This is a running commentary on contemporary social, political and religious issues. From the Introduction of James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty -- Truth, Lies and Leadership" "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary" Reinhold Niebuhr
"A
federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday
to keep in place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program,
which protects undocumented immigrants who entered the country as
children from deportation and allows them to work legally, while a
lawsuit proceeds.
The
order, signed by U.S. District Judge Williams Alsup, marks a major
triumph for immigrant rights groups who have rallied around the program
that benefits nearly 700,000 people."
My Comment:
No
doubt the racist Trump Justice Department will try to appeal this
decision of a lower federal court which will, if let stand, save thousands of lives. The Supreme
Court is always a worry. Merrick Garland, Obama's rightful process
correct SCOTUS choice was, in historically unique form, derailed by
Republicon Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as he waited like a snake stocking its prey
to see if Republican Trump was elected. A stroke of luck allowed his
mean-spirited calculation to succeed and negated President Obama's
rightful choice. Trump was sadly elected and quickly the process
correct Obama's SCOTUS choice of excellence, Justice Merrick Garland, was
never allowed even a hearing. Neil Gorsuch the right wing extremist
Scalia clone, Trump's choice, was seated on the Supreme Court in an effort to swing the
Court inhumane right. Justice Kennedy remains progressives'
singular lonely choice balancing precariously like a fiddler on the roof
making life and death decisions affecting the futures of thousands if
not millions of human beings. Justice Kennedy, the tie breaker, has
been entrusted with shaping the character of this nation as either one
of diversity or of white supremacy.
SCOTUS can let this decision by the lower federal court stand by not hearing it or hear it, let it stand, or overrule it.
Progressives' hearts will
never rest until this Congress is in 2018 overturned, Democrats take power,
Trump is impeached, convicted and removed from office to take his
rightful place in the ash bin of history. Let us pray if you are a
prayerful person that this national nightmare ends and our nation
returns to its quest to become as the Constitutional Preamble states "a
more perfect union."
I thought of writing something on Oprah's magnificent speech at the Golden Globes but there is so much good to say about Oprah Winfrey that I thought it
would be too arduous a task to do in the morning. Thus, I leave the
link to her acceptance speech and her appearance to accept the Cecil B.
Demille award for career
excellence below.
I
will say, though, one thing. Her acceptance speech was magnificent and
presented with the excellence that she has shown all her life! I post the
story and the speech below.
My Comment: ️FABULOUS
video, made me cry with happiness. Those who resist Trump's ugly
attempt at the acquisition of total power and the money that sustains it
keep on keeping on as there are
those billions you do not even know who are with us fighting the
Trumpian madness here and other nationalist and right wing extremists
around the world. They are resisting the racist run of the few to ruin
the lives of the many by stopping right wing extremism from taking it
all--taking our healthcare, taking our savings and finally if we allow
it taking our lives. No more passively
looking at corruption and hate, shrugging our shoulders because we can
do something, we can reject right wing extremist hate here and around
theworld, WE CAN RESIST!! Send this to everyone you know and it will be sent to those you don't know. RESIST!Then watch the video.
This video recorded by Avaaz team members is going viral! It's a shot of hope and love for 2018 -- will you help share it and spread the joy across the world? Watch and share it now:
2017 was a rough year, but wow, is the resistance on fire! We've never been prouder of our movement -- both Avaaz, and all those we stand with.
We've stopped the rise of the far-right in several countries, frustrated
Trumpism in almost every major accomplishment it sought, opened our
hearts to refugees, won major battles to protect our planet, and
defeated toxic foes from Monsanto to Rupert Murdoch.
The best part is the WAY we're winning. Not through fear, anger
and manipulation, but through love, hope and smarts. We are being the
change we wish to see, and building the world we dream of, each step of
the way. And we're doing it, TOGETHER.
So bring it on, 2018!!!
With gratitude for all you lovely people who made all this happen, and hope for the year to come,
Ricken, Emma, Fatima, Alice, Nana, Spyro, Nataliya, Danny and the whole Avaaz team.
P.S. If you're feeling hopeless right now -- yes, the threats are real,
but if we give up hope where does that leave us? Our grandparents faced
far worse with far less -- we can't throw our hands up now. Lots of love
to you! And let's all beware the media we're reading this year -- the
far-right and the Russian government have an OBJECTIVE of making engaged
citizens like us cynical by spinning stories and lies (especially on
Facebook) that destroy hope and trust in democracy, institutions, media
and each other. Here's evidence for that (Guardian). Let's fight smart for everything we love in 2018!!!
