People Who Voted for Trump

 A recent news story--post-election analysis--said that many young Black and Latino men voted for Trump because they see him as improving jobs and other financial/economic matters.

As  to those Latino folks: After January 20 they are likely to see their friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers being deported. Plus, no one  has said a word about the cost to the US--us taxpayers--for flying these immigrants back to their countries of origin. (Not even touching on the fact that today, the news showed Trump's about-to-be "immigration czar" replying to a question about families being separated by these deportations; his reply was, to paraphrase a bit, no, we won't need to separate families, just deport (US-born) children along with their parents.

And--to another group of voters who voted for Trump because they are unhappy with the rising prices the country has been experiencing: Again, wait until after January 20. Trump has pledged to raise tariffs on imported goods. Those voters who have been buying cheap Chinese goods at Walmart are going to see those items hugely increase in their prices to US consumers after Trump's tariffs are added.

If Trump makes good on his promise (threat) to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, U. S. car manufacturers are going to be unhappy, and car buyers are going to see car prices go up. This is because car makers are making engines and transmissions in Canada and Mexico, for the sake of--can you guess?--cheaper labor. This was facilitated--maybe encouraged--by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by Bill Clinton in 1989 (and replaced and superseded by another agreement, of which I do not know the terms) during Trump's first term.

Update, Jan. 31, 2025

Today ABC Television News said that Trump's increased tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico, and China will be put into effect tomorrow, and quoted experts saying that US consumers can expect numerous prices to go up as a result.

Trump said there may be some "disruptions," and that he believes the American people will understand. Well, I don't think they will. I think many people will say, "We elected him to lower prices, and now he's doing the exact opposite."

I think that people--if they do in fact expect a candidate to keep his campaign promises once in office--don't examine issues in enough depth as to say to themselves, "Well, if he does such-and-such, will x happen--or y?"

I think that, rather than looking into the issues at depth, people allow themselves to be swayed by sound bytes and catchy slogans--maybe slogans that will fit on the front of a cap--and are quick to believe that we need a change because nearly everything the previous administration did was wrong or bad.

So...when you're buying food and you're shocked by what's happened to the price of avocadoes, be sure to say a silent Thank You to Mr. Trump. 

Update, Feb. 7

As you may know by now, the threatened tariffs are off--for now.

I'm pretty sure Trump got pressure from many quarters. The Wall Street Journal --not exactly a liberal or leftist publication--called them "the dumbest trade war in history."

Trump is made to look much better by the fact that he got agreements--concessions?--from both Canada and Mexico. Were the tariffs merely a threat and a bluff to secure these concessions? Unless there's someone around who knows the answer and is willing to publicly disclose, we, the public, can't know.

 

 

2021 a New, but Maybe not Better Year

Supposedly, there is an ancient Chinese curse that says, "May you live in interesting times." Well, certainly 2020 was an "interesting" year, what with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused wrenching disruptions to individuals, families, schools, companies, institutions--to nearly all people and in nearly all places on Earth.

Plus, in 2020 the United States had a presidential election, defeating a man adored by some and reviled by (perhaps) many more.

And for me personally, 2020 was eventful just because early in the year I had surgery to remove a cancer.

So, probably literally billions breathed a sigh of relief when 2020 ended, believing, or at least hoping, that the new year, 2021, just had to be better than the one ending.

After just six days of this new year I don't know that we can be very sure of that. Bad news is that the virus in the United States is not abating--far from it--and now we need to be worried about variants in the virus caused by mutations.

And today, which was to have seen a rather routine and boring vote by Congress to accept the vote (for president) of the Electoral College, the U.S. Capitol, the seat of the Legislative branch of the US government, was attacked, besieged, breached, etc., by supporters of Donald Trump.

I am not a historian but I'm pretty sure this was unprecedented. The transition of power from the administration of one US president to the next, incoming one usually proceeds completely peacefully. That is how it is supposed to work. But nothing that Trump has had a hand in--and this riot--or "insurrection," as President-Elect Biden called it--was indeed inspired, preached, urged by Trump--has followed the pattern or expectations for a normal presidency.

 Copyright © 2021

Donald Trump, Liar-in-Chief

 

Note/disclaimer: I write this as the outcome of the Nov. 3,2020 election is still uncertain.

Donald Trump is a colossal liar. He unceasingly spreads misinformation and disinformation, half-truths and lies. The New York Times counted some 1300 lies from Trump in his public speeches, etc., in his first year in office--that's about three a day.

And, with incredible irony, he attacks anything that is unfavorable to him or critical of him or shows him to be wrong as "fake news"--when he is the fake news.

