best anti-education leaders in our history making decisions that make little common sense and absolutely no education sense.

West Virginia is just another example of anti-union states paying teachers so little that they have to get second jobs just to maintain a middle class existence. This is what happens when ideologues take away the power of workers to bargain collectively or to have a say in their work environments. It speaks volumes that teachers believe they have to strike because it goes against everything that effective educators believe, which is that we need to be in the classroom educating children. To decide that you have to be out of the classroom with a picket sign is a sign that the state government has gone too far.

And it could, and likely will, get worse. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could severely cripple unions that represent public workers. The Janus case  would allow people to opt out of, or not join, a union, and thus not pay a dime, but would require the union to still bargain on behalf of that employee. This would place an undue financial burden on unions, but the real effect, and what the right wing has wanted for decades, is the end of public worker unions. The right believes that management is always right and that they should make all decisions regarding financial and employment matters.

Which then brings us to the Secretary of Education. Her self-assessment is the reason why educators don’t allow or encourage…self-assessment when it comes to grades. I have no doubt that Secretary DeVos believes she’s doing a fabulous job when in fact she is not. She wants to have all education decisions revert to the states, but that will only bring us back to the wildly different standards and achievement levels that led us to A Nation at Risk. Allowing 50 different sets of education standards is a terrible idea because it does not guarantee every child a quality education.

And a quality education seems to have missed those politicians, from public and private schools, who recommend arming teachers and vilify students as actors who are in thrall to Democrats when the GOP is in thrall to the NRA. The president, in fact, has adopted all of the NRA talking points, but none of the National Education Association. Need I say more?

It’s clear that proponents of arming teachers have not really thought through the ramifications of such a move. How would the guns be stored? What about liability? What happens if a gun goers off accidentally or doesn’t go of at all? What if a students gets possession of a teacher’s gun? What kind of environment are you creating when guns saturate schools?

But all of those questions pale in the presence of the fact that public money, and lots of it, would be going to something that has nothing to do with education. If there’s money available for weapons training, why not use it for curriculum, professional development, or paying teachers a livable wage so they don’t have to go to their second job after school?

There is no way that students can adequately learn in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, but that’s exactly what would happen if we introduce more guns into schools. Armed security guards? That would be fine, but not teachers. That would lead to tragedy.

This administration has shown that American cultural norms are subject to the whims of lobbyists, piles of cash and fealty to the president. The result will not help children, education or the nation.

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

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Dick Durbin – We Must Hold Trump Accountable If He “Violated The Law”

In a Sunday interview on CNN, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin told Jake Tapper that “no one, including the president, is above the law.” Durbin then warned that Trump will be “held accountable” if  it is proven that the violated the law.

 “Well, I don’t want to predict that. I think that’s too hypothetical. We understand what the constitution says. We must do, and that is hold everyone in the United States, including the president of the United States accountable if they have violated the law. No one including the president is above the law.”

For his part, Donald Trump and his Republican party are doing all they can to interfere with Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s illegal dealings with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. As improbable as it sounds, the so-called President of the United States is now blaming the FBI in his ongoing attempt to cast doubt on Mueller and the outcome of Mueller’s investigation. And the entire Republican party is going along with this.

I give Durbin credit though. Although Democrats are currently in the minority and limited by what they can do even if it is proven that Trump broke the law, Durbin and other Democrats are talking the talk. The stark reality is however, that Republicans are in power with no checks and balances, and they are too afraid of Trump and his Twitter handle. Until Republicans decide to uphold the laws and more importantly, the constitution, Democrats are left with no alternative but to talk.

It’s no longer country first, it’s protect Trump first for these Republicans

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Panic in Memo Park: The Vindication of Robert Mueller

The good news is that, finally, the president and I agree: The release of the Nunes memo represents a national disgrace and shows that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russian intelligence remains a troubling and possibly illegal action that necessitates Robert Mueller’s continued action. Further, the president and I agree that the memo does vindicate the actions of the Special Prosecutor because it clearly demonstrates that members of the campaign, the president’s family and possibly the president himself might have broken United States law and obstructed justice.

Well, OK, maybe we don’t agree on all the facts, but this does represent a national disgrace and a vindication of the investigation’s existence. It also clearly shows that the president is in a panic as the investigation swirls closer to the Oval Office and his reasons for firing FBI Director James B. Comey.

