2017 Jan 31^st

Sally Q. Yates the Justice Department’s second in command has been fired for telling the Department’s lawyers not to enforce Trump’s edict on admitting immigrants. She claimed the ban was wrong and that she wasn’t sure about its constitutional correctness either.  Professor Tribe, of constitutional law fame, on “Morning Joe” today said that Trump’s order was indeed constitutional and that Trump had a perfect right to fire this Assistant Attorney General for refusing to enforce his reprehensible ban. She would surely been fired eventually anyway; why not raise a ruckus and get fired now?

Sally Q. is a Georgia girl and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia law school. If this woman wants a career in Georgia politics, only a fool would run against her.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, the inner circle is trying to recover from the disaster caused by Steven Miller’s edict restricting immigration from the evil seven North African and Near East predominately Muslim countries; restricting immigration of just the Muslims living there because admitting Christians is OK (But this isn’t really a ban on Muslims. We know that because Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus both said so). The unjust absurdity of this edict has produced mass protests and many lawsuits. It has led green card holders to having their cards seized and to their being held without access to an attorney. These particular screw-ups were soon resolved but they illustrate the hopelessly inept handling by this administrations first attempt “to keep America safe.”

There is more: When the administration’s honchos, Priebus and Spicer, were asked why this edict was not announced in advance so that whole families, the heads of many having helped our military as translators, the answer was that the administration was afraid of leaks that would allow the bad guys to get around the ban.

Whoa! The Trump people are afraid of leaks? They are afraid that General Kelly, a four star Marine Corps general, now chief of Homeland Security, cannot keep a secret? Or maybe General Mattis, another four star Marine Corps general and now Secretary of Defense cannot be trusted with these secrets either. The pipsqueak Trump advisor, 31-year-old Steven Miller, who originated this mess, is supremely trustworthy…perhaps because he previously worked for that noted patriot, Michelle Bachman, why else?

This whole scenario is a disaster for our fight against ISIS, supposedly a fight important to President Trump. As I write this Iraqi fighters are trying to retake Mosul long held by ISIS. We expect these Iraqis to help us with the intelligence that will allow us to arrange air strikes…but now our president tells them that they aren’t allowed into our country. What a brilliant move; who does this guy Steven Miller work for?

2017 Jan 30^th

Dana Milbank, in his column this morning, asks, “Can Trump separate fact from fiction?” It is impossible to view this question as anything but rhetorical. Consider this: There was Trump’s early claim that President Obama was born abroad and hence not eligible for the presidency; there was Trump’s claim that Muslims were dancing with joy in New Jersey as the towers fell on 9/11; there was Trump’s claim, described by Milbank, that the rain stopped and the sun beamed down unimpeded just as he spoke on his ascension to the presidency. All of these, and many more, which could be cited, are provable lies.

Trump’s entire candidacy is based on lies. His theme, announced over and over, “Make America Great Again,” is based on the obvious lie that the country has drifted down to a second or third rate power, and then he claims the he, and only he, can “make it great again.” He sees no contradiction in claiming that he has to construct a great and beautiful wall to keep people out of this awful deteriorating country.  

On the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump, with the help of his white supremacist advisor, Steve Bannon, issued a proclamation that does not even mention the Jews. Lest anyone believe that Bannon has influenced him toward bigotry, Spicer, his flack helper is quick to point a finger at his son–in-law Jared Kushner’s grandparents who were bona fide Jewish resistance fighters. Grandma Kushner also remembered Roosevelt sending a boatload of Jewish refugees back to Germany to be exterminated. Making refugees go home does not sit well with most of the Kushner folks, although it seems OK with Jared. (Kushner’s cousins are outraged that he is lending his grandmother’s name to this pathetic immigration farce.)

Trump assures us that his new emigration restriction plan is going just swell. The demonstrations against his ham-handed restrictions at airports of entry all over the country must have escaped his notice. There was consternation everywhere: One Stanford University graduate student who had gone home to Ethiopia to visit her parents and who holds a Green Card, presumably entitling her to all the rights of citizenship except the vote, was held for five hours before she was released. She was warned by her attorney not to leave the country again. Trump insists that these restrictions are not aimed at Muslims although Christians from these same seven countries can still come here without much fuss.

Trump has moved up the announcement of his SCOTUS pick to tomorrow or the next day. He must hope that the announcement will drive all of this unfortunate immigration news off the newspaper pages. I doubt that any announcement by Trump, short of his resignation, can undo this damage.

Even though Trump’s activities are legal and we might have to wait sometime for an impeachable offense, The politicians might try to get him on the 25^th amendment. His actions and comments are certainly irrational. If it is determined by a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate, that he cannot carry out the duties of the presidency, we will wake up some morning to President Spence. On second thought….

2017 Jan 29^th

I’ve posted the Jan 28^th non-political blog and now, the evening of the 28^th, I’m starting the blog for the 29^th. This could be hazardess because by tomorrow everything might have changed. The big deal, as everyone knows, is Trump’s ban on people coming to this country from seven mostly Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East.

Trump’s selection of the particular countries to ban is most curious primarily because of the Muslim countries whose citizens have not been banned. In spite of the fact that the great majority of the 9/11 attackers, 15 of the 19, were Saudis and that Saudi Arabia still spends millions on schools whose primary purpose is to demonize Christianity and the United States in particular, there is no ban on admitting Saudis. Nor is there a ban on Egypt, The United Arab Emirates or Lebanon, the other homelands of the 9/11 terrorists.

What do the seven countries whose citizens have been banned have in common and what distinguishes them from the homelands of the 9/11 terrorists?  President Trump has business interests in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and in The United Arab Emirates. He has no business interests in any of the banned countries. Great heavens, could it be that the President of the United States is allowing his business interests to dictate his foreign policy, in particular to dictate his decisions about issues affecting the safety of our citizens? In the words of one of his early supporters, “You betcha.” Well, we elected a businessman as president, and now he’s acting like a businessman.

Trump is particularly sensitive to crowds; both their presence and their relative absence. He has made an issue of the rather puny inaugural crowds that came to see his starring performance; and was not very happy about the crowds produced by the Women’s March the very next day, those crowds were larger than those which turned out for his inauguration. Today he has produced crowds yet again, but crowds protesting his decision to send refugees, already screened and arriving in our airports, back where they came from. Reince Priebus on “Meet the Press” this morning was grim faced and combative trying to defend his boss’s actions. Given that screened refugees have never killed anyone in this country, Trump’s activities and proclamation signings come off as bad theater.

Trump wants a war against ISIS and this requires the help of Iraqis. He expects them to risk their lives to help us fight ISIS, then to encourage their support he announces that none of them can come to this country for three months regardless of their vetting.  (Now there is an Iraqi move, helped along by Iran, to ban Americans from Iraq. What a surprise.)

Trump’s performance over the last ten days of his presidency is a disgrace. He cannot make up his mind and contradicts himself repeatedly. Kellyanne tells us that we haven’t seen anything yet. I hope she’s right. The quicker he gets worse the sooner he gets impeached…and he will be impeached. You don’t lance a boil until it comes to a head.

2017 Jan 28^th

I have had a computer glitch so today’s political blog must wait until tomorrow. As a replacement here is a piece I did a few years ago about living for the winter in a summer cottage on the banks of the Little Manistee River just south of Irons. Politics can wait until tomorrow.

The Winter of Our Discontents…

 Shakespeare meant the phrase as a figure of speech; I mean it quite literally.