It seriously threatens our democracy when a president seeks to undermine our news media and the very profession of journalism. Unfortunate--and very concerning to me--is that people--at least his supporters--believe him.

People do not know, have never learned, to be critical or to tell truth from lies.

Many, many years ago, when I was teaching, I used to upbraid my own students for being uncritical. I would say to them, "I could stand up here and say 'Black is white' and it would go in your ears, through  you heads and then down through your arms and onto the paper of your notebooks."

There are courses I have seen to make people better able to tell what is true.

Evidently a big factor is social media. People see deliberate misinformation on social media sites and believe it. Worse, they pass it on to others.

As I hear, some social media sites have begun to put labels--labels carrying a warning--that some posts are known to be false or misleading.

Right now, as votes from the election of two days ago are being counted, he is trying to call these votes--which are simply mail-in ballots that in many states, according to their state laws, could not be counted until the in-person voting was over, fraudulent, trying to make a case that the election is being stolen from him. This is merely our democracy working--working as it should--and he is doing all he can to discredit it.

 Another remarkable event of the still-young new year is the result of the run-off US Senate election in the state of Georgia. Georgia is a Southern state and surely has shown some of the prejudices associated with the South (maybe, to be charitable, I'll add "at times"), yet it has just elected a Jew and an African-American to the Senate (two different gentlemen). I suspect some Southerners of the old sort are shrieking in horror.

 

© 2020.

Reasons Why People Like Trump

 Mr. Donald J. Trump has done everything wrong. Just as a couple of examples: He has not moved the US in the right direction--or has moved it even in the wrong direction--on global warming/climate change. He has weakened protections of the populace against air and water pollution, to favor big business, the polluters. And, maybe worst, through his poor handling of COVID-19 virus, he has allowed nearly 200,000 people to die (yes, he deserves major responsibility for that).

 And yet tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people love him.

 Hard for me to understand.

 And yet: One man interviewed for TV said that he wants to see America go back to the America of his youth.

 I can sort of understand that. In my younger days, we did not even have the words carjacking, school shooting, lockdown, smash-and-grab.

 On the other hand, in those days maybe the Black man was expected to "know his place," and of course stay in it!

 Of course we cannot go back, and we should not want to. Drop that nostalgia, such as it may be, and realize that there are so many ways in which we must progress and are overdue to progress. As far as race is concerned, we are staring in the face the very problems that were recognized 50 years ago.

Copyright © 2020.

Reagan, Trump (and Other Republicans and Conservatives), and COVID-19

Ronald Reagan, as a candidate for president in 1980, kept telling us that government--at least big government--is a bad thing. Government is sprawling, bureaucratic, inefficient, corrupt. And anything that government does can be done better and cheaper by private industry.

And, as president, Reagan put this policy into practice, and cut, defunded, or eliminated many government agencies and programs. (For example, the day of his inauguration he stopped all Department of Energy funding for alternative-energy research, thereby setting back our work on sustainable energy sources by 30 years or more.  This ultimately cost me my job so--disclosure!--okay, maybe here I have an axe to grind.)

Reagan's continued railing against government convinced a lot of people--someone said, "Reagan won that battle"--and has perhaps become the prevailing philosophy in America. Certainly we see it in Trump, who also has been cutting and defunding a lot of government offices and programs. Just as an example, he cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control.

I want to quote a little publication called Catalyst, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists:

In 2014, the Obama administration established an office within the National Security Council to coordinate the federal government's future response to pandemics and provide accountable and organized leadership.

In 2017, the Trump administration abolished this office--and perhaps as a direct result, its response to the coronavirus pandemic was initially haphazard, inept, and lacking in overall accountability. We didn't have a clear sense of who is coordinating federal agencies to address public health and safety. We do have bungled efforts, like the failure to arrange for an adequate supply of testing kits. . . .

Conventional wisdom holds that private markets are the best way to satisfy society's needs, and the role of government should be primarily focused on ensuring that markets work properly. COVID-19 puts the lie to this proposition. When a crisis hits, there is no substitute for effective action directed and mandated by government.  Market signals alone will not ensure that the right people get tested, that emergency hospitals are set up, that ventilator manufacturing is ramped up, and so on.

 Catalyst, Volume 20, Spring 2020, pp. 2, 20

As of a few days ago, the death toll from this virus had surpassed 100,000. I believe that Trump and the philosophy I have cited here are at least partly to blame for these deaths. However much Reagan and other conservatives influenced public thinking and subsequent politics, I strongly believe that, as this article suggests, it's time to say that here we have a real-life situation that shows that this philosophy is flawed.

