A View from the End of the American Empire -- The Intercept

Interesting article I recommend reading.

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/24/decline-american-empire-donald-trump/

Insomnia

Trump has been relatively silent on gays except for transexual people not being allowed to serve in the military which is, of course, bad enough.  I believe he executive ordered that not because he cares anything about an issue for or against trans people but because it was red meat thrown to his ugly extremist base to lock down their votes.  I have been wondering, though, when he was going to address the larger population of gays and write a noxious Executive Order(s) negating larger gay rights issues or even negate gay marriage itself despite the Supreme Court granting gays that right and many others rights as well.  A Constitutional crisis could even ensue as he challenges the Court through Executive Order granting to himself essentially dictatorial power. 

What bothers me in the extreme, however, is the primary win of religious fanatic and removed-from-the-bench former Judge Roy Moore of Alabama who won the primary over the Trump-supported Luther, a Dickensian name, Strange. Trump does not, of course, give a rat's petuti about either of the Republican primary candidates but cares that the candidate, Luther Strange, whom he supported, lost.  Naturally, now he is effusively supporting Moore because it is in his interest irrespective of the irrational noxious religious extremist beliefs Moore holds and even though Moore defied a judicial court order, the rationale for removing him from the bench.  Moore does not believe in our Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state but rather wants to wed the state to Christian belief exactly what our Founders wanted to avoid. 

The moment I have been waiting for, I say facetiously, is when the culture wars rise again with gays as the electoral pinata, Muslims right behind them along with Hispanic children of "undocumented" immigrants who know no other country because they were, well, children even babies when they arrived here.  Most importantly, of course, the civil rights gleaned over centuries of persons of color stand to be eliminated by this rancid Republican minority as Jim Crow laws give way to voter suppression and a watering down of the 1965 Civil Rights Act by SCOTUS ruling we are a post-racial nation doncha know.  Oh, yes, just ask the people of Ferguson, Missouri how post racial this nation is.

Gays have acquired rights in many ways -- some in the states, some by winning referenda but most emphatically by the Supreme Court.  Persons of color have achieved their rights we know through the shedding of blood from centuries of civil rights struggle.  Now the immigration amelioration of DACA is at risk too.  Young adults both Muslim and Hispanic alike do not know which way their future might be determined and if it will be determined by a hateful minority who has skillfully, under the Democratic radar screen, managed to acquire gerrymandered power they should not have.  Minority rights won through hard fought elections, through vociferous protest, thorough skillful argument in the courts, through constitutional amendment and through much emotional expenditure can be taken away in an instant. 

Many of the so called "moderate" Republicans are leaving Congress, their Republican Party more divided then ever, because they do not want to face an even more extreme opponent and worry about being primaried like Luther Strange.  I worry, too, about the more extremist Republicans winning and filling even more seats in the House and the Senate.  The religious extremist Republican Roy Moore winning the primary in Alabama is a discredited judge removed from the bench who wants homosexual acts criminalized, gay marriage eradicated, the Christian religion institutionally solidified and horrifically calls for Muslims like Representative Keith Ellison legally barred from seeking Congressional seats.  This rancid man is a KKK policy supporter. I am afraid that the Republican Party will win more seats through extremists running for and winning office to usher in a new era of minority discrimination and hard fought for rights taken away.  All of us -- gays, persons of color, Muslims, Jews, women and most assuredly Hispanic immigrants' rights are at risk by poisonous Republican extremists gaining even more power as moderate Republicans head for the exits.  What can be given can be taken away.  That is what gives me insomnia making me toss and turn waking me up at night!

RESIST!!

FAT MAN

Rachel Maddow interviewed Joe Cirincione, an expert in nuclear weaponry.  The interview was chilling.  I paste it below because you and everyone you know, everyone you love, everyone you care about or even do not care about must know what a president with no ethics, no values and no intellect is doing.  Trump is taking us -- all of us -- to the abyss. 

I believe most, especially if one is under a certain age, have no idea of the reality of nuclear war.  Many, I fear, because of the American losses of war post WWII want to blast an enemy into oblivion, regain our face in the world and cheer as if it were Tom Brady throwing an 80 yard pass for the win.  There will be no winning a nuclear war and North Korea is, face it, a nuclear powered nation with a leader possibly as unstable as Trump.  North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons and as stated in "Arms Control Association" and written by Kingston Reif, "Trump has declared his ambition to “greatly strengthen and expand” U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities and has criticized the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, suggesting he may be looking to change nuclear policy in significant ways."  The possibility that each power, North Korea and the US will get their wish and explode one as one head of state taunts the other authoritarian dictator provoking the possibility of conventional and nuclear confrontation not decreasing it.

We are one minute to midnight, a book written by Michael Dobbs, explaining in detail the Cuban missile crisis of 1960.  It was as close to a nuclear war as this nation has ever come with an adversarial power as mighty as our own.  Luckily, then, for us, that we elected a president who had a brain, soaring intellectual curiosity and a penchant for empathy.  The crisis was averted by the Soviet Union (at the time) dismantling the nuclear weapons in Cuba 50 miles off our coast and the little known compromise of the US dismantling its nuclear weapons in Turkey pointed at Russia.  These were two powers that understood what devastation nuclear war could bring and who did not spew puerile taunts to one another like teenagers proving their manhood but through back channel negotiation saved the world from an unwinnable nuclear exchange and its unspeakable destruction.  There is no winning a nuclear war. 

