Happy Holidays!

Yes, Happy Holidays to Everyone!
        It's that time of year again when we all wish each other happiness, joy and prosperity. Why leave anyone out? Last time i looked i had friends and family that were Christian (various denominations), Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist and i think there's even a Hindu. Why would i snub them at this most peaceful and important time of the year? Why would anyone want to do that?
Donald Trump says that, "we can finally say 'Merry Christmas' again"...but haven't we always been able to say that?  Why would i wish someone a Merry Christmas when i know they celebrate Kwanzaa? Isn't that rude and insensitive? I hope Americans will get to the point one day where we accept that we're all equal but different. 
Until then....

The Trump Collusion Conundrum

People are very angry....
As the media continue to speculate and Trump continues to chant, "no colloosian, no colloosian", one thing seems likely; Trump himself will probably never be found guilty of anything. Flynns may rock and cronies may roll, but we are most likely stuck with "President" Trump for the next 3 years.

First of all, The Donald didn't win the election because of Russia. He won because 63m people bought into his bullshit. He won because Democrats would rather have a pissing match with each other than unite around a common cause....and he won because damn near half of American voters were too lazy to walk away from their couches and TVs long enough to cast a ballot.

So now, after the fact, they want to fix things. They tried contesting the vote count, invoking the Emolument Clause, crying sexual misconduct, Russian collusion and impeachment...But none of this is going to amount to a hill of beans. We own this loser for at least the next three years.

My email is filled every day with pleas to "sign this petition to impeach Trump (and please give us $5)". Where does all this money go? It likely goes to people who plan new ways to ask for more money! Since when do we have to pay for our democracy? You want to defeat Trump? VOTE! Vote against him...Tell everyone you know to vote against him. We're stuck with Orange Mussolini for three more years...let's try not to make it seven.

Please Stop!

     It just gets worse and worse!
     I mean, my email inbox is literally inundated every day with politicians and their minions requesting donations. The "we have to get the money out of politics" people never seem to miss an opportunity to beg for more money. I'd say about 3/4 of my email is given over to this nonsense.
    These are people i've never heard of requesting donations for politicians i don't know, mixed with pleas from everyone from Bernie to Obama to support the "DCCC" or some such organization which promises to fight for some cause or another. I've tried unsubscribing from them and marking them as spam, but they just pop back up like some kind of email wack-a-mole!
    Now i don't know about you, but i don't have a lot of excess income. What little i do have goes to an occasional Starbucks French Roast (black, no sugar please) or a fish fillet meal at McD's. I simply can't be expected to pay for my democracy....i already pay the people who pay the politicians!
     ...and it's not like money wins elections anyway. That's just a loser's excuse. Bernie outspent Hillary....he lost. Hillary outspent Trump....she lost. In my district the Democratic candidate outspent her Republican opponent...and lost. It's time we threw away this myth and admitted that it's votes that matter not the size of the "war chest". Politicians need to actually get out and campaign intelligently in order to gain votes. If the people understand what will benefit them, they might actually (no guarantee) vote responsibly. If not, more campaign money won't fix that. Paid-for political announcements, dumb and often misleading memes, lying lobbyists and pundits.....none of them work on well informed voters. You can't buy their votes...they know better.
     In a democracy, the people have the responsibility to inform themselves and vote reasonably. All of this soap opera bullshite that we fund with donations just detracts from that.
     So to the various politicians begging at my email and mail box i say, "No....i won't give you money. I shouldn't have to give you money. Get out there and make a reasonable case for why i should elect you. If you can't convince voters using logic and reason instead of drama and innuendo, then i don't need you....and if the voters don't respond to logic and reason, no amount of money spent campaigning will persuade them."

I think the last election has finally proved that.

Confessions of a Centrist Liberal

 