Trump Summed Up

Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible, horrible human being. I can't say "horrible" enough times; and it saddens me that enough American people elected him and, worse, still support him after we  have had three years to see what he is like.

He has separated children from their parents at the border and put them in cages. Every other word out of his mouth is a lie or an exaggeration, and he has abused his office and violated the law (e.g.-- only the latest--by trying to enlist Ukraine to help him get "dirt" on a political opponent). He can't stand criticism and childishly calls names to anyone who criticizes him.

Not to mention his attitudes toward women (remember the tape where he tells Billy Bush, "grab 'em by their pussies" and the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels just before the election?), minorities, Latinos, Jews, and LGBT people (the last quite likely influenced by Mike Pence, who was well known, before becoming Vice President, as hugely anti-LGBT).

His only good or value is Donald Trump and how to advance his own power, position, status, or personal wealth.

And I have hardly begun to enumerate all the things that are bad about him.

If we could get rid of him today, that would not be soon enough.

Trump and Smog

At one time, the Los Angeles, California, area was plagued with smog (the word was formed by combining smoke and fog). It made visibility very poor at times. Worse, it caused breathing and respiratory problems for people who lived there and breathed the smoggy air.

Once science figured out that smog was caused by the interaction of various chemicals in automobile exhaust with sunlight, the remedy was to impose governmental regulations on the types and amounts of substances that cars would be allowed to pour into the air. The result? Los Angeles' air has been cleaned up in a dramatic way.

We have national regulations on so-called tailpipe emissions from cars, and California has its own, stricter emission laws. But now Donald Trump wants to take away California's right to impose tighter restrictions on tailpipe emissions than the national standards. California needs these tighter controls because the unique topography (and plentiful sunshine) of the Los Angeles area was causing smog to not only form there but settle and remain.

It seems that any liberal, progressive policy--all right, regulation--that benefits 99% of the populace at the expense of the remaining 1% (which is going to be big business and/or the very wealthy individuals) simply rankles with Trump, and he can't wait for his chance to get rid of it by executive order.

Trump's Style of Arguing (Logic 101)

It's probably pretty well known by now--it's been going on for a long time--that when he is attacked in any way, Donald Trump fights back, lashes out. He tends to do this in a manner which is childish and illogical: he attacks the person rather than what they said about him. This is worthy only of a school child, and is known as the argumentum ad hominen. That means simply attacking the person rather than his ideas or comments or argument. In logic, it's considered one of the fallacies.

His latest is that he attacked former President Jimmy Carter. Carter questioned Trump's legitimacy as a president because his election may have depended on Russia's interference in the US presidential election in 2016.

Trump's response: Not trying to refute or dispute what Carter said, but saying Carter was "a  terrible president." Now, to try to be logical for just a second, let's suppose Carter was a terrible president--probably at least a somewhat arguable proposition. Even if he was, does that have any bearing on what he said?

As I said, and as anyone knows who has paid attention to things Trump has said for two or three years, he does this over and over again. I wonder how many people are swayed by this brand of terrible logic. As I have said before, I have to think that many people who listen to Trump, who pay attention to what he says, don't have the habits of thinking critically. Trump lies over and over (The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have often called attention to some of his lies). Sometimes it's not immediately apparent that something Trump said was a lie--we need to hear from "fact checkers" like the ones just mentioned--but other times even a moment's thought should tell the hearer that what he has said is not likely to be true. For example, some of his ridiculous and ego-serving assertions, like saying he's the greatest president ever. Other times there are photos, videos, and so forth that can tell us that Trump on an earlier occasion said the exact opposite of what he's saying now.

So my assertion is, Trump possibly would not be president if people were critical thinkers more of the time. And the people who continue to support him continue to uncritically take in what he says and take it as truth. It's very scary when he expects his assertions to be accepted and he can discredit the media by calling it "fake news." Manipulating public opinion by discrediting the media is a tactic used by dictators like Hitler.

Copyright © 2019.

Latest on Trump

Donald Trump, in recent news, has downplayed the guilt of Saudi Arabia in the murder (in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey) of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for the Washington Post. He says that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has assured him that he did not order the murder of Khashoggi. Trump says he believes the Crown Prince.

This is very reminiscent of when Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said that he believed Putin when Putin denied that Russian hackers had interfered in the US elections in 2016.

It looks as though Trump cannot conceive that anyone could or would lie to him. This from a man who is one of the most colossal liars of our time.

In both cases Trump has appeared to scorn his (or our, the US's) intelligence community, and what they were telling him, for the sake of cozying up to the leader of a foreign country (in the case of Saudi Arabia, they are somewhat more clearly our ally than would be the case with Russia).