And as a public relations event, this couldn’t be more of a disaster for the president. After weeks of puffing up this Potemkin memo… the House released it on Friday night… which is a dead zone for news… and there’s no, well, smoking gun. The argument that this whole investigation is rotten because the Democrats paid for a dossier of information that purportedly has damaging information about Donald Trump is not convincing. It doesn’t tell the whole story. The real issue is that the investigation of Trump’s campaign actions began before the dossier’s release and the request to follow Carter Page because of his interactions with the Russian, which were, in fact, rather extensive. And then there’s the information we already know about Micheal Flynn, Jared Kushner and others who have lied about their contact with the Russians. So the whole argument that this is a Democratic Kampaign Kaper falls off the bone like a good barbecued rib.

As with most scandals, the missing piece is the most important. The GOP memo leaves out a great deal of other information that would provide counterpoint, context and nuance, things that the GOP doesn’t seem to care about. It also leaves out the possibility that the salacious material contained in the Steele Dossier might be…gasp…accurate. Or accurate enough to show what we already know: That the president is an immoral womanizer, a suspect businessperson, a liar and susceptible to flattery and blackmail.

That’s why there’s clearly panic underneath the talk of exoneration. The president knows that this doesn’t exonerate him. It’s an attempt to shut down the investigation and to win the public’s support in anticipation of his desire to fire Robert Mueller. That’s not going to happen. If the president clearly knows that he and his campaign are innocent, then his best approach would be to praise the search for truth, support the FBI and condemn all Russian interference in any campaigns. I know, I know, you can stop laughing now.

As this investigation gets closer to the president, there will be more and more forceful actions that attempt to sully Mueller’s reputation and blame the Clintons. That’s how we know we’re getting close to the truth.

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

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Chris Who? New Jersey Turns Left

Chris Christie said that we would miss him once he’s gone, but I just took that as the final ramblings of someone who, like the president, can’t stand to be out of the public’s eye for even a second and can’t stand the thought that someone else might get credit for…anything.

Phil Murphy has now been governor of New Jersey for about two weeks. It’s as thought there never was a Chris Christie.

Gone are the self-centered press conferences and town hall meetings that bashed public workers and unions and painted anyone who disagreed with Christie as a cretin or as intellectually challenged.

Gone is the utterly and completely inappropriate language and disrespect that fouled public discourse and actually made it acceptable to question the motives and incomes of our dedicated public servants.

Gone is the ambition to be president, which ruined Christie’s entire second term and stalled any progress New Jersey might have made in areas where we desperately needed government help, such as in transportation, infrastructure and public services.

Gone, and forgotten, is Chris Christie.

Almost immediately, Governor Phil Murphy has set a different tone. He’s positive, energetic, full of smiles and positive words. He’s serving as a representative of all the people and has yet to paint his opponents as anything other than people who simply disagree with him There’s no moral ardor or contrived anger. There are no enemies.

There’s simply…a governor trying to do his job.

Of course, over the past 10 days, Murphy has taken decidedly more progressive and liberal stands on the issues. He’s for the legalization of marijuana and already there are towns lining up against him. He’s reversed Christie’s easing of gun laws and is supporting efforts to stop immigration officials from arresting people who are fleeing persecution, and is joining with Governors Cuomo and Molloy to fight against the federal tax cut which will do great damage to the state’s economy. He has also signaled his support for public school teachers and aid to districts that saw their funding drastically cut during the Christie years.

It doesn’t mean that these proposals will bear fruit. New Jersey is a costly place to live and conduct business and it will be difficult to raise revenue for new programs. But there is a sense of the possible in the state that suffered under a lagging economy and a governor who didn’t seem interested in running the government until he lost badly in 2016.

The Democrats now control all levels of state government. My hope is that Governor Murphy will be able to use his optimistic, forward-looking personality to lead the state and address its most pressing problems. He’s off to a good start.

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

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Constituents Laughed at Republican’s Defense of Donald Trump – Video

Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, pauses during a Bloomberg Politics interview in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., on Monday. Feb. 1, 2016. Ernst, one of the most popular politicians in the state of Iowa, says she can't vouch for Republican presidential front runner Donald Trumps conservative credentials.

In her first 2018 “Coffee with Joni” meeting with constituents in Iowa, Junior Republican Senator, Joni Ernst, was asked about Donald Trump’s “supremacy talk” and its effect on the rest of the world. The question came after Trump called Haiti and African countries, “shithole countries,” and stated that he would prefer immigrants from “Norway.”