From
what planet did Trump originate? Did they hate us so much
that they sent this crackpot who must make love to and kiss himself 42
times a day? Great lyrics to a song he must sing: "I love me, I love
me, I'm wild about myself!" Wouldn't you know Youtube has the song!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X97SpmoRN2E
This
imbecile president has zero knowledge regarding the separation of
powers, the essence of our democracy and that which nations have copied
the world over for its brilliance. He has either never read a
historical analysis of the colonial period that was the stone cutter of
our Constitutional democracy or he is just plain illiterate and stupid
to boot. I suspect it is all of those things as he has read nothing
and, perhaps, even cannot read a thing. This is sadly our president,
the occupant of the most powerful office in the world capable of
destroying it and all we know in it in a nuclear nanosecond.
The
definition, it is said, of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over again expecting different results. This dolt president asked his
immediate world if they could prevail upon Attorney General Sessions not
to recuse himself and then asked FBI Director James Comey himself to
drop the investigation of Michael Flynn and Russia. When he would not
Trump, in ignorance, fired him and did not give one second of thought to
an obstruction of justice charge that could be made against him by
anyone assuming the authority of the investigation of Trump's ties to
Russia and its ties to influencing a presidential election. This is evidence, yet again, of Trump's profound
Constitutional and historical ignorance. He has no idea that his power
is profoundly checked by a separation of powers; by a separate and
independent judiciary and that he is not a king despite his thinking
that he is.
If
he remains in office after his and his administration's gargantuan
Constitutional abridgements, unethical behaviors as well as his alleged
conflicted illegal money laundering business interests then he has
successfully subverted our democracy begun by patriots in 1776 and honed
for nearly 2 and one half centuries. If he is not removed from office
than he has successfully done what the British could not do in 1776,
what Confederates who fought to destroy this nation in 1860 could not
do, what Hitler and the Axis powers could not do in 1941, what
Communists (including Russia) and Fascists alike could not do in the
20th century.
Surely
we will not let this stupid man bring this nation down exposing it to
those who would love nothing more than to annihilate it. This cannot be
so. This must not happen. "A Republic if you can keep it" said
Benjamin Franklin when asked what type of government the Founders
formed. We will keep it, indeed, rather than let a con man,
charlatan, classless carnival barker swamp thing kill it and worse leave
this nation open to those adversaries in the 21st century, including
Russia, that would seek destroy it.
The latest Bannon vs. Trump Vesuvian blow up in this non compos mentis
sad excuse for an administration is that the town -- Washington -- is
deserted with the exception of some crackpot right wingnut hate infused
violent extremists. I worry about the safety and security of the
nation. Who
is minding the store? There is no one home, the leader is a mental
case, many have quit, formally resigned or have been fired. The oval
office is filled with vipers and paranoids whose ire is directed one
against the other, the State Department is
depleted of persons with talent, enemies with strength are knocking at
the
global door and this country is in the cross-hairs of adversarial
nations with nukes. Add to the chaos is a winter bomb cyclone pummeling
east coast millions. Of course, in Trump's feeble uninquisitive near
illiterate mind this is not related to global warming because it is
cold! He cannot cerebrally connect the difference between weather and
climate change. Power could go out and many could die from the cold
which will be zero or below with wind. What
else could happen? Oh yes, did I mention San Francisco had an
earthquake?
I
have never seen a worse historical era in my life. This national
insanity is worse than the Cuban Missile crisis, worse than
Watergate, worse than the violence of the 1960's, maybe even worse than
the dawn of WWII. At the apex of discord there is a crackpot at the
helm of the strongest nation on earth who is drunk with power he should
not have and has not a clue how to use it but does know he has a "big
button" nuclear biscuit on his desk with an itchy trigger finger just
dying to see how it works. Has he ever seen films of Hiroshima or
Nagasaki? I doubt it. Youtube could give him all the pictures he needs
to know of just what a nuclear blast would mean. Perhaps, he does not
even know how to get to Youtube but he surely does know how to tweet.
The tweeter-in-chief, uses only 140 characters with lousy grammar,
spelling errors galore, syntax of a five year old to convey a message
that imperils the world.
This
is what happens when the people place in high office incompetents who
care about
one thing they can derive from immense power ..... money! That is what
the Russia scandal is about -- money and the laundering of it with
conflicts of interest all over the globe. It is why Trump's
administration is embroiled in Everest size scandals and imploding.
Those who have the most wealth in this nation find it is not enough for
them. They want it all. They want all for them and nothing for anyone
else. Elect them at your peril.
What
did Ben Franklin say? "We MUST hang together or we will surely hang
separately." Trump is a beast as he lowers the corporate tax rate from 35%
to 21% ... let me say that again from 35 to 21% permanently, gives the middle class a
small break and then raises its tax because its tax cut is not permanent. He gives the middle class a small break to make one
stand on bended knee thanking him and kissing his ring for an extra 18 bucks in one's pay check.
