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.