Category: Trump effect

October 3, 2017

 

Once again, we enact the ritualistic performance of shock and grief that always follows horrific massacres like the one in Las Vegas; although mass gun violence has clearly lost its capacity to shock us through numbing repetition.  Politicians invoke the talismanic phrase that the slaughtered are in their “thoughts and prayers,” knowing that once the news cycle has moved on, so will they.  Those of us who angrily demand action on common sense gun control while blinking back tears are told that we are “politicizing tragedy,” as if the decision to allow civilians unfettered access to weapons of war is not itself a political act.  We are told that “now is not the right time” to discuss gun control, but given that we now average one mass shooting per day in this country, by that metric it will never be the right time (Source:  “Gun Violence in America, explained in 17 maps and charts,” by German Lopez, Vox, 10/2/17). Continue reading “The right to bear arms?”

    The brutal combination of cruelty, incompetence and greed that characterizes the Trump administration never ceases to amaze us. Puerto Rico continues to suffer from the impact of Hurricane Maria, yet nine days after the storm hit, Puerto Rico still has no power, no water and dwindling supplies of food and medicine. Befitting the shell of a man devoid of empathy that he is, Trump’s response has focused on the financial cost of rebuilding Puerto Rico, rather than the human cost of continued inaction. When San Juan Mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz, rightly excoriated his administration’s incompetence, Trump responded by insulting her. (Source: “On Twitter, Trump attacks mayor of San Juan for ‘poor leadership’ among deepening crisis,” by David Nakamura, The Washington Post, 9/30/17).      Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary, sneering theocrat Tom Price, was forced to resign after racking up $1,000,000 in taxpayer- funded costs for private jet flights during his brief tenure. As many have noted, Price was incurring these costs while advocating for an 18% cut to his agency’s budget. Yet Price was hardly alone in indulging his champagne tastes on the taxpayer dime. EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt has run up $832,735.40 in costs for a round the clock security team, triple that of previous EPA chiefs (Source: “At EPA, guarding the Chief pulls agents from pursuing environmental crimes,” by Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, The Washington Post, 9/20/17).

     Against this backdrop of indiscriminate profligacy, Trump and his Congressional collaborators released their “Tax Reform” plan. Even before the non-partisan Tax Policy Center released its analysis, it was clear that the proposal represented a massive tax cut for the ultra wealthy. The Tax Policy Center analysis projected that the plan would result in a $2.6 trillion dollar reduction in federal revenue. They found that taxpayers who earned in excess of $730,000 would receive 50% of the cuts, while middle to upper middle income (those making between $150,000-$300,000) would see their taxes increase over time (Source: “GOP Tax Plan Favors the Richest, Analysis Shows,” by John W. Schoen, CNBC.com, 9/29/17). The “reform” plan which eliminates the deduction for state and local taxes and most itemized deductions, while sharply cutting taxes for corporations,would shift the tax burden from companies to individuals (Source: “Under Trump’s Plan, Tax Cuts Shrink over time for Everyone but the Richest,” by Alicia Parlapiano and Jasmine C. Lee, The New York Times, 9/29/17).

     Viewed together, these actions make it depressingly evident that the people in charge of our government plan to steal from the American people, in large ways and small, to bankroll their selfish appetites. These are public officials that do not serve the public; religious zealots with no sense of humility, charity or compassion; strict constructionists whose every action evinces ignorance or flagrant disregard of every amendment to the Constitution. The truth is, from “healthcare” reform to “tax reform,” from attacks on our voting rights to attacks on our First Amendment rights, we are under siege from within by those who profess to govern us. We will have use every nonviolent means at our disposal to fight back.

#Taxreform

#TomPrice

#PuertoRico

September 28, 2017

 

Tuesday night, the citizens of Alabama elected Roy Moore, a racist, homophobic rodeo clown, as their Republican candidate for the United States Senate.  Moore is a sideshow freak who was twice removed from his position as Alabama Chief Justice for his refusal to abide by the United States Constitution.  Moore erected a granite monument of the Ten Commandments outside of the courthouse.  He believes that homosexuality should be outlawed and that Congressman Keith Ellison was ineligible to serve in Congress because of his Muslim faith (Source:  The Seven Most Inflammatory Things Roy Moore has said,” by Nolan McCaskill, Politico, 9/27/17).  Moore is an islamophobic theocrat with no fealty to the Constitution and utter contempt for the Rule of Law.  He was clearly absent that day in third grade when they taught students WHY the Pilgrims fled England to establish a new nation on this continent.  Moore is unfit to serve as a traffic cop, let alone a United States Senator.   And yet, here we are. Continue reading “Four little girls”