    I was a Republican once. I'm sure you've seen those memes showing what Republicans stood for back in the days of President Eisenhower; Unions, equal rights, women's equality, better wages and less wars. That was essentially my family; Working class union members who just wanted to live and let live.
    But that all changed in the '60s. Southern Democrats, stung by President Kennedy's push for equality and segregation fled the Democratic party in droves finally finding a home in the GOP. After not very long the parties had traded places. Democrats became more Liberal and Republicans more Conservative. The Republican party after Nixon became the party of religion, racism and intolerance. It became enamored with war and big money while Democrats championed, more and more, the poor and middle income classes.
    I hung with the GOP hoping to make a difference in the primaries, but it never happened. Finally in 1999 i'd had enough crazy and re-registered as an Independent. I wasn't sure i wanted to be a Democrat. I was not a fan of Bill Clinton. He didn't seem to have a handle on how to run a government and i cringed as he made one stupid blunder after another. I was actually encouraged when Al Gore ran for President. Finally it seemed we'd have a brain in the White House!
...but no.
    When Bush (Dubya) took office i feared for the worst....and he never let me down. He literally gave away the budget surplus of the '90s and gave tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations while managing to spend more than ever. Using the nationalism that arose after 9/11, he started 2 wars. One, justifiably, to take out al Qaeda who had attacked us....and one in Iraq based upon lies and bullshit. Unfortunately many Democrats were caught up in the patriotic mood of the day...Many Americans were calling for a "war on terror" and Democrats were hard pressed not to oblige them given the horrors of 9/11. But anyone who was paying even the slightest attention could see that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was a sham. It was literally a war for oil. After we were committed, Dubya as much as said so.
    As we all now know, the Bush years left us with two military occupations and an impending depression. When Barack Obama got elected, i was encouraged once again. Here was a man who seemed to have it all under control. The Depression was reduced to a recession (still bad, but somewhat less than a disaster) and he scaled down our useless involvement in Iraq. He even managed to actually get the person responsible for 9/11 without starting a new war. Things appeared to be looking up!
...but no.
    Republicans in Congress, bent on making Obama a "one term president", scuttled any and all legislation that would have improved the lot of poor and middle income class Americans. They wanted an end to the ACA (Obamacare), more tax breaks for the rich and less regulations for the companies that pollute our water and air. Blue Dog Democrats soon turned on the President and Far Left Progressives scolded him on everything from not closing Guantanamo to not including the Public Option in the ACA....none of which he had any control over. I've never seen a president get so badly hammered from both sides, right and left, and still manage to keep his composure and get things done. It was the most amazing display of calm and competence i have ever witnessed in government.
    By the end of the Obama administration it seemed that the logical choice for America was going to be to carry on with his policies and try to reform Congress.
....but no.
    At the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign i was a Bernie Sanders supporter. I liked Bernie as a person. I was proud of his history as a champion of equal rights and middle class opportunities. There were a few places where i thought he went somewhat over the top...but i was sure that, should he win, he'd adjust to that. As an Independent in NY State i couldn't vote in the Democratic primaries. I could only watch and hope. When Bernie lost the primary i was disappointed, but not crushed. Bernie would still be in Congress...he'd gotten Hillary Clinton to agree to most of his agenda and, at worst, we'd have another Clinton in the White House who would be a tolerable, if not great, president.
....er...but, no.
    No sooner were the primaries over than the Hillary Swooners and Bernie Bros went at each other, dividing the Democratic party into two constantly warring factions. Watching this from social media, i warned both sides that the inevitable outcome of this inability to come together on Nov 8th would be President Trump. Well they didn't...and now we are ruled by an imbecile and a Congress devoted to marginalizing everyone except the wealthy. Good Job!
     So this brings me to why i'm no longer an Independent.
Well...being a Republican is still out of the question. There is simply too much crazy there to even consider it....i mean.....Donald Trump? Staying Independent would mean i'd get to watch helplessly again as the Democratic Party (which still actually maintains some semblance of sanity) implodes. At least next time i'll get a shot at the primaries.
    Now, what makes me a Centrist (apparently) is that i don't hate and vilify all corporations and Wall Street. I don't believe all white people are born racists by default or that all men are inherently misogynists. I don't think all the cops are killers. I don't believe GMOs were invented to poison us for profit. I don't agree that vaccinations were invented by "big pharma" just to make money......
.....and for crisakes there are no fu**in' "chemtrails"!
     So that puts me somewhat at odds with the uber-left. I would say i'm an Obama Democrat. If that damns me then so be it.....
I couldn't hope to be in better company.
 

Nazis go home?

In the wake of the recent events in Charlottesville,Va i've seen a number of posts and memes featuring the slogan, "Nazis go home!"....and i wondered, if you're a nazi, who wants you? Where could you call "home"? Certainly nowhere in America where we fought a world war to end nazism. The rest of the world probably wouldn't want you either. Most of the EU has anti-nazi laws. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, The Czech Republic and Slovakia you can be arrested for giving the nazi salute, and in Germany, for simply denying the Holocaust. 

So if we were to round up all the nazis and put them on a boat, where could they go? The answer is likely "nowhere".  If you're a nazi you are welcome nowhere. No country would take you...no people would accept you. 