Add to the egregious, unconstitutional not to mention unethical things
he and his oligarchic family with a little help from his Russian friends
have done and in finality he has raped this nation not only through
massive tax cuts he and his Republican henchmen gave
themselves and the top 2% but by excreting on our Constitution
specifically the Emoluments clause making millions off us.
If Clinton had ever done that ... well need I say more?
Trump is a curse on this nation. Add 1.5 trillion to the deficit through his tax cuts and guess with what this
cretinous glutton wants to fill the hole. If you said funds from Medicare, Social
Security and Medicaid -- YOU win the prize -- ill health and poverty for millions.
Medicare and Social Security are earned they are not
so called "entitlements." Your children and grandchildren will need
the availability of these programs to survive their retirement years.
Trump and his Republicans need to be electorally crushed!
A friend sent the
sentiments below to me. She is one of the nicest people I know who
lives the words on the sign. It is good advice for the New Year and
I
will try to perfect its thought although I know at times I will fall
short. We can only try to do the best we can with the life we were
given making the
best effort we can to transform the injustice and inequality suffering
of others into justice and equality for the world entire.
I must
confess. I want to reflect the characteristics of a Heather Hier who
gave her life in Charlottesville protesting against right wing
nationalism and extremists. She stood for the causes in which I
believe. I feel, in part, that I am like the person they say she was.
She was a person who stood for justice, had empathy for the poor and
wanted to provide hope to those who had none.
It
is the injustice of the Trump presidency I cannot bear. It is the lies
and the fact that he stands for the 2% richest while he says he stands
for the opposite. He is using, I believe, this presidency and the
people who should not support him, for one thing -- the money he can
make from it and them. I get infuriated by the injustice he has
perpetrated, the minorities he has hurt and the death his policies will
cause against those who can tolerate these injustices the least.
I am angry at the lies Trump tells but I am even angrier at the persons
who believe his lies and cement a low base that supports him. I am so
saturated with anger, fear and disbelief at this unjust and
unfit-for-the-presidency man who captured the the most powerful office
in the world that sometimes I verbally Vesuvian erupt when the situation
does not warrant I should. I fear I become more like the hardened
opposition I loathe then the people with whom I truly identify. So I
will say here, I am sorry for those things I say in anger; things that
should not be said by me. I say them because I am frightened for the
first time in my life by my country in which I had so much hope. This
nation which is capable of much humane social change has become
in this era at times unrecognizable to me. I begin to feel hopeless
that those in this nation who need help will not get it or, indeed, have
the things for which they worked so hard get taken away by the richest
among us who want it all and found a leader in a zero conscience Trump
who will give it all to them and take his helping of it as well.
The
last thing I would want is to become so hardened in my position that
like the opposition I do not see the real forest through the trees. The
real lush forest of our nation, I believe, is its ability to change and
to rescue those who face hardship in this nation and those who face it
in the nations of their births; those who face poverty, disease,
disenfranchisement and death in nations they once called home. Facebook
offers one the ability to state one's beliefs in a public forum. It is
so powerful that things stated in the heat of debate with faces hidden
from view can make one immune and not listen to opposing beliefs and
worse say things one would not say to another's face. I do not want to
become like that. I want to stand for humane policy, for understanding,
for empathy, for inclusion and, perhaps, most of all for the tolerance I
would want others to bestow upon me.
In
this New Year I will at least try to not say unto others that which I
would not want to said unto me. I will, in this New Year, I hope, try
to do better.
Happy New Year to all my friends and even to those who are not.
Though
the tax bill was the only piece of major legislation Trump was able to
get passed this year, the 45th president got plenty done
Donald Trump on Inauguration Day.
Patrick Semansky/AP
Last week, after the mad dash to pass the GOP tax bill and
last-minute scramble to fund the government, President Trump finally had
a moment to pause and reflect on his first year in office. And, as he
does when he has a thought, he tweeted
about it: "So many things accomplished by the Trump Administration,
perhaps more than any other President in first year. Sadly, will never
be reported correctly by the Fake News Media!"
The thing is: he's not entirely wrong. It's true the tax bill was the
first and only piece of major legislation he was able to get passed
this year – an almost unimaginable reality, considering his party has
control of both chambers of Congress – but even without many actual
bills to his name Trump has gotten quite a bit done this year. Starting with his very first act in office.
