Trump's Proposed Policies Will Not Achieve Their Goals

George Will on Trade Policy and Thomas Friedman on Israel explain why what Trump is proposing will not help the people they are aimed at helping.

Link to George Will column

Link to Thomas Friedman


And if you bothered to click on this post,  I have a depressing reward for you.  Millions of American Voters on both sides of the partisan divide believe in conspiracy theory and distrust government officials who try to persuade them otherwise.  That is not a good thing for our democracy.

Link to Washington Post column on Conspiracy Belief

Israel is Reckless, not the U.S. abstention from a U.N. Vote

It is the legislative GOP that termed the U.S. failure to veto a U.N. resolution condemning illegal West Bank Settlements as reckless.  The Settlements are what is reckless.

If you don't give the Palestinians a state with enough land for the people to live on, they will live in Greater Israel and they will be the majority.  You then have the vision to see what will happen.  There is no room for an Israeli democracy, there is only room for either a South African Apartheid system which will generate unending violence in protest of such a system or an Israeli generated genocide against those Palestinians who cannot live on the land that Conservative Israelis want to live on. Both would shame me as an individual of Jewish descent.

I don't understand why a majority of Israeli's don't see this.   And I don't understand why the GOP doesn't understand this.

Wow, Jennifer Rubin Blasts Donald Trump (again)

For those of you who do not know, Jennifer Rubin is a believer in a very conservative form of government and has consistently supported main stream members of the GOP even when they were acting outrageously.

But she has no tolerance for Donald Trump.

Link To column on Trump's love of chaos

A Conservative Can Be a Liberal, but it requires everyone to meet in the middle

Michael Gerson says it better than me.

Link to column

Ayn Rand Wins

It comes out somehow that the reason Donald Trump likes Rex Tillerson is they are both fans of Ayn Rand.  So is Paul Ryan.  And when you look at the mix of Billionaire and ex-Military men in the nominated Cabinet members it is easy to discern Trump's philosophy of he only likes people around him who project strength and a willingness to use the rules and power they have to enrich themselves and protect themselves from any attack.  This of course has led to abuse of power and contracts in many cases in history.

I have not read Ayn Rand, I tried once but it was too dense for what I like to read.  The synopsis of what she stands for is "own Happiness is the primary goal of each individual" and anything that encourages that should be allowed by the government.

But in our corporate America, with the premise in place by the Supreme Court that corporations are individuals, that can lead to a principle that corporations should have the power to maximize shareholders wealth over all other interested parties including society at large.

While it is certainly true that individual's rights are greater than society in some or many cases, there are other cases where society's need is greater than the individual's rights.  Freedom of speech and the right to not be discriminated against are in the 1st category, while the need to pay for national defense, protect the environment and provide a social safety net are in the latter category.  Where you draw the line on this is the basic difference between the parties and the campaign was not run in a manner where these lines were clearly delineated because the campaign was run in the gutter.

So while Trump did not get a mandate, he is preparing to govern like he did get a mandate.  Lord help the balance that we have seen in the past between Republican and Democratic Presidents has been tossed out the door and right now I can only imagine the worst as "individual pursuit of happiness" becomes the governing mantra.

As this becomes clearer, I get madder and madder at the Clinton campaign.  They believed they had an electoral college strategy, but they lost the 12 swing states by 800,000 votes.  I truly believe they were so full of themselves and convinced they had the right strategy that they never operated below 30,000 feet and got trampled in rural America because they ignored rural America.

Democrats have to find a set of policies and communication strategies that appeal to rural America.

Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats are going to have to find a balance between obstruction and getting things passed that can help Democrats campaign in rural America.

Ignorance Should be a Disqualification for Senior Government Jobs

But what can you expect from a reality TV star.

The Head of the EPA will be a climate denier.

The Head of HUD doesn't seem to recognize reality outside of the operating room.

The Head of Labor should be heading the Commerce Department.

I am sure this list will get longer but I have to go to Virginia for the weekend and a majority of voters in too many states couldn't care less.

Why I Think Donald Trump Won the Election

Well, he didn't win the popular vote so you cannot say the Democratic ideas were rejected by a majority of the people.  But he did win the Electoral College by winning about 100,000 votes across some key states.

Yes, he coalesced the Alt-Right in all its variations but they haven't voted for a Democrat in a good number of years.  So that is not the reason 100,000 people who used to vote for a Democrat voted for Trump.

I think the reason is these people (i) could not afford gridlock in Washington anymore and (ii) they are so cut off from their traditional points of education (unions, union shops, factory floors, mines) that they swallowed Trump's anti-immigrant anti-free trade economic policies even though the ideas they bought will never be implemented; although Trump will do his best to create the aura that he is doing something along those lines.

There isn't much the Democrats can do to restore the traditional points of education, but neither can the Republicans do that.  So the Democrats have to find a way to end gridlock while protecting the economic interests of the middle class.  I know it is ironic and heartbreaking to reward Mitch McConnell's "Just Say No" policy, but the Democrats have to become the party that has policies and Congressional action that gives these 100,000 people hope.  Because it was 100,000 people this year,  it could be 500,000 or 1,000,000 people in a few more years.  Economic interests are not unique to white voters.

The Democrats must find a way to be competitive in most of the 50 states without giving up protections for every individual and the environment.

The Importance of Being Able to Trust Your Government

I had to answer some questions about what I what I thought about the presidential election and after I finished I realized that I was depressed in a way in the aftermath of the election.  Then RSL and I went to a movie last night.  On the way, she told me that she had to let a rant go and I shouldn't say anything to interrupt her.

Her main point was that she could not trust anything representatives of the incoming government say and that meant she could not watch the nightly news and would have to read various publications to find out the truth.  While there has always been a truth to that condition, it is especially important since we have a President elect that sees lying as a tool of manipulation to get what he wants.  And we have a GOP Congress that has used words to camouflage their real intent for 20 years or so.  So you cannot trust the GOP's words, you have to follow their actions which makes watching the TV news worthless.

So why is it important for people to able to trust their government?  I think the answer to that question leads us back to civil order and the condition that people must be able to trust their government if they are to support that government.  If that condition is not met, people are unnerved, in distress emotionally and there is the potential for civil disorder if a critical mass of such people form a group.

That is why words and truthfulness matter.  If leader's words promote a lack of order it can communicate to other people that they will be able to get away with things that appear to be in sync with those words.  No where is this more true than with the reality that people in authority (police and random white males) are murdering black males of all ages on a semi-routine basis all over this country.  And I can only see racist behavior, supported by an unmeasurable but fairly widespread basis of fellow white people, as the root cause of this rampage.  Nothing Donald Trump or GOP Congressional legislators has said could be considered supporting punishment for white people who murder black men.  And now in 2 days we have a star football player shot dead in front of a gas station at 3:45 p.m. by a businessman after a traffic incident and a lone juror wants to find the S.C. policeman who shot an unarmed Walter Scott in the back innocent.

Civil Order is at risk because words matter.  Policies matter.  Every citizen deserves to be treated with respect by both representatives of the government and each other.  When representatives of the government use words to encourage discrimination they reduce trust in government by those who will be subject to that discrimination and those who disagree with the government.

P.S.  I forgot to mention the movie we saw last night, Loving.  It was about the true story of how Virginia in 1958 still had a law that they enforced forbidding interracial marriage.  Many of the arguments used in support of that law are being used today by various GOP politicians and supporters to justify their positions on a number of issues.  Fortunately, the Supreme Court in 1967 ruled the Virginia marriage law unconstitutional.   I wonder if the Robert's Court would do so once Trump gets done with his Supreme Court appointments over the next 3 years.  That is enough to make me distrust this incoming government and I am generally not a cynic.

A Poetic Interlude to Start Today

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.  "Give me your tired , your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

These long ago written words by Emma Lazarus have always made me proud to be a citizen of a country that stood for good and action in support of that good.  That is so far from the spirit of hate that dominates the Tea Party, The Freedom Caucus, and Trumpism.  That spirit of hatefulness is so in contrast to Ronald Reagan's statement:

"Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion.  It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy."

Right now I don't have much hope for such sentiments to be present in the next four years of government policy.  We have a Federalist Society that is salivating at the prospect of getting 3 Supreme Court justices who agree with their beliefs approved over the next 4 years.  What does that mean practically?