My fear is the aggressive among us do not know nor understand the devastating blow a nuclear explosive exchange would have.  Therefore, along with Rachel's interview of Joe Cirincione, I am enclosing, too, what the detonation of a nuclear device meant in 1945 with bombs called Fat Man and Little Boy that were deployed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan to end WWII.  The nuclear bombs then were far less destructive than what our nation possesses now and our nation has thousands of them.  I urge everyone to watch no matter how difficult to hear the interview and view the other links below I am enclosing to see.  Then forward it to all you know, to all you care about and love so they can see what the explosion of a nuclear device really means.  Tell them to forward it to all they know hoping that eventually this warning can circle the globe. 

Donald J. Trump is no joke.  He is mean, he is an ethically barren mendacious monstrosity and he is an incurious man with feeble intellect.  He is taunting an authoritarian Kim Jong Un who is simply deliriously thrilled to show his power and explode a nuclear device on our allies, our territories and on our mainland if possible. The poisonous cancer inducing radiation alone from a nuclear blast will spread around the world as the testing of these bombs both above and below ground has shown.  The destruction will be enormous and unspeakable. 

The people have seen to it to elect the madness of Trump.  We, all of us, are one minute to midnight and no one nuclear bomb shelter will save all of humanity.  "Now I become death destroyer of worlds" -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan project that developed the nuclear bomb, said quoting from the Bhagvad Gita after viewing the bomb's test.

Watch and learn what we could face and then RESIST as strongly as you can with whomever you can to avert this now nearly all too certain devastating possibility.

    Rachel Maddow Interview of nuclear expert Joe Cirincione:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzDSXSk9WXY

    Hiroshima Dropping of the bomb August 6, 1945:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4LQaWJRDg

   Seconds from Disaster Nagasaki atomic bombing August 9, 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRosq6Q_yZE

Trump: Fans Should Boycott NFL Games Over National Anthem Protests, Trump Says -- My Comment

Huffington: The president said he wanted NFL owners to “get that son of a bitch off the field,” an implicit reference to Colin Kaepernick and others who have protested like him.

My Comment:  This Cretan president will do anything to create division in our nation. There happens to be something called free speech in this country. Black players justifiably so are protesting the killing of innocent black men often by white police. This nation has a long history of white men killing black men while facing no punishment for it.  The latest incident of the white policeman killing the black man the white cop was allegedly heard saying I'm going to get this N%$#@. That black man had no gun but was shot point blank dead by the white cop and the judge found the white copy not guilty. So what else is new? 

What is not new is a person having the right to say and do anything non violent that is a political statement. Kapernick the person to whom Trump was possibly referring has every right to protest what he did.  Better that this know nothing president criticize his supporters who carry Nazi and Confederate flags or the KKK the real entities of true hate and anti-American sentiment.

The Madness of Donald Trump

Matt Taibbi the Great states as only he can in his article in pertinent part for "Rolling Stone Magazine" link below:

"We deserve Trump, though. God, do we deserve him. We Americans have some good qualities, too, don't get me wrong. But we're also a bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde nation that subsists on massacres and slave labor and leaves victims half-alive and crawling over deserts and jungles, while we sit stuffing ourselves on couches and blathering about our "American exceptionalism." We dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win "hearts and minds" that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease – including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of view, of course."

While I am at it I might mention a well crafted documentary as only Ken Burns can create.  He creates a 10 part series with Lynn Novick "The Vietnam War" on PBS.  They chronicle it from its beginning in 1955 during the Eisenhower administration to its end 20 years later by Gerald Ford.  The Vietnam war spanned five presidencies: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford and cost 58,000 American lives. 

How many more will die for this nation's penchant for eternal war?   Let's hope the madness of Trump and his Tweeting partner in madness Kim Jong Un does not raise the stakes to nuclear war and the end of civilization as we know it.

RESIST!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-madness-of-donald-trump-removal-25th-amendment-w504149

Autumn Leaves

Someone on my Facebook posted a beautiful picture of autumn leaves with a line from the song "Autumn Leaves" written on it.  My mother loved that song and I believe it was made into a movie in the 50's with Joan Crawford as an older woman falling in love with a young man suffering mental illness. I thought when I saw the film as an adult it to be a poignant, sad and an interesting film for its time.