The
Federal Housing Administration was poised to cut mortgage fees the week
Trump was sworn in, a move that would have made home ownership more
accessible and less expensive for everyone across the board, but
especially for the poorest Americans – "the forgotten men and women" he
often spoke of on the campaign trail. Mortgage lenders, home builders
and real estate agents were united in their support for the move, but
Trump scrapped it an hour after the inauguration. His reason, outlined
in a letter from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was
vague: "more analysis and research" was needed to assess how "potential
market conditions in an ever-changing global economy" could impact
future rates, the agency said. Reportedly,
there was no reason. The decision was motivated by the fact that Trump
didn't want anything – no matter how popular or uncontroversial – going
through if it was endorsed by President Obama. The FHA decision was,
ultimately, emblematic of Trump's first year in office: a symbolic move
chiefly motivated by spite that had serious, negative consequences for
actual people. In this case, the change would mean as many as 40,000
buyers couldn't buy a home in 2017, according to estimates by the
National Association of Realtors; the week after the decision, mortgage applications dropped 3.2 percent.
Ironically,
Trump has been most successful at the very thing he criticized Obama
for – extensive use of executive orders to achieve his policy goals.
And, for all his high-profile legislative belly flops, since assuming
office nearly a year ago he's managed to do an incredible amount of
damage – to the environment, health, education, civil and labor rights –
entirely outside of Congress.
Here's a rundown.
Health careTrump failed, repeatedly, to repeal the
Affordable Care Act, but with the help of a Republican-controlled
Congress, he has found ways to undermine the law. The tax bill Congress
hastily approved just before the end of the year included a provision
repealing Obamacare's individual mandate to buy insurance. The mandate,
originally devised by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation, imposes
a penalty on anyone who doesn't buy insurance as a way to incentivize
more individuals to get coverage, expand the risk pool and drive down
costs. It's unclear what repealing the mandate will do, but economists
believe it will drive up health care premiums, causing the ranks of the uninsured to swell by almost one-third, or an estimated 41 million people, by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
ImmigrationJohn
Kelly's tenure as the head of the Department of Homeland Security was a
short but busy one. He oversaw the implementation of and court
challenges to Trump's Muslim ban. The Supreme Court ruled in December
that the full revised ban, restricting travel to the U.S. from six
majority-Muslim countries plus North Korea, could go into effect while
challenges to the law work their way through the court system. (A
handful of government officials from Venezuela and their family members
are also banned by the order.)
The Muslim ban has received the
most attention, but Trump also has managed sweeping reversals of
Obama-era immigration policies. Under Trump, ICE is hiring thousands of
new agents (it plans to double in size by 2023) and enlisting the help of local police,
expanding the criteria for deportation and fast-tracking deportation
hearings. Kelly withdrew an Obama-era memo, never implemented, that would have protected the parents of U.S. citizens from deportation and suspended a proposed visa that would have encouraged entrepreneurs from other countries to remain in the U.S.
Pending
action by Congress, Trump will end the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program, or DACA, which granted protected status to 690,000
people who came to the U.S. as children.
He ended a program that granted temporary legal residence to children who fled to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,
impacting more than 2,700; ordered 2,500 Nicaraguans and 60,000
Haitians with provisional residency to leave the country over the next
two years; slashed the number of refugees the U.S. would accept by more
than half, from 110,000 to 45,000; and imposed new screening procedures
that could drive that number even lower. Refugee resettlement this year
dropped precipitously – as of October, 1,242 and arrived in the U.S. in
2017, compared to 9,945 the previous year.
Sessions reversed discrimination protections
for transgender workers and did away with a rule that would have ensured
homeless transgender individuals could choose to stay at the
sex-segregated shelter that matched their gender identity. He also
issued new guidance on the interpretation of religious freedom, a move that civil rights advocates worry will give religious groups grounds to discriminate against LGBT people.
Trump's EPA greenlit completion of both the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines. The Keystone XL, according to a report produced by Obama's EPA, will increase and accelerate
the rate at which greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere,
worsening climate change. Construction also threatens habitats of a
number of endangered species, including the whooping crane and swift
fox. The Dakota Access pipeline threatens the safety of drinking water.
Trump reduced Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments
by two million acres, introducing the possibility of future oil and
natural gas exploration, mining and logging in an area sacred to local
Native American tribes. He lifted an Obama-era moratorium on coal mining on public lands,
signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to
re-examine a ban on offshore drilling and revoked an order protecting
the northern Bering Sea region in Alaska. Though he probably
doesn't realize it, Trump benefits from doing so many ridiculous things
that his crises steal attention from each other. Recall the overwhelming
year of Trump. Watch below.
