2017 June  11^th

No detritus posted today; not there isn’t any, but my 90 years require me to take a day off; perhaps tomorrow?

2017 June 10^th

I was thinking about Lena Epstein, the subject of my June 1 blog, Ms. Epstein is the third generation owner of Vasco Automotive products in Detroit and will run as a Republican against Debbie Stabenow, in 2018. Ms. Epstein’s platform, so far as she has affirmed one, is to offer generous 10 percent tax cuts to all voters. Standing outside a polling place with envelopes stuffed with hundred dollar bills and offering one to each entering voter is illegal… but making this promise isn’t. Go figure.

The politics after the Civil War was unbelievably rotten. Those who worked to get politicians elected were assured of good jobs at generous pay whether or not they were competent. Sometime there were more job seekers than there were jobs. Sometimes that led to assassinations. That’s how Teddy Roosevelt became president when President McKinley was shot and the same thing pushed Vice President Chester Alan Arthur to the presidency when James Garfield was assassinated in 1881. (Except for how they attained the office there are very few similarities between Arthur and Roosevelt.)

The need for reform had been apparent for some time. Gorge H. Pendleton, a senator from Ohio, produced a bill that specified that certain federal employees could only be fired for incompetence. Initially this covered only about ten percent of federal employees but outgoing presidents could cover any of their appointees and soon most federal employees were covered. It didn’t help President Arthur however because he had destroyed the use of patronage by the movers and shakers in both parties with the result that he was a one term president.

There are now tests you have to pass to get a civil service job; these tests ae similar to the SAT and ACT tests used by some colleges to screen their applicants. So to work for the government in a secure job you must do well on a civil service test… but to get elected to an office that allows you to appoint someone who will be required to pass such a test requires nothing at all but getting the necessary votes …which can  be bought.

2017 June 9^th

More fallout from Comey’s testimony before that Senate committee: In fact it is more about Trump’s new hard-nosed lawyer Marc Kasowitz who claims that Comey lied about Trump’s request to have him go easy on investigating General Flynn. Kasowitz plans to “bring an action against Comey for this falsehood.” Good luck with that dodge, dad.

I assume there is no tape of this conversation. Surely if a tape does exist, Trump would have told Attorney Kasowitz about it and Kasowitz would stop with these bluffing noises. If there is no tape it comes down to whom to believe, doesn’t it. On the one side is that soul of probity, FBI Director, James Comey; on the other side we have the hardly ever truthful President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. If you were an attorney and you had to convince a jury that one of these men is a congenital liar, which would you rather attack? Kasowitz will earn every penny of his fee, particularly if he can keep the litigious Trump from forcing this mess to trial.

Today on “Meet the Press” we met Tennessee representative Marcia Blackburn who had been the Vice Chair of the Trump transition team. Ms. Blackburn simply oozed southern charm until James Comey’s name came up and then there was a shift; her southern charm had been challenged beyond its ability to respond civilly.

She began by claiming that Mr. Comey “had an interesting relationship with the truth.” Todd immediately jumped at that because Comey had testified under oath and Blackburn seemed to be accusing him of lying. “Oh no,” she said I said, “he has an interesting relationship with the truth.” She stuck with that talking point in addition to claiming that Comey had “What we in Tennessee call a good old fashioned come apart.” She then accused Comey of throwing various people “under the bus.” She tried mightily to get to issues about uranium scandals but, thankfully, Todd recognized her attempt to preach her own agenda and he cut her off.

It was most instructive if more than a little disheartening. How could this southern gentlewoman have allowed herself to be associated with a man who is on record bragging about being allowed to grab women’s privates and pay no penalty because he is rich.

The obvious answer in the case of Representative Blackburn is that she would have backed anyone wo might have secured a SCOTUS seat for a candidate likely to vote to outlaw abortion.

2017 June 8^th

Now the public portion of the Comey hearing is over. What do we know now that we didn’t know last night, given that Comey released most all of his testimony then? Nothing much about Comey, but quite a lot about Trump’s very private and very expensive attorney, Marc Kasowitz, senior partner in Kasowitz, Benton, Torres and Friedman.

Kasowitz tells us that Comey’s testimony cleared Trump because Comey admitted that Trump was not under investigation. Was that worth 1500 dollars an hour? I doubt it. Poor Donald, this is just the beginning. We have Trump’s clear admission on tape to his Russian buddies that he fired Comey to shut down the Russian investigation. Kasowitz claims Trump never said that, but there it is on film. Maybe Trump should get a refund.