I found that song on YouTube done by the great Eva Cassidy who is no longer with us.  I paste it below because it's simply beautiful and I love it.  Sometimes there is, indeed, more to life than politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXBNlApwh0c

Reflections on the Days of Awe

Ron Reagan - Freedom From Religion Foundation

"I'm sure there are all sorts of higher powers like electromagnetism and gravity, and things like that. But I don't believe in a deity, no. I see no evidence for that in my life or anywhere else in the universe. Personally, people can believe what they will and they will believe what they want. I find that most deism, and certainly most theisms take a fairly narrow view of the universe, and most people’s views of God or gods seem to be rather impoverished. The universe itself, the physical world that we can perceive with our senses and grasp with our minds, seems to be far more wondrous than most people's conceptions of a deity." -- Ronald Reagan

I love Ron Reagan, Jr. I have had many wars with religion through the decades but always find that I end up where I began: questioning everything. I know not all religions are dogmatic. I know not all religions put chains around one's brain but enough of them do and in this nation there are many who control the echelons of power, have undue influence in the policies of state and are brutally destructive of ​so ​many especially so to those who are not among the wealthiest. The Republican Party, made up of the uber religious and uber wealthiest, wants to take healthcare away from the poorest, most disabled and the elderly in this nation.  They say they care about unborn life but in policy they care about adult lives not so much and want to take health care away from vulnerable people who need it most. In the end, many will die.  It is mind numbing and the essence of hypocrisy among those who would do that.

Our nation's Founders knew the danger of mixing religion with state and were so concerned that they Constitutionally mandated the separation clause. This nation often sounds, at least in right wing world, which controls immense power in our country, like any fundamentalist sect the powers that be say is our enemy. The wars, death and destruction caused by religious belief and its intolerance of those others who have different beliefs is staggering. The many suicides that have been committed because a person simply cannot be that which their religion dictates they should be are astonishing. I joined Ron Reagan's Freedom From Religion Foundation not so much because I have finally reached a conclusion that there is no god but because I so ​fervently​ want religion OUT of the decision-making process of the state.

During Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (the days of Awe) one is supposed to take a look at and reevaluate oneself, make amends for one's bad behavior, strive to do better and hope that a god is pacified enough that he inscribes you in the "Book of Life" to live another year. I do not reserve those efforts in my life to merely those 10 days nor do I base my efforts to do that which is humane and good so a god will will be convinced enough that I am worthy of more years of life rather, it seems to me, like a lobbyist pays a member of Congress to do what he wants. I do things and advocate for things because in my ethical universe the things that I do and for which I advocate are humane, good, and right most especially for the least of us.

I evaluate my conduct every day, am the harshest critic of me and hope I not do unto others that which I would not want done to myself. I hope I will continue that task every day in the days ahead harboring and promoting humane political and social policy hoping the dictates of biological science will see to it that I live at least another year. I will, though, say to those who do believe and to all who do not La Shana Tova -- a happy and most of all a healthy new year.

There is hope?

I am pasting this latest email below I received from the "Intercept" which is a credible media source. 

I was so depressed over the latest Republican rancid attempt to repeal and "replace" the ACA a/k/a Obamacare and pass the most draconian health care bill ever denying coverage to millions that receiving this email was some uplift.   The media yesterday was saying Republicans were close to having the votes to pass it (i.e. Republicans lied) but according to the source below maybe not and there is hope for it to end up on the ash bin of history!!  

 

Republicans lie and they lie all the time.  Jimmy Kimmel voiced a very pointed angry address to Louisiana Senator Cassidy, the co-sponsor of the Republican bill, who Kimmel said flat out lied to him when Kimmel asked him if everyone would be insured.  Cassidy, big surprise, lied and said yes, excuse me said yep, when the answer should have been a Republican "no."  It shows one that Republicans will stop at nothing, lie about everything, and try to pass bills that would hurt so many of the most vulnerable people in our nation.  This Republican Party of the richest 1% and the Party of the corporation would even kill the nursing home industry to get the ACA repealed. 32 million would be chased off healthcare, ER hospital rooms again would be flooded with millions who had no health insurance and, of course, millions of the middle class and poor who would have no health insurance would ultimately die.  The poisonous icing on this murderous cake is that Republicans attached to the bill that states (mostly blue ones) could not enact single payer as a remedy for this horrible bill.  This is a bridge too far for the governors of many states as would be the bill's ultimate destruction of Medicaid as we know it.  Republicans, the Party of states rights, are willing, when it suits them, to have big bad government take away their states rights.  This is sheer hypocrisy. 

Thank you Jimmy Kimmel for being so passionate about your newborn son's poignant example of why the ACA is so important to so many.  If a newborn child comes into this world with a preexisting condition (as Jimmy Kimmel's newborn son did) this dastardly Republican bill would not have to pay, in pertinent example, for the baby's heart surgery because it would be considered a pre-existing condition.  It will make it prohibitive of the child ever getting heath insurance or making it cost prohibitive for those who have preexisting conditions.  It is an abomination.   Kimmel was angry and said so on his show reaching millions revealing Senator Cassidy to be in essence a liar. 

When Republican liars get exposed and the man behind the curtain uncovered to be a child healthcare predator denying even the most innocent among us a shot at life the Republicans unethical character is revealed.  I could not imagine that the three Republicans who were cheered when they and McCain voted thumbs down on the last insane healthcare bill would now support this worse one. I can only hope they won't.

From the "Intercept" by Ryan Grim:

 

It’s often said about politics that perception is reality. As true as that can often be, sometimes reality manages to break through. And that appears to be what’s happening this week to the latest effort by Senate Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare.