Summer is splendid; it is warm; it is relaxing. Bodies are bared, many of which add to the delightful beach scenery. If they detract from it, don’t look at them. Five o’clock cocktails on the porch are followed by grilled brats on the barbie followed by Alka-Seltzer. The dog looks for shade. We wear straw hats to protect us from the dermatologist. Hours can be spent quite profitably staring at the small river as it quickly carries a few awkward canoeists past our riverbank chairs and then mercifully down-stream and out of earshot. Then we reach into the ice bucket for another cold drink. We love summer and we know that we deserve every minute of it.

Then the leaves turn a darker shade of green, apples ripen, the days are less muggy. Leaves give up their deep green for a yellowish tinge and then turn orange. The camera comes out to catch that final blaze of color. Spent leaves swirl about in eddies of the little river and begin to hide the grass on the lawn. Soon we can see the neighbor’s house; our leaf screen is gone. It will be back in six months. My tractor pulls a box vacuuming leaves up from the lawn so the grass will survive and will need to be mowed again next summer; cycles, always cycles. These cycles simply transport us around in circles. The Mayans had it right. What else?

Mornings now need a fire and last winter’s split wood is nearly gone. I find the fifteen-pound steel-handled splitting maul, take off my shirt, pull on my leather gloves and whale away. Red oak splits beautifully and the tannin is a fine perfume. The fire needn’t last past noon; just long enough to lose the early chill.

Soon the chill stays all day and then snow flurries come, followed one afternoon by a little sleet. The next morning the sight is spectacular. Overnight it has rained cotton balls. Wet white globs cover every twig. Small hemlocks and cedars are bowed over the path we take to walk the dog. They make a wet, white obstacle course. But shake a branch and the little hemlock sheds its burden and jumps right back up again. The dog loves his snow shower. He lies on his back and rolls back and forth ecstatically in the snow.  We take pictures for this year’s Christmas cards and congratulate ourselves for not joining our neighbors in their annual southern migration. “Wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” says my wife. I have doubts.

The snowblowing tractor emerges from the pole-barn with me in the driver’s seat. I must clear the hundred yards of two-track to the main road and then shovel out our mailbox so the mailperson can reach it. Groceries are needed so the 4X4 SUV will come in handy as the roads haven’t been plowed yet. This is a poor county with little in the road maintenance kitty. The local wisdom seems to be, “There will either be more snow tomorrow, or what’s out there will quickly melt. Either way plowing today would be foolish.” This results in the wet snow packing down into an icy glaze on which one could more safely ice skate to town than drive.

Nighttime has dropped another six inches of wet snow and then about dawn temperatures drop to the teens. Icicles hanging from the eves do not drip and the snow accumulation seems permanent; the roof rake is called for. The roof rake is not designed to rake leaves off the roof; its purpose is to pull snow from the roof before the weight of wet snow exceeds the roof’s carrying capacity. Since we don’t know the roof’s carrying capacity it’s probably better to err on the side of caution. The wide plastic scraper is attached to a twenty-foot long pole. Standing on a ladder, I push the rake as far up the roof as I can, then I pull. Unfortunately the snow on the roof has formed a crust so I must lift the rake and slam it down into the snow to break through the crust. Then I pull mightily, barely managing to stay on the ladder while avoiding a cascade of wet snow sliding off the roof. Thus is a pleasant two hours spent in this beautiful winter wonderland.

It has warmed slightly overnight and we’ve had a freezing rain. The view from the window is spectacular. All of the tree branches, down even to the twigs have grown crystals. As the sun edges out we see sparkle and glitter everywhere. My wife goes for the camera to immortalize this spectacle. We shall surely remember it even without the photographs for the power lines are down. “Who cares,” my wife says, and pulls food from the useless refrigerator. It will go into boxes and be stacked outside on the screened porch. Our two kerosene lamps allow us to read and we have the fireplace for heat and we have a gas stove for cooking. Our only losses are the microwave, the TV set with its fall football games, and the computer; a trivial price to bay for the beauty of those crystals…my wife says.

Morning finds a fresh four inches of snow and frigid temperatures. The dog is reluctant to take his morning walk. He is happy to roll in the snow next to the porch but he is not so happy to walk in it.  Every thirty feet or so he crouches down gnawing furiously at his paws. Ice balls form in his paw pads so it must feel like he is walking on marbles until he can chew them loose. It is time consuming to complete his usual half mile walk.

A day or so later we rejoice in the return of our electricity and all that it implies. The additional snow means that I am once again on the ladder pulling snow off the roof. Two feet of snow on the roof followed by an unseasonal rain, which the snow will absorb like a sponge, can lead to a very legitimate anxiety attack for those living beneath. The snowblower is needed again as well and the mail box needs attention again. This is now a bi-weekly chore. Wood splitting also requires about an hour a day.

We are now well into late February and we’ve had many, many days with nice wet snow clinging to our tree branches. In spite of the numerous opportunities to record this beauty, the camera is not much in evidence. Its next outing will probably be when the snow melts. If that happens suddenly we’ll want to record just how high the water gets in the small river at our back doorstep. It can rise about six feet before….Oh well, why borrow trouble? I prefer to enjoy the beauty of our northern Michigan winter.

2017 Jan 27^th

The big meeting between President Trump and President Pena Nieto of Mexico was called off. After President Trump’s repeated insults about Mexicans and his insistence that this sovereign government must pay for a 15 billion dollar border wall, the Mexican President finally said “enough” and cancelled the meeting. Trump immediately claimed that the meeting was cancelled by mutual agreement. Of course that’s true in the sense that If the Mexican President doesn’t show up for the meeting then President Trump would likely not go to the location of the previously scheduled meeting either. Perhaps this is not another alt-fact after all.

Trump has suggested that he will impose a 20 percent tax on all goods entering the country from Mexico. Let’s face it, increasing taxes on anything for any reason is a dreadful thing to suggest within the hearing of any Republican legislator. For elderly tea party Republicans it can lead to a stroke. So it was that Reince Priebus very quickly stepped in to say that this border tax was just one of several options being considered. That didn’t work well because boss Trump reiterated his position on the border tax shortly after Priebus tried to clean up his boss’s gaffe.

This potential tax will simply increase the price of all imports from Mexico and will be paid for by the American citizens who buy these goods. Texas will be most obviously affected by this price increase and Texans are not happy.

A new photo of the vast crowds attending President Trump’s inauguration on January 20^th  hangs in the White House. The crowds at this event have been a particular sore point for the new president. He simply cannot be outdone, publically, on any measure of popularity by anyone. To this end poor Sean Spicer, his newly minted press secretary, announced to the press that Trump’s inaugural crowds were “the largest ever to see an inauguration. Period.” (Adding the word “period” is a good indication that the speaker is out of persuasive ammunition.) Sean was severely criticized by his boss for not being forceful enough about the huuuge inaugural crowds and also about his ill-fitting grey suit. Given the challenges President Trump faces it is nice to see him still concerned about how his press secretary’s clothes fit. No detail is too small for our new president.

With this photo, President Trump has finally found a solution, albeit temporary, to the inaugural crowd problem. Unfortunately, for President Trump, the picture now on the White House wall showing monster crowds was, in fact, taken January 21^st , the day after the inauguration, and is not of the inaugural crowds but is of the Women’s March on Washington. But hey, if seeing those crowds makes this poor old man feel better what harm is there in that?

Trump’s alt-right, the politically correct term for his white supremacist, advisor Steve Bannon, has had quite enough of these reports about his boss’s gaffes.  The latest was perhaps Trump’s daughter, Tiffany’s, dual voting registration both in New York where she lives and in Pennsylvania where she goes to school. The unfair press reported that fact and Bannon told them to, “just shut up,” that the new administration considered them “the enemy.” Well, no wonder, just because he’s President of the United States, the press, Fox news excepted of course, feels it necessary to report on every last stupid thing he says. Very unfair!