I have to think that Trump was motivated by a desire to not alienate Putin, or Saudi Arabia. (One might say in the Saudi case that this was motivated by the US dependency on Saudi oil, but the truth is that currently the US is an exporter of energy so we are not as dependent on Saudi oil as was once the case. The US does sell Saudi Arabia a lot of arms and weapons, and maybe that is the motivation for trying, as Trump is apparently doing, to avoid any friction by saying that we believe what they tell us and don't believe they did something despicable--which earlier he seemed on the verge of doing.)

In other news, Trump has criticized a US district court for not ruling as Mr. Trump would have liked (the case, I believe, involved an asylum-seeker who had crossed our border). Trump complained about "Obama judges" who are not, in Trump's view, sufficiently concerned with the "safety" of our country and who are not taking a very hard line with asylum applications. He was rebuked by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who said "There are no Obama judges, nor Trump judges, nor Bush judges. . . " and that we should be thankful that we have an independent judiciary.

Trump never takes disagreement or criticism lightly, so he struck back at Chief Justice Roberts. All this, I think, played out on Twitter, a platform clearly beloved by Trump.

I imagine that Trump's handlers have had to remind him (or, more likely, to try unsuccessfully to convince him) that he is not a king and must abide by the laws and the constitutional limits on his power and authority.

Copyright © 2018,

Republican Lies (In the Manner of One Mr. D. Trump)

Republicans running for election or re-election in next month's election have been getting feedback and even static from their constituents over the issue of whether they want a government-supported health care plan to cover pre-existing conditions.

The Affordable Care Act (so-called Obamacare) provides that the insurance plans offered by private insurers who offer health insurance to individuals under the Act must cover pre-existing conditions. Republicans have tried, sixty times, to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something else. The exact details of the replacement plan have never been made public (as I understand it), but it is widely believed that it would not require coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Now we see that this has become a big issue, and Republicans are getting a lot of pushback over the pre-existing conditions thing. Their response to this, and their campaign strategy? To claim that they support coverage for pre-existing conditions and that the Democrats do not.

If this were true, they would simply need to leave Obamacare alone and not try to repeal it, as they have done 60 times.

Evidently Republican congressional candidates are trying to copy a strategy so often used by Donald Trump, which I think I can describe as "Lie to them and they will believe it, 99% of the time." This cynical approach is based on the belief that the electorate is stupid or at least incapable of critically examining what is told to them. Unfortunately that often seems to be true.

Copyright © 2018.

Donald Trump's Style

No, not his style of dress but his style of argumentation.

As many people know, Trump is fond of using Twitter ("tweeting"). It is said that late at night, alone in the residence areas of the White House, he tweets away to his heart's content. If any other US president has used Twitter at all, none has used it so much.

He has no tolerance for criticism of himself (someone recently said he has the sensitivity of a teen-age girl), and so he lashes out at anyone who attacks him. A favorite tactic is to apply negative adjectives to anyone who has criticized him. The New York Times recently published an op-ed piece written by an anonymous White House insider who claimed that Trump's staff tries to thwart some of his ill-advised decisions and actions. In Trump's attack on the  NYT he called the paper "failing." A politician who criticized him he called "weak." These are two examples out of perhaps hundreds.

These tactics of Trump's became very obvious to those who watched him during his political campaign for the Presidency. But to attack someone's argument by attaching negative adjectives to him was known even to the ancients as a fallacious type of argument. The  Romans called it argumentum ad hominen--that is, rather then rebutting or refuting a man's argument, you attack the man himself.

It saddens and amazes me that nothing Trump does or says seems to reduce the support he receives from his followers and supporters: not his actions, which have served to help corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of the common man and may  have brought us close to nuclear war with North Korea at least once; not his encouraging of white supremacists and other racists; not his surrounding himself with crooks and criminals in his government; and certainly not his lies, which at least a few times he has had to "walk back" (as the current jargon would have it). As I think I have said elsewhere, too many people are not critical of what they hear and read. They are ready to believe anything Trump says and don't seem to care when it's been shown that he lied.

Copyright © 2018

The Nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court

There was a post here about then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh; but I've deleted it because there's been so much water over the dam since I wrote that. (So this displays with an incorrect date and was actually posted on 10/11/2018.)

There was a complex and emotional story leading up to Kavanaugh's eventual (last Saturday) confirmation to the Supreme Court by the US Senate Judiciary Committee and then the whole Senate--as required by the US Constitution.