I think we need to do this in the USA; We need to make it absolutely clear that if you are a nazi, this is not your country. You don't belong here....We don't want you. 

....and i think Donald Trump personally should be making this statement. So far he has refused to do this. Why? Are there now nazis in the White House? We know the alt-right identifies with nazi ideology. Perhaps Trump himself is a nazi sympathizer. Until he makes it perfectly clear that he isn't, we'll just have to assume that might be the case. 

Dictators are always con men in the beginning. At first they need to make it look like they're benevolent in order to gain power. After they're entrenched, their true colours show....But if you look closely you can see a tinge of intolerance and oppression right from the beginning. I think Donald Trump was displaying bits of his plumage during his presidential campaign....and now we're seeing the full spectrum of his true ideology.

Why I'm Becoming a Democrat

Well, i suppose the time has come. After being an Independent for 18 years, i'm being forced to pick a party. What's compelling me to do this? Trump.

For 30 years i was a Republican. My first vote was for Nixon (before we found out he was a crook). He was the last Republican i voted for. For 3 decades i watched the GOP become less and less a party of the people and more and more a party of moneyed fat cats, religious fanatics and deluded conspiracy theorists with guns. In '99 i couldn't take it any more and re-registered as "no political affiliation". When Al Gore lost to George W (lie you into a war) Bush, i was vindicated....and when Barack Obama became President, i was proud of my country for the first time in 45 years. Things looked like they were finally on the road to sanity....and then......

In 2016 i supported Bernie Sanders (although i couldn't vote for him in the primaries) and then HRC (because she was the only sane choice).
....and what happened? America managed to elect a half-baked reality show star and crooked businessman to be the most powerful person in the world.

To some degree i blame myself. I hadn't become a Democrat back in 1999 because i disagreed with some of their predispositions. I was essentially a political centrist. I didn't believe that all of the corporations were evil, that all of the banks were screwing us or that all white people shared the original sin of racism. I also wasn't into beating up my country for the actions of the far right.  I don't see the USA as the great devil (like Noam Chomsky). I understand that we've made mistakes in the past and that paranoia and profit have sometimes dictated foreign policy. But on the whole the USA does have noble (if often misguided) intentions. I don't believe that we should never defend ourselves, i understand that some wealthy people do, in fact, deserve to be wealthy and i don't believe that all of the cops are out to kill us. So i wanted to be neutral and objective politically, while at the same time supporting sane choices for our leaders and representatives.

But nooooo! In the last election i watched in horror as the US actually elected a damn fool over an uppity female to run the country. Even given that Hillary wasn't the best choice in the world and probably was the darling of the DNC at the expense of Bernie, she was the only sane choice. Donald Trump is ignorant, inarticulate, crooked, bad tempered, narcissistic and an absolute pig of a misogynist. But somehow Americans overlooked all that because hell.....HILLARY!

So now i'm going out Monday and sign up as a Democrat. I still don't agree with a lot of their new dogma...but the prospect of a decade of Republican rule has made me do it. You can thank Donald Trump.

So...where do we go from here?

As the Trump presidency continues to implode, it might seem that we'll somehow be delivered from the dysfunction of misanthropic Republicanism. Alas...this is not to be. There appears to be a never-ending supply of ignorant miscreants to draw from on the right. Even with appointees and cabinet members dropping like dominoes, there still remains the prospect of a 4 year Republican administration.....and as if that weren't bad enough, we are also bestowed with a right wing controlled Congress and the possibility of a Republican appointed SCOTUS majority. Even were we to get Trump fired (Wouldn't that be irony?), we'd still have Pence in the Oval Office, which would be just about as bad. This man doesn't "believe" in climate change or evolution. How is that going to work out in a country that's supposed to be preeminent in science and technology? It's not.
Since impeachment of Orange Hitler would make little change other than putting a different ignorant ass in the hot seat, our next best hope is changing the balance of power in Congress in 2018.

So what are Democrats doing so far in that respect? Well.......mostly more of the same things that lost them the election in 2016. Crying about money in politics while begging for money, finger pointing at each other over the loss in the last election....and constantly bickering over who is the most Left of Center. Centrists have now overtaken Republicans among Progressives as the new devil. While Republicans close ranks and find common ground among their constituents, Democrats find ever more reasons for division.