2017 Jan 25^th

It’s time for a break. The new president has provided, and continues, to provide enough detritus to fuel this blog for some time to come…and we’ll get around to that. In the meantime, there have been some unfortunate exits from the stage; Mary Tylor Moore has left; Shelly Berman is well over 90. So here is a bit about a severe failure of communication between mother and son in the Shelly Berman/Bob Newhart mold.

Mother

“Hi Mom; how are you today?”

“I’m just so disappointed and distressed I don’t know what to do.”

“What’s wrong Mom?”

“You know that I never got a Christmas card from you.”

“But Mom I called you Christmas day to wish you Merry Christmas and to see if you got those books and the records of Christmas carols you wanted. Don’t you remember? We talked for nearly an hour Christmas morning.”

“But I have these other Christmas cards on the mantle above the fireplace but there is nothing there from you…(sigh)… I guess you just forgot. Well that’s alright I’m sure you’re too busy to remember something like that.”

“Actually Mom I have been busy; I’ve met a girl I really like and I want you to meet her.”

“That’s fine son. Where does she live?”

“She lives with her folks over in Homewood.”

“She lives in Homewood? We don’t know anyone who lives in Homewood. That is a terrible neighborhood.”

“Mom, her folks have a very nice house.”

“She lives with her parents does she?”

“Yes, she lives with her folks.”

“Why does she live at home? Can’t she find a job?”

“She has a job; she works in a drugstore over on East Eighth Street.

“Oh my Lord; you aren’t getting mixed up with drugs now. Please tell me you aren’t into drugs!”

“Mother, she works in a drugstore. She is a druggist, a pharmacist. That means she has a doctor of pharmacy degree. She has more college than I do.”

“Well, that education won’t make a bit of difference if she is into drugs. You know those people can get all the drugs they want. You be careful because once she gets you hooked on drugs…”

“Mom she only sells drugs to people who have prescriptions from their doctors.”

“You can get a doctor to provide a prescription for whatever you want. Don’t you see those TV ads that say ‘Get your doctor to provide a trial of …’ and she can also use those drugs herself or she can give them to you!”

“Mom they have to account for every narcotic pill they dispense. The State controls all that.”

“And aren’t you an accountant? What will happen when that bank you work for finds out about this?”

 “Mom, her drugstore does all their banking right here. And they have an excellent credit rating.”

“Well, you weren’t brought up this way; first you date a woman who sells drugs for a living and then you work for a bank that does money-laundering for drug dealers. I’m so ashamed!”

“MOTHER!”

2017 Jan 25^th

At the inauguration riots, where some anarchists were desperately trying to light trash can contents afire, five journalists were arrested for encouraging this misbehavior. What a great idea: If there is public rioting just arrest journalists for reporting it and if it isn’t reported then the lawlessness will stop.

This technique has become a conservative Republican staple: Florida Governor Rick Scott believes he can roll back the oceans, like Moses escaping from Egypt, if he stops Florida state employees from writing or speaking about “climate change” or “global warming.” If they just stop talking about it. the Florida coastline and the investors in beachfront property will be quite safe. Wanna bet?

This gag order has now risen to the federal level. The National Park Service people are the same bad boys who, according to Trump, underestimated his huuge inauguration crowds. These miscreants have put out a comment on global warming, several of them in fact. The tweets flew in Trump’s face because he insisted that all communication to the public from The Department of the Interior, which includes the NPS, cease until further notice. These tweets contained simple facts about ocean acidification and about the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.  These were “true facts” and the President has his own “alt-facts” that are often quite different. It’s no wonder that the poor man was upset. Perhaps he should be allowed his own facts; he is the President after all!

Our new president seems badly nettled by the news that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. The numbers weren’t trivial, he lost it by nearly 3 million votes. One supporter pointed out that the Electoral College is all that matters and another asserted that Clinton only had the plurality of votes and not the majority of votes. That matters not a whit to Trump so he must respond to explain this loss to his own satisfaction.

The reason he lost the popular vote is simple: The alt-fact he has offered is that between 3 and 5 million aliens were allowed to vote and every last one of them voted for Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence for this alt-fact at all which is why it is called an alt-fact. Even the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, third in line for the presidency, admits he sees no evidence for this assertion.

If we take a median figure of four million aliens voting and note that there are about 3200 counties in this country we are faced with the fact that Trump is claiming an average of about 1250 illegal aliens have voted in every US county in the last election. This is obviously nonsense. That would mean that illegal aliens make up more than half the votes in many sparsely populated counties. (The least populated county is in Texas with a population of 82 people.)

Trump’s advisors seem to have recognized that the boss is not tracking very well on this one so now things have changed. Trump is claiming that voter rolls need to be examined because dead people are on the voter rolls. (At least he hasn’t claimed that any of these dead people have been voting.) Problems of this sort have been recognized since 2012 when the Obama administration decided to look into updating voter registration rolls.  This is a very different complaint than suggesting illegal aliens caused him to lose the popular vote.

A very important corollary here is that this fraudulent vote complaint feeds directly into increasing voter ID requirements making it more difficult for low income people to vote. We have already seen the Trump Justice Department in action because they are delaying a lawsuit filed in Texas against some restrictive voter ID laws. What will be next? 

2017 Jan 24^th

President Trump has announced the resurrection of that old political football, the refusal of support for those institutions abroad offering abortion, or information about it, as a means of family planning. Bush did the same thing, then Obama stopped the defunding, and now Trump has begun defunding again. The absurdity of this position is simply stated: These organizations also provide contraceptive and other family planning information which, in the absence of funding, will result in more unwanted pregnancies and lead to more abortions.

What about Israel? We subsidize Israel to the tune of 3.8 billion dollars a year; that’s about 11 dollars from every man woman and child in this country going to support Israel every year. Much of that money is given to Israel as armaments but all of it allows Israel to spend money elsewhere. Some of that elsewhere is on women’s health, specifically on abortion.

Israel has almost no restriction on abortion. There is an application process and the applicant is screened by a three person panel consisting of two physicians and a social worker. If they agree you get an abortion at state expense..,and they agree 97 percent of the time. For women under 18 years of age the right to an abortion is automatic as it is some other circumstances.

Suppose you don’t want to go that route, or perhaps you are one of the three percent denied by a panel, About half of all abortions in Israel are provided by private physicians. This is not legal but no physician has, so far, been prosecuted for providing abortions.

Will President Trump stop funding Israel with our tax money? Wanna bet?

Shifting gears we now consider the interesting case of a cashier hired to work for the summer at a posh hotel on Mackinac Island. Advertisements for cashiers at this hotel appear in our local paper. The wage offered is between 9 and 10 dollars an hour. That isn’t enough to let you live comfortably on this elegant Island for the summer so the hiring hotel offers a room and board package for about 120 dollars a week. Of course it is more like a bed in a dorm than a room, but one presumes it is safe and out of the weather. The person accepting this position will have as take home pay, after deductions and the room and board costs, about 21 dollars a day.; that’s about $2.65 an hour. Laundry and personal expenses such as soap and razor blades must come out of that.

The clientele of this luxury establishment are charged enough to let the hotel to pay a better wage. The cost for their best room room for two on the weekend is just about 950 dollars a night.  In addition to the roughly 1900 dollars for the two weekend nights there are several other charges that add a total of about 475 dollars to the bill. Altogether, the two-day weekend will run almost 2400 dollars. This price does include a sumptuous breakfast and a multi-course dinner on each day of your two-day stay.

Perhaps the guests will also get a nice smile from the cashier when they pay for the little Mackinac Island souvenir at the end of their trip.