It is surprising that Trump did not tweet during Comey’s testimony. Maybe the recognition that he could wreck the value of his expensive attorney if he tweeted any of his usual garbage held him in check. I’ll bet that changes tonight.

OK, this is a tad brief but it will have to do for today. Tomorrow’s will be more expansive.

2017 June 7^th

Tomorrow will be the most entertaining news day in many months. James Comey, former director of the FBI will testify under oath about Trump’s attempts to get him to drop the FBI’s Russia investigation. He also asked Comey to lay off investigating Michael Flynn, and he asked for Comey’s loyalty, presumably loyalty to him personally. He got none of what he asked for and shortly after being refused, he fired Comey.

There is a consensus that Trump will start a tweetstorm about the time Comey begins testifying. He will attempt to rebut what Comey says in real time. That might be a tad odd even for Trump; we’ll see.

Trump has already claimed that Comey’s preliminary testimony has vindicated him. Naturally, he doesn’t go into detail about why he believes that, but Comey told him that he was not personally being investigated. Of course Trump does not deny asking Comey to hold off his investigation of “god guy” Michael Flynn who we know was illegally taking money to represent Turkey even as their goons were beating up peaceful protesters outside their Washington embassy.

James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, was in the intelligence business during the Watergate mess. Clapper asserts that Watergate pales in comparison to the Trump Russia disaster. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if Clapper is right.

The Brits betting people are providing some interesting odds. Ladbrokes, one prominent betting parlour, will let you bet that our national embarrassment will either resign or be impeached before the end of his first term. You put up seven dollars and if Trump is either impeached, or if he resigns, you win four dollars. If neither happens, you lose the seven bucks you risked to start with.

We’ll see how those odds change after the 2018 election. Impeachment must originate in the house and if Trump keeps the house, we’ll probably be stuck with him until 2020. If he loses the house,  we can kiss him goodbye.

2017 June 6^th

Politics will be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, here is a piece from “A Double Dozen and Six.”

The Golf Tournament

I do not play golf anymore. I have played the game twice in my life and I was able to win trophies both times. It wasn’t much of a challenge, so I gave it up.

The college where I taught was close to a very nice country club. It was really a golf club. It had no swimming pool, a few rather run-down tennis courts, a passable restaurant and cheap drinks at the four to six afternoon happy hour. I had a social membership that entitled me to restaurant and bar privileges but not access to the golf course. I didn’t play golf, so I didn’t care.

Some faculty members decided to have a nine-hole faculty golf tournament at the end of the school year and everyone was invited to compete. We would begin at nine in the morning and the foursomes would tee off every few minutes until all had entered the course. Let me make it clear that I had no interest in this endeavor whatsoever. I would much prefer to have been trout fishing. Still, some of my friends cajoled me into joining a foursome. I think they saw it as an easy way to humble a wiseacre. (Ha!) A set of clubs was found for me, and I bought a set of three golf balls and a packet of tees. I was ready. I knew enough not to wear my usual blue jeans and denim shirt, so I arrived in khaki slacks, short sleeved sport shirt and a sweater draped over my shoulders with the sweater arms crossed over my chest in the approved overhand knot. First, dress the part, then play it!

My colleagues knew that I had never played golf before, so I and the other complete novices were in the last foursome. (The experts were not to be delayed on their run to the clubhouse.) I understood that we kept our own scores, and that noting the correct score on each hole was a matter of honor. I teed up on the first hole. I addressed the ball and smiled remembering that wonderful scene where Ralph Cramden is teaching Norton to play golf. Cramden Tells Norton he must first “address the ball” whereupon Norton steps up, doffs his hat and says, “Hello, ball!” No one can understand what I am chuckling about. No matter, I am considered a bit strange anyway.

Now time to perform. I take a mighty swing and miss the ball completely. Others are now chuckling. That’s OK, as far as I know it’s not “three strikes and you’re out.” I take a second mighty swing. Missed again. Maybe it’s the wrong club. A different club helps, but I hit the ball only about thirty feet. I guess there are no do-overs. That’s OK I am playing with the big boys. I discover a strange thing about scorekeeping. You count as strokes, swings where you miss the ball completely. How fair is that? I get a direct hit on the next swing and the ball arcs into the air but moves smartly off line to the left. Someone says, “Hooked it,” golf talk for “it was hit left of where it was intended to go.” I was to learn a lot of golf talk that day. Golfers have their own lexicon; sometimes it gets on their shoes.

