2016 April 6^th

The bad news for Donald Trump and for Hillary Clinton has arrived; they lost in the Wisconsin primary and they lost by double digits! The similarity between them ends there. Clinton Tweeted congratulation on his win to Bernie Sanders, and Trump complained at length about the “Washington Establishment” and their effort to stop his path to the nomination. At least Trump had the sense to stay away from the TV cameras and stick to posting reasonably brief prepared remarks. Thus he has reduced the chance to make a fool of himself yet again. Maybe he’s learning to pay some attention to his handlers. His Wisconsin defeat and his disastrous preceding week should have been a wake-up call, provided that Trump is wakeable! And now it’s on to New York and New England where, no doubt, there will be more surprises.

Senator Sanders has just done an interview with the New York Daily News editorial staff and he didn’t distinguish himself. They asked him very specific questions about everything from protecting Israel to riding the New York City subway system. His answers were weighed in their editorial balance and found wanting. For the most part Sanders admitted that he didn’t know the answers. One Media source proclaimed that “it was more or less an hour-long exercise in the editors asking serious and well thought-out questions about policy, and Sanders revealing that he was in way, way over his head.” On the other hand one of these “serious and well thought-out questions” was how do you ride the subway? Sanders answered that you get tokens and use them to get through the entrance gates. Oh my goodness me no! You haven’t had to use tokens in NYC subways for years and years…Bad Bernie! How often do any of the major candidates ride the NYC subway system? Remember when G.H.W. Bush didn’t know the cost of a gallon of supermarket milk? Much was made over that, but who cared?

This morning on a talk show program the host lamented at great length about the inconvenience it was to wait all of fifteen minutes on the phone to get service from some government agency. He’s right of course. Then he claimed that if this had been a business the owners would soon be out of business. Of course they would, but they would simply hire more clerks to take care of the increased traffic. A government agency can’t do that. Congress controls the purse strings and it works like this: The object of the right wing and particularly of the tea party is to strangle as much of the government as they can. To do this they limit or reduce the funding for government agencies. These agencies then are unable to properly service the public and the public complains. It follows that the agency isn’t doing its job and therefore should be completely abolished to save money. Isn’t that neat?

Not all agencies are caught in this trap: So far I have had 324 monthly social security checks deposited to my account. Not one has ever been late. Oh Yes, and the mailman comes by every day as well. Much of government works just the way it should…and that’s miraculous!