2016 Jan 23^rd

Under the Trump presidency, we will have to get used to an alternative universe: First we had Trump’s pal, Steve Bannon of alt-right fame, helping Trump understand the wisdom of the white supremacist movement. (Notice that this is called the alt-right movement, not the white supremacy movement. Has Trump succumbed to political correctness?) Then Kellyanne Conway asserts that there are alternative facts. These were the facts that Sean Spicer angrily pushed when he claimed that Trump’s “inaugural crowds were the largest in history. Period.”  According to Kellyanne, these Spicer claims were just alternative facts. If Kellyanne had just explained that these were alt-facts, her interview with Chuck Todd would have been much less tragic.

The alt-fact theory now explains what Kellyanne meant when she claimed we should evaluate Trump by what is in his heart not by what comes out of his mouth. Apparently, these are two not necessarily parallel channels of communication used by The Donald and we are focusing on the wrong one. How are we to know which one is operative at any given time? No one is saying.

Donald Trump’s description of his tax policy may be another example of an alt-fact.  Here is a quote from his website:

“Reduce taxes across-the-board, especially for working and middle-income Americans who will receive a massive tax reduction.” This “massive tax reduction” for the middle class is described below:

“Looking at median household income of roughly $56,000, such a tax change would equate to roughly $1,600 in annual savings per household,” according to the William Blair note.

The wealthiest 20% of Americans, however, would save more than $16,000, or 10 times as much in after-tax income, and the top 1% would see an average tax cut of over $214,000.

Meanwhile, taxes for the poorest fifth of households would drop by an average of $110, just 0.8% percent of their income.

A very large tax cut that delivers an enormous share of the benefits to the richest Americans — with an average cut of over a million dollars to the richest 0.1 percent — will be one of the top priorities of both Trump and the incoming Congress. This should raise a clear red flag about just how much Trump really cares about the bottom 90 percent.” It is estimated that this tax cut will reduce federal revenue by about 9.5 trillion dollars over ten years.

(Make no mistake, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, has an even more generous tax cut plan for rich folks. Ryan’s wants to reduce the size of government and if that requires congress to strangle it for funds, so-be-it.)

Trump himself and his children will be major beneficiaries of his tax plan. Instead of paying 39.5 percent as a marginal tax rate, he will pay 25 percent. Of course his refusal to release his tax returns leads us to wonder if he pays any taxes at all. There must be some reason he so adamantly refuses to release his returns. He claims nobody but the media cares but that’s another alt-fact because polls show that over 70 percent of the public want to see those returns.

Finally, his children will benefit enormously from his plan to eliminate the estate tax and the gift tax. Hey, he spent a lot of his own money to get to be president. Why shouldn’t he expect to make a profit? Isn’t he a businessman?

2017 Jan 22^nd

Today it’s all about counting: How badly did the press distort the attendance at Trump’s inauguration? This is the critical concern for the nation’s 45^th president. Yesterday, as I mentioned in the Detritus, Sean Spicer fulminated against the press for minimizing the number of people there. Then President Trump made a trip to CIA headquarters to declare his continuing adoration of this particular group. Of course this required everyone to forget his comparison of the intelligence services leaking of information about him to the actions of German Nazis. He stood before a wall at CIA headquarters which held the stars representing fallen CIA agents and for nine of the fifteen minutes he performed there he complained about the press minimizing his inaugural attendance. Not once did President Trump pay tribute, or even mention, these fallen agents. Perhaps he didn’t know what the stars meant.  More likely he didn’t give a damn.

Pictures of the inaugural crowds at Obama’s and at Trump’s swearing in are available. You can believe Sean Spicer or you “can believe your own lyin’ eyes.” This morning Kellyanne was on “Meet the Press” and Chuck Todd asked her why Spicer would be sent out to harangue the press with an obvious lie about crowd size. Kellyanne had no answer for Todd but intead tried to declare that the press had lied about the removal of Martin Luther King Jr.’s bust from the oval office. The reporter apologized for his mistake. He said he didn’t see the bust and thought it had been removed. According to Kellyanne, therefore, he lied. Long short, she never answered Todd’s question but kept uttering irrelevancies as she got angrier and angrier at Todd’s persistent questioning.

The major news of the day were the many women’s marches. Some estimates put the number at about three million people. That probably underestimates the number because the estimators used numbers from major cities and there were marches everywhere. The right winger’s claimed these protesters all came from major cities that are Democratic strongholds, but there were marches in Kotzebue, Alaska, and in Traverse City Michigan. Traverse City had  around three thousand marchers; my wife was one of them.

The rallying cry was “Freedom,” reproductive freedom among others. When the right to life women wanted to join this group, they were not welcomed. The aim of right to life folks is to restrict women’s freedom of choice. Why would a group whose stated aim is to restrict women’s freedom of choice expect to be welcomed in parades promoting women’s freedom of choice? It isn’t odd that they weren’t welcomed; it is odd that they thought they would be.

2017 Jan 21^st

I know almost nothing about popular bands. To me they are too loud, produce cacophonous sound and they can’t stand still once they start to play. So I am a poor judge of the bands playing to honor President Trump at his inauguration. I’ll rely on some delightful and insightful comments from The New Yorker.

“Trump’s people may not have been able to arrange a better slate of performers, but the result was a bizarre kind of perfection. What better way to spurn America’s élite than to host a concert on the National Mall with a bunch of aggressively mediocre performers? Hillary Clinton had Beyoncé, Jay Z, Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga out on the campaign trail. Trump had Lee Greenwood, and look who ended up as the President.” We all know irony when we see it.

 Regardless of the musical value of the groups, the behavior of the principle watcher and his family  was instructive…or maybe curious is a better word. They were seated on folding chairs with Trump on the far right closest to the camera, then, to his left sat his wife, sons and daughter Ivanka. Trump’s children and his wife were looking at the musicians and looking rather fixedly. Trump, on the other hand, had his attention focused variably, he would look to his right toward the camera, then turn and look behind him, then wave to someone and in short, seemed to fidget unmercifully. Friday was a new and I’ll bet very unwelcome experience for him. He was not in control at that concert…nor indeed at any of the events of that day. Regardless of the God-awful noises coming from those bands Trump couldn’t leave, he had to sit there for all intents and purposes, his high and mightiness chained to a folding chair. Welcome to high office, Donald.

Another thought about this fidgeting: Every day our local paper carries ads for various forms of employment. In many ads, the applicant is advised that drug testing will be part of the application. Why is there no drug testing requirement for people seeking elective office? It seems to me that the person ascending to the presidency, or any elective office, should be willing to prove he isn’t a meth or cocaine addict.

Of course we have elected a president who refuses to release his tax returns and provides evidence of his health from a physician whose appearance inspires no confidence in his medical ability. Trump’s claim that he cannot release his tax returns because he is being audited is a lie. The IRS specifically said that being audited is not a barrier to releasing returns. Trump must believe that no one listens to announcements like that from the IRS.

I wonder how Kellyanne will handle the fact that the women’s march on Washington protesting Trump has produced participant numbers closing in on Trump’s inauguration numbers. Someone will ask her about that eventually.

Sean Spicer, the new press secretary has just addressed this. He tells us the dishonest media is at fault once again. There was white plastic laid on the ground to protect the grass from the inaugural crowds. This means that the blank spaces where there were no people showed up much better during the Trump inaugural than would have been the case in the Obama inauguration when no plastic covered the ground. Is that grasping at straws or what? Who in the world thought that one up?