After several weeks of trying, the bill’s authors, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, weren’t any closer to getting the 50 votes they needed to pass the measure by the deadline of Sept. 30th. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain hadn’t budged, and Rand Paul had added himself to the no column.

So Graham and Cassidy bluffed, and began telling the press they were extremely close, their whip counts had them right there within striking distance. Democrats and progressive groups responded with a full-scale mobilization in defense, and all of a sudden we were shooting with real bullets again. Except we weren’t. While McCain, a good friend of Graham’s, is a question mark, none of the others have shown any sign of wobbling. Without those three, Republicans are short of the votes. Yes, having 49 votes is close, but it’s no closer than they were in July, when the effort died last time.

Much of the focus has been on Murkowski, who just a few weeks ago told her summer interns that helping block repeal last time was the greatest difference-making vote she’d ever cast, something she’d done on principle. It’s hard to imagine how she moves from there to the other side, but even if it were possible, today made it that much less likely.

This morning, Alaskan press reported that the Republican governor was thumbs-down on Graham-Cassidy. After all, a quarter of the state relies on Medicaid. Then around lunchtime, he signed a letter with other governors urging the Senate not to act on Graham-Cassidy.

That led to an unusual experience for me: the chance to inform Graham himself that the Alaska governor, the man he needed to help persuade Murkowski to come on board, had come out against his bill. After Senate Republicans had lunch with Vice President Mike Pence to chart the path forward, I asked Graham if he (Graham) was disappointed in the governor’s announcement, and whether he had spoken with him beforehand. It quickly became clear this was the first time he was hearing about it. “When was the announcement?” he asked, adding that he doesn’t know the governor personally.

Later, Murkowski explained to reporters the crux of the governor’s objection: it wasn’t about ideology or conservative politics. It was about the cuts in health care spending. In other words, it was about reality.

“If I get half as much money, flexibility doesn’t help me,” Murkowski said her governor explained, a nugget of policy wisdom folks might want to keep close at hand.

With Collins and Paul presumed solid no votes, Republicans can’t lose Murkowski. Unless a political earthquake hits, they already have.

Meanwhile, Republicans are cooking up a $1.5 trillion tax cut and the children’s health insurance program (CHIP) is about to expire next week.

It’s too bad for Republicans that they likely won’t get a vote on the repeal-and-replace bill, because they came up with a new plan to amend it to ban states from pursuing single-payer plans on their own. That’s a flexible understanding of state flexibility!

AGAIN PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE OR EVERY ONE YOU CHOOSE!!   STILL, CALL, SIT IN REPUBLICAN OFFICES IF YOU CAN, SMOKE SIGNAL, TELEGRAPH, TELEPHONE, I PHONE, OR IN ANY FASHION YOU CHOOSE  RESIST!

Suicide

A discussion of suicide ensued on Facebook.  The number of suicides in this nation is rising.  A few in this debate believed that suicide is not painless; that it hurts.

I know some close to me who have had a family member end their life and those family members and friends who had to see that are not okay. Those affected by a loved one's suicide hurt and are often, if they cannot get help, devastated for life. The person committing suicide, I suspect, does not or did not realize the devastating impact that their death had or will have on those who love them.  Perhaps, they do realize that but are in such physical or mental anguish they simply do not care or they feel that they are so alone, have no family or even friends to whom they can turn that the psychic pain, as they perceive it, make them feel they have no choice but to end their life themselves.

Life, I believe, is not meant to be lived in such anguish either physically or mentally. It cannot be about what life should be. Yet there are others like a relative of mine who was in such torment from a prolonged painful tragic disease said in a way that he could "I love life!" It is amazing the hardship some can take while others cannot and succumb to the vicissitudes of life.

Today where national situations brought on at the behest of Congressional Republicans and a Republican corrupt president trying their damnedest this time, unless some Republicans find a conscience, to tragically pull health care, yes, their constituents' right to life, from millions who cannot financially afford the astronomical costs of it.  Add to that sickening fact is the international situation is so fearfully bad that nuclear war hangs like the the angel of death over the world's head because Trump cannot negotiate nor are there many left in the State Department to do so. Add to this are the devastating effects of climate change some will end their life because a zero ethics utterly corrupt president and a Republican controlled Congress has made life or soon will make it so unbearable for those who do not have enough money to bear it and Trump pulls out of the world's Climate Change Agreement.  The only peace some people can imagine is a life not here to bear those crushing realities. 

There are many contributing factors to suicide. If Trump and Republicans get what they have always wanted you will be able to watch the suicide rate rise significantly. This does not have to be so.

This draconian Republican death care bill must propel each and every one who sees what has been threatened by Republicans to do to scream, shout, protest, write letters and occupy if one can Republican offices asking the Congress persons in them -- no demanding -- they take pity on those who through no fault of their own will be besieged even killed by this presidential and Republican health care bill just so Republicans and Trump can have a "win."  I ask you what have they won?  

Schopenhauer, the 18th century philosopher, said the driving most important force of man is his "will to live"; Victor Frankel, the author of "Man's Search for Meaning" and a survivor of the WWII concentration camps marveled at how few suicides there were in the camp in the face of an intolerable and painful existence.  These are points to ponder but our job now is to ensure through government policy that no one is forced to die or to end his/her life and that the will to live is, for most of us, our eternal mandate.

