The Essence of Gun Control

An email friend of mine sent me her nephew's post:


> The first car was built in the mid-1880's, at approximately the same time that the first fully automatic gun was made. Approximately 15 years later, when cars started to become more prevalent, Chicago and NY required testing before being allowed to drive cars. The first age restriction was placed for driving cars in 1909. It took the US, in total 15 years to start getting serious about determining who is qualified to drive. From there, we now have restrictions on the size of engines, speed limits, vigorous training and licensing testing, and regular license renewals, with testing. While at the same time, it took nearly 55 years to enact the Federal Firearms Act, which began the firearm dealer licensing system. Seems logical, after all, back then cars must have been used on what seems to have been a regular basis to conduct mass killings, whereas guns must have been there so people can shoot out the tires of those trying to run them down.
>
> I agree with the right to bear arms. Most argue against the slippery slope of regulating or taking away parts of that freedom. Really? That ship has sailed. Why not bear nuclear arms? Oh yeah, they weren't around when the second amendment was written, and that would just be plain old stupid. But what about people having cannons in their front yards, after all, cannons were around then? Oh yeah, we have that thing called common sense. But let's get back to cars. Clearly since regulations were faster there and have better evolved. If I have a couple of drinks and happen to be pulled over, even though I haven't hurt anyone or intended to hurt someone, I can have my license pulled and be put in jail. I have no clue if similar laws exist where gun holders in public have similar consequences. If someone leaves a bar with a gun, and a police officer sees them, is the gun confiscated? Is their right to use a gun is taken away for a while? Does the gun owner goes to jail? I really don't know the answer to that, and don't feel like looking it up right now.
>
> I'm tired of going into movie theaters and looking at the exits, not so I know where to possibly run in the event of a fire, but in an event of a shooter. When going into a theater with my family, I literally run through options of where to run, and how many of them I can get on the ground and lay on top of to shield them from gun fire. This is not normal. Why do my kids have to go through active shooter drills at school? Somehow we look back at ducking under desks as crazy, but we are back at it, for a much more real and random scenario. The first thing in every college tour these days has the tour guide boasting about not being anywhere on campus without having at least two emergency call boxes visible. At a recent freshman orientation I literally listened to the head of public safety who was previously a chief of police for one of the largest police forces in the world, discuss active shooters and other safety concerns. He even had the head of the local FBI field office in attendance. This is not normal!!!
>
> So here's the solution. Stop playing partisan politics. Stop feeling like the answer always needs to be in the extreme in order to protect something. Give me a break. If a hunter needs an automatic weapon to kill a bear, they are not a good hunter. Enact stronger gun controls. Background checks, safety testing, regular license renewals, restrictions on number of rounds, restrictions on types of weapons, no silencers. If a gun is allowed out in public, open carry must be required. What's the point of a concealed weapon? If a bad guy sees someone with a gun, they may think twice before shooting. Why have them start shooting and then realize that there is going to be a shootout.
>
> Enough is enough!!!!! I can't even imagine what my kids will have to deal with when they have kids.

CHIP Expired Today. Insurance For Nine Million Children...Poof.-- Daily Kos

"While Trump tweeted about football players and Republicans in Congress salivated over tax cuts for the already insanely rich, the Children’s Health Insurance Program expired today.

The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid.

From Vox:

CHIP funding won’t simply run out on October 1 because of the way the program is financed. Federal money is distributed as a lump sum to the states annually, and they then have two years to spend it. So most states will have money left over next month, even if no new federal funding is coming in. But it is nonetheless a perilous position for the program, and some states are staring at big funding cliffs soon.

Arizona, North Carolina and the District of Columbia are expected to run out of funds by December. Minnesota ran out of funds today.
The GOP cannot govern and MAGA sucks."

Sorry Kids

Guilty -- to some of it but not all.

Nevertheless this is BRILLIANT!

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/10/01/donald-trump-sporting-spirit/1PsCjpb5EyocjzFEdoNneL/story.html

Science and Sanity -- BLAME

I am going to attach blame for our latest disasters.  I blame Republicans for climate change and man's contribution to it as they advocate for filthy fossil fuels.  I blame right wingnuts denying man's contribution to this human life and planet destroying science affirming reality.  Houston, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and hundreds more disasters from tornadoes, to hurricanes, floods and droughts I lay at the feet of these Republican Cretans so big oil can line Republican pockets.  As usual it is all about the money.  The Drumpf presidency is about it as well.  It is milking the US of all the cash it can get away with sucking at the breast of the US taxpayer no matter how unethical and even allegedly illegal the conflicts of interest may be!

I blame the Nevada massacre on RIDICULOUSLY lax gun laws.  Nevada, the capital of sin city, has an open carry law except in casinos of course.  Assault rifles are not illegal.   NO ONE BUT NO ONE needs an automatic or semi-automatic assault rifle much less Congress to vote on okaying silencers!!!! These are weapons of war not for civilians carrying them to create mayhem on innocent people.  The NRA is a moral sewer and Trump is their biggest supporter.  SHAME ON HIM AND THEM! 

Can you imagine Las Vegas if the gd shooter had silencers on his weapons? If one cannot see the shooter they can at least hear from where the shots may be coming. A silencer would make that impossible. The remedy is to take Republicans, defeat them by the hundreds all over the nation in 2018 and finally let science and sanity prevail!

"Donald Trump has 'dangerous mental illness', say psychiatry experts at Yale conference Mental health experts say President is 'paranoid and delusional'

Would you want your son, daughter, husband, wife, relative or friend to die in a war waged by this deranged malevolent misfit that is Trump?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world-0/donald-trump-dangerous-mental-illness-yale-psychiatrist-conference-us-president-unfit-james-gartner-a7694316.html

Recommended viewing

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's "Vietnam" is a 10 part documentary on the Vietnam War shown on PBS. This is one of the most complete, fairly treated, historically accurate documentaries I have ever seen on the Vietnam War as only the great Ken Burns can do it. This one is done with Lynn Novick and possesses the gift for combining the realities of the Vietnam war from Eisenhower through the Ford administrations comprising five presidencies for nearly 20 years and includes the historical, sociological, and psychological aspects of the war with background music from that era of conflict. It is a brilliant work. No matter where one falls on the scale of opinion of the war this documentary will not fail to present a complete and balanced chronology of one our nation's most divisive eras and a war that evokes controversy to this day. One might say this nation really never got over its effects and that our nation has never been the same since it.

The work brought back to me the issues from that era. Both the anti-war movements and those who supported the war are most fairly reflected. There was almost no one who experienced the war who was not conflicted by it.

As one who was involved in the anti-war movement of that time it brought back memories I have stored for all these years and it does it through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, thought it was worth fighting, as well as those soldiers who joined veterans against the war groups opposed to it. It also touches on figures we remember today such as John McCain a tortured and beaten for six years POW as well as others who fought it and eventually opposed it like Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. It includes the famous opposition to the war such as Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, Oliver Stone who fought in the war and groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other groups who were sometimes violently against it. It includes the Kent State massacre as well. It is the fullest most complete rendition of the the historical events leading up to the American involvement in the war and also includes interviews of North Vietnam vets and their perspective on it. It brings you through the present era which shows a relaxed Communist state employing some capitalist enterprise to propel Vietnam economically into the 21st century.

The end of the series will captivate and includes the fleeing of the South Vietnamese trying to get away from the north who ultimately won the war and the creation of the Vietnam memorial in Washington which has one of my own friend's name on it.

"Vietnam" is a beautiful, poignant remembrance of the war and the names on the Vietnam Memorial who died for this controversial cause. I highly recommend viewing it.

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.