2017 Jan 20^th

I thought this would be an ideal time for an ISIS attack.  If terrorists can pull off a successful attack on this new president with all the world watching and Trump being guarded as well as our security services can guard him, that would be quite a coup. On the other hand…

If ISIS, or similar terrorist groups, truly hate this country and want to see it humiliated or destroyed why would they want to attack Donald J. Trump? After all Russia, a country which hardly wishes us well, is delighted to see him elected president so why wouldn’t all the terrorist groups feel the same way? Maybe Russia will send some Spetznaz boys over here to help the Secret Service protect him. There is always the possibility that Trump could arrange with Putin to hire some Russian special force people as additional bodyguards.

The man has now been sworn in and has given his inaugural speech. The speech was pure Trump as most had expected. In spite of the presence of past Presidents who showed up for the occasion as a courtesy, Trump felt it necessary to slam the progress of the country under their leadership.

There are protests in the streets along the parade route and the police are generous with the pepper spray and the plastic handcuffs. These protesters are protesting against Donald Trump and they are protesting against Hillary Clinton and they are protesting against congress and against all rules and regulations. In short they are anarchists. The interviewer found them breaking car windows, breaking sore windows and setting trashcans on fire. They are dressed in black with their faces hooded. This is what Trump, the law and order candidate has produced. Remember his rants against unnecessary regulations. The anarchists agree because they see all laws as unnecessary regulations. Fortunately, this is a tiny portion of those protesting. Tomorrow there will be massive protests in many states, including Washington D.C., when the women march on Washington to protest Trump’s presidency.

It cannot escape Trump’s notice that tickets to his inauguration went begging. The estimates of attendance range from 700 to 900 thousand people. Obama’s second term drew about 1.3 million, his first term crowd was over 1.8 million people. It will be fun to see how Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary, and the old reliable Kellyanne Conway, handle the smaller than expected crowds. Fox News will be the place to get the latest unfiltered Trumpian propaganda about why it’s all Hillary Clinton’s fault.

Trump’s inaugural speech was outstanding; meaning that it literally stood out from other inaugural addresses for its meanness. Most inaugural speeches try to bring the country together after what is always a divisive election. This election was more divisive than most; the protests against Trump will continues into next week. Far more people voted against him than voted for him. Trump remains in combat mode and some of that is against  traditional conservative Republican positions. If he expects to get anything accomplished that is not a good position to take.

2017 Jan 19^th

Sean Spicer, Trump’s new press secretary, held a press conference today where the members of the press could ask him questions and where he could present the press with the new party-line. This conference was, at least in part, an advertisement for Trump’s new Washington D.C. hotel, which Spicer declared was beautiful beyond belief, or words to that effect. He told members of the press that they should visit this splendid construction as soon as they could. They’ll all have to wait until after inaugural week because Trump has banned them from visiting his hotel until then. Wouldn’t you think his press secretary would know that? No, I guess you wouldn’t.

Spicer also declared that Trump had “brought it in on time and under budget.” In the interest of full disclosure, he said nothing about the lawsuits filed by unpaid contractors trying to get their money. Not paying venders is a big help in bringing projects in under budget. Trump has done this before and that behavior is responsible for dozens of the lawsuits he now faces.

Spicer was asked about the slow pace of Trump’s replacement of cabinet officials and other appointees needed to run the government. Spicer said that this was all the Democrat’s fault. You see these Democrats want to ask these petty questions of these remarkably able and dedicated people who are eager to serve in Mr. Trump’s cabinet and in lesser roles. The Republicans are holding hearings on several of Trump’s cabinet appointees every day. In some cases the hearings allow only five minutes for a Senator to question a Trump prospective cabinet member.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been suing the EPA over regulations designed to keep poisons out of our air and water. Oklahoma is run by the oil and gas industry and Scott Pruitt is their obedient servant. Now Trump has appointed him head of the EPA the very agency he has been suing. So the Republicans allow Democratic Senators five minutes each to ask Scott Pruitt how he will handle this unique problem. But we must not slow up Trump’s transition by asking needless questions.

The last Trump cabinet appointee was presented to us just yesterday; it is Sonny Perdue. Perdue is a Georgia politician who has served several terms as governor and holds a D.V.M. degree from the University of Georgia.  That seems all to the good, but why wait until two days before his inauguration to announce the selection? Surely it’s all the Democrat’s fault.

From the campaign’s announcements, we will see the end to funding such unnecessaries as The National Endowment for the Humanities, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts and all similar wastes of taxpayer money. What a fun four years lie ahead.

2017 Jan 18^th

Cal Thomas’ column a few days ago touts Dr. Ben Carson as a role model. Dr. Carson rose from poverty to become a famous pediatric neurosurgeon. Some of the impediments along the way were produced by Carson himself. He has written extensively about the very poor background from which he came, but pictures of the house where he, his brother, mother and father lived show a perfectly nice single family home in suburban Detroit. He tells us that his mother was one of 24 children and that she was married at 13. Records show that neither is true; his mother had about thirteen siblings and she was still living at home and going to school at fourteen.

Dr. Carson has had a brilliant career as a pediatric neurosurgeon. He is justifiably proud of himself. One entire wall in the entry-way of his home is covered with framed accolades, diplomas, citations and other indicators of his accomplishments. Dr. Carson apparently believes that that your worth is measured by how far you’ve come to get where you are, and so it is important to emphasize the poverty of your beginnings. In Carson’s case emphasis has morphed into exaggerate and that does not make for an attractive role model.

Carson is academically talented but he is terribly naïve about some academic issues. He claims that “one of the Detroit newspapers said I had the highest SAT scores of any student in the Detroit public schools in 20 years.” We don’t know what these scores were but because SAT scores are not made public no newspaper could possibly verify such a claim and, consequently, would be very unlikely to make it. Carson again is saying, “Am I great or what?” in a way no one can check.

There is no doubt that he gained entrance to Yale, that he graduated with grades and with MCAT scores high enough to gain admission to U. of Michigan’s medical school, then he got a prestigious residency in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. For Cal Thomas to suggest that this enormously talented young black man should be a role model for the urban youth of inner city Detroit is ridiculous. A role model is someone whose example of success can or should be emulated by others. So, Cal Thomas do you really believe that poor young people from Detroit’s inner city should all aspire to a top Ivy school education and then on to a highly selective professional school.

An unnamed blogger has some comments about Carson while acknowledging his brilliance as a  surgeon. Here is a portion of that blog:  As a physician and a surgeon, I never cease to be amazed at how brilliant physicians, who are so knowledgeable and skilled at medicine, can be so irredeemably ignorant about topics not related to medicine, and even, as was the case with Ben Carson’s dubious cancer cure testimonial for Mannatech, medical topics not related to their specific specialty. Indeed, Andy Borowitz nailed it well when he portrayed Carson as “shattering the stereotype about brain surgeons being smart.”

It might be helpful to expand on “Mannatech.” This is a dietary supplement touted as helpful for curing whatever physical difficulty you suffer from and with no reputable scientific evidence supporting any or its claims. For some reason Carson has been willing to do what amounts to commercials for this outfit. A lengthy report by The National Review on Carson’s involvement with Mannatech leaves no doubt that his support for the supplement is without any scientific backing.

Of course Carson has other anti-scientific beliefs. He believes that evolution, other than at the microbial level, is a plot by the devil to discredit God. How Cal Thomas decides on the person to present as a role model would be interesting to know, but I don’t think he’ll tell us because I doubt that he knows himself.

2017 Jan 17^th

The latest Trump tweets have him claiming credit for Walmart’s plan to add 10 thousand US jobs. Of course that was in the works long before Trump descended the magic escalator to the hired cheers of those waiting below him. The addition of these jobs will add .006 percent to the 1.5 million employees Walmart already has in this country, and about matches the number of employees Walmart has added every year over the last few years.

