By the People, For the People

The election process is a sporting event. The media outlets report on the money raised, the numbers in the polls. There is more speculation than news. There is more opinion than news.

It dawned on me the other day that the old stallwarths ABC, NBC, and CBS refer to their evening broadcasts as “News”. It is in the title and for the most part they are reading out the events of the day.

These same networks do not use the word “news” in morning broadcast. Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Today.

Then there is Fox News… the land of hardly any news.

The week that was gave us the Mueller Report. Actually titled. “Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election”.

Broadcasts are filled with every story with Trump at the center. Russian Interference should be at the center. What is our government doing about that?

Why isn’t the president of the United States of American standing stoicly at a podium flanked by our flag declaring that our intelligence and law enforcement agency have been given all the resources they need to shut the door on this interloper?

Impeachment is not the answer. It wastes the time of the investigator who should be focused on the problem that created the problem of Donald Trump as president.

The bravest members of the Republican Party should be pulling away from this presidency while remaining true to their political belief. Easy to do. Trump is not a Republican. The power brokers in the dwindling backrooms should be putting all of their strength behind another candidate that will knock this cancer out during the primaries.

The members of the Democratic Party now in Congress must gather to find their common ground and explain to all;  chasing personal thoughts do not move the country forward. Whatever the collective majority is within their ranks, this must be the narrative. The American people struggle with too many yogurt brands, there is no way they can stay focused on 20 people declaring a desire to be president.

Our elected officials have failed our country, our states, our cities, and our neighborhoods. There hasn’t been any significant goals achieved since landing on the moon. The bridges are crumbling, the water pipes are failing, public transit is hard to find, we drill knowing the pollution will kill the planet, we over package, we underwrite farming we don’t need, we fight wars that can’t be won, we allow a small group with gobs of money determine our gun policy, we allow insurance agencies decide our medical care.

One man with a gravel decided the next supreme court justice while the other elected officials stood by fearing than any disagreement might disrupt a reelection bid.

The entire congress is more interested in keeping their