Jam the phones of the White House and Congress, write letters, send emails, or occupy Republican offices if you can.  The time is short because Republicans want to ram the death care bill through before September 30th.  The life you lose may, in fact, be your own!

RESIST!

"In the Arctic, a Cold War Rosh Hashana" -- link below -- My letter to the Globe's Jeff Jacoby

Jeff, I do not often agree with your political point of view but this story entitled above and linked below touched my heart and I found myself crying at the end.  Knowing how rancid Russia has historically been to its Jews it would be unthinkable that they would have allowed what our military did for Elihu Schimmel that is for all its Jewish soldiers stationed in the arctic that year to pray on this holiest of days of the Jewish calendar. 

No matter how divided we are politically I believe the heart of our nation beats strong and for that I am grateful.  I had the occasion last evening to watch the CNN special "Inside North Korea"  to see the remarkable difference between life in western style nations and the tyranny that is North Korea.  North Korea is an Orwellian authoritarian's dream.  Its populous, strictly controlled, never dare to voice opposition to a leader whose sanity is in question ready to take his nation in a split second to war that would kill hundreds of thousands if not millions.  He is wide-eyed smiling at each rocket launch and especially proud of his nuclear weaponry.  The people say in rote manner that the enemy is the United States and they are taught this nearly from birth. 

An accident of birth placed me here and I thought at a very young age how wonderful it was  that I could say anything to anyone, question everything without a knock at the door in the wee hours of the morning to take me away to a destination unknown.  Those who dare in North Korea to challenge their government it is said by experts among the few who have seen that nation up close end up in special prisons starved or beaten to death because they dared question their "divine" leader Kim Jong-Un.   Kim Jong-Un smiles with glee at the thought that a nuclear weapon could take out Guam, Japan, South Korea and even go as far as Chicago to unleash the atomic bomb's horror on innocent people.

I think on Robert Oppenheimer's serious quote when the first nuclear bomb was dropped.   He said:

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

It is in serious contemplation of our nuclear world's scientific information that has been unleashed into the hands of democracies and despots alike trying to get hold of its payload that could eliminate life on earth as we know it that I wish for you, all of our nation and its allies during this serious time of year a safe and sweet new year as well.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/09/16/above-arctic-circle-cold-war-rosh-hashana/WEtwem9FuqZcOKY97NcFCJ/story.html

First the Good News

Viewed the wonderful film "La La Land" on HBO last evening. If you want to watch a beautiful film, talented acting, tremendous choreography and an all around great musical in the genre of the some of the ones made in times past I urge you to see it. It's set in contemporary time but hearkens back to another era which showed wonderful musicals with little to no profanity, no nudity and no explicit sex scenes which is I believe much more erotic then leaving nothing to the imagination. It had some depth as well. The creativity was amazing.

Some humans create great things with staggering talent and intellect of the homo sapiens big brain. They are blessed. It stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. The film won numerous Academy Awards. We saw it on HBO but if you missed it last evening then you probably can get it on Video on Demand or HBO Go if you have cable channels. It is worth it to take time to see it. I do not think you will be disappointed.

This film was refreshing in our explosive, fearful and sad time with a president who does not know what he is doing.  Now for the bad news.  Headline on Huffington: 

"Don’t Look Now, But Full Obamacare Repeal Is Back On The Table.  A bill nobody took seriously suddenly sounds serious."  I was awakened at 3:00 a.m. and just happened to check the news which is always a bad move.  I could not get back to sleep!  It was frightening for all of us but especially serious for the poor, the middle class with expensive medical issues and those with pre-existing conditions.  It could also affect nursing homes as patients would have to relinquish their homes to pay for care.  When their money ran out god only knows what would happen.  This bill is worse than the last Republican evisceration of health care.  It is mean, it is sadistic and most of all it is wrong.  The nation is so decimated by what Trump has done that no one sane would call America "Great."   He is making America anything but great again.  He is making it poor, toxic, climate brutalized, divided at home and alienated in the world.  I urge you to RESIST this with all the effort you can muster, call Congress and then call them again.  Write letters, attend protests if you can but do something so that people who get sick and have little to no money can have a shot at life.  It is that important.  The Republican Party who says they care for life of the "unborn" has no care for those who are already born and many who come into this world with a preexisting expensive condition or develop one soon after.  Ask me I know.

 I will post below the essence of what is going to be offered this time by Republicans (of course) Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.  Graham is friendly with McCain so who knows if McCain will be still healthy enough to cast a no vote again although Graham and he are friends.  Pass this on to anyone you choose.

RESIST as if you or your children's lives depend upon it because they do  --   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dont-look-now-but-full-obamacare-repeal-is-back-on-the-table_us_59bd9f2de4b086432b07a12a?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Just so you will know

Up to 150,000 people died as a result of the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima.  This was a mini bomb compared to what we have now as Trump plays a game of nuclear chicken with N. Korea and tries to blow up the Iran nuclear agreement.  Know well the evil know nothing imbecile the American electorate has seen fit to place in the most powerful position in the world!