Well, you can anticipate Roe v Wade being overturned.  You can anticipate further tightening of state flexibility to control guns.  You can anticipate a reduction of Federal powers in favor of state powers, except on gun control or perhaps a woman's right to choose.

But I digress because my sadness for what such a Supreme Court stands behind is overwhelming when it comes to issues that effect the poor and the Middle Class.

The ironic reality is that the Democrats lost this election because they lost their focus on the economy and instead focused on all these issues of basic fairness.  People want to know that their personal economy is doing well and if it is not, they will vote for someone who they think cares about them.  if you are suffering economically, fairness to others declines as a priority.

It is not clear that the GOP has any policies that will help them nor is it clear whether those to be disappointed voters will ever return to supporting Democrats.  But this is where the Democrat's need to focus.  Unlike those long ago immigrants, few of these angry economic voters want to move to somewhere where there are jobs.  They want the jobs to be where they live now.  There is no path to fixing the Supreme Court other than winning elections in Red State legislatures and governorships and Congressional Districts and that will require a focus on economic policies.

I guess I have returned to a mourning stage after reading those words that inspired me so long ago. Perhaps we can drape the Statue of Liberty in black.

The Problem With Medicare Vouchers

The House GOP is getting ready to blast us with their best ideas to reform government programs in their vision.  Only the Senate (thank goodness) and of course, President Elect Trump, stand in their way.  Since I do not trust Trump, we can only hope the Senate has a sufficient number of rational people to stand the House of Representatives down.

I have seen in the wake of Trump, many consider Speaker Ryan to be a reasonable policy wonk.  He is a policy wonk but what he wants is the out and out dismantling of federal government support for the social safety net:  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.

So today we review his plan for Medicare, which would give all old people a voucher to buy health insurance in the market place.  Sounds a bit like ObamaCare but they want to dismantle that.  If ObamaCare is not good for people under 65, why is it good for people over 65?

That is rhetorical question of course.  If Ryan knew of a politically viable way to end Medicare, he would, but he knows he can't do that.  So what he wants to do is end traditional Medicare, which is a PPO system with the Federal government setting the price it pays for each service.  This is the so-called Plan A & B combination and most people with money buy a supplemental policy to cover the holes in Ab& B.  What Ryan wants to do is make everybody only able to use Plan C.  He would give people a voucher to pay for a Plan C.

Plan C's are a private sector health insurance plans for people over 65.  They are generally cheaper to the citizen than a Plan A& B with a supplemental plans, but in a Plan C you are actually in an HMO.  If the Dr's in the HMO were constant, this might be OK, but the HMO's and Dr's are constantly in a battle over pricing and which Dr's are in a specific Plan C is in flux from one year to the next.  So you have a condition, you like your Dr and he suddenly is gone from your Plan C and you have to get a new Dr.  This might be OK at 65, but how many 85 year olds can manage this well.

What is wrong with Plan A & B? Nothing, except it is a Federal Government Plan that controls costs and allows people to go to the Dr of their choice, who accepts the price that the government will pay. This all works very well for most older people who do not want it to change.  If they do want a Plan C and an HMO, they go into Plan C.  If they are like my wife who likes her specific Dr.'s very well, you go into Plan A & B with a supplemental.

And what happens in the future if the cost of Plan C's exceeds the value of the vouchers?  The elderly citizens of America will have to find the additional $ in their budget to pay for health insurance.  And guess who will have to approve paying for new treatments or end of life care, the private insurance companies who did such a good job of controlling health care expense before ObamaCare.  These private sector insurance companies are also perfectly comfortable performing the Death Panel Role that Governor Palin was so afraid of in ObamaCare.  All these companies say is, "The Procedure is not approved,  good luck."

What the House GOP wants to do here is bad policy for the citizens of the country.

Happy Thanksgiving

And to my foreign readers, I hope you have a holiday that is as much fun as this one is for America.

Family/Friends get together.  There are sports to watch.  Different people bring their favorite dishes and everyone contributes to the get together.  Traditions are maintained and evolve.  One of my favorite memories was my 1st Thanksgiving away from the home cycle with friends at 5050 South Lake Short Drive.  We ate way too much and I learned pacing is important.

There is little to be happy about politically except that there is the reality that this election will wake up the Democratic party that it needs to have more balance.  I do believe the Democrats have more balance than the GOP but they didn't demonstrate it in this election and it cost them some key states. Hillary is now 2 mm votes ahead nationally, but her margin of victory was concentrated in the 500 or so counties that produce 65% of GDP and participate in the global economy.  The other 2500 or so counties produced this election result.  Since raising the minimum wage, providing access to health insurance, respecting the rights of all individuals, focusing government policy on education and training people who want to be trained and maintaining infrastructure are all Democratic policies that should resonate in these rural areas, it is clear that the Clinton campaign got overly focused on Trump and forgot the policy message.  For that colossal failure, the Democratic party staff needs new blood. The old ways did not work and if it is not fixed at the local state level by 2020, the gerrymandered advantage that the GOP has will be maintained and there will be no progress.  This is the critical path for the Democrats.

Now what is there to be happy about.  I could be happy about some things Trump has done but since I l believe him to be 100% only about his personal wealth, I don't trust him.  I think the only way to approach Donald Trump and his GOP, is with brute force and zero Trust.  That puts a huge burden on the Senate Democrat's, but they need to pick their battles carefully so a balanced message about the party can be maintained at the local level.  Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, that means a liberal Supreme Court is toast.  Fighting the battle there will not deliver the right message in those 2500 counties.  It needs to be fought in the arena of economic justice because this election was decided by anger at the gridlock that the GOP generated.  So if gridlock is to be the result, the Democrats need to make sure the GOP is responsible for it, unless there is a clear economic message to be gained by the Democrats.

That is the great tragedy of this election.  The leadership of the Democratic Party had a chance to maintain certain Supreme Court positions about justice and eventually reverse some of the more extreme decisions that have given corporations rights that belong only to individuals.  They blew it. As an individual who cares about equality and fairness, I am disgusted by the Alt-Right Supreme Court members.  This election was a once in a life time opportunity for the Democrats to do something about this trends.  Now I will likely be a elderly person before a similar opportunity appears.  Meanwhile, an unknown number of issues regarding fairness and equality will be decided in favor of less fairness and less equality.

Fortunately, I don't work in the political arena.  So I can only blog about it and vote.  I live in a globalized city and can hope that the state I live in manages to maintain access to health insurance for many.  I will focus my concerns on things I can control like my golf game where I got a tip last time out which may make a big difference.  I don't understand why all those instructors didn't mention my need to stand taller.

Anger is exhausting as I previously wrote and the holiday season should be a time of joy and happiness.

Alt Right Has a Seat at the Talbe

This is an unfortunate truth about this election.  But the Alt Right is not a group in agreement.  I picked all this up in my waking up haze listening to "On the Media' on NPR.  There are 4 Groups which I cannot recall here and their objectives vary quite a bit in emphasis.

But one guy who sounds reasonable spoke with clarity.  I will get to why I do not agree with him later in this blog.

He believes all groups vote within their self interest and white people should do the same.  He believes individuals have a right to discriminate against anybody they wish to discriminate against, but the government does not have a right to such discrimination.  He believes that whites should congregate in like communities and be free to practice their discrimination against any individual within that community that they want to.  Minorities within that area can move away if they don't like it.  He thinks all ethnic groups behave this way already, but the government only enforces whites to not behave this way.  He believes that this is the essence of American liberty and the government forcing heterosexual white people to accept gay marriage and any other number of issues like that is an affront to their civil liberty and that anybody who doesn't agree with them is closed minded and ignorant.

I like to think of myself and open minded and knowledgable, which is why I write this blog to educate the world about truths as I understand them from my education, experience, reading and travel.

And I do not agree with him.

The problem with his train of thought, is that when groups congregate into like minded people, not everybody within that area (lets call it a "State") will be of the same race or religion.  And when like minded people congregate they gain political power.  And historically, they used the state to exercise political power and discriminate against individual and minority groups.  While some minorities can and do move away from this State, others cannot afford to and have the right to stay where they are. That is the history of African Americans, Jews, Asians and Gay people in America.  Making that exercise of power to discriminate against anybody illegal is the essence of the Civl Rights Act of 1964.  And it is Federal control over State's Rights on the ability to authorize legal discrimination of individuals against individuals because when individuals congregate together and act in a certain way, even if they feel that is their individual right, they are acting as a government body.

