Monday, February 27, 2017

Nobody Knew

"Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated," Trump said, at the National Governors Association meeting.



What could that statement possibly mean?

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Destroying America

Don Trump is too confused to know what he is doing in Washington, beyond being a cranky old man. But that's okay, as he is not the one running things. Steve Bannon spelled out the plan at CPAC this week. The Post:
Atop Trump’s agenda, Bannon said, was the “deconstruction of the administrative state” — meaning a system of taxes, regulations and trade pacts that the president and his advisers believe stymie economic growth and infringe upon one’s sovereignty.

“If you look at these Cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction,” Bannon said. He posited that Trump’s announcement withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership was “one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history.” Bannon: Trump administration is in unending battle for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’
So ... now they have told us exactly why they selected the nightmarishly worst people for every cabinet position. They want to destroy the government.

This is not okay. Good Americans complain because the government is slow, unresponsive, expensive. Politicians are self-centered and vain ... lots to complain about. But you can drink the water in most places, you can eat the food without getting poisoned. You can drive on the highways. You can walk in the park without fear. In America anyone can grow up to be President. You can say what you want, even if you're Milo Yiannopoulos. Some of us actually loved our country, and hoped to work together to make it better.

Do you think this is what the people in flyover land were hoping for, when they voted for Trump? Deconstruction?

RealClearPolitics quoted Bannon further:
Every business leader we've had in is saying not just taxes, but it is -- it is also the regulation. I think the consistent, if you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason and that is the deconstruction, the way the progressive left runs, is if they can't get it passed, they're just gonna put in some sort of regulation in -- in an agency.

That's all gonna be deconstructed and I think that that's why this regulatory thing is so important. Stephen Bannon: Core Of Trump's Platform Is "Deconstruction Of The Administrative State"
Trump signed an executive order requiring that agencies rescind two regulations for every one they initiate. This EO will be declared unconstitutional, but the concept is at the heart of the Bannon/Trump agenda. They want to neutralize the government so that it does not protect the country's resources, medicines, foods. It is easy to understand: regulations cost corporations money. I am not being cynical, that is the whole explanation.

By the way, Bannon doesn't know what "deconstructed" means. It's kind of a fancy word from literary criticism and semiotics. Bannon is using that word because it sounds so much more refined that "destroyed." Voters will cheer you on when you "deconstruct" their country, not so much when you destroy it.

You broke it, America, you bought it.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Flynn: "Lock Her Up"

Boy, he really got that crowd fired up.









Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Cleric: Trump Reveals the Real Face of America

There is too much going on for me to write about all of it. Like, right now the court is hearing an appeal of the Muslim ban, Betsy DeVos has just squeaked by as education-hating Secretary of Education, Kellyanne is insisting that lies are truth, Elizabeth Warren is accused of disdain, Trump accuses the media of not wanting to report terrorism and they are producing facts showing they obsess over it, Yemen has asked us not to protect them, Trump is mad because he didn't know the executive order he signed put Bannon on the National Security Council, and also because Sean Spicer was played by a giiirrrlll ooh-ick on TV ... There's too much but now and then there is one that catches your eye, so let me point to an article in Al Jazeera.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that he was grateful to US President Donald Trump for revealing "the real face of America".

"We are thankful to this gentleman ... he showed the real face of America," Khamenei said in a speech to military officers in Tehran on Tuesday.

"[It was] what we have said for more than 30 years - that there is political, economic, moral and social corruption in the ruling system of the US. This gentleman came and brought it out into the open in the election and after the election."

He referred to the case of a young Iranian boy who was pictured in handcuffs at a US airport following Trump's ban on visas from Iran, among other countries.

"By what he does - handcuffing a five-year-old child - he shows the true meaning of American human rights," Khamenei said. Ayatollah Khamenei: Donald Trump shows real face of US
You might question Al Jazeera as a news source but it is the perfect source for this story. (And, actually, Al Jazeera is often a surprisingly good source of international news.)

So, for one, the Ayatollah's trolling us. Nothing will upset a real American more than somebody who thinks that Trump reveals our "true face." Most of us are just the opposite of him, or try.

But Ayatollah Khamenei isn't saying this for an American audience. He is talking to his own Persian people, and to his fellow Muslims. He is saying that Trump proves without doubt that America is just as corrupt as they have always thought we were. The image of a five-year-old boy in handcuffs is offensive to good Muslim people, just as it is offensive to good Americans of all faiths, and it is having an impact. Why did that happen, why was a little child put in shackles? Oh, no reason, America just doesn't like people from certain countries, like Iran. They scare us. So we take it out on a random five-year-old, take him away from his mother and handcuff him for hours.

As far as they know, we are all like that. Our elected President ordered that to be done, and it reflects on all of us. You think this doesn't motivate people to hate us? Do you think this actually makes us safer?

Here's something to chew on:
He ridiculed the idea of being grateful to former President Barack Obama, saying he was the one who placed "paralysing sanctions" on Iran and helped create the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group through his destabilising actions in Iraq and Syria.
Okay, readers, break into discussion groups and talk among yourselves. Topic: Ayatollah Khamenei and Don Trump are right, Barack Obama is the founder of ISIS, or not. Five minutes.

Trump is making the rest of the world resent us. He is a corrupt, small-time gangster but he is our figurehead and for someone in a distant country he might be the only American they are aware of -- they think we're all like that. He is making the world a more dangerous place for all Americans, and for innocent people around the world.