J. Robert Oppenheimer wrote after he had seen what they had created taken from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita:  "Now I become death destroyer of worlds.

  FAT MAN DROPPED ON JAPAN AUGUST 5, 1945

From Wiki: J. Robert Oppenheimer the American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Desire of My Life

If you did not see Rachel Maddow's interview of Hillary Clinton I strongly urge you to watch either by the DVD you may have saved or by Googling Rachel Maddow's show with her interview of Hillary Clinton online.

What happens when two gifted people talk to one another? They create a brilliant discussion. Rachel Maddow's interview of Hillary Clinton was one of the best, most cogent and interesting interviews of a public figure I have seen. Rachel asked her about the most important issues of our time specifically -- North Korea -- and more. I thought Rachel did not omit anything. The interview was about public policy, Trump policy, Trump personality, the 2016 election and it was an analysis of Putin's personality, his place in US foreign policy, and Russia's influence on the US 2016 presidential election and why it happened. It also was about things personal.  Rachel is never afraid to ask the tough but pertinent and sometimes personal questions.

The interview of Hillary Clinton was fascinating, informative and a must see for those who care about the fate of this nation. Clinton was as eloquent as I thought she would be. Warning though: You may weep because we traded a person of the utmost presidential competence for the most incompetent, psychological misfit and incompetency for the most powerful office in the world. Clearly, by my standards, we made a fatally wrong choice. We chose the least qualified, most explosive and temperamentally ill suited man for the presidency we ever could. The future of our nation with a know nothing and a want to know nothing looks bleak until this albatross is taken off our necks.

My life's desire, it will come as no surprise to those who know me, was to be as intellectually stellar as I think both Rachel and Hillary are. Sadly, that was not my fate no matter how much I wanted it to be so. Nonetheless, I use what skills I do possess to advocate for policy that helps the least among us. Who knows what can befall any of us? Life is, indeed, unpredictable. When I pass the Salvation Army in my town I say, yes, a prayer of thanks and know there but for the grace of god or fate could go I.

It would be nice to know that the strength of the most powerful nation on earth would be there for our protection because we are all Americans. We are -- most of us -- patriots. I know this thing to be true: Hard times can befall any of us at any time just ask the people of Huston, Florida or the Caribbean. The New York Times headline for September 10 was "Desperation Mounts in Caribbean Islands -- All the Food is Gone."

Children ask parents and elders for cover against life's tragic onslaughts. Who can the adults among us ask? We can and should ask our government for help when we need it. Hurricane Irma and the Hurricane Harvey Huston flooding disaster shows as clearly as anything could that government can and, indeed, must be there when its people are in need of it. Whether it be disaster relief or health care government should play an important role. We can and should settle for nothing less!

Soul Survival in Trump’s Hell by NYT Charles Blow + My Comment

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/opinion/soul-survival-in-trumps-hell.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists&referer

My Comment: If there is a better editorialist in this nation than Charles Blow have not read him or her. "The Soul Survival in Trump's Hell" (linked above) is one of the best editorials I have read that summarizes the hopeless depression I feel from the hell of Trump!! I wake up hoping but the second I turn on the news, watch MSNBC, CNN, read online editorials and any of the other myriad of news sources I choose for information gathering I then lie back in despair again. Charles Blow's opinion linked above touched my heart and everything he feels in this nightmare of Trump is as I feel.

With so much evidence gathered against Trump's Everest heights corrupt regime when will Mueller finally end this nightmare? When will people wake up and when will vile excuses for humanity like the ugly Bannon and those who support Trump be summarily stopped? I almost cannot stand it any more. I vacillate between plodding ahead as my mentors instructed us to do or lie back in total despair switching my regular excellent news sources to METV or the Disney Channel.

I'm sad, I'm scared, and yes, I am furious. I cannot take it anymore. I have three choices: continue the fight, entrust it to the next generation to make the fight or commit suicide. Suicide is out of the question because I love life, the questions of it and I love learning to find the answers. I love my nation BUT I do not love the underbelly of racist corruption, its formerly suppressed mutant DNA shown the light in the noxious age of Trump. I am ashamed, feel betrayed but like the unsinkable Molly Brown I cannot give up. I'm down but not out.

I want Mr. Blow to keep writing and keep appearing on MSNBC. I wish he were a permanent anchor there to complement the other saviors of my life like Chris Hayes, Rachel the Great Maddow, Joy Reid and, of course, Larry the Amazing O'Donnell. Charles Blow would be a nice addition to them. I connect with his opinions like glue to paper and thank fate he writes so well to express his melodious sentiments to the tune of the way I feel.

Donald Trump's America -- Black teenager in NH nearly successfully lynched! Yes, its 2017 + my Comment

Daily Kos:

"I could not believe this when I first read. It is unbelievable. It brought tears to my eyes.

This is the result of Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric and his tacit support of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. I am afraid this is only the beginning of dark days in America.

NH1.com reports that a Claremont, N.H., boy had to be flown to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center after one or more teens decided to hang him from a tree with a rope.

The boy’s mother, Cassandra Merlin, posted the horrific photo of her baby’s neck to Facebook, and even then gave those responsible the benefit of the doubt.