September 26, 2017

Many people have compared the gallons of ink and hours of air time spent discussing Trump’s ongoing excoriation of the protests of Black athletes, with the below the fold coverage of the massive humanitarian crisis unfolding in Puerto Rico.  3.5 million Americans lack electrical power, cell coverage and fuel and face a rapidly dwindling supply of potable water.  80% of the island’s crops have been destroyed.  Although the federal government has sent three amphibious ships with supplies and personnel, it is notable that it has not sent the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the much larger vessel which was deployed to the Florida Keys after Hurricane Irma.  (Source:  “Puerto Rico has become raw and primitive,” by Joel Achenbach, Dan Lamothe & Alex Horton, The Washington Post, 9/25/17).  Trump’s response, which mentioned the debt owed by the territory to “Wall Street,” was one of callous indifference, lacking empathy or any concrete promise of aid.  The reason for the differential treatment of 3.5 million Americans who live in Puerto Rico as compared to Floridians is obvious to anyone who is paying attention, and the reality is, the neglect of Puerto Rico and the attempted silencing of Black protest are two sides of the same coin. Continue reading “Take a knee”

September 21, 2017

In a week in which Mexico City was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, Puerto Rico was slammed and flooded by Hurricane Maria, and the occupant of the Oval Office stood at the podium of the United Nations and threatened to annihilate an entire nation, we are reminded of the prescient words of W.B. Yeats a century ago:

 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

(“The Second Coming,” W.B. Yeats.)

Continue reading “Things Fall Apart”

September 19, 2017

Many of us watching the Emmys on Sunday night shared Anna Chlumsky’s slack-jawed disbelief when Sean Spicer was wheeled out onto the stage to “joke” about crowd size.  We couldn’t believe how quickly our Hollywood heroes, who have spent countless nights over the last nine months righteously excoriating Trump’s corruption, bigotry and dishonesty, could book a prime slot on the rehabilitation tour of one of his primary enablers.  Of course, Stephen Colbert was hardly alone in this.  Harvard University invited Spicer and Corey Lewandowski to be fellows at their Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics.  The stated mission of the Institute of Politics is to “engage students with academics, politicians and policymakers on a non-partisan basis and to stimulate and nurture their interest in public service and leadership.”  How can Harvard square the appointment of a mouthpiece for a racist grifter who demeans the office of the Presidency, trashes our country’s standing in the world and demonstrates utter contempt for the Constitution and the Rule of Law, with that mission?  The disturbing trend, noted by everyone from Teen Vogue to Time Magazine, is that notoriety is now the coin of the realm, with no regard for ethics, standards or values. Continue reading “Hollywood Heroes?”

      It is a struggle to maintain hope that we will emerge from this nightmare in which our beloved country is in the grip of racist kleptocrats, but some weeks are harder than others.  For Black Americans, this week has brought a stark reminder of how little our lives matter.  Just yesterday in St. Louis, Officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith, despite audio evidence that Stockley began his pursuit of Smith with the intent to kill him and despite DNA evidence that showed that Stockley had planted a gun in Smith’s car, to make it appear that Smith was armed.  In a depressingly familiar tableau, we witnessed Smith’s mother in the post verdict press conference stating, “My soul is burning.  My heart is broken.”  We saw St Louis police in riot gear confronting peaceful protesters.  We contrasted the response of the St. Louis police last night to the response of Charlottesville police last month when confronting armed white supremacists.  While the Grand Dragon of the KKK could fire a gun at a Black counter-protester and walk away unmolested; an elderly woman who was peacefully protesting was assaulted by the St. Louis police (Source:  Fox 2 News; 9/15/17). Continue reading “No justice, no peace”

September 14, 2017

The news media has been obsessed this week with Hillary Clinton’s new book, “What Happened.”  Half of those commenting decry her for having the temerity to write it at all, stating that she should retreat to the Chappaqua woods.  Others carp that Hillary fails to accord sufficient weight to her own mistakes as a candidate.  That particular criticism is rich coming from a press corps that defensively denies the role its own imbalanced coverage played in Trump’s victory.  As the Shorenstein Center Report detailed, coverage of Hilary Clinton during the 2016 election cycle was light on policy and overwhelmingly negative (62% negative vs. 38% positive).  While Trump’s coverage was also more negative than positive (56%/44%), given the seriousness of the genuine scandals in which Trump was embroiled, his higher positives simply make no sense.  (Source:  “News Coverage of the 2016 General Election:  How the Press Failed the Voters,” by Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and The Press, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at The Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 12/7/16). Continue reading “Silence is violence”

September 12th, 2017

Sunday night we were treated to the spectacle of Charlie Rose interviewing Steve Bannon, the bilious re-animated corpse of Spiro Agnew, on “60 Minutes.”  Bannon, his voice dripping with thinly veiled contempt, uttered ahistorical nonsense that displayed less knowledge of American history than a 5th grader who was paying attention in Social Studies would have had.  Bannon bristled at the notion that The United States was a country of immigrants and said that “economic nationalism” built this country.  Unless economic nationalism is a new synonym for “slavery,” that is the most absurd thing ever uttered in public by a current or former White House staffer.  Continue reading “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”