Since the story was well reported, even in international news, I will recap it briefly: Kavanaugh was accused of sexually attacking a woman, going back more than 30  years. Both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, testified in a special Senate hearing. Kavanaugh got very emotional, particularly in relating how the accusations have taken a toll on him and his family--and this probably earned him a good deal of sympathy.

However, he segued into a rant in which he claimed that the whole business was a plot by Democrats to exact revenge for Trump's defeat of Hilary Clinton in the presidential election of 2016. (Had he been coached in this by Trump? Because it sure sounds like one of Trump's paranoid hoax/conspiracy claims.)

Anyway, an FBI investigation was ordered. However, the problem with that is that Trump ordered the investigation and thereby was able to set the parameters and limits of the investigation, and limited it such that the FBI was allowed only a week for the investigation and interviewed only nine people. Probably it was a foregone conclusion that the bottom line to the FBI report contained nothing earth-shaking and was in fact entirely trivial.

(In the Senate vote, Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine widely regarded as a moderate who frequently did not follow Republican or Trump ideology; and Democratic Sen. Manchin from Tennessee, both voted to confirm. This was a surprise (a disappointment, if you were on one side of the issue). So the vote was 50 Yea, 48 No. If one of those two had voted No, there would have been a 49-49 tie; and then Vice President Pence, acting as Senate President Pro Tempore, would have cast the deciding Yea vote--again, all according to the Constitution.)

So Mr. Trump in the end got his extremely conservative nominee confirmed and now, we are told, we have the most conservative Supreme Court in many decades, one which may well reverse such landmark Supreme Court decisions as Rowe v. Wade (which legalized abortion) and Obergefell (which legalized same-sex marriage). The only hope that these decisions will be left alone is if the Court keeps in mind a judicial principle called stare decisis ('let the decision stand').

Copyright © 2018.

Critique of Conservative Philosophy

Conservatives believe that less government is better. They want to leave much to private industry, rather than having government involved in it (financing it, etc.) because they believe government is inefficient, wasteful, and even corrupt.

They also believe in lessening government regulation of business. This is a major conservative tenet. Rather than government ensuring that business takes measures to protect its workers (e.g., from factory injuries), protect consumers from unsafe products, and avoid polluting the environment--the air we breathe and the water we all must drink--conservatives believe that if you just leave businesses alone, they will do the right thing. This ignores the innumerable times that businesses have put their own profit and other business objectives before the health and welfare of their workers, customers, and the public.

Conservative economics have given us "trickle-down" economics under President Ronald Reagan (when it did not work) and now again under Donald Trump. This idea holds that if you cut taxes to the wealthy and to big corporations, they can invest the money they save on taxes and use it to expand their businesses; this creates new jobs--or so the theory goes. As I said, this theory did not work in Reagan's day, and today this same economic theory is being urged on Trump by an economic advisor of his who has been wrong over and over and over again.

Conservative individuals sometimes go so far as to say that they feel they should not have to pay taxes, that the income which they have legitimately earned (through hard work, or being enterprising, or being rapacious) should not be taken from them and given to the poor and needy who, they believe--usually with definite racist implications--simply do not want to work. The recent incident (caught on video and gone viral on social media) involving New York lawyer Aaron Schlossberg shows Schlossberg saying that his taxes go to support these immigrant, Spanish-speaking restaurant workers whom he is complaining about through "welfare". This makes little sense, because if they were on welfare they would not be there, working in the restaurant. And if they are there, working in the restaurant, they are not on welfare. But this is typical conservative thinking: Reagan and Trump both got elected by implying that these lazy people (African-Americans and/or Hispanics) don't want to work and simply take money away from the good, noble, hard-working (white) guy who pays taxes.

To go back to some of our earlier points: Public health has been one of the major successes of government. Government entities identify epidemic diseases (food-borne illnesses, diseases, and so forth), identify the sources, and put public-health countermeasures in place.

Also, as I have said, government (except to the extent that Trump is doing his best to undermine and even stop these functions) helps keep our food and medicine safe, our air and water clean, pure, and safe, and nearly every aspect of life in our country as  many of us would like it to be.

Update: A conservative (unfortunately I can't tell you who it was) appearing, I believe, on Fox News, said of the children detained at the US border and wrenched from their parents, "Well, they're not our kids. This exemplifies what I believe to be a very common characteristic of conservative people: no empathy--that is, the  ability to imagine themselves in someone else's shoes.
One time, while I was on a business trip and pleasantly enjoying dinner in Lake Tahoe, I quoted a US Supreme Court justice (I think it was Justice Frankfurter, and I don't recall what the topic of conversation was or what prompted me to come out with this) as saying something to the effect, "Better nine guilty men should go free than that one innocent man should be unjustly punished." To this my colleague said, "See, I don't agree with that!"
But what if the innocent, unjustly accused person had been his spouse, or child, or parent, or sister or brother? I think that, were the matter to touch home in that way, he might feel differently.