My Comment: This
article makes my head explode. If you are not feeling the same effects
I wonder why. What composes the character of a man that would
reintroduce cancer and other disease causing chemicals into the
environment and open up gorgeous pristine areas with beautiful scenery
killing animals that live there to the spoliation and pollution of oil
drilling and gas exploration two known causes of global climate change.
Does this ignorant Cretan president with his evil numb heart and his
know nothing family not enjoy breathing? Do you not want your family
to enjoy good health? This man is not only a malevolent danger to us
but to future generations if his policies remain intact. I do not know
how if one loves their family or even cares about oneself anyone on
planet earth could call themselves in this modern era Republican and be
proud. Our nation has enacted post WWII many life threatening policies and conducted the killing field of slaughter all over the world of which I have often been an ardent critic but never did I think the majority of this nation's heart was was cruel, unjust and without an ounce of character or conscience until now that it has seen fit through an electoral college flue to elect this Trojan Horse Trump. He is a killer with zero conscience, hides his face under a metaphor KKK sheet and is said to alleged have a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf at his bedside. The fact that can believe that true tells one all one nees to know about the content of this man's rancid character. RESIST BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
I
do not have the ability to do something
like that nor the psychological daring it would take to do it.
However, this man probably did more to impact our cause, to collect the
anger no furiousness against not only this Republican economic horse
dung bill but the lies about the Republicans' everything under the
sun as well as a bill they name in Orwellian fashion the "Tax Cut and
"Jobs" Act" which is, in reality, the opposite of what these Republican
liars and con
men named it. More appropriately it should be called "The
Middle-class Jobs Cut and Tax Act for the Rich" bill. I say good for you,
Robert Strong.
What a great Dickensian name for the deliverer of such a profound and
correct
response. Millions of us salute and bless you, Mr. Strong, for having the guts to do what
millions upon millions of American middle class, working class and the poor would have loved to be
able to do! Time Magazine, name Robert Strong "Man of the Year!"
you are to blame in extremis for starting the Trump campaign of
chaos on its road to failure. Bannon, take advice from allegedly
your Catholic faith "Do not criticize someone with a speck in his eye
when you have a log in your own."
Bannon, you
characterized the essence of the American public in error. You thought
it was reflective of how you feel about life. You took an extremist
right wingnut part of the electorate which was always there but on the
political periphery, ratcheted it up and gave it a screaming voice
using Trump as its mouthpiece. It is why Trump lost the popular vote
by 3 million. An Electoral College fluke did not give you the beating
heart of our democracy. The extremist anger you hold elected Trump
because those who hold that anger are not only are angry but many
are haters of "the other" a left over from history. Lincoln Rockwell
(one of the first American Nazis who was gunned down by one of his own),
George Wallace, Bull Connor and others were always there but got
nowhere because when all is accounted for most American hearts, as Anne
Frank might have said, are basically good and because the arc of our
history is long and bends toward justice in the long run justice
prevails. Your Republican Party has been turned, over many election
cycles since Nixon's Moral Majority, into the Party of hate so the
Democratic opposition has a glowing chance now to not only in one
election crush Republicans but destroy in the process the Republican
Party as we have known it in the modern era. It
will take time to disinfect this poison and cleanse it from our body
politic but it will be done. This nation did not fight WWII for
nothing. We fought it, won it and stopped fascism in its tracks. That is
the true essence of our people and you missed it. You
have shown what happens when the Republican Party goes extremist right.
It is ultimately rejected because some of those others you hate so
much who need the help that only government can provide will
organize with their allies and rise up to defeat you. Count me in as
part of that electoral insurrection. Moreover, isolationism and
"America first" foreign policy does not work. We are an economically
global society affected by world business and opinion. We must take
part in world discourse understanding its needs as well as our own and
we must acknowledge science which will have the last word.
I don't know what made you and Trump, as I see you, the
psychologically sick bestial creatures that you are but to have
inflicted your hate on our once decent hearted people makes me feel
profound sadness not for you but for our nation. You and all you
represent will be defeated soundly soon. Never again,
I hope,
will our nation fail to stop those with a political agenda filled with
psychological malady, perfidy, treason, and the exclusion of "the
other." Our forebears came here to achieve a better life, to breathe
free and for shelter from death itself. Lady Liberty tells us that.
I
thought if Trump had changed his mantra and moved to the left of his
extremist right positions, ditched his hateful rhetoric and policy,
stopped tweeting alienating nearly everyone here and many around the
world he actually could have had a charismatic and decent presidency.
History would have judged him more kindly. Instead he will leave
office shamed and history throughout the ages will define him with a
harsh verdict. It will define him as a political
American
exception to the
general
American
rule. The fault, paraphrasing Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar,"
dear Bannon, is not in the stars but in you!
