Blog Archives
A string of observations
Obama’s question. Why are they so angry??? After they won. Good question. On cnn last night (Nov.5), Don Lemon had a bunch of talking heads from both parties. They spent their Time arguing but not listening. Particularly one person angrily questioning Obama’s right to be speaking out during an election, as in “What gave him the right…?” under which you could sense the racial animus.
From the New Yorker (Susan Glasser): 1/7/18
Can we move on? No matter the outcome, no one will ask that question this year. There is a dark certainty to what will follow this election. If the Democrats win, they will go for Trump’s jugular. Investigations, subpoenas, perhaps impeachment will unfold. These moves will not be accepted as legitimate by the millions of Americans who have kept the faith in Trump no matter what he does and says. If Republicans hold on, Trump, emboldened further, will show us what a Presidency unfettered by fears of congressional oversight really looks like. Few doubt that he may fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Defense Secretary James Mattis, or the special counsel, Robert Mueller, or perhaps all of them. He already believes himself to be a political “genius” who defied history and the collective wisdom of the experts to take the White House; it takes little imagination to see how he would respond to the validation of a second history-defying win.
If nothing is really changed, what happens during the next 2 years? Trump re-elected? The thought causes nausea extreme. Yet there seem to be too many of us who believe the lies he sells and who prefer fear to hope. People I saw at his rallies on TV; the women who need someone to tell them what to do, who don’t understand or ignore the lies he tells them, what motivates people like that? They are like the good Germans who believed what Hiitler and Goebels told them and went on with their lives in the face of the horrors of the “final solution” as if nothing unusual was happening.
News conference at the Whitehouse. Trump tears into Jim Acosta for no apparent reason and the escalates the battle with an aid trying to take the mic away from the reporter. Acosta just stands there holding on to the mic. Trump calls him names says he mistreats him and Sarah Sanders. A ugly, totally unnecessary incident followed by Acosta losing his White House accreditation and Sanders tweaking a doctored Vid clip making it look as if Acosta raises his arm against the intern so she can say he threatened the intern with violence. Civilized?
Theater for tv cameras. Major erosion of first amendment free press.
Settled by the Court? Acosta should have his badge back by now, but does he?
The Fires and Travel
Terrible, horrible fires in California. So many lives lost. Parts of Paradise look like the Apocalypse has happened. Of course, the Donald has to have something to say, so he criticizes California for poor forest management when if he looked at a map, the forests in California are National Forests under the tender care of his USDA Forest Service. Too much trouble to go look at a map, I guess. Easier to cast blame and talk nonsense about Finland.
Terrible trip to France for the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. Makes you wonder why he went after losing the midterm elections if all he was going to do was sulk in the Embassy and complain about the weather. Poor baby! Does he melt in the rain? He would have been better off staying at home. Maybe then he would have made it to Arlington Cemetery. This is not a President.
The new House of Representatives is full of the victorious from last week’s election. Some of the “progressives” seem determined to be as disruptive as the the Tea Party members were in 2010 only in a totally opposite way. There is something very destructive about the “take no prisoners” attitude of many in politics today. The new young members need to settle in together with the existing leadership before they jump to change everything. Learn the job before you start upending the Leadership.
Not satisfied with his fight with CNN, Trump has to take to Twitter to spew insults at members of Congress (Representative Adam Schiff). It was Sunday. Give it a rest!
Sorry, Mr. President, special counsels do not need Senate Confirmation. Attorneys General do. Decorum for everyone else. Sad, sad, sad.
Disgust
It’s hard to believe the circus going on in Washington. All I can feel is complete and total disgust for all parties involved. Every so-called plan put forward to raise the debt ceiling at the cost of complete cuts in essential programs is more draconian than the last. Regardless of what Obama said, ordinary people have been forgotten altogether.
Obama’s biggest mistake was to suppose he could placate the conservative fanatics by meeting them more than half way. On every single occasion he has concede ground getting further and further away from the ideas that brought him to office. When you desire to win at any price, you sell your soul to the devil. Of course, in their own destructive way, the Republicans have done exactly the same thing. Hence the disgust.
The debt ceiling is an enduring problem for presidents. It’s been around since World War I, and ever since Presidents who went to war or battled economic depressions have gone deeper into debt. It’s not as if the country’s finances can be balanced the way families sometimes balance their budgets at the kitchen table making sure that incomes cover costs. In America we’ve gotten into trouble in the last 12 years by refusing to save or balance our budgets as individuals and families, thinking that the boom times would never end. Well, George W. made sure they would end by not paying for his wars or his drug benefits and donating beyond his ability to pay to the wealthiest among us and their corporations. Now Republican super conservatives are using the debt ceiling and risking the US credit rating in a ridiculous effort to fix what they themselves broke. Rather than being responsible about owning up to their own profligacy, they are using this situation as a bludgeon to hit Obama with and hopefully (from their point of view) ensure his defeat at the polls in November 2012.
The Wikipedia has an interesting graphic for those interested in history:
It doesn’t take a great brain to see what happened after 2000. And who knows? With the constant drum beat of Republican propaganda from Fox News, they may actually succeed in bringing down the President. The only trouble is they may well bring down the country as well, proving themselves totally unfit to govern.
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