While the individual may have the right to do something within their small environment, as a group they do not have such rights as even this individual acknowledged that the government cannot discriminate.  So forcing a baker to provide a cake for a gay wedding is perhaps a step too far, but when it comes to drawing the line in such a way, it is a slippery slope from one cake, to other forms of discrimination and criminality against minorities as group think.  That is why there can be no legally sanctioned discrimination by individuals at a State level.

This is where the real fight in Congress is going to be on Alt-right issues.

Insomnia Returns, Clarity is the Result

This is for my fellow Democrats and members of the Global Economy.

Hillary won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College because last minute deciders in the Rust Belt went overwhelmingly to Trump.  These last minute deciders were traditional Democrats who have felt abandoned by the Democratic economic message.  The ironic thing is President Obama tried to help some of them with infrastructure spending that was not approved by the GOP led Congress. So it will be a horrific statement on GOP partisanship over the good of the country if Trump proposes and the Congress approves plans for infrastructure spending.

But that is not my primary message.  Democrats need less change in actual policy issues they support than they do a change in messaging.  This election from the Democratic side was focused on civil liberties and equal rights.  I care about those issues, but as a former President Clinton once said, "It is the economy."  Hillary did not champion the economy and her "deplorable's" comment, while in a speech that was otherwise respectful toward these people who care 1st and foremost about their economic interest, contributed to a perspective within those rural people that the members of the global economy around the big cities do not care about them and do not respect them.  That needs to be changed if the Democrats are to win the Electoral College.

I Will Be Writing Far Less

There is nothing I can say here that will change what I believe will be a political hell hole in Washington D.C. when either Trump realizes he can only do so much without Congressional votes and the Congress has two unmovable objects which hate each other (Freedom Caucus vs the Democrats).

About the only things I can think of that will really help Trump's supporters get the employment they sought with their votes, is corporate tax reform and infrastructure spending.  I think Trump will be more focused on cutting personal tax rates and the Freedom Caucus will be against infrastructure spending.  Meanwhile, if the ACA is repealed but Insurance companies cannot protect themselves against cherry picking people who get sick and then buy insurance, the cost of health insurance will rise even more than it has.  So the working white stiff in podunk town will not see better employment and will see the cost of health insurance become unaffordable under GOP policies.

I suspect they will be mad as hell when that happens and the Democrats will have to figure out some policy mix that I haven't thought of to campaign on against the GOP.

So that is it for now.  I have a part-time job and will be volunteering doing tax returns for the working poor and elderly, so I will not have much time to rant here.  But check back periodically, I may get inspiration once in a while.

And hope the U.S. East has a snowy winter.  We are in a drought and need H20 to fall from the sky.

I am Working my Way Through the Grieving Process

I have been through the phases of anger, shock, disgust, acceptance and decided how I will deal with a Trump Presidency.  The 1st thing I must say is I voted against my economic interest because as a former member of the 1% I have substantial savings and as long as the Trump policies do not cause a U.S. recession/depression (which if he implements them, they will) I will personally be fine.

I think Trump understands that he won the election because people were angry about the effects of globalization upon their local communities.  That is why the Democrats lost rural white Democratic voters.  So I think Trump will back off some of his more extreme economic policy positions, but as with anything with this despicable human being, we don't know for sure.  But hotel occupancy rates and luxury destinations do not do well in economic downturns. The key question is when he wants to increase infrastructure spending will the Freedom Caucus let him or will they be overruled by the Center.

Hillary won the popular vote (barely) so the issue for Democrat's is what do you do about gaining back your market share in the rust belt without upsetting your ultra left wing types.  The interesting thing to me is that Jill Stein did not see the damage she could do to women's rights.  Although she cost Hillary only two states (Michigan & Wisconsin), that would not have given Hillary 270 electoral college votes and the election would have gone to the House where you know who would have been elected.  But with the absolute importance of the Supreme Court as an Issue (but not one that I believe decided the election), you would think Ms. Stein would have considered this issue.  Of course, maybe she did and she is Pro-Life, so she might be thrilled about his possibility as opposed to global warming about which she is passionate about.

I have written since the inception of this blog as to the difficulties in designing policies that help those left behind by globalization because advances in technology are such a complementary factor to that globalization.  So I have no idea what Trump will actually propose and try to implement because I don't think he knows.

So I have decided to not watch T.V. News (sorry NewsHour and CBS News) because I cannot stand Donald Trump's voice.  I will just read the newspapers that RedStateVT thinks are all biased.  We will see where the Democrats filibuster and thank goodness I will be on Medicare in 20 months. Whatever, the GOP does about Health Insurance in 2017, I will only have to live 8 months in 2018 with their new design.  Knock on wood, I may even be healthy enough to risk going uninsured for 8 months although that would not be my 1st choice given the importance of catching cancer early and the Russian Roulette that cancer is to anyone over the age of 50.  And we know Donald Trump supports Social Security and Medicare, about the only concrete thing he promised was that he would protect those programs.  Of course, he could change his mind about that.

Meanwhile, the law suits against Trump University will continue in late November so we could have a sitting President sitting in a trial testifying about his fraudulent corporate design.  In addition to all the despicable words that he has said and tweeted, his unethical business practices, he may well have sponsored a fraudulent activity in Trump University.  We have elected a potential guilty as charged criminal as President.  Will there be an Impeachment if he is found guilty in this civil trial?

I don't know, but it won't change the damage to liberal beliefs that this election will result in because of the Supreme Court.  And Ralph Nadar has no regrets about his costing Al Gore Florida in 2000.  I wonder what he really believes in.  I think he might be right wing undercover plant.  I blame Ralph Nadar more than anybody else for the bleak future of liberal beliefs over the next 20 years.  What is it with the Green's.  I am pro-environment, but not at the expense of economic growth and winning elections.  If you don't win elections, the anti-environment people win the elections.

Meanwhile, legal marijuana was on 7 ballots the other day, and every result I could find resulted in passage.  So, not every liberal cause is in jeopardy.

This Election is Costing Me Sleep, because Donald Trump will implement certain policies if Elected

I have not slept soundly through the night for some time now. I wake up between 3 & 4 or 5, relieve my prostate system, put buds in my ears and listen to the BBC.  There is nothing better to put me to sleep than the phrasings and tonality of a British accent.  I thank my 80+ year old friend Ed in BTV for turning me on to this.

But of course this morning they were discussing the U.S. election and my fears of what a Donald Trump win would mean overcame any inclination to return to sleep.  So I got up and began to type.

A speaker, unidentified to my brain said that Donald Trump does have 3 policies that you can count on him implementing and that is the basis for much of his support which has captured 3 groups of supporters:  Private Sector Union Workers, Tea Party supporters and America First/Isolationist types.

1.  Lower taxes and Reduced Free Trade

2.  Stop immigration

3.  No more promotion of democracy and nation building in Foreign Policy

That is what in my mind allowed Donald Trump to be nominated.  To that I would add the following which has allowed Evangelicals and Business types to get in line behind Trump even if they don't agree with #'s 2 & 3 or parts of #1.

4.  Do nothing about Global Warming & reverse Obama's Executive Orders

5.  Repeal ObamaCare

6.  Appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and support prior decisions on Guns and Corporations have a Right to Free Speech and money is a form of speech.

Now what can you say for sure about such policies and this is why I could not sleep anymore.

Donald Trump's policies will end the America that represents Hope and that is the basis upon which so many Americans take pride in their country.  And why so many in the world want to be here if they could.  So basically Trump's policies are aimed at killing the founding premise of this country.

Why do I say that?  Well look at what each of these polices will actually accomplish.

1.  Lower Taxes will result in less government spending on defense and Human Services because Trump has said he will not touch Social Security or Medicare.  If he stops paying interest on our debt, which he has said he might do, there will be a financial crisis and my ability to support myself from my investments will be harmed.  Tearing up Trade Agreements will reduce corporate profits because business flows are build upon the rules that exist and changing them is not a positive.  We could have a depression from Trump's economic policies if he balances the budget.  That will crush hope.

2.  Removing 11 mm people from the U.S. will reduce GDP and cause a recession.  It will also require a police state apparatus that Trump can use for his own purposes as President.  That will crush hope.