Copyright © 2018.

Truth and The Right

Lying is not a new phenomenon in public discourse (read, "politics"), any more than it is new to our human species. In fact, one of my professors told our class, by way of discussing the origins of human language, that one theory is that language was invented to allow lying.

And I have sometimes imagined, as a "thought experiment" (a term used by physicists), that perhaps, if mankind were to make contact with another intelligent species, that species might turn out to have no concept of lying and to be in fact incapable of it. Or, imagine what our world would be like if there were no lying. We are lied to not only by politicians and the like but, sadly, by our preachers and teachers (let's hope that they are not knowingly lying to us but that they believe what they are saying).

And the problem is not simply that mankind is capable of lying, but that those on the audience end believe what that hear and read. A good education--evidently a rare thing--teaches people to be critical. It's a lesson that badly needs to be learned but is seldom or not easily learned. I used to berate my (college) students for being uncritical. I would say, "I could stand up here and say 'Black is white' and it would just go mechanically into your ears, down your arms, through your pens and onto your paper."

I have blogged before about the fact that the Right disseminates a lot of misinformation (or, as I guess the new word is, dysinformation). Just as a couple examples, in a recent PBS (public television) program on John McCain (a very prominent US politician, long-serving US Senator from Arizona and opponent to Barack Obama in our presidential elections), there were scenes where a McCain supporter held a sign about his willingness to personally and physically protect his grandparents. What was that about? I believe it referred to the idea--eventually proved false--that so-called Obamacare (more formally called the Affordable Care Act) was going to promote the euthanasia of sick old people. Another lie in the same TV program was when McCain was speaking one-on-one with a woman who said, of Obama, "He's a--a--Arab," meaning, I'll assume, a Muslim. This was another lie spread by the Right (and McCain, being truly a very decent and principled man, told the woman that that was false).

Who spreads these lies? I think a main channel is conservative radio and TV commentators, but nowadays dysinformation is being spread on the Internet, on web sites, and--as we have recently learned, in a bit of a scandal--via social media such as Facebook.

There is also email. A high school classmate of mine, at one point, was forwarding to me Right-wing propaganda.  I call it propaganda because it was false and I could pretty easily learn that it was false--yet these emails had been forwarded many, many times before reaching me. And how many times were they received and read and believed?

And in the 2016 presidential election, as we know, there was wrong information being spread via Facebook, so-called "alt-right" media, and by candidates.

I am thinking mainly of Donald Trump here.  The New York Times reported that, in the course of calendar year 2017 (and thus not even during the presidential campaign), they caught Trump lying 1300 times. That's about four lies per day, right?

Is Trump an evil man who is coldly and calculatingly trying to deceive his audience (which, these days, must be taken to be the whole world)? That's not clear. Sometimes he may be voicing what is simply an incorrect statistic or other incorrect information (how that might happen might itself be a question to think about).

I'm someone who pretty generally tries to give the Devil his due. So I'm willing to say this: It may very well be that Trump genuinely believes he's doing what is best for the country. However--and there has to be a very big "however"--we must think about what Trump sees as "the country." I have to think that, in Trump's eyes, "the country" is pretty much equivalent to what we've come to call "the one percent"--that is, Trump's rich friends, those who own and control business (and politics) in the United States.

Thus, Trump talks about "getting the EPA off our backs." By this he means relieving or alleviating the "burden" of regulation on businesses under, for example, The Clean Water Act, which Trump has nullified. This means businesses can operate with less care (and cost) due to regulations on, for example, their pouring pollutants into our rivers and streams. Yes, better for Business--but not better for America's children who might be made ill, stunted, deformed by drinking water contaminated with harmful chemicals.

Copyright © 2018 by Richard Stein

Guns--Yet Again

I really don't want to blog about guns anymore and had thought (or hoped) that I was done doing so. But, alas, we've had another awful mass shooting of innocent school children.

President Donald Trump held a highly publicized meeting with survivors and parents of victims of three school shootings: Columbine, Sandy Hook/Newtown, and the latest, Parkland, Florida.

As part of what he proposes to do about the problem, which was dramatized to him by some very emotional speeches by the student survivors and parents, he cited the coach who was shot in Parkland, saying that if that man had been armed, things might have been different.