I muddle along until the sixth hole when I hit another mighty shot. Hooked it again! You see, I can now speak the lingo. Unfortunately, the ball is in some waist-high grass. I find the ball and begin trampling down the grass so that I can get a decent swing at this sucker. What! I can’t do that. Why on earth not? I certainly can’t hit it where it is unless I tramp down these weeds. Hey, I can barely see the ball. Oh, so it is an unplayable lie. Well, who decides that, and then what do we do about it? I decide? OK, it’s an unplayable lie. I’ve decided, now what. I can move two club lengths away and drop the ball from my shoulder high, outstretched hand, at a cost of one stroke. Well friend that’s dandy, except I am twenty feet into this hayfield. Eventually, with an eight-stroke penalty, I complete the hole. (People do this for recreation?)

And now for the grand finale. I hole out at the ninth hole ready for a double martini when I discover I am not playing one of the balls I bought that morning. There is much discussion, which I ignore because I am sitting on the club’s porch sipping my very large martini. The agreed penalty strokes are assessed. 

At the last faculty meeting of the year, real trophies are awarded for best player and most improved player. Colleagues rise to receive applause and be recognized. Last comes the “Duffer’s Cap,” a green straw cap with duffer printed on the front in large letters. I wear it proudly for the rest of the meeting. My score was 104 for nine holes. There is some muttering that I did not take the “auld game” seriously. That is true, very true.

None-the-less, the following spring I am invited to play again. The winner of the Duffer’s Cap must award the cap to the new winner. I would still rather be trout fishing, but in the spirit of camaraderie, I agree to participate. This event goes better. I learned last year that mighty swings do not pay off. I stay within two club lengths of any really deep rough, and I inspect my ball after each hole to be sure it is mine. I have marked a little obscenity on it with my ballpoint pen. It is a Chinese character so no one finding it will be insulted. My score for the nine holes is a blazing 89.

At the faculty meeting, I discover that I am to receive the most improved player trophy. Did I hear some jealous hisses as I rose to receive my award? I put the trophy in a prominent place in my office all the next year.  Lastly, I am also to crown myself with the Duffer’s Cap, which I have won yet again. Indeed the Duffer’s Cap has now been officially retired in my possession. I have never played golf again. None of my colleagues have ever encouraged me to join them.

2017 June 5^th

Mona Charen has an interesting, if misleading, column in today’s paper. She claims that there is a huge spike in the suicide rates for young women.  Indeed there is, particularly among those from age 10 to 14 where rates have tripled from 1994 to 2014. They have moved up from .5 percent to 1.5 percent.

To bolster her argument Ms. Charen cited the University of Central Florida where she claims, “…the requests for mental health treatment have risen 12 percent annually for the past decade.”

Ms. Charen gets to her analysis of the cause: It is the increase in teens living in single parent homes. She writes, “Teens who live with a single parent have twice the rate of suicide attempts as teens who live with both parents.” Interestingly she cites the Journal of Transactional Psychiatry that claims the rate of depression is 36 percent for girls but only 13.6 percent for boys.

The first of several bits of curious data that apparently do not puzzle Ms. Charen at all: Surely male children and female children are equally likely to come from single parent homes. If that is the case then why are females nearly three times as likely to suffer from such wicked bouts of depression? Ms. Charen just sticks with her single parent cause for all parties and doesn’t explore the difference in gender susceptibility.

While the depression/suicide rates for very young women from 10 to 14 have tripled over 20 years these are still very small samples, from .5 percent to 1.5 percent; when sub-samples get that small they are very unreliable. It is unlikely that the tripling is accurate but that doesn’t mean there is not an important increase. Over this same time period, 20 years, there are increases for most female age groups; the 25 to 44 age group shows an increase from 5.5 to 7.2 per thousand. Is Charen prepared to blame that increase on single parenting these women might have endured 30 years ago?

We’ll look at some other data Charen presents: The University of Central Florida, you may remember, where the requests for mental health treatment rose “12 percent annually for the past decade.” That sounds serious until we find out that the enrollment at this school went from 33,453 in 2000 to 60,810 in 2014. It is fascinating that Charen doesn’t mention the enrollment increase. Why do you suppose she doesn’t? She has an agenda and it is to support the notion that depression in young women is due to the increase in single-parent households.