And when doing #1 & #2 won't return the jobs to the Americans who support Trump because America doesn't have a manufacturing crisis.  We produce as much today as we did 30 years ago with far fewer workers because of technology advances and Trump cannot roll that backwards.  So that will crush hope when those avid supporters realize there is no change for them in Make America Great Again.

3.  Allowing Authoritarian Governments to operate unchallenged will crush the hope for those people who are subject to them.

4.  Doing nothing about Global Warming will depress anyone who cares about this issue and that will crush hope.

5.  ObamaCare needs to be adjusted but Trump has not said what he will do to replace it, only that he will repeal it as his 1st act of legislation.  So what will repeal actually result in.  Insurance companies will go back to discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.  People who cannot afford their health insurance without subsidies will go uninsured again.  There will be chaos in hospital finances as the uninsured who cannot pay will flock to emergency rooms when they must get medical care.  The hospitals will seek to get reimbursement from those who can pay just like they used to and everybody's health insurance will cost more.  Unless, in the repeal, the Congress repeals the requirement that passed under Ronald Reagan that hospitals must provide care to anybody who shows up at their door (not to mention that the Hippocratic Oath might require them to do that also).  Anyway, this will destroy hope.

6.  Overturning Roe v Wade will be a slow moving issue.  We don't know what states will be allowed to do vs. what Congress might pass as national policy once the Supreme Court rules.  But we do know at least that if states are allowed to do their own thing, women in some states will be allowed to make their own decisions.  But women in other states will not have that choice and if they don't have the money to go to another state, they will bring into this world a child that may be unloved, may be brought up in unfortunate circumstances, may have physical and mental challenges, or may be an orphan at birth because the mother could not be saved because of new laws forbidding an abortion even for the safety of the mother's health.  That will destroy hope.

So that is what the Republican Party stands for today and it is depressing to me that 40% to 45% of Americans can support that vision.  That is not a country I want to live in because there is no hope.

How can there be hope when a person's unrestricted right to a gun is more important than my right to not be shot by someone with a gun?  How can there be hope, when the police state has the right to take or shoot anyone who fits a profile?  How can there be hope, when access to health insurance is dependent upon an employer being able to afford to help workers?  How can there be hope, when women are second class citizens if they don't comply with Evangelical views of how the world should operate.

I was raised in a small town which took pride in every way about the story of immigration and hard work in a society that rewarded effort.  It was quietly religious, but private about religion and didn't care what a neighbor's religion was.

My brain says how do I deal with this if Trump wins, but my heart cannot contemplate this eventuality.  My brain says maybe I should just commit suicide because I know I will be depressed and fearful about this loss of hope, but my heart cannot go down that path.  I have things I still want to do in this life.  I will probably need lots of Asian medical treatments to reduce my stress which my anger will create.  I am angry that so many people can support policies that destroy hope.  Hope has been the basis of my being from my earliest days.  I didn't really realize that until the end of this election.

Why Trump is Far More Unethical and Dangerous Than Hillary

Who knows what is in the pervert Hot Dog's emails?  And if he wasn't married to Hillary's aide, Huma, it wouldn't affect her.  In fact, since the FBI doesn't know what is in those emails, I don't know how they know it might involve Hillary.  But they got their subpoena and now they can figure it out.

I suspect it will be nothing.  But that has not stopped some people (I cannot imagine who they are or on what basis they decide who they will vote for), from saying to pollsters that they are changing their vote from Hillary to Trump.  I guess they have forgotten all the unstable things he has done.

Michael Gerson looks at the issue from more objective eyes than I have, but reached the same conclusion.  As a nation we would have to be absolutely crazy to elect Donald Trump our President.

Link to Gerson column

and Jennifer Rubin piles on with Trump's Russia smoke.  He had a server connected to a Russian bank for private communication.

Both of Gerson and Rubin are GOP pundits.

Link to Rubin column

Jennifer Rubin abandons the Republican Party

"Surely there is a sufficient body of people in the center-right who are entirely and thoroughly disgusted with the existing GOP. The once Grand Old Party has come to embody the heinous qualities that liberals unfairly attributed to all Republicans (e.g. hostile to women, the poor and immigrants) and as a political matter has atrophied and accommodated itself to charlatans, snake-oil salesmen and alt-right bigots. Don’t try to reason with this crowd; just up and go."

"Center-right Americans committed to a strong national security policy, free markets with a humane safety net and corrupt-free politics can just leave the GOP and start something new. No furrowed brows and sweating over whether to fire Reince Priebus would be needed. No need to figure out how to expel the evangelical charlatans who believe in nothing but their own power. No need to figure out how to keep talk-radio hecklers and fake Fox News figures from spreading nonsense and making the party dumber by the year. No need to wrest control of early primaries from states that favor fringe candidates."

"Plant a flag, announce your principles and then decide whom you want to invite. Save all the energy that otherwise would be wasted on another useless autopsy report and arguing with people who threw away every conviction to support Trump."

"Instead, these refugees from the GOP can draft a simple statement rejecting the politics of division, misinformation, anger, racism and misogyny. They should not be shy about going on record to condemn the nomination of someone as patently unfit for public office as Trump. They should vow to support candidates of principle and good character."

"The charter for the New Party, or whatever it is called, should not be a laundry list of positions but rather a commitment to practice civil politics and to respect fellow Americans. Conservative habits — moderation, gradualism, tolerance, humility, rational balancing of conflicting concerns, respect for institutions that comprise civil society (from families to churches to volunteer groups) — should be front and center. It is these ideals and habits of mind, even more than issue positions, that will separate the New Party’s politics from the old Republican Party."

"Anti-intellectualism should be rejected as should the nostalgia for a bygone America that never really existed. The new movement must embrace modernism — which, yes, entails a global economy, a diverse American population, a refusal to cut ourselves off from the world and a commitment to government reform of the tax code, anti-poverty measures, criminal justice, immigration, education, health care, etc. The New Party cannot blow on the embers of the Reagan Revolution in a vain effort to rekindle a 40-year-old flame."

Link to Column

Anger is Very Tiring

I don't know about you but I am mentally exhausted by this campaign.  While watching the NLCS be won by the Cub's for their first championship in 71 years, I was subject to Donald Trump PAC advertisements slamming Hillary with falsehoods that were deemed to be falsehoods months ago.

Of course, this is all in support of a guy who spouted Birthism for years and is still reluctant to admit that he was wrong about any number of lies that he has promulgated.

Which only makes me more exhausted.  We have the future spectacle that the House of Representatives will be controlled nominally by the GOP, but in reality will likely be in the control of the Freedom Caucus which will have the sole goal of stopping a President Clinton of accomplishing anything.

The only path I can see for this not to happen is for Clinton II to govern from the middle and provide some cover to the few moderate Republicans who are interested in solving the problems that have caused such anger to boil over in Trumpism.

But what I am really wondering is how can the collective totality of the GOP sustain this anger at Democratic Presidents.  They have been angry with President Obama for over 7 years.  They are building themselves up to be angry with President Clinton II for the next 4 years.

While I have been upset with the GOP's intransigence for the last 7 years, I cannot sustain the anger that they can.  And I don't know how they do it.  They must be as mentally exhausted as I am.

And while most of my readers are in other countries, I urge my U.S. readers to get out and vote for Democrats across the board because we need to undo GOP gerrymandering in many state legislatures.

FINALLY!! Mohamedou Ould Slahi is Home.

In 2002, Mohamedou Ould Slahi was working and living near his parents in Mauritania.  He received a request to appear at the police station, which he complied with, was arrested, handed over the CIA, jailed in Jordan, Afghanistan and finally Guantanamo.  He was accused of being in Al Qaeda because he had fought in Afghanistan when the U.S. provided funding to the anti-communist mujahedeen.  So he was on our side.  Later in Germany, he crossed paths with one of the 9/11 bombers, and he happened to be in Canada at the same time as some other unsuccessful atrocity was unraveled, but he was never implicated in that original investigation.  In fact, other than coincidences, he was never implicated in anything anti-American or anti-Europe.

Yet, somehow, the CIA under Bush II/Cheney/Rumsfeld decided he had to be locked up in Guantanamo for 14 years and subject to torture.  And it has taken the Obama Administration almost 8 years to get him released.  I don't understand what took so long.  He should never have been locked up.