The boy’s uncle, Lyrik Martin, who also posted photos of his injuries on social media, wrote in a post that he wasn’t sure the attack was racially motivated, but the boy’s grandmother went on record saying the teens taunted the boy for being black.

Lorrie Slattery told the Valley News that the incident was in fact racially motivated and “intentional.”

Slattery said she was able to recount what happened from her grandson’s 11-year-old sister and other children present (there were no adults), and that her grandson and some teens were playing in a yard on Aug. 28 when the teens started calling the little boy “racial epithets” and throwing sticks and rocks at his legs.

Some or all of the teens allegedly stepped up on a picnic table and grabbed a nearby rope that had been part of a tire swing, Slattery said.

“The (teenagers) said, ‘Look at this,’ supposedly putting the rope around their necks,” Slattery said. “One boy said to (her grandson), ‘Let’s do this,’ and then pushed him off the picnic table and hung him.”

The boy swung back and forth by his neck three times before he was able to remove the rope from his neck; Slattery said none of the teens came to his aid.

As late as Friday, Claremont Police Chief Mark Chase would not comment on the specifics of the case, only saying that they were still investigating and that those involved are juveniles, prohibiting him specifically making any comment.

Chase also said that the kids being investigated (who knows if they’re charged) should be “protected.”

Wiki: "The idea that America is post-racial, or close to it, has played a role in at least one United States Supreme Court decision. In Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the court invalidated a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that had required nine states with particularly severe histories of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval for any change to their election laws The ruling, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., said in part, "Our country has changed."  
My Comment: Oh yeah....for the worse!!! The damage being done to the 98% by a right wing slanted court not to mention by the milieu in the age of Trump will take decades to reverse if it can be reversed at all. You are witnessing unless you become involved to reverse this toxic stew, the death of a welcoming America as a beacon of freedom and hope!.

Live or Die

Apropos of Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and all the myriad of disasters that have warranted government assistance in the form of FEMA and other federal government help I want to see this picture more clearly as to how there could be anyone, anyone at all, whose heart was not breaking watching thousands in shelters, the homeless remaining on the street, the sick, the elderly, the handicapped and the infirm others carried out in wheelchairs or with oxygen tanks ripped from their familiar surroundings to an alien environment to save their lives (and animals' lives) from this latest climate change disaster, Irma.  

What makes up a human being at a Republican convention say “let him die” if a young someone did not buy health insurance but, as unpredictable as life is, finds he desperately needs health care but does not have the ability to pay for it.  “Let him die” is what Republicans said.  It is what Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said when he voted no on New Jersey Hurricane Sandy relief but when Houston was struck the Texas senator quickly took government money as he knew he was at risk of losing his political position if he did not secure government assistance for Houston.

Ayn Rand, the philosophical queen of self reliance, free enterprise advocate and loather of government intervention on whom Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has based his political philosophy -- with the exception of the atheist part --  took Social Security from government when she could.   So much for solely self reliance.  

Those who align themselves with a philosophy that wants to trim government to the size of a Norquistian postage stamp, for which many right wing Republicans now advocate, have zero ethics and even less empathy.  I stand incredulous that they get as many as they do to support them.  Those that support them are often those who need government help the most. When right wing Republicans see they need government help such as Republican Ted Cruz of Texas recently did, curiously they sing a different tune. 

The issue of government as an instrument of economic assistance before the Great Depression of 1929 saw presidents like Harding, Coolidge, and especially Hoover wax quizzical because they did not know what if anything government could do when people stood in breadlines to eat and sold apples on street corners because there were no jobs.  Hoover was shocked and stumped, as the grimace on his face showed when riding to Roosevelt’s inauguration, that Roosevelt won in a landslide running on a plank that government must help a nation in need because so many found themselves needing that help. 

Before FDR a Horatio Alger alternative to either live or die without government assistance prevailed within the American bloodstream and crossed the blood brain barrier for decades.  It is

the Horatio Alger dilemma between free enterprise as the only source of wealth and help versus government assistance there to help when catastrophe strikes that is, as I see it, at the heart of the philosophical divide of our two party system.

Private enterprise is not in the game to help anyone as progressives know so well.  Private enterprise is in it for profit for the owners, the stockholders and no one else.  Your choice for them is  live or die; sink or swim on your own.  I choose living over dying and swimming over sinking.  Sometimes the massive help needed to do both can be provided only by the massive resources of the federal government.  FDR knew that and birthed the New Deal changing the role that government played to help us out of potentially fatal quagmires.  We should remember that time and remember our time when to depend on corporations to bestow help is like thinking you can ride on an alligator to get out of a swamp!

Science deniers will place all of us in peril

I have never in my life seen a globe in such utter peril. One massive hurricane after another ready to strike Florida and beyond -- massive damage expected and now a Richter Scale 8 volcano in Mexico you know the "wall builder" with possible tsunamis that could reach as far as CA.

Mother nature is angry alright angry at her creation -- man who puts imbeciles in positions of immense power to deny ALL that man has learned through science. ALL these weather catastrophes ALL of them are global climate change related and man's impetus behind them.