The percentage of annulments and divorces have actually dropped between 2001 and 2014. In 2000 there were 8.26 divorces/1000 marriages while in 2014 this had dropped to 6.86 divorces/ 1000 marriages.

Keep in mind that many kids live with mothers who never married to begin with so divorce statistics are only part of the story. Even so, it is clear that Charen is pushing an enormously oversimplified solution to this problem to fit he preconceived agenda.

2017 June 4^th

It is a beautiful Sunday in June and I don’t want to write about our national embarrassment. Here is a piece from “A double Dozen and Six” that I published some time ago; it’s all true.

The Cottage

We once bought a beautiful summer cottage on a storied Michigan trout stream. (Virtually all Michigan trout streams are storied.) The purchase included a two-car garage, a large pole barn and its contents, a woodshed, and a bomb shelter. That’s right--- it had a bomb shelter. The previous owner had also owned a construction company and he was apparently made nervous during the cold war, so he added a below ground bomb shelter with concrete walls and layers of railroad ties imbedded in concrete for the roof. Of course, the realtor did not call it a bomb shelter; he called it a root cellar, but there weren’t any roots.

It also came with a green lawn tractor, which had an attached trailer containing a motorized vacuum, and a bin into which the leaves and grass clippings were blown. We had a beautiful expansive lawn with many mature maples and oaks. When we saw the place there was not a leaf on this lawn, they were all on the trees. That would change.

It was such a lovely spot that we decided to make it our year-round home. It wouldn’t need all that much to convert it into a year-round residence; just some insulation in the attic, a furnace, a larger water heater, and a new well. Insulation was totally absent; a huge fireplace supplied heat with an attached blower to send the warm air into other parts of the cottage; there was just a five gallon electric water heater under the sink, so showers had to be very fast and carefully spaced.

We found a handyman who worked with his wife. They showed up in identical t-shirts and set to work laying bats of insulation in the small attic crawl space. As they were taking a break and sitting together with their coffee, the husband told me that his wife wasn’t all that bright but that she was a very hard worker. The wife smiled agreeably at the nice compliment.

 A down-draft furnace was installed where a large closet had been and a substantial water heater found space in the same closet. Three cords of oak firewood were ordered. We discovered that the price did not include stacking; it was just dumped in the yard. Of course it would all have to be split, so a splitting maul was obtained. We were ready for winter. No, we weren’t ready; we just thought we were.

Three weeks after we moved in the beautiful lawn needed attention, so out came the tractor; it was lawn-mowing time. The tractor was not in the mood to cooperate. It would not start, even with the choke carefully set. Perhaps it was flooded; best to wait a bit and then try again. At last it started. Then the motor powering the vacuum on the trailer had to be started. This motor had a hand-pull starter. I pulled, and pulled, and pulled some more. At least there was no possibility of running down the battery, although there was the distinct possibility of a heart attack. I adjusted the choke, caught my breath and tried again. Finally, both motors were running and I started to move around our lawn. The clippings eventually filled the box and I detoured to the woods to empty them. Emptying the box required that I climb inside the box which tilted on its axle and assist things with a pitchfork.

Later in the fall the leaves began to fall. They soon covered the ground to a depth of five inches and it was clear, from the number still on the trees, that many, many, more were yet to drop. It was time to fire up the tractor again. In summer the lawn had to be mowed every two weeks; in late fall the leaves had to be vacuumed twice a week. Soon the trees were bare and winter with its snow was close at hand, but the tractor could not be put away. The leaf vacuum was disconnected from the rear of the tractor and the snow blower was attached to the front. The cabin driveway was two hundred yards down a two-track from the paved road. You plowed your own driveway and the two-track if you cared to access the main road and retrieve your mail, or drive to the grocery store.

We had a neighbor. He was a portly retired factory worker who lived alone about three hundred yards down river from us. He stopped by regularly to say hello and always brought us a little gift. Once it was a pound of butter, another time it was a dozen eggs. He told us that he bought this stuff by the case when it was on sale at a local supermarket and then took it with him when he visited his friends. We always invited him in for coffee and some of my wife’s homemade cookies. He was lonely, so these visits lasted between one and three hours. He had many interesting tales to tell us about other folks who lived along the river, stories about who was unknowingly related to whom.