Fortunately, Mohamedou is educated.  He is a trained Electrical Engineer.  He learned English in captivity.  He wrote a book that was published about his captivity.  The book has been optioned for a movie.  So he has hope for a future after his torture.  Particularly because Mauritania is a poor country and a simple life can be lived on very little.  He hopes to write more books and perhaps start a business.

Shame on the government for holding him for 14 years. Thank goodness the rest of us have Habeas Corpus rights.

Finally, a comprehensive plan to address income inequality and provide hope

This is from an article by Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, which Google tells me is a conservative think tank.

"This requires a generational strategy to build an education system based on innovation, school choice and an emphasis on vocational training.  It means rewriting tax and regulatory law to stop discouraging domestic investment and squelching job creation, while also attacking corporate cronyism that gives special treatment to wealthy and entrenched interests.  It demands authentic compassion for people on the periphery of society."

I would add to that comprehensive tax reform that lowers our corporate tax rate to 15%, but does away with other tax expenditures that reduce the taxes below that rate for firms that benefit from such largesse.  The reason I support that is multi-national companies can locate jobs anywhere.  That is the level many other countries use to tax corporations.  If we make taxes neutral, the only influences on plant location will be costs, demand distribution and transportation costs from location to demand.  Taxes will not be a consideration.

Both Political Parties Need to Create Hope

Reading way too much about the state of the election campaign I uncovered a glimmer of truth.  Many Trump supporters want change in Washington D.C.  And even though Trump is campaigning on more trickle down economic and tax cuts for the rich, they believe that an outsider is needed to bring about change in policy that is not working for them.   They don't connect the dots between globalization and automation that have lead to their economic stagnation and that trickle down economics will not have any effect on those trends.  What Trump does not connect on is breaking  trade agreements and disrupting manufacturing doesn't undo the effects of automation or supply chains and he will not be able to help these people with his policies.

I have long written that I don't have a solution, but I know there are think tanks out there with people who understand how policies effect people and there must be some good ideas there.

I can see RedStateVt fuming that I am advocating more income redistribution, but that is not the case.  The dependency economy is one of the things that people are angry about, even those who benefit from it and rely upon it.  People want to work.  Many of the most angry, however, don't want to move to find work.

So there must be something done about job creation and wage stagnation and the distribution of employment around the country.  That would involve state policies perhaps more so than federal policies.  But something must be done to create hope, because when you don't have hope, you allow a tyrant to stoke fear and gather votes.

Two columns this morning provide insights around this.

David Leonhardt on how stagnation creates anger

David Brooks on the damaged psychological make up of Trump



And just when I thought I could get on with my day, I read the following on how unfit the current GOP is to lead any part of the government.

No Profiles of courage in the GOP

Finally, someone agrees with me. GOP must renounce talk radio

Donald Trump is the result of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and any number of other burn the bridges down and never ever discuss compromise with the Democrats.  They have promulgated lie after lie after lie and they provided the license for ordinary people to believe Donald Trump's behavior was tolerable because these radio show hosts are hero's to these people and they support Donald Trump.

Link below.


Thank You Michael Gerson

The NYT explains why this time is different and GOP office holders are abandoning Trump

Link to article

We will see if the voters agree in sufficient numbers to end this nightmare of a candidacy.

Of course, we will still be dealing with the likes of Ted Cruz and the Freedom caucus so I will not expect a return to the rational politics of compromise.

The far bigger question is how this party that claims to represent family values ever nominated this unfit boorish individual.

There are so many reasons to vote against Donald Trump that it really makes me wonder if Democrats remain believers in the rights of individuals (AS THEY SHOULD AND MUST) that they can ever get the 30% to 35% of the electorate that supports Trump to vote for them.  I think that segment of society is so caught up in their circularity of argument that they are permanently lost and dangerous to society.

On the other hand, as a book reviewer writes into today's NYT review of books about African American GOP members, the GOP was the preferred party of African American's as it was Southern Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Bills and Northern Republican's who supported it.  But Johnson got the Civil Rights bill passed, Nixon & Reagan pursued their southern strategy of converting those southern Democrat's to Republican and moderate GOP people lost elections to either more conservative GOP people in primaries or Democrat's in general

But the real reason I am writing about this is the following truism that is written in the review.

"and they agreed that black Americans would do best when both parties were competing for their votes"

That truth is critical for all voters and politicians to remember.  It is hard when the country is so partisan, the primaries more important to many than the general election because of gerrymandering, and the issues (guns, abortion, immigration, trade, Global Warming, Supreme Court) so black and white in different directions; that for politicians to appeal to the other side or voters who believe in the other side voting to make their voice heard and represented by those politicians difficult to imagine.

That is not a situation that I think will be overcome easily without ending gerrymandering and increasing the importance of general elections over primaries.

The Intelligent People Created Donald Trump

With a bit of ego, I will admit that I think of myself as an Intelligent person.  Not a genus, but I can compete in the world of thought.

But when you read Roger Cohen's list of all the social and economic trends that have created the opportunity for a narcissist like Trump to get 40% of the voter's support you realize that policies (of both the GOP and the Democrats) over the last 50 years are responsible for the position we are in.  And if we had certain policies that this substantial minority want in place, you would have an equal amount of anger on the left and in the minority community.  But reading the column what I realized is that people who get left behind get angry before they depart and we are dealing with the unintended consequences of polices I thought were settled a long time ago and were basic operating procedures for the U.S.A.

Link to Roger Cohen who says it better than I do


Meanwhile David Brooks discusses the concept of citizenship and how Trump is an example of how a complete focus on greed within policy undermines citizenship.  Since this is where the tax cutting GOP slaves to Grover Norquist function it is an interesting link.  After all, the GOP thinks they are more patriotic than the Democrat's are, yet it is GOP policies that are undermining the concept of citizenship.

Of course, I am of a generation that was deeply affected by the Vietnam War.  It's not that I think ill of men who went there, I have met many who did and am amazed by some the brave things they did and then there are all the ones I have not met.  But my dismay at the futility of sending troops to fight an enemy that can blend in with the people who are supposedly on our side has reduced my fervor for honoring some of the symbols of patriotism.  My dismay at the way the government can obfuscate reality and send troops in harm's way eliminates any unquestioning attitude I might have had when it comes to saying "Yes Sir, What do you want me to do?"  And when the police (who have every reason to be afraid for their lives) go killing unarmed African American men, I understand that such self-identifying people might not want to honor the symbols of the government that is not protecting them.

This is a complicated subject, so I will let you read David Brook's column and you can see where your thoughts go.  Fortunately, there are responsible ways in which I do behave as a citizen.

Link to David Brooks column

Debate #1 Comments

I wish Hillary had laid out a snappy one liner to describe her vision for America.  I know the problems are complicated and she described a number of areas she will focus on to deal with that complexity.  But when 25% of voters still are not sure President Obama was born in the U.S., you need a pithy statement that people can identify with.  I don't have one to suggest, but with all her high priced talent on her staff you would think someone could come up with something.

As for Donald Trump, his microphone was working fine.  I heard every word he said clearly, although  on more than one occasion I was unable to understand the thoughts that he was trying to convey.  Instead, I was saying, " What is his policy?"

I did hear Donald Trump admit that he doesn't pay any taxes and that to do so would be stupid.  I have a friend in the real estate business who told me this might be the case because he would own buildings that throw off a lot of depreciation.  Of course, that is why Trump wants to be President.  If there are estate taxes, those buildings will have to be sold to pay the taxes on his estate and his heirs will have less wealth.  If he is President, he has pledged to eliminate estate taxes.

So his run for President is all about his personal wealth, because his economic policies tearing up trade agreements would endanger every one else's wealth.

We manufacture just as much as we did 30 years ago.  It is just done with less people (more automation) and in different industries that are located in different parts of the country.  Those industries are part of the global economy and compete well within it.

You can't go back in time, and if you want to, well you know who else wants to:  ISIS and Vladimer Putin.

Sunday Quick Takes 9/25/16

I have discussed how I don't understand how accurate polls can be taken.  Yet, somehow polls repeatedly show Trump's voter support within the margin of error with Clinton barely leading.  All the while Trump continues to lie.  The New York Times came up with 31 substantial lies he made in statements within the last week.  They ignored items where he merely stretched the truth beyond a measure of reality.  In other words, they cut him some slack and only tallied the most egregious lies.