One Constituent asked Ernst about, “the damage that Trump is doing to our neighbors around the world with his white supremacy talk.” Ernst disagreed, saying that Trump “is standing up for a lot of the countries.”

“Can you name a few” the constituent asked.

“Norway.” Ernst replied.

You can’t make this stuff up

Video

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Civil Rights Icon to Boycott Trump’s State of the Union Address

He has stood for what’s right his entire life. So naturally, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia will stand again later this month to boycott Donald Trump and his blatantly racist views when the Republican president delivers his State of The Union Address.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said Friday that he’ll skip President Trump‘s State of the Union address later this month over the the president’s Thursday comments on “shithole countries,” referring to Haiti, El Salvador and several nations in Africa.

“At this junction, I do not plan to attend the State of the Union,” the longtime Georgia congressman told MSNBC’s Katy Tur.

Lewis, a civil rights icon who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said he could not bear to be in the same room as Trump after the remarks  the president made in a private meeting with lawmakers on a potential immigration deal.

“I cannot in all good conscience be in a room with what he has said about so many Americans. I just cannot do it. I wouldn’t be honest with myself,” Lewis said.

Democrats should follow Lewis’ lead.

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Barack Obama, Stephen Curry, Chance The Rapper – “I am my Brother’s Keeper” – Video

Former President, Barack Obama joined NBA Great Stephen Curry, Chance The Rapper and MBK Alliance to create this new video – “I am my Brother’s Keeper.”

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Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Forty Years Ago?

I keep coming back to something that Rutgers University Professor W. Carey McWilliams said once at a meeting I attended at the Eagleton Institute of Politics in the 1980s. He quoted Ronald Reagan’s famous campaign line from 1980 and 1984: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Of course, in 1980, after Jimmy Cater’s term, the answer was supposed to be no, and in 1984, after four years of Reagan’s supply-side trickle down policies, the answer was supposed to be yes. But McWilliams had a different interpretation of what Reagan was doing, and he was not happy about it.

Said McWilliams, “Reagan has boiled down more than two hundred years of constitutional government to a question that appeals only to the citizen’s craven self-interest. It is as far from democracy as one can get.”

Exactly.

Forty years later, we are living the ultimate manifestation of Reagan’s transactional politics and for most people, we are decidedly not better off than we were in 1980. Despite repeated tax cuts, the wealthy are doing just fine while the middle and lower classes have fallen farther behind with every passing decade. Buying power has declined, and it’s now absolutely necessary for everyone in a family to work in order to pay for monthly living expenses and to save for big ticket items such as cars, appliances and college educations. Many Americans love the myth that women should stay home and take care of the children, but the reality is very different. Economically, despite the explosion of wealth tied to technology and the rising stock market, it’s difficult to make the case that the people, however we define that, are better off than they were when the conservatives took power.

In addition, the social policies of the party that supposedly supports family values have not led to stronger families, in large part because the religious conservative’s definition of the family is rooted in a gone-forever past. Regressive policies regarding women’s health, family planning and welfare programs have resulted in more families living on the margins, and the prospects are that 2018 could see major cuts in social programs in order to pay for the trillion dollar tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The fight to reverse gay marriage and abortion rights is one-conservative-to-replace-Anthony-Kennedy-away from reality. The right of religious people to use their beliefs to discriminate could be ratified by the Supreme Court this June.

The same is true regarding foreign policy. The West’s victory in the Cold War was supposed to usher in a period of peace and prosperity led by liberal democratic values and the respect for human rights. We’ve seen glimpses of this, but since the September 11 attacks, we’ve been involved in unnecessary and unwinnable wars against foes who don’t play by World War II rules. We’ve spent trillions trying to fight or buy off countries that will never be true allies, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we’ve seen a resurgence of Chinese and Russian nationalism and power rise to the point that we are now in a second Cold War being fought over economic issues rather than ideological ones. North Korea reminds us that we always one step away from disaster.

Both parties can take blame for these developments. The difference now is that we have a regime in the White House that doesn’t understand that American power is tied to its moral commitments, not just to whether a country has paid its bills. Republicans since Reagan have tried to question and undermine the role the United Nations should play in the world, and I have no doubt they would pull us out if the right scenario presented itself. The Trump Administration is fine with right-wing strong men (and it always seems to be men), and has said nothing about dictatorial actions in the Philippines and Myanmar, where a Rohingya genocide is unfolding right before the world’s Ray-Ban’d eyes.