It's time to close ranks and concentrate on dragging this country out of its decline into the Dark Ages! If you have any Progressive tendencies, this must be the first priority....After that we can split hairs and argue over whether Hillary had too many snarky emails or got paid too much money to give a speech....or if Bernie must be a racist because he's old and white. Right now, we have exactly one hope.....and that is reform of Congress. All the criticism and vilification of Trump is worthless if that doesn't happen in 2018.

Democrats and Progressive Independents....Unite and win in 2018!

Immigration; How can we permanently and compassionately fix the problem?

........so now we finally have a President who wants to solve immigration problems by building a wall. This is akin to stopping a leak in a dam by sticking your finger in the hole; The water stops flowing in, but the dam is still broken. It treats the symptom but the cause remains. 
When we finally get around the tragic clown posturings of Donald Trump, what will actually have been accomplished? How can we stop the inflow of desperate, undocumented people in a fair, compassionate and effective way?

A good place to start in solving the immigration problem would involve bringing the rest of the Western hemisphere into the 21st century. If  the people of Mexico, Cuba, Central America, South America, et al could earn a living wage in their countries, the incentive to come here to work would diminish.

I propose levying an import duty on any part, product or service that is sold in this country when the workers making the product or providing that service earn less than the US minimum wage. Corporations could avoid paying this duty by paying the prevailing minimum wage to their employees. 

This would help our economy in at least five ways:

1. It would slow down the the loss of jobs caused when companies move their operations "offshore" seeking to cut labor costs.

2.  It would give the people of other countries more money to spend on American products thereby increasing our exports and lowering the trade deficit.

3. It would stop the hiring of illegal immigrants in this country who will work for low wages thereby taking  jobs from Americans. This would decrease unemployment and stimulate the economy.

4. It will drastically cut back on the number of immigrants who come here to find work, fall into poverty and must resort to social services in order to survive. This will lessen the amount of taxpayer money needed to provide such services.

5. The taxes collected from "underpayers" would help offset the costs to the American people brought about by the immigration of those seeking better employment.

The situation we are in now is largely a result of NAFTA which helps promote a culture of  worker exploitation in Hispanic countries.
 Ross Perot was right. NAFTA turned out to be a disaster for American workers. The only people it benefits are rich CEOs and business owners. The rest of us are paying the price in lost jobs and lower wages.

Building walls, guest worker programs, making it a felony to be an illegal immigrant and "sending them all back" won't work. We can waste time and money on these programs or we can address the true cause of illegal immigration; extreme poverty beyond our borders.

We have got to find a way to improve the quality of life for our neighbors to the south and elsewhere in their native countries. Fleeing to America must cease to be their only salvation from poverty.

2018

               Ya know, somehow "I told you so" just doesn't quite say it.... 
   
      Liberals, having managed to snatch defeat from victory with their bickering and divisiveness, are now fuming in their social media about the results they helped bring to pass. Thanks to the Hillary haters, the Bernie Bashers, the hard core Bernie Bros, and the "both parties are the same" delusionists, we are now ensconced in a full-on Republican fascist theocracy. All that needs be done is a redefinition of the Establishment Clause by the Supreme Court and you'll be living on a 6k year old Earth and religion will be in every classroom and courthouse.
   
       It should be clear by now, to even the most incredibly obtuse, that the parties are not even remotely "the same" and that a Clinton Presidency would have been far more desirable to the one we are about to experience...yet i continue to see people who refuse to let the Hillary subject die....still fanning the flames of division as the country goes to hell in a handbag. If you want change, this has got to end!
     
       So what to do now? Impeachment (if it could be accomplished) would only give us President Pence....no better than Donald Trump, and it's not likely to be an option with this Congress anyway. There will be no recount on the election. Democrats have wimped out on that before (2000) and the time for that has passed. All the rancorous memes and demonstrations in the world won't still the Republican onslaught of executive orders and bills that will now sail easily through the Republican Congress and be rubber stamped by the new POTUS. You can make your Hitler/Holocaust analogies, complain about Trump's pussy grabbing and moan on about Melania and it will have exactly no effect on our current situation....it's just preaching to the choir. We can stamp our feet and rant all we want and that won't make this nightmare go away.

      First and foremost we have got to reform Congress. That is now priority #1. We are not going to reign in this administration by overturning the events 2016. We're not going to do it by criticism in social media or by marches on DC alone. We must begin TODAY to prepare for the 2018 midterms. Only this can save America from the disaster of a Trump/Pence led fascist religious theocracy.

            The time for division is over...the stakes are too high for us to lose again....
                                HELP PUT YOUR LOCAL PROGRESSIVE IN CONGRESS!
                                                 #reformcongress2018