Trump is a habitual lier and that puts in the same league as Putin and Assad, both of whom use lies to systemically provide cover to their egregious acts of using military force to achieve their authoritarian political aims.  And Russian leadership is rooting for a Trump victory because they know he will not push them on cleaning up their rotten democratic processes.  And Assad is probably rooting for a Trump victory because Trump has promised to carpet bomb ISIS and Al Nusra.  While that will undoubtedly result in civilian deaths, it will leave Assad in power and that is all he cares about.  Like Putin, he doesn't give a rat's ass about his civilian population.

Which leaves me wondering how the GOP voters can support a lying Putin Assad sympathizer?  You can only imagine how the GOP media machine would be ripping a Democrat if they put forth similar beliefs.  Apparently stuffing the Supreme Court so that it allows voter discrimination and actively protects business from regulation is more important than anything else that is normally a requirement to be President.

Meanwhile, two more policeman (one a female, one an African American) kill unarmed African American males because their fear that they might have a weapon overcame their rationality and they fired their weapons.  I understand the police have a difficult job and that their lives are in danger every minute of every day.  But Black Lives Matter too and you would think police and their supporters would want sufficient controls on weapons so that police are not in fear all the time.

The 2nd Amendment preserves the right to weapons that were technologically modern in 1786, not what we have today.

This country is definitely going in the wrong direction and my belief in that has everything to do with the GOP, not the Democrats.  And I don't see any way the next election will improve things.

More on Why You Cannot Reason With Trump Supporters

Before I get to the last article in The New Republic, one only has to read Jennifer Rubin's column of yesterday to realize how far from traditional GOP policies Donald Trump is campaigning.  As I learned studying Economics and more so in business school, the strength of capitalism as the best allocator of labor and capital to the point of greatest return is creative destruction.  That is why my economic beliefs will sometimes agree with traditional GOP ideas and sometimes with traditional Democratic ideas.  Nothing the government does should get in the way of that creative destruction.   Yet, it is precisely on that point that Donald Trump is campaigning.  He wants to inhibit creative destruction by killing trade treaties and supporting people who do not want to move or learn new things.

Link to Jennifer Rubin's column

Again I don't have access to The New Republic website to put links into this column so I urge you to buy the October 2016 issue on a newsstand.

The last article examines the writing of two people who have studied the Tea Party/Trumpists.  They are mad about a lot of things and the result is the perversity that they will support someone who voices that anger even though the substance of his policies will not undo the environmental damage they are angry about, will not bring back jobs that were destroyed by advances in technology, and require that people they perceive as getting favorable treatment from the government be discriminated against in some form by policies they want.  They remember verbal slights and do not forgive them and they do not trust the government even when they benefit from rules and actions of the government.  They perceive a loss of honor and dignity in their life and want to restore it. Because they blame the establishment of both political parties, they will vote for Trump no matter the illogic of what he is saying nor his unfitness to hold the office of President.

It is both a depressing article and a scary one.  We can only hope that significant voters for Hillary are going unrepresented in polls because such people don't answer robo calls.  I don't want intolerance, narcissism, ignorance and illogic to become a winning campaign strategy and I certainly don't want a Putin admirer to be our President.

I am also hoping that the New York Attorney General indicts Trump for illegal dealings with his charity, but I suspect some underling will be the signer of the documents and therefore the one who takes the fall for that.  I suspect Trump limits all his instructions to underlings in verbal form.

Oh Vey!!!

Trump Supporters are on Venus, Every One Else is on Mars

It has become apparent to me that true  of Donald Trump and everyone else are speaking two different languages:  Different concerns, different priorities, different ways of seeing the world and there can be no convincing of the other side in the virtue of what you believe.

What is truly amazing since Donald Trump wants to roll back the global economy through which many have prospered (and he will not roll back technology which is what has cost many of his economic believers their life style) and yet the establishment GOP will vote for Dangerous Donald because he will nominate politically correct GOP Supreme Court Justices.  That is more important to the GOP than anything else:

This election should be about serious issues:  tax reform, Social Security/Medicare funding, Security in a world where guns and bomb making materials abound, rising sea levels, 11 mm undocumented members of the economy who are critical to our level of GDP, and war refugees & the decline in movement toward democracy in any number of countries including Russia, China, the Middle East.

Instead it is about trivia.  Now some of this trivia is important to the everyone else crowd, but it does not matter to the Trumpists.  So Dangerous Donald will not conform in those areas.   But what Dangerous Donald does understand is the Trumpists are tired of political correctness and will support anything he does to end political correctness.  It is a circular loop that cannot be broken just like there can be no compromise with the GOP because the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus made compromise a four letter word unless they get exactly what they want, which is what the Democrats cannot and will not allow if they have any political power to deploy.  All these people view politics as a zero sum game.  You win, I lose, I win, you lose.

Of course the entire theory of modern political economy (including trickle down economics) is that everyone benefits from a bigger pie, even if those benefits are uneven, and people should be satisfied with their improved situation.  That is why income inequality is the root cause of much of this anger, but when technology and globalization are the root causes of this inequality, how is shrinking the pie, which is what Dangerous Donald wants to do, going to help anyone?

The New Republic, has an excellent examination of the people advising Dangerous Donald.  It is really terrifying to think these people could be advising a President.  They believe in false conspiracies, they believe in using lies to manipulate public opinion, they believe in power politics and that what is good for the rich is the best thing, and they believe authoritarian government benefiting cronies (i.e. Putin's Russia) is a good thing to emulate.

I don't have an on-line account at The New Republic, so you will have to get one or buy the magazine to see how terrifying a Donald Trump presidency would be.  In my 45 years of voting, I have never been so afraid of the other candidate winning and I am stunned that the GOP establishment believes the Supreme Court's philosophy is more important than international relations (the U.S. could become a pariah state under Donald Trump) and global peace and prosperity (I really believe Donald Trump could destroy the global framework on which our personal savings are valued).

Yet I know that I could not convince a Trump supporter to change their mind because I am on Mars and they are on Venus.

I usually feel better after writing this blog,  I do not feel better.  I am truly afraid for our nation and the world.

The GOP Abandon's Character as a Qualification

Long time readers know I long ago identified Donald Trump as being unfit for President because of his leading the birther movement.  This movement did nothing but falsely declare President Obama to be an illegitimate President whose actions could be ignored by said believers.

This is why I want to see Donald Trump's tax returns.  Like all corporations, as he himself has stated, he pays the least in taxes that he can get away with.  That is why his tax returns are being audited.  His accountants probably push the edge of the envelope as far as they can on items of judgement and allow the auditors some gimmes and get away with some other stuff that is the staff of litigation.  I do not believe Donald Trump pays more than 10% to 15% of his income in taxes and he may well pay even less.

Those readers with a good memory will remember the impeachment proceedings agains Bill Clinton revolved around his character.  The GOP tried to convince Americans that character was a criteria by which Presidents should be judged.  I certainly believe that character is a consideration but so is policy.  And what the GOP is now saying is vote for a thoroughly dishonorable human being because he will appoint GOP thinking people to the Supreme Court and complete the politicalization of the Supreme Court.  Which has probably always had one foot in politics and one foot in the law.

But one thing is clear.  In supporting Donald Trump GOP voters are abandoning good character as a criteria and endorsing an individual who will lie to achieve his ends and whose only motivation is enriching himself.

Anyone who thinks he will bring jobs back to their community with a reduction in taxes for the wealthy and there heirs and a reduction in regulation should remember that those jobs started to disappear when George Bush was President and those same policies were in place.  Globalization and technology are unrelenting capitalist forces that march onward and you either are successful competing with that or you lose.  And Donald Trump will not change any of that.

The Decline in Patriotism & Partisanship's Responsibility For It

This is a complicated subject and I am probably not going to do it justice.

David Brooks in today's column addresses the decline in patriotism that has been present in the U.S. since its founding as a British colony.  It is measured by polling the question of how proud you are of the U.S.A.  Today only 52% are extremely proud and among those 18 to 29 only 34% are extremely proud.

Brooks writes that the Puritans used self examination as a means of purification and their belief that they could create a just society based on the moral premise that all men are created equal gave people who lived here a sense of purpose and an ideal to live up to and it bonded everyone together in a manner that created a unifying civil religion.