Of course, there have been victories, and anyone who was over the age of 12 in 1970 can tell you that, this past year notwithstanding, the country does feel better about itself. Crime is down. Most of our major metropolitan areas have thriving cultural lives. Music, television and movies are far better than that of the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Inflation tamed, for now. Disco is dead.

I am of the humble opinion that we are at the end of the conservative movement and soon will be entering a period where the political pendulum will begin swinging back to the left. Perhaps the congressional elections will be the beginning of this trend. Will conservatives still win elections and continue to influence policies? Of course. And president Trump will continue to remind the majority that opposes him that his view of how this country ought to operate is an outlier, the same way that many moderates saw the counterculture of the 1960s as an outlier.

But the excesses of the conservative movement will begin to receded. The unending focus on money and competition and winning will give way to a more tempered view of what’s important in life and  our place in the world. Taxes on the wealthy will go up. We will be less divided.

Am I an optimist? You bet. Am I confident about the future of our country? Yes indeed. Will the short-term be a trying, difficult, maddening, stressful period? Afraid so.

Another year dawns. See the best. Be the best. Do your best.

Happy New Year.

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

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured

Trump Lies Again about Legislative Accomplishments

The year is coming to a close, so the most inconsequential president in recent history is taking time away from his golfing to sell his many shortcomings as accomplishments. And while his Republican audience gobbles up his lies and truths, real Americans are once again, shaking their heads at yet another lie

This time, the lie is about his legislative progress. Trump calls it “a record!”

While meeting with Firefighters today, Trump was forced to praise himself due to a lack of congressional Republicans on hand to do the job.

“We got a lot of legislation passed,” Trump said Wednesday, according to a pool report. “But I believe—and you would have to ask those folks who will know the real answer—we have more legislation passed, including the record was Harry Truman a long time ago. And we broke that record, so we got a lot done.” In actuality, Trump has signed 96 bills, the fewest of any president since before Truman. Trump may have been referencing a similar claim his then-press secretary Sean Spicer made in April, when Trump had signed 28 bills, slightly more than other modern presidents had signed at that point in their terms, but considerably less than predecessors like Truman and Roosevelt.

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured Racism

Trump’s Immigration Policy Based on Ignorance and Hate

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 23: (AFP OUT) U.S. President Donald Trump reads the first of three Executive Orders he will sign in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, January 23, 2017. This one concerned the withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The others will be a US Government hiring freeze for all departments but the military, and "Mexico City" which bans federal funding of abortions overseas. (Photo by Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images)
I was actually looking for an uplifting article to post close to the holiday that might provide some confidence and hope. Then I came upon this posting that discussed the president’s thinking on immigration policy and how he reacted to court rulings that postponed the travel restrictions and immigration bans he tried to implement this year.
Appalling doesn’t really do justice to my reaction. According to six officials who were in the room with him, the president read a document that listed how many immigrants had received visas in 2017. Some of his responses:

More than 2,500 were from Afghanistan, a terrorist haven, the president complained.

Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.

Terrorists. AIDS victims. Hut dwellers.

This is the President of the United States deciding policy.

His thought process? Bigoted. Uninformed. Under-educated. Judgmental. Ignorant.

What’s worse is that he is dragging down the reputation of the United States with him.

It’s clear that the president is not just protecting the United States from predatory foreign companies or workers who come here and take jobs that American citizens want. He believes, according to the article, that immigration is bad for the country and that foreign ideas are inferior to American ones. His nationalism is small because it rests on the incorrect assumption that our culture is superior to all others.

It’s president Archie Bunker at your service.

I suppose the good news is that much of the rest of the world ignores this nativist babble for the racism that it is, and that an interconnected, sharing world is a safer one both economically and militarily. Even allowing Internet service providers the ability to block, throttle or slow down sites will not stop people from blurring borders and searching for the best price, the highest wage, and people they can work with. A minority of voters in the United sates voted for fear, suspicion and moral relativity. I am optimistic that the majority sees through his blather and negativity.

And with that, I wish you a happy holiday, a Happy New Year and all of the other happiness that all humans so richly deserve.

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

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