The ignorant will deny science and truth because that is what ignorants do. Sure blame it on a sky god and know that that sky god is mighty angry at you for denying the best and the brightest's version of science truth. Deny it at your peril.

Add to it an incompetent imbecile Trump waiving red flags in front of the bull N. Korea begging for war -- maybe even nuclear war -- coming to a theater near you soon!

Darwin survival of the fittest will prevail. Those who do deny science will die I just don't want them to bring the rest of us with them.

A battle we must win

In response to David Livingstone Smith's provocative editorial ((linked at the bottom) "Fighting hate is a losing battle" in the September 3, 2017 issue of the Sunday Globe I am perplexed by what he attempts to say.

The main objection I have is that he offers no remedy of what to do about the so called "Alt Right" whites who are upset by those "other" human beings who are allegedly at the heart of their grievances and a  threat to their white power "heritage.”  He gives one no idea of what to do about the white majority who have perceived grievances against not only one but various minorities because of an ascribed status those minorities cannot change. The concepts behind white power anger against their perceived offenders is often times demonstrably false.

Hate put forth by the Alt Right including nationalists, the KKK or American Nazis may be because of alleged grievances but it is hate nonetheless. There are different kinds of hate or, for the purposes of this article, grievances by them some of which not only cry out for verbal opposition but demand fervent action against them as well.  There are reasons behind white hate, yes, but they are, more often than not, consummately wrong at best if not insane at worst.

Nazis did, in fact, hate Jews simply for being Jews which we know has a long history in Europe sometimes entitled the longest hatred and tried to enact the harshest most sadistic punishment possible on them because of an ascribed status no Jew could change.  It was not simply unjust treatment of Jews it was, in fact, murder of them.  It was not only unfair but it was lethal. The number of six million Jewish dead at the hands of Nazis has been scrupulously documented often by Nazis themselves and it speaks for itself.  What is a Jew in America to do when he views white men parading like Nazis at night with Tiki Torches and with swastika flag in tow?  Perhaps just yawn?  I think not.

Persons of color in this nation were thought of by whites who owned them more than simply chattel but an inferior subclass of human who could be treated any way the white owner wished. The fate of the unlucky black child whose only sin was to be born black and the harsh future that awaited him/her was predetermined at birth by something they could not change.  The injustice perpetrated on blacks in this nation, too, for three centuries has screamed out for opposition, demanded fervent action and still does.

Relegating various minority groups to submission to the dictates of a white majority is not only noxious and unfair it is also life-threatening.  Whites have not been a minority and are not now a minority. They are the majority. Statistics of prosperity, generally, among white men do not lie.  They do, on the whole, quite well.  

This nation was founded by human beings who did not want to be treated unfairly by a tyrant.  Emma Lazarus's poem on Lady Liberty that says "give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." means something and requires us to reject hate which is what is the product of the oppositional grievance and promulgated by those white men who have for three centuries had it all.

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/08/29/smith/j5F9Mf4ZqPohu4oxC6stTP/story.html

Expectation of Violence on the Right

In response to Diane King's August 20, 2017 letter entitled "Demonizing the Charlottesville rally gatherers" (linked below) I must disagree with her position but surely agree with the Metrowest News's right to print it.  There is a conundrum for progressives here as I see it weighing the rights of free speech against the moral obligation of protesting the messengers of the hate.  If one looked closely in Charlottesville at those who appropriated their constitutional free speech guarantee one saw hundreds of white men with Tiki torches ablaze uttering inflammatory rhetoric such as "Jews will not replace us."  Moreover, we saw swastika emblazoned flags being carried by them proudly.  Those rabidly anti Semitic remarks carrying Nazi ornaments are reminiscent of the Nazi movement in Europe of the 1930's once thought dead and buried but now because of the Trump presidency have been given not only life but horrifically power. 

Nuremberg has taught us that it is our moral obligation to meet the messengers of hate with opposition and they were met, of course, with that.  The political right must expect moral outrage to their incendiary message.  The extremist right is gun loving, gun toting violent happily screaming they were going to kill their opposition if they had to.  One need only remember the murder of 168 innocents 19 of whom were children by the right wing nationalist, Timothy McVeigh, when he parked a truck packed with explosives near the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma he thought a dandy way to lodge his protest against the federal government.  More than 650 other people were injured in the bombing that damaged or destroyed more than 300 buildings as well.

The immorality and violence of the extremist right is the reality of the extremist right.  The right is saturated with unnecessary fury since white men have held power and still do for over 300 years.  Worse they are loaded for bear toward any they deem the "other."  Their mantra that their white identity (as if there were one) is at risk of replacement is reductio ad absurdum.  
 
Given the past horrors of extremist right wing nationalist movements as being those who kill those they deem the "other" by the millions because of an ethnic supremacist irrational rationale it is incumbent upon all moral men and women of good conscience to oppose them by any means necessary! 

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20170820/letter-demonizing-charlottesville-rally-gatherers

Confounds the Science

Made me smile and almost cry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZDYhQ4UAnA

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Preview YouTube video Confounds the Science - (Parody of) Sound of Silence

Natalie Rosen <natalierosen66@gmail.com>	6:20 PM (13 minutes ago)
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