Brook's focus on the column is addressing imitators of Colin Kaepernick and the importance of the ritual of showing respect when the National Anthem is played to the sense of we are all in this together.

What he misses is the reality that partisanship on the part of political leaders resulting in a failure to address problems that a sufficient minority of people believe in causes disillusionment in those people for the ideals that this country is built around.

So when Black Lives Matter believers are insulted as not caring about the lives of police, which I do not believe to be the case because there are many African American police, the Black Lives Matter sympathizers might have a problem saying they are extremely proud of their country.

And I could go on with almost any other issue that is important to some significant minority of citizens.  The gridlock in Washington policy making with the only discussion being the running down of the righteousness of the concern represented by those points of view, instead of debating possible ways in which we could address the problem while maintaining fiscal responsibility.

Zika funding for the CDC comes to mind how this develops.  Conservatives want to put Planned Parenthood out of business so they take every opportunity to try to prevent them from getting Federal Funds. Yet a substantial % of the population likes planned parenthood and does not want to get the Zika virus.  This unrelenting focus almost certainly prevents those scared of Zika and Planned Parenthood supporters from saying they are proud of their country.

Donald Trump and the popularity of the Kardashian culture in general generates angst in me about this country.  It is difficult to be proud of that and it might effect my answer to that question if polled, but I can still visualize ways in which I can be a responsible citizens.

I wil stop here but I guess the real issue is what is patriotism in a country of 300,000,000 and voluntary military that only needs a 1.3 mm people.

Sunday Musings 9/11/16 Civility in Language

I am struck by how anger can overwhelm common sense in this political campaign.  The Cable TV culture which Donald Trump has used to feed his need for narcissistic approval while camouflaging what he really believes has gotten under Hillary's skin to the point when she is in front of her true believers she has lost control of her common sense button.

Now I do not believe that common sense thrives in the Cable TV culture.  Doing the outlandish is what draws people into watching it, improving ratings and advertising rates and increasing the pay of the reality TV starts.  This is clearly the playbook of Donald Trump but I wish Hillary would simply put a lid on her language and remember that every voter is deserving of respect, even if you don't like what they are saying.

Now I will admit that getting throngs of people saying "Lock them Up" and referring to me would make me angry, but we expect more from our candidates for President.  We expect them to be calm and rational.  Hillary was calm when she disparaged 50% of Trump's supporters, but that was an irrational statement made in the thrall of being the center of attention within a group of people who think similarly.  Not unlike why Donald Trump gets the audience chanting "Lock her Up".

But I believe most voters know people who are supporting or will vote for the candidate of the other party.  They understand that a lack of civility in language and process has made Congress dysfunctional.  And if the President does not lead us in civility, then there is no hope for ending the dysfunctionalty.

While I have written blog postings in anger, because I am always hoping that what I write will convince RedStateVT to support one of my positions, I try to keep my language civil and respectful of what the other side is saying.  That is why I am disappointed in Hillary's language the other day and incredibly impressed by President Obama's ability to be civil in the face of incredible incivility towards him by many in the GOP.

As for Donald Trump, I have written many words about his lack of morality in how he has pursued increasing his personal wealth.  It is this lack of morality combined with his uncivil language that make the potential for him to win this election completely foreign to my way of thinking.  I am incredibly stressed out by this potential.  I don't understand how any person who cares about civility could vote for him, but I know that this will happen.

Amen, Why GOP Obstuctionism is Bad for the GOP

I couldn't have said it better.  We need two parties working together to solve problems and move the country forward.

Link to an Excellent column by Norman Ornstein

GOP Pundits Agree With Me

Charles Krauthammer says non-criminal undocumented should be given a legal path to residency



Michael Gerson says Conservative Talk Media is Discredited

Donald Trump Receives Endorsements

Before I go off to golf in the NYC borough of Queens, which will require me to battle traffic going to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament and Mets traffic on the way home, I want to thank Nicholas Kristof for assembling a list of who supports Donald Trump for President.

ISIS and other Jihadists

North Korea

The Ku Klux Klan

Russia

China (PRC that is)

American Freedom Party

American Nazi Party

The National Enquirer

Now as Mr. Kristoff says that list of strange endorsements does not mean that all Trump supporters believe what these people believe, but you do have to wonder why such a list of authoritarian, non-democratic entities do support Trump.  A President whose goals are supported by such entities cannot be one that is good for human rights, world peace and economic stability.

Will the Middle East Politics Continue in Washington?

I suspect so which is why I may have to end this blog.  What is the point of writing about sensible policies that take place in the middle of the political spectrum and draw upon the need for government to help people while remaining true to the sensibilities of market signals; which means good ideas come from both the Democrats and the Republicans.

Anyway I am not at that point yet.

Thomas Friedman is also not optimistic, and is pinning his hopes on Hillary stuffing the Bernista's, while acknowledging the worthiness of their goals, and working with centrist Republicans to solve some pressing issues like corporate tax reform, improving the ACA, and improving our infrastructure.  I would also add to that some realistic discussion on how to pay for the baby boom elderly entitlements while leaving a system that is viable for subsequent generations.

Link to Friedman column

Lawyer's Need To Support the End of Anonymous Ownership & End RoboCalls from the

60 Minutes reran a piece on how U.S. Lawyers facilitate money laundering and how their lobbying has until now convinced Congress that they should not pass a law requiring every company to identify the beneficiary of its ownership.

If every company was required to disclose the beneficiary of its ownership the Helfinstine swine that own the call center system behind "Lower your interest rates" would be disclosed.

But beyond that what we would find out it who owns all these expensive condominiums that are sold to shell LLC's behind which is some anonymous owner.  I am sure a number of these people own Trump properties through shell companies and Trump is potentially complicit in money laundering selling properties to people who use such a technique.  No doubt Donald Trump would not be behind such a law.

On the other hand, I know my friend RedStateVT hates lawyers who make money off questionable behavior and use it to lobby Congress.  So I am quite sure we would agree on this.

I Get It Now, Medicare for All is the only solution for viable Health Insurance System

My Dr friend that I have previously cited had the idea that the transition for the employees and companies that are in the private insurance space could be managed by simply lowering the age people could sign up for Medicare by one year for 47 years until it was 18.  And he would leave the employee insurance plans in place.

But that didn't convince me that the transition issues were insurmountable.

But then I read the following letter to the editor this morning.

"How many times must it be demonstrated that health care cannot be treated like any other market commodity before our legislators get the point? This article once again confirms that affordable health care can’t be delivered using a private, for-profit system."

"One cannot make a profit insuring sick people. Therefore, health insurance companies are most profitable when they avoid sick people while continuing to collect premiums from healthy customers. When this does not work, raising prices is necessary to keep profits up."

"But health insurance premiums are already unaffordable for most of us. That is why the young and healthy are not buying. The only way to make health care affordable is to have everyone paying into the pot in proportion to their income while eliminating the unnecessary expensive middleman: health insurance companies."

"Must we wait until only the billionaires will be able to afford health care before we join all the other industrialized countries and switch to such a government-funded single-payer system (Medicare for All)?"

ELIZABETH R. ROSENTHAL

Larchmont, N.Y.

The writer is a dermatologist.

Remember that Medicare Part D is the private insurance space within Medicare.  It is also for healthy people the most affordable component of Medicare.  So it is likely that younger people would migrate to this part of Medicare keeping people who work in the private insurance space employed.

Meanwhile, the entire health care system is moving to networks and other things to try and control costs.  Only by having Medicare negotiate with Drug companies are we going to stop price gouging like the epi-pen debacle.  And where is the FDA in approving generics on this product?

But the real problem is new techniques that require a lot of RnD keep being found for people to survive things they wouldn't have survived previously and they want to survive and they want those treatments.  And the capital that funds that RnD needs a return.  I don't have a solution for that unless you simply use costs as a rationing tool and only the more well off will get certain treatments.  This is already the case within Medicare.

But that is a separate issue from how do you make basic health insurance affordable for everyone (or as affordable as it can be).

I now support Medicare for all.  I have no idea how you get that through Congress.