In other words, the answer to the shooting problem so often given by gun-rights advocates and the NRA (National Rifle Association): MORE GUNS! The answer to the problem of prevalent, too-often-used guns in America is MORE GUNS! The idea being that, if I am in a situation where someone is shooting and killing, and I have a gun myself, I can shoot (and presumably kill) the shooter--thus saving myself and others.

I can see one problem with this idea. There is one element in the equation that is being omitted: If I am face-to-face with someone with a gun, and who is using that gun, the outcome--isn't this obvious?--depends on who is the better shot; that is, who can shoot faster (i.e., be quick on the draw) and more accurately--that is, who is the better shot.

I, for one, would not have faith in myself to be the one who comes out better (or alive) from this hypothetical situation. I guess everybody in America must not only get a gun but "learn how to use it," that is, spend time on one of those things I think are called firing ranges.

And, again for myself, I think that, even in a situation where it might be viewed as a case of protecting myself, I would not want to have to make the decision to shoot someone else. Maybe if it was a case of "him or me," a survival or self-preservation instinct would kick in and provide the answer. But just finding myself in that situation seems to me to be the stuff of nightmares.

No, the answer is not more guns, but fewer guns. Australia (and three other countries) began programs to remove guns from their countries--and homicides by gun  dropped dramatically.

Unfortunately, the United States not only has a very strong lobby in the NRA (which is said to have given $31 million to Trump's campaign) but also something called the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which (as it is usually interpreted) guarantees US citizens the "right to bear arms." What is often forgotten is that centuries of jurisprudence have established that limits may be set on this "right to bear arms." We need to be thinking in terms of what limits can be set, short of seriously considering whether we can, or should, get rid of the Second Amendment (which is probably pretty much unthinkable, even after so many mass shootings).

Copyright © 2018

Update, March 1, 2018: Trump has actually proposed some restrictions on guns, and if he is serious about this, and can get this done, I might consider taking back all (well,some, anyway) of the nasty things I've said about him.
However, Trump is proverbially persuaded by the last person he talked to. So someone from the NRA or some Republican politician might get him to reverse himself (which of course he is quite prone to do). So it's premature to do any celebrations or even thanking him.
Plus, he still wants to arm teachers. This is just a paraphrase of the oft-repeated NRA mantra, "The best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
And, let us not forget, the president does not make the law. This would require Congress passing some laws, and the pundits don't seem to feel this is likely.

Update, March 2, 2018.

It looks as though I was right. Today the media are reporting that the White House is "walking back" some of President Trump's comments made yesterday on the need for stricter gun laws, and the need, and ability, of our congressional lawmakers to defy the NRA. This reversal comes after he met with some representatives of the NRA late last night.

As I said, whatever opinions Trump is espousing depends on whom he was last talking to. The man is so intellectually weak, shallow, and worthless that he has no opinions of his own.

Donald Trump and "Fake News"

Whenever Donald Trump is criticized, he lashes out in retaliation. When he is criticized in the media in any way, or caught out in one of his many, many lies, he responds by labeling it "fake news." What is sad is that many Americans evidently believe Trump when he suggests that the media are wrong (or maliciously lying about him, etc.). A recent poll indicates that 46% of Americans believe Trump's accusations of "fake news" coming from the media.

Manipulating or discrediting the news media is nothing new. In the administration of Richard Nixon, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, was evidently charged with the task or attacking the media. He was part of the program to defuse criticism of Nixon, who famously said "I am not a crook." Ironically, not only was Nixon proved to be a crook (or at least a liar, who wrongly denied his involvement in the infamous Watergate scandal), but Agnew was also a crook, who had to resign the vice presidency amidst evidence that he accepted bribes when he was governor of Maryland.

And Franklin Roosevelt, reportedly, was masterful in manipulating the media.

I submit that when the media is wrong, it usually is because they were fed incorrect information by the White House or the Pentagon. This became apparent during the Vietnam War, when the public was misled, many times, because the media were lied to by the government.

A free press is vital to a democracy, and it's important that citizens be able to trust the media. It does not help that cause when the President systematically attempts to discredit them with his accusations of "fake news." I think the public should be more inclined to believe the media than Mr. Trump.

It's getting off the subject, but mentioning Spiro Agnew and the Nixon administration suggests this thought to me: When there are crooks in a government (as Agnew in the Nixon Administration), should the President be guilty by association? That proved to be the case with Agnew and Nixon. Now, with scandals in the Trump administration--several of his nominees for government positions withdrawing because of adverse news, and at least five of Trump's appointees being accused of taking trips on private and luxury flights, thus incurring unnecessary expense to taxpayers--we need to ask ourselves whether this casts any pall on Trump himself. Will we believe him when he tells us, "I am not a crook," as Nixon did?

