Monday, March 27, 2017:   How Fake News and Social Media Undermine the Truth
"In the essay 'Truth and Politics,' Hannah Arendt pointed out that truth, unlike opinion, is 'beyond agreement, dispute, opinion or consent.' Truth doesn't change depending on how many people accept it. Writing in 1967, Arendt observed a worrisome tendency for factual truth to be countered with opinion and thereby apparently transformed into opinion — becoming subject to debate. She was worried that facts were being disputed out of existence. We are now witnessing the same process in reverse: Dispute is coming first, as though the opinions of a large enough number of people who found this or that allegation 'believable' could produce facts where none had been observed or verified."

Gessen, Masha, "Into the Trumpian Fog", New York Times, Page 4 Print


Thursday, March 23, 2017:   The Zero Sum Game: Trump Won, America Lost
Sometimes I run across an article that expresses my thoughts and feelings better that anything I can write. Here are exerpts from a New York Times article that describes what was different about Trump's ascent to power.

"I know that Mr. Trump was elected, in part, because too many people were still hurting in this economy, from the terrible disruptions of their lives and their communities over the last 25 years."

"Yet that is no excuse for what we did last November."

"Throughout our history, Americans have encountered economic shocks much worse than anything we know today, and with many fewer resources at their disposal."

"When the system seemed broken in the past, when the elites and the major parties seemed irretrievably corrupt and deaf to their appeals, their response was to build true democratic movements from the ground up, and to push them on to victory even if that took decades."

"The first wave of feminists fought for more than 70 years to win their biggest demand; Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were dead by the time women got the vote. African-Americans battled ceaselessly, in every way they could, against their enslavement and Jim Crow, training their own lawyers to take their cases to the Supreme Court. The struggles for labor rights, gay rights, Hispanic rights, civil liberties, religious toleration, women's control over their own bodies — all these battles and more took decades to win. They are the glory of our civilization."

"Today's passive, unhappy Americans sat on their couches and chose a strutting TV clown to save us."

"What they have done is a desecration, a foolish and vindictive act of vandalism, by which they betrayed all the best and most valiant labors of our ancestors."

"And until we do accept this abject failure of both our system and ourselves, there is no hope for our redemption."

Baker, Kevin, "The America We Lost When Trump Won", New York Times Review, 21 January 2017, Page 6-7 Print


Friday, March 17, 2017:   Racism and Trump
"Not only were even the least privileged Americans told that they lived in God's own country, but white Americans, however impoverished and undereducated, had the comforting sense that there was always a group beneath them, who did not share their entitlement, or claim to greatness, a class of people with a darker skin. With a Harvard-educated black president, this fiction became increasingly difficult to sustain.

Trump… had a fine instinct for these popular feelings. He played on the wounded pride of large communities and inflamed the passions of people who fear the changes that make them feel abandoned."

Buruma, Ian, "Exit Wounds", New York Times Magazine, 4 December 2016, Page 43. Print


Tuesday, March 14, 2017:   Trumpcare: Screw Americans First
According to the NYT, "The Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that next year 14 million fewer Americans will have insurance if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed and replaced on the terms Trump is seeking. That tally would rise to 21 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026. By then, the total number of uninsured Americans would reach 52 million.

To hold down the cost of average premiums, the proposal would allow insurers to charge five times more for older enrollees than younger ones, rather than three times, as permitted under the ACA.

At the same time, the plan provides a $600 billion tax cut over 10 years for wealthy Americans, because they would no longer be subject to the taxes that pay for the health care subsidies."

I would be nice if the only people this impacted were those who voted Republican, but unfortunately that is not the case. We all get screwed.

In the end the only ones who benefit from the Republican repeal and replace of the ACA are the rich and the guy to the right.


Friday, March 10, 2017:   None are so blind as those who will not see.
Or for those of the Bible persuasion, Jeremiah 5:21 ('Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not')

It saddens me immensely to see good people, who because of pride or some misguided allegiance, choose to ignore the rape and pillage of America that is happening right in front of them. They apparently don't want to believe that they have been duped buy Trump and the Republican party. They think that somehow things will change and all will be well.

So to those of you who fall into that group I say this… "Get your heads out of your collective asses." I know it is complex and for many complexity is not your friend, but take it from those who have it figured out, you are in the process of losing everything that previous generations of Americans have fought to achieve. By supporting the Republicans (who by the way could careless about you), you relegate to the shit pile all the sacrifices made by those who really care about America. Fight back before it is too late.


Thursday, March 9, 2017:   When will the press stop acting like a 5 year old soccer team?
When are the major news organizations going to wake up and start reporting the news and stop chasing every bullshit tweet from the Trumpster. They act like a bunch of 5 year old soccer players. Have you ever watched peewee soccer game? The total focus of the little tots is on the ball. They don't play positions. En mass, they run around the field chasing the ball wherever it goes. In this case the balls are absurd tweets from the Donald.

I can't believe that every reporter out there is that stupid. My God, they only have to look at the sources for the Trumpster's claims. For example, the only source for the Obama wiretap claim seems to be Breitbart News, and we all know what an honest and reliable source they are - NOT.

To my friends in the legitimate news organizations. Please stop lending credence to Trumpster tweets. They are simply a diversionary tactic designed to take the focus off of the chaos and corruption in the Trump White House. Trump and the Republicans are screwing the American people. REPORT ON THAT!