Dear People Who Want to Ignore Climate Change

I was having a discussion yesterday with some friends, one of whom is a Dr and one of whom is a lawyer.  The Dr. asked the lawyer about how the limitations of human eyesight mean that no one can read 100% of complex X-rays/MRI's/CatScans correctly 100% of the time.  The result is malpractice lawsuits for negligence with payments made by the insurance industry.  After some go around between the lawyer and the Dr about defining the situation, I chimed in with a comment that that is the business of law and insurance, which the lawyer defined as being too cynical on my part as it ignored the role of insurance in society as a means of compensating people who have been wronged and providing them with the wherewith all to be self supporting and not a burden on society.

Now I know many Republicans feel that tort law is out of control in this country and I generally agree with that.  But on the other hand, I do believe in the concept of insurance spreading the cost of loss over a large number of people or over all of society.   And I think most Republicans agree that Insurance is a good thing for individuals to have.  So they agree with the concept of the individual protecting oneself from a sudden unexpected unaffordable losses with insurance.

Now the question that has occurred to me as we see 500 year floods and wild fires occurring all over the place year after year after year is the following:  If insurance is a means of society incentivizing people to have proper behavior to avoid losses that they cannot afford and spreading the cost of such losses which occur even when people have proper behavior (remember insurance is a good concept), then why don't Republicans want to provide a market signal so that people will contribute to a reduction in green house gases that science proved warm the atmosphere in the 1850's.  If the cost is provided in market signals then people will do what they to avoid the price of polluting.  Right now, everyone can pollute with zero cost and the people who are paying are paying through floods and fires and the higher cost of insurance for that.

While the horse may be out of the barn and the barn door closed in regards to global warming, it seems to me that the costs of rising sea levels and rising humidity levels and rising temperatures will only continue to rise and society has an interest in doing what it can afford to to combat that.  We don't know what the future will bring, but wouldn't it be prudent to have some insurance that tries to moves us in a better direction?

Meanwhile, it seems that Donald Trump has used $43 mm of the $80 mm raised for his campaign to pay his shell companies for services and consultants who do who knows what since Donald Trump says he runs his own campaign.  It does appear that Trump is simply using the campaign to enrich his wealth and support his life style.  God forbid he should win and get control of the Federal Budget and get to order the IRS to layoff audits of his taxes.

Some Good News, the U.S. is a Strong World Player and Yes we ARE GREAT!!!

Where it Tony the Tiger when you need him?

It gets lost in the anger of Donald Trump stating that America is not Great anymore, but he will return us to that status. It gets lost in the anger of angry left that wants some vague socialist path to an undefined righteous society.  It gets lost in the frustration of center right voters who want a return to a more self-contained respectful of they views society and it gets lost in the frustration of the center left who just want a country that addresses it's problems and becomes a better country.

But the U.S. has many institutions and processes in place that make us globally competitive in the Olympic Games, education, technology, entertainment, farming, energy production, finance, medicine, insurance, transportation, construction and manufacturing.  I am sure I left some out.

We are not a failure as a country despite the effects of the Great Recession.  Global Trade Deals have resulted in a manufacturing trade surplus for the United States with those countries with whom we have a trade deal.  We are net winners from Global Trade although there are individuals and industries that are losers too.  I am not sure how we fix the economic environment for those losers  because the system our founders put in place required mobility to seek out better opportunities.  But somewhere along the line this was forgotten and the gold standard for the economy in the minds of Trump supporters became economic opportunity where I live. It is state governments that control those local environments and the competitive market economy has many myriad influences on the exact location of employment opportunities that states must respond too.

Vermont for example attracts entrepreneurs and workers who appreciate the mountain environment.  You can't screw that up without upsetting the voters.  But the state also has to encourage companies to remain and relocate there to provide opportunity for those people who do not want to move.  That is not the responsibility of the Federal Government which must manage the economy for the benefit of everyone in every state.

I thank David Brooks for the inspiration and the fact of the U.S. trade surplus with our treaty parties.  Link Below.


Link to David Brook's column

Extreme Vetting & Other Tidbits from the Trump Campaign

I have been waiting for Donald Trump to expand upon his extreme vetting concept so I could know how it is different from what the U.S. already does.  I don't know the exact process but I do know it takes upwards of two years, multiple applications and interviews by different people. all looking to trip people up and disqualify them.  Meanwhile, people who were at the side of military working as translators and proving their loyalty to the U.S. at least in spirit are denied access by this same process, so I am not sure how anyone gets through it, but a few, mostly families with a father and a mother and kids somehow make it here.

So I suspect Donald Trump does not have much that he will really change except to shut down the process completely, which is what he wants to do on everything that has to do with international affairs.  End trade agreements, tear up security agreements and go after our friends to pay more while making niceties with Russia.  He would a chaotic to say the least, so I am now quoting Jeb Bush and agreeing with him.

Trump could do far less damage on the domestic side of the economy (international would be bad enough) because he would need Congress to pass laws which would not happen unless the GOP controlled the Senate and that is not likely.  And if they did, we would return to the health insurance system of 5 years ago which required one to have employment to have an affordable health insurance plan and heaven forbid you had a pre-exisitng condition so a GOP Senate combined with a Trump Presidency would lead to chaos on the domestic side.  But Trump would nominate more crazy Justices like Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court so we could not look for any solace on that front.

The degree to which Trump is unqualified to be President is almost beyond words although I have tried with these writing to highlight a few:  corrupt businessperson, conspiracy believer, rude, ignorant in so many ways it almost defies description, and greedy.  I am convinced he ran for President so he could cut his estate taxes, assuming his tax returns verify that he is rich, but I am quite sure he has more than $10.4 mm which is when the estate tax kicks in for a married couple.  Meanwhile, I am convinced he won't release his tax returns because they would show what he is hiding from the public view and I bet whatever it is would be stunning to many.

The only thing that was a positive in the news recently was the shakeup of the Trump campaign has put two people in charge who agree with Trump's most outlandish tendencies.  So we can expect Trump to do things that will repel what I hope is a sufficiently number of middle of the road types to vote for Democrats in key swing states.  Because a Democratic victory is the only hope for progress on fixing health insurance, doing something about global warming, and in general preserving economic stability.  Not to mention over the longer term perhaps getting some sensible gun control.

Which is why Trump's focus on Law & Order is pure politics and nothing more.  There can be no reduction in the threats to police and improving law& order in Chicago or any other inner city without sensible gun control.  And Trump/NRA are not going there.  That is why the NRA supports Trump flat out.

I was with some friends yesterday who are in touch with one very conservative old friend.  I asked what DM was up to with his writing.  I was told he says nothing about Trump and just goes on and on  about how awful Hillary is.  But that begs the question, if you don't want Hillary and you will vote for Trump, how can you ignore what a danger he is to economic stability, not to mention international security?  Since we don't have a parliamentary system, we need balanced leaders who know how to compromise.  That is certainly not Trump, but it is Hillary.  It might be the libertarian guy but he will not get my support.

Be Careful What You Wish For or Sunday Discoveries About the Election

Boy, Henrik Stenson sure can putt well.  The most 50'ers in a four day period ever I believe.  Also, there sure are a lot of alligators or crocodiles at the Olympic golf venue.  New definition of water hazard.

Pundits are coming up with new ways to analyze this election.  Some strike me more as more real than others.  Ross Douthat analyzed it as a conflict between sexual revolutions with Hugh Hefner admirers supporting Donald Trump (and watching porn on their computers perhaps) while women's liberation types support Hillary.  Someone else, pointed out that white working class men used to vote the way their union told them to and now with unions waning power they are free agents to vote their personal beliefs which can well reflect ignorance and hate.  Both writers used the words, be careful what you wish for since in their view it is responsible for Trump being the candidate (The GOP for wanting to end the power of unions and women for wanting sexual freedom).  Nicholas Kristoff pointed out that people who need to be feel superior to someone support Trump and his lack of political correctness allows them to voice their ugly ignorant racist thoughts at whomever they want to target.

Meanwhile, we had dinner with friends last night and a new (to our little group) couple of people told anecdotes about experience doing work for Donald Trump in the 1980's or 1990's.  In each case, the people found their original pricing for service subject to Trump personally objecting to the price even though his people had contracted for it.  He basically tore up the contract, said sue me and then offered to pay a price that would be a little more than Original Price less lawyers fees.  He is a dishonest person who is only out to enrich himself.  He is more Kardashian than the Kardashian's.

Meanwhile, my distrust of polling remains high and while I hope Hillary wins every state, I have no idea how pollsters can get an honest assessment of an election when many people refuse to answer phone calls when they don't recognize the phone number.