Winter was finally upon us. The fireplace had a huge one-piece glass door, which, when sealed and when the lower ash door was opened, produced a roaring fire in no time. Of course the glass had to be cleaned daily because of the greasy soot that collected on it. We started the new furnace when we first got up in the morning and it immediately produced floods of hot air at floor level. Naturally, it had a powerful and very noisy fan. This is why most civilized homes have the furnace in the basement and not in a living room closet. Once the fireplace roared to life, we turned on the fan that circulated hot air from the fireplace to the rest of the house. No conversations occurred while both of those fans were on. Certain hand signals are universal.

We had discovered that the walls were not insulated and that the floor was drafty enough so that sheepskin slippers and footstools were a must. We had also moved the bed headboard well back from the exterior wall. It helped to wear a nightcap, although the cold air still rolled down the wall, slipped under the covers and chilled the shoulders. My wife refused to resort to a mummy style sleeping bag. I just wore a sweater and a scarf. We got used to it.

Eventually the isolation outweighed the beauty of the place. It was forty miles to shopping for other than necessities and a ten-mile round trip to the post office for the mail. We will miss sitting on our screened riverside porch and listening to the approaching metallic ring of the aluminum canoes as they come down stream bouncing from bank to bank. The current was swift enough so that they were out of earshot within three minutes, so they were not a nuisance. We lived in that cabin for five years and then sold it to a family who planned to use it only as a summer place. They have several sturdy sons who will have fun with the tractor, the leaf blower, and the splitting maul. We wish them well; we’ve had our fun.

2017 June 3^rd

Trump has been knocked about a bit, even accused of getting election help from the Russians. Megyn Kelly, recently escaped from Fox News, begins her new CNN show Sunday and her first interview is with Vladimir Putin. Anything this grand must put out some teaser advertising, some snippets from the main interview. So Megyn Kelly asked Putin, through a translator of course, what he thought of the accusations of Russian hacking into private communication channels in our election.

‘Not us,” Vladimir said, “we did nothing of the sort.” Then he went onto suggest that it might have been “patriotic Russian private citizens.” He claimed that it was impossible to know who had done the hacking, if hacking was done.

What in the world did Megyn Kelly expect him to say? Of course there were no follow up questions. So far this interview is much ado about very little; perhaps there will be more in the full interview but I’m not counting on it.

Somewhat closer to home we had some comments from Nigel Farage. Farage is not the household word here that Putin is but he is famous to the Brits; he is the leader of Britain’s alt-right (Fascist) political movement and was a strong supporter of Trump’s candidacy. It seems that he might be asked to testify at one of the inquiries. He was asked if he would do that; he said that he would but he said a great deal about the American electorate first. He believes that Americans are unwilling to admit that Trump won the election and that all of these Russian investigations are in response to that loss. As a Trump supporter, it makes sense for him to say that. Other Trump supporters have said the same thing.

To the extent that Putin wants to fracture the American electorate, he has been enormously successful. Vice President Pence is speaking in Iowa at a “Roast” for Senator Joni Ernst. Ernst is the junior senator from Iowa where Charles Grassley is the senior senator.

Pence is getting enthusiastic applause from the Iowa republicans in attendance, particularly when he talks about the president withdrawing the country from the Climate Change agreement. Echoing Trump, Pence claims that this agreement is very unfair to the United States. He doesn’t go into any detail about why this agreement with no mechanism for enforcement is unfair. Perhaps Trump/Pence believes it is because it was negotiated under the Obama administration. We all know that the Trump catechism is that nothing worthwhile could have come from the Obama administration.

When Trump told the country about his withdrawal from the Paris Accords he specifically mentioned that it would benefit Youngstown Ohio and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Not so fast Trump. The mayors of both cities said they their cities were very much in favor of the agreement and that their cities would continue to abide by it regardless of what Trump did nationally.

Pittsburgh is an example of what can be done when a community decides to clean up its environment. When I lived there in the 1950s, you could not sit on a park bench without putting a newspaper on the seat first, the coal soot was that bad. That has all changed thanks to clean air regulations. No one in Pittsburgh wants to go back to the 1950s.

2017 June 2^nd

Our president is a fountain of misinformation about the Paris Accords from which he has withdrawn our country. Anyone with a computer and access to the internet can discover that this is a volunteer group whose members set the Carbon Dioxide emissions standards they hope to achieve. If they don’t achieve their goal there is no penalty. It is nonsense to claim that that “standards are very unfair to the United States.” We set our own standards and absolutely nothing will happen if we don’t meet them. This agreement was set up by the Obama administration; it follows that Trump must trash it and withdraw from it even if withdrawing makes no sense.