In same tweet Trump takes credit for a new GM plant that was in the works for years, but GM was smart enough to push that announcement out there so Trump could grab credit for it as a nice inauguration present. That gets GM off Trump’s hit list. GM spokeswoman Joanne Krell said the automaker planned to add 7,000 new U.S. jobs over the next two to three years. Krell said the decisions being announced "had been in the works for some time" but she added "the timing was good for us to share what we are doing." Can GM pander or what!

It’s also becoming obvious that Trump does have a hit list. All of the never-Trumpers seem to be on it. I’d always thought that old movie line, “You’ll never work in this town again,” was just a clichéd script line; it isn’t now.

Trump insists that all ambassadorial appointees come home immediately after he is inaugurated. These are private citizens and while Trump can lift their credentials as ambassadors, he cannot command then to come home. Some of these people might have children in school and be reluctant to pull them out before the end of the term. Trump should be sympathetic to that problem. Baron Trump, his son, will remain in New York with his mother until the end of his school year before they move to the White House. You would suppose Trump would extend the same courtesy to our ambassadors, but then maybe you wouldn’t suppose that at all. The other parents at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory school, a 45k/year prep school are not happy about the increased traffic, security, yada, yada, yada. They’ll have to get used to it.

There is some unexpected fall out from “the wall.” As you might guess, not all the land on this side of the Rio Grande, where this wall will have to be constructed, is owned by the government. That’s not a problem because the government can just take whatever land they want by a process called eminent domain, as long as they pay fair market value for the land. It seems that if you were savvy enough to get an attorney your land along the Rio Grande is worth a great deal more than if you didn’t have an attorney.

An Associated Press analysis of nearly 300 Texas land cases found that most of the settlement money went to a small group of owners, all of whom had attorneys. The legal help appeared to pay off: Of nearly $15 million that has been paid out, 85 percent has been awarded to just a third of the property holders. What value would you put on looking out of you window to see a large river a couple of hundred yards away instead of a ten foot fence shutting off the view of anything except that ten foot fence.

Thank you Donald Trump.

                              

2017 Jan 16^th

Counting tomorrow, there are four more days left until Donald J. Trump is scheduled to take the oath of office as President of the United States. He will then have, in the little satchel that never leaves his side, the power to eliminate “higher” life forms from the face of the earth. Are you nervous?

Trump has shown a truly remarkable ability to pick fights. He is described as thin-skinned. We will not delve into the personal inadequacies that produce this problem, although he has found himself fighting against a host of opponents from whom he could easily have gotten support. Most recently his antagonist was Representative John Lewis. Representative Lewis declared that he wouldn’t attend Trump’s inauguration because he did not believe that Trump had won the presidency legitimately. Predictably, Trump took to twitter to declare that this civil rights icon should work on helping his district recover from its awful conditions and that Lewis was “all talk and no action.”

Trump could not have made a more stupid response. Many people agreed with Lewis assessment but thought unity more important than what appeared to be a needlessly divisive comment. That is they did until Trump attacked John Lewis and then the outraged anti-Trump forces united behind Lewis. Trump compounded his mistake. After scheduling a visit to the civil rights museum that particularly honors Dr. Martin Luther King, on Martin Luther King Day, Trump canceled his visit claiming “conflicts.” His handlers will insist that this cancellation had nothing to do with his rant against the civil rights icon, but who believes them? This level of pettiness has become typical of Trump and it is embarrassing for the country.

Trump felt it necessary to go after Christopher Steele a former British Intelligence agent (Mi-6) who had sent derogatory information about Trump on to our security services. This information was not corroborated and only one minor outlet, Buzz feed, carried it. Even so, a furious Trump immediately characterized Christopher Steele as a “failed spy.” He is not a failed spy but a much commended former British intelligence agent. Trump, once again, looks like a fool.

Not only are there growing numbers of legislators now planning to boycott Trump’s inauguration but there are protest marches for the next day springing up all over the country. The young woman barista where I get my Sunday coffee said she wouldn’t be serving coffee next Sunday because she would be in Chicago marching in a protest against Trump. Yesterday there were at least 50 people carrying signs downtown protesting against the cancellation of the Affordable Care Act. There were no counter demonstrators.

As he prepares to take office Trump may have won the presidency but he is the least popular president elect in many generations. I doubt that his prospects will improve.

2017 Jan 15^th

John Lewis, the civil rights icon, brutalized and nearly killed by the bigots in Selma Alabama, has claimed on Meet the Press that the Trump presidency is not legitimate. Reince Priebus was outraged about such comments until the program moderator, Chuck Todd, reminded Priebus that his employer, Donald Trump, by claiming that President Obama had not presented his birth certificate, or his school records, had done the same thing to delegitimize the Obama presidency. Priebus had nowhere to go and clearly wished he could be elsewhere.

Does Lewis have a point? Is Trump’s election legitimate? You could look at it this way: He fooled enough people to get elected so we’re stuck with him until he does something that irritates the Republicans enough so they decide to impeach him. They will not be unhappy to do this because the tractable Vice President, Mike Pence, will be waiting eagerly in the wings.

He did fool enough people in the right places to get elected, but never have we had such a huge discrepancy between the popular vote and the electoral college vote. The attempts to delegitimize Hillary Clinton began long ago and had Russia’s support. How much of the drumbeat against Hilary Clinton was the result of Russian hacking and then the result to Julian Assange so he could cough it up on his WikiLeaks? What did WikiLeaks ever publish that was damaging to Trump’s campaign?

We have no Idea how these Russians feeds affected the election, but to assume they had no effect at all is silly, so Lewis is right, we have a president courtesy of Vladimir Putin. Soon we will have a Secretary of State personally decorated by Putin, we have a President elect who insisted that the Republican platform committee remove plans to send arms to Ukraine and we have Security Advisor General Flynn who gives paid speeches to RT, the official Russian propaganda network….That’s OK, just move along folks, nothing to see here….

An interesting bit of news concerns the house committee that had been investigating the Benghazi tragedy. Chairman Gowdy, of the House Select committee on Benghazi has finished his investigation. You may remember that this committee kept quizzing Hillary Clinton for eleven hours not long ago. Of course they learned nothing they didn’t already know but it made nice theater and Mr Gowdy got more TV time. Well, Hillary Clinton is no longer a candidate for the Presidency so Gowdy has wrapped up the committee’s work and dismissed it. What’s the point of hammering away at Hillary now that she’ no longer a candidate. What! You mean that this whole charade was just a political witch-hunt? Surely not!

2017 Jan 14^th

Donald Trump is not known for indulging himself in unnecessary press conferences. He had not held one for about five months until recently when he became President-elect. Some spectators, observing what will surely in later years be seen as a series of theatrical performances by the candidate, have hoped that Trump will leave his theater persona and become more Presidential. Ha!

Trump seems to have an allergy to the truth; if he can exaggerate, obfuscate or simply lie about some aspect of current policy, he will do it. In his press conference he said, “96 million people looking for a job and they can’t get one.” That is a bald-faced lie and Trump must know that it is a lie and he doesn’t care. That 96 million Americans are unemployed is not in doubt. What is simply not true is that these 96 million Americans are looking for work and can’t find it. Trump is not the only conservative who has used this lie to mislead Americans about the state of the economy; he is just the most recent.

96 million Americans are not employed but 96 million Americans are not looking for work. I am one of those 96 million and so is my wife and neither of us is looking for work. We are part of the over 40 million retirees among those 96 million. There are also college students, stay-at-home mothers and many others in that group who are not looking for work.