Copyright © 2017.

Trump's (Latest) Unwise Words

Today, Donald Trump, in a speech before the United Nations, referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man."

According to the protocols of international diplomacy, one national leader does not publicly disrespect another national leader in that way. It just is not done.

Plus, make him angry enough and Kim might just send one of his nuclear missiles our way.

Trump's handlers need to keep him under better control.

I am not a Twitter user so please, anyone who reads this and agrees with me, please send a tweet to @realDonaldTrump.

Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled and scan the sky for a North Korean ICBM.

Copyright © 2017.

Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Their Attitudes toward Their Predecessors

I have to believe that Donald Trump has multiple staffers in the White House whose main or perhaps only job is to look over everything that former President Barack Obama did while he was in office, and especially his "executive orders" --so that Trump could reverse every one.

"Obama did this? Okay, now it's reversed." "Obama did that? I'll reverse it!"

I am not the first one to point out that Trump seems hell-bent on reversing every single thing that Obama did. "We don't like you, never did, and we're going to wipe out every last little bit of your legacy." Yes, Trump is that childish.

But this thumbing your nose at your predecessor reminds me of at least one thing that President Ronald Reagan did, some 30 years ago. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had installed solar panels on the White House roof. Reagan ordered the solar panels removed and dismantled.

Why on earth would he do this? Were there any bad or harmful results of having those solar panels there? Possibly Mr. Reagan thought that the hot water for his bath was not hot enough and so the entire water-heating system, as it was, needed to be substantially modified.

But I doubt that the reason was anything like that. I think Reagan just wanted to thumb his nose (or give the finger, or flip the bird. . .) to Carter. Jimmy Carter had told the American public that fossil fuels were a finite resource that needed to be conserved. He advocated for a more serious attitude toward energy use, perhaps even a bit of belt-tightening.

Reagan, on the other hand, comes along and, while campaigning for President, says, basically, We don't need to tighten the belt. Screw conservation. We are America and austerity is not for us. There is plenty of oil.

Incidentally, and at risk of straying from my subject: Reagan did not believe in government support of research into alternative energy sources. The day he took office he froze Department of Energy funding of alternative-energy research projects, thereby setting American alternative energy programs back by 30 years.

Copyright  © 2017

U. S President Tronald Dump Speaking on the Flooding in Texas

Note: This is fake news. This did not happen. Any resemblance to persons living or dead if purely intentional.

Mr. Dump speaking:

I want to tell the people of Texas, and America, and the world: we will fix Texas. We will fix Texas. We are going to make Texas better than it ever was before. We have a plan. We have a great plan, a greater plan than there's ever been before. And we will fix Texas.

I can't release all the details of this plan, but we have a weapon. We are going to soak up all that water. We are going to make all that flood water go away, so fast you wouldn't believe.

We are going to bring in a sponge. A really, really big sponge.  A sponge like nobody's ever seen before. And we are going to soak up all that water. And then we will dump that water. We are going to dump that water, maybe on some country we don't like. Maybe on North Korea, or on Iran.

Meanwhile, I've got people looking for the drain. And we are going to open that drain, and let all the water drain out. Drain away. We've got divers, right now, looking for that drain, that will let all that water drain away. And with God's help, we are going to find that drain. We are going to drain all that water away. We are going to drain Texas to where It’s drier than it's ever been before. Believe me. We are going to fix Texas. And we're working on it right now. And we've got really, really great ideas on how to fix Texas. And we are going to fix Texas, I can tell you.

Copyright (c) 2017.

Donald Trump, Climate Change, and the Paris Accords

Donald Trump has announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris agreement or accord on climate change. This puts the United States in the company of the only two nations in the entire world who are not party to that agreement: Syria and Nicaragua. Nearly 200 countries are signatories to the accord, in which they pledge to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

 

Mr Trump says his first duty is to the US and US jobs. Presumably he means jobs in the fossil fuel industries. Statistics, interestingly, show there are three times as many jobs in renewable energy fields--wind and solar--as there are in coal mining. It looks like Mr Trump's real effort is to aid, not coal miners, but the Koch Brothers, whose wealth depends on fossil fuels, and who are prominent conservatives and big financial supporters of Mr Trump.

 

If Trump really wanted to help Kentucky coal miners, he would not be taking away health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, which will leave miners suffering from black-lung disease with no health insurance.

 

By this latest action, Trump may have done a lot to secure his legacy--as the single human being who did the most to help destroy the planet.

 
Here is an AP (Associated Press) article, available online, that shows the fallacies of Mr Trump's arguments for his decision:
climate change fact-check

Copyright © 2017