Trump asserts that European leaders will stop laughing at the United States. He believes they did that during his trip. These leaders were not snickering at the United States, they were snickering at Donald Trump and that will certainly continue. Trump is a splendid comic figure even if he doesn’t realize it.

Trump claims that he will negotiate a better deal on climate with members of the Climate Accord.  Trump does not know that there is no mechanism in the accord agreement for doing that. In fact, Martin Schultz, Angela Merkel’s opponent in the coming German elections and one who bitterly resents Trump’s treatment of Merkel, has said that changing the accord agreement is a lot harder than shoving a NATO statesman out of the way as you move to the front row for a photo op.

Some of the holdover Obama people have claimed that the Trump transition folks wanted them to put in motion a mechanism for the removal of the economic sanctions against Russia. It quickly became apparent that this would be unacceptable even to Republican lawmakers who let it be known that if such a move were pending the congress would make those sanctions a matter of law.

What in the world was that about? Why would the Trump administration want, as its very first move, to eliminate the economic sanctions against Russia? Recall that the Trump people also wanted, and got, the elimination of the Republican Party platform plank regarding the provision of defensive arms for the Ukraine.

We also have Trump hosting a meeting with Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Oval office where Trump instantly declassified some intelligence about the bomb potential of laptop computers on commercial aircraft. Why did Trump arrange this curious meeting? It was because Putin asked him to.

Lastly we find that Trump wants to restore to Russia the use of a large compound in New York and one in Maryland that President Obama closed in response to Russia’s meddling in our elections. Both of these residences were known to house intelligence agents. Now Trump wants them restored to Russian control.

Trump declares at length that there is nothing to investigate about his connections with the Russians…absolutely not! Who believes him?

2017 June 1^st

Lena Epstein is going to run for the Unites States Senate against incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow. Ms. Epstein is a co-owner of Vesco Oil Corp. Vesco doesn’t find oil, it just distributes lubricants and other automotive products. The local daily paper has informed us of Ms. Epstein’s intentions and of her platform of tax cuts. She has impeccable credentials for a Republican. Detroit Country Day School, Harvard College, Magna Cum Laude, U. of M. MBA, and, most importantly, co-chair of the Trump campaign in Michigan. She remains a very strong supporter of Trump and of his policies.

Mr. Trump did not exactly dominate Hillary Clinton in Michigan in the 2016 election. He did win but by a margin of just 10,704 votes of of 4.8 million votes cast. How does Trump fare with Michigan voters today, six months later?  Now that Michigan voters have had a close look at his governing style he isn’t all that popular. As of May 20-24, 61 percent of Michigan voters disapprove of him and only 39 percent approve. Ms. Epstein plans to run as a Trump clone. Her support for Trump probably means Senator Debbie Stabenow is in no danger.

Ms. Epstein core platform consists of tax cuts. I mean really serious tax cuts, ten percent across the board: although the very top bracket will drop from 39.5 percent to 35 percent. Even without my calculator and with no MBA, that sounds like more than a ten percent drop for those at the top end, and that includes her family of course; are we surprised? Hey, the woman is running as a Republican.

It is standard procedure for politicians to buy votes and that is just what Epstein proposes to do. She is running on a tax cut platform. It might work but someone should ask her to list the services she will eliminate to pay for these enormous cuts. Maybe we’ll get the standard answer that 3+ percent growth will spur the economy and that will pay for it, or she’ll stamp out “waste fraud and abuse,” that’s always a good phrase to use. It is more likely that environmental protections will be cut, programs for the elderly, Medicaid and similar social programs will go unfunded. We’ve already seen a 97percent cut in funds to protect the Great Lakes so soon we’ll have Asian carp spawning in the Great Lakes tributaries. Lake Michigan is the warmest on record and that will continue providing a welcoming environment for Asian carp. If Epstein becomes Senator, does anyone suppose she will worry about that?

Now we have President Trump withdrawing from the Climate Accord, a voluntary, non-binding agreement accepted by most nations with the notable exception of Syria and Nicaragua. What splendid company Trump wants us to keep. The man is obsessed with negating everything President Obama achieved. He can’t of course. When Obama first appeared in Europe after his election it was to wild and enthusiastic cheers. Trump is snickered at by Europe’s leaders and ignored by their ordinary citizens, and there is nothing he can do about it except pout.