 Trump then goes on to lie about his tax returns. He claims he can’t release them because he is being audited. It’s true that he is being audited but the IRS has made it clear that being audited is not a bar to releasing the returns, Then he compounds that lie by declaring that nobody cares about his tax returns and that you can’t learn anything from the returns anyway. In fact, about 74 percent of Americans believe Trump should release his tax returns, so declaring that Americans don’t care is a lie.

The returns will tell us about his charitable contribution, or their absence; they will tell us to whom he owes money both foreign and domestic and they will tell us just how much of his millions of income he pays to support the country he wants to “make great again.” Does he pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes than his cook does?

He claims that the rise of the Islamic state is because Obama pulled our troops out of Iraq at the wrong time. This is another lie because the withdrawal of our troops was arranged by President Bush in 2004 in the “Status of Forces” agreement. This agreement meant our armed forces would be out of Iraqi cities by 2009 and completely out of the country by the end of December 2011. President Obama simply honored his predecessor’s agreement.

On a different note we have Betsy DeVos the nominee for Education Secretary who has nicely greased the palms of the primary Republican figures who will vote on her confirmation. It seems about 160 thousand dollars has found its way into the purses of the committee Republicans who will vote on her confirmation. It’s interesting that the Washington Examiner, a weekly right wing newspaper claims that these contributions won’t make a bit of difference. Wanna bet?

2017 Jan 13^th

I am reasonably accustomed to politically incorrect language. I was in the Army Air Force toward the end of the Second World War and we did have some marching songs that would not have been acceptable for a church school marching band. One very popular number begins, “This is number one and the fun has just begun, roll me over lay me down and do it again…” The “it” here does not refer to doing crossword puzzles on the lawn.

 Unacceptable language has been an issue for years. George Carlin, a famous comedian, had a bit about the seven words you cannot say on television. Of course he said them and promptly got himself arrested. He then gave each word a number so that if you stubbed your toe you could say, “Oh, 3,” instead of saying, “Oh ####,” and then having to pay an exorbitant fine. It never caught on; saying, “Oh 3,” and saying, “Oh ####,” are not equally satisfying if you stub your toe.

Things have changed from what had been acceptable 25 years ago. You can’t advertise cigarettes now. No more, “Lucky Strike has gone to war!” You can advertise beer and wine but not whiskey. You can’t advertise guns; no “This little number will blow away the bad guys.” You can, however, advertise products that help you quit smoking even if a side effect is death. Well. That’s one way to quit.

There are drugs available only by prescription that “Will make you ready anytime.” We all know what the pills will make you ready for; just don’t take too many of them at one time. They reduce blood pressure and there are limits as to how much reduction anyone can survive. These are primarily marketed to the golfing set but are also consumed heavily by the college set.

A special potion is available for the colitis sufferer; it, too, is only available by prescription. The ad shows a young woman in a freeze-framed crowd rushing to the women’s room; then later joining friends for a relaxed lunch. The potion has now worked its magic.

Another young woman is suffering from an overactive bladder. The bladder is personified by a cartoonish red bag with large soulful eyes that keeps dragging this poor person off to the rest room at inappropriate times. Then she consults her doctor while the red bag cartoon symbolizing her bladder looks very anxiously up at the doctor. Finally, the woman has gained control of her bladder and it sits docilely by while she meets with her friends. The rascal has at long last been tamed thanks to chemistry.

It’s interesting that the colitis and the bladder sufferer pictured are both women clearly in their thirties. Apparently, older women just don’t have these ailments. As to the erectile dysfunction drugs, usually a couple is shown and they seem to have recently benefited from the pill’s effects.

2017 Jan 12^th

This country has an important relationship with Israel. This relationship has existed since Israel’s founding in 1948. President Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel the same day it was founded. Surely, there must have been then, and there may be still, some collective guilt for this country’s failure to recognize and attempt to stop the holocaust. Keep in mind that this country refused entry to a boatload of Jewish refugees from Germany sending these people back to Germany and to their deaths. Bolivia admitted 30 thousand Jewish refugees; we admitted none.

Things have changed: Now there are bigoted fringe groups of white nationalists who are hostile to Jews but overt anti-Semitism is uncommon.  The United States has adopted Israel as a client state and provided billions of dollars in yearly support. There are many powerful Jewish legislators here who will push for continuation of this support. The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) pushes hard against anything that might make life difficult for Israel. Recently our Secretary of State has refused to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for continuing to build settlements on territory conquered in 1967. The pro-Israel lobby erupted in anger, raging against the perfidy of the Obama administration and forgetting completely the 3.8 billion a year this same administration had just agreed to give them for another ten years. The Israelis believe that God whispered to Abraham about 2000 B.C. that He would give them this land and that is the basis pf their claim of ownership and the right to settle it.

We have a variety of Americans who have good opinions about Israel: The first and perhaps most potent are American Jews. They are unhappy with the Iran nuclear arrangement, even to the point of inviting the far right Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress where he railed against the Obama administration for neglecting Israel’s interests by promoting this agreement.

Then there are the fundamentalists:  These people have a religious belief that Christ will come again but only after the existence of a Jewish state. They don’t seem to be particularly concerned about the welfare of the Israelis because the fundamentalists believe that when Christ reappears the resulting war will kill about two thirds of the Jews (and many other people as well.)

Meanwhile the fundamentalist religious groups are in full support of Israel. This is curious because another thing these religious groups agree on is an opposition to abortion. They insist that any SCOTUS pick must be opposed to abortion. We occasionally see lines of people along our main roadway holding signs opposing abortion. For many this is an all-consuming issue.

But Israel, a country given almost twelve dollars a year by every fundamentalist and every member of his family, allows abortion on demand. The applicant for an abortion must present her case to a trio consisting of two physicians and a social worker but in only about 2 percent of cases is the application rejected. The applicant can seek an abortion privately and that is illegal but no physician has ever been prosecuted for providing such an abortion.

I have seen no effort by religious groups in this country to work to change this very liberal Israeli law on abortion. There has not been a word. Is that because the right wing religious communities don’t know about this liberal Israeli view of abortion, or is it because these right wing religious groups don’t want to call attention to the problem. We probably won’t know the answer to that but it is an interesting question.

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2017 Jan 11^th

Trump has had his well-advertised press conference and it was all about him. One would expect that a substantial portion of the first press conference for a President-elect would be about some policy issues. No, it was primarily about Donald Trump’s personal issues.

First, and very importantly, comes the issue of control of his assets; will there be a blind trust? Why sure there will. Trump’s eldest children will administer the blind trust. Trump has said that he will not talk to these children about the family businesses. We’ll just have to take his word for that. Hey, has he ever lied to us? Some blind trust!

A great point was made that the President is not required by law to put his or her assets in a blind trust nor to make their tax returns public. Both are true. However, there is an emoluments clause in the constitution that asserts the president cannot receive gifts from foreign leaders. If foreign dignitaries coming to see Trump and stay at the new Trump hotel in Washington, renting several floors, isn’t that unconstitutional on its face? Ethicists are forecasting dire things for Trump and that his time in office could be very short. The more belligerent he gets the fewer friends he will have. I wonder how large a crowd he’ll have at his inauguration.

On the tax return front… don’t hold your breath. Trump claims that he is under audit; the IRS claims that an audit should not be an impediment to releasing his tax returns as far as they are concerned, but I guess it does give Trump an excuse not to release them even if no one believes him.

Trump still has his nose out of joint with the intelligence services and with the media, specifically with CNN. The conclusion of the combined intelligence services is that Russia hacked into the RNC and the DNC servers and released information to WikiLeaks specifically designed to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This information came from hacking the private email accounts of Democratic leaders such as John Podesta. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange has a particular hate for Hillary Clinton so he was happy to push this stuff out there as soon as he could get his hands on it. Of course Assange, who is always truthful, denied receiving anything from the Russians.

According to Trump, while the Russians might have tried to hack the RNC they just couldn’t manage such a herculean task and that’s why there was no release of RNC data; it was easy for them to compromise the DNC files because Democrats are just so inept. It all had nothing to do with a Russian preference for Trump to win the election. Sure it didn’t!

At his conference today Trump showed a startling naiveté: He had a meeting with intelligence people and he told no one about it, no, not even his private secretary. No one knew about that meeting except Trump and the intelligence officials involved. Even so, as soon as the meeting concluded word about it was out. He was very upset. Hey Donald, welcome to Washington.

Then at his press conference he had a chance to be childish with a CNN reporter by refusing to take a question from him. What an embarrassment to the country is this man.

2017 Jan 10^th

A senate committee is having hearings on Trump’s cabinet picks. Of course they will recommend to the full senate that they approve all of them. Senator Grassley is in charge of the hearings this morning and he has laid down ground rules that will send any rule violators out of the room immediately. President–elect Trump’s cabinet picks, many of whom have previously been rule violators will be allowed to stay. Rex Tillerson as CEO of ExxonMobil had oversight of an oil company that traded with Iran during the embargo but I doubt that he’ll have to talk about that rule violation until the full senate meets.  

Trump has done all he can do to curry favor with the senior Republican, Senator McConnell, who will preside when the full senate votes on these people. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chou, is Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation. Is that smart politics or what? Do you suppose McConnell will recuse himself from chairing the portion of the vote that deals with his wife? Of course he will; she is a shoe-in without his help because she is the most qualified cabinet appointee Trump has made. She has served as Secretary of Labor and as Deputy Secretary of Transportation in previous Republican administrations. McConnell can let himself look ethical when it can’t hurt him.

Speaking of ethics there is the interesting accusation of plagiarism against Monica Crowley, a talk show host, Fox person and Trump’s choice for a communication post with the National Security Council. Her problems are long standing: In 1992 she was accused by no less a liberal rag than “The Wall Street Journal” of plagiarizing part of a story she wrote for them. Here is the WSJ comment about that incident:  "There are striking similarities in phraseology between "The Day Richard Nixon Said Goodbye," an editorial feature Monday by Monica Crowley, and a 1988 article by Paul Johnson in Commentary magazine ... Had we known of the parallels, we would not have published the article." There is more of course; once you taste the cookies, you can’t help putting your hand back in the cookie jar. There also seems to be similar problems with her Ph.D. dissertation and with one of her books. The Trumpeters claim it’s all just political. What else can they say?

Poor Kellyanne Conway is earning her high six-figure salary by trying to defend the indefensible. Meryl Streep, during her Golden Globes presentation, said again that Trump had mocked a disabled reporter. There is ample video evidence of that in spite of Trump’s denial. Now Kellyanne is between a rock and a hard place trying to defend her boss. She chose to use a novel defense. Here is a quote:

“Why is everything taken at face value? You can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he's telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what's come out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart.”

Trump, as is his custom, was quick to come to his own defense by hectoring Meryl Streep, his accuser. He called her one of the most overrated actors.  Given Meryl Street’s many awards, this characterization is simply silly.  What else is new? His only defense of his own behavior is to attack the person objecting to it.

This is reminiscent of G. W. Bush’s 2001 comment about looking into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul. If President Bush could manage that with Putin why can’t Kellyanne teach the pundits to see what is in Trump’s heart instead of just focusing on what he says. Maybe it’s an unteachable skill that only Kellyanne has. I’ll bet that’s it.

2017 Jan 9^th

The morning paper carried an AP piece about the debt incurred by college graduates. “In the past decade student debt has doubled, with the average 2015 college graduate owing $30,000.” That is an exaggeration because, depending on the school, somewhere between 25 percent and 35 percent of students graduate with no debt at all.

For students who do take on debt the situation is grim. Public Universities have had substantial reduction in state financial support while feeling the need to raise tuition so that they can pay for attractive facilities they hope will attract more students. If a school can increase its enrollment by ten percent, it can enlarge class size a bit but will not need to hire more faculty members. Colleges and Universities are competitors; they are in business to attract students. The school with the newest recreational center, the nicest first year student dorms or the best Natatorium (swimming pool) will win. It is really no different from any other business.

There are ways to reduce, or perhaps eliminate, the need to borrow, or at least to borrow very much. The Armed Services offer very generous scholarships based entirely on military service not on SAT, or ACT scores. This updated GI bill offers a three-year scholarship, 36 months of tuition, books, and living expenses for those completing a three-year enlistment. Thirty-six months is four college years. Moreover, this benefit is transferrable to a family member if the veteran doesn’t wish to use it. Keep in mind that benefits like this one depend on the armed services need for manpower and can be changed at any time. However, if you enlist under this benefit the armed services can’t change the rules you enlisted under after you enlist.

There are other ways to reduce the cost of college while you are in high school: Take as many Advanced Placement (AP) courses as you can. If you pass an AP test with a 4 or 5 most colleges will give you college credit for that course. A three-credit college course will cost 3 thousand dollars in a college with a 35 thousand dollar a year tuition. You must check with the college to see what they will allow; some of them will allow you nothing. If that’s the case and you have taken several AP classes you might want to go elsewhere.

There is another way to save money: Take courses at a community college. Your local community college will offer the same introductory courses you’ll take in most four year colleges. There will be a much lower cost for your community college’s courses and they should transfer to the four year college you’ll eventually attend. Talk to the registrar’s office at the four -year college to be sure the community college courses you take will transfer to your four-year college.

There are lots of ways to avoid taking out crushing loans. These ideas come from a book “Cutting College Costs” I wrote a few years ago and available on Amazon.

2017 Jan 8^th

Donald Trump cannot be sued for actions he takes while President of the United States. However, he can be sued, and indeed is being sued, for actions he has taken to date. He paid 25 million dollars to settle a suit against him for his fraudulent behavior in the Trump University case. Naturally, he admitted no wrongdoing. He just wanted to get that issue behind him. ( We not that his current favorite person, Kellyanne Conway, when previously employed by Senator Ted Cruz, ragged Trump unmercifully about the Trump University swindle. Like all good political employees, Kellyanne’s allegiance is available to the highest bidder.)

Now comes the issue of his charitable trust whose primary beneficiary has been Donald Trump. He wants to dissolve this trust but the New York state attorney general will not allow that because the investigation of the trust’s activities is ongoing and could lead to legal action against Trump.

Trump believes that his new Washington D.C. hotel is paying entirely too much in taxes. This is not a new thing with Donald Trump. He has, at this moment, about 100 legal challenges against the taxes he has been assessed on his various properties.

He has crowed about bringing the renovation of the D.C. hotel in ahead of schedule and under budget. Companies responsible for plumbing, electrical work, baseboards and crown molding in the 263-room hotel filed liens during the closing months of 2016 claiming they had not been paid more than $5 million dollars they were owed for the work. If you want to bring in a job under budget that’s a great way to accomplish it...just don’t pay the contractors.

Then over on the petulant front we have Trump most upset the Kellyanne Conway didn’t get the full 10minutes she was scheduled for on “Meet the Press” this morning. This slight of one of his minions required a tweet about the unfair mainstream media. Here is the President–elect’s tweet:

✔@realDonaldTrump

Kellyanne Conway went to @MeetThePress this morning for an interview with @chucktodd. Dishonest media cut out 9 of her 10 minutes. Terrible!

11:46 AM - 8 Jan 2017

Trump will be President in 12 days and this is what he thinks is important enough on which to spend his time. Wish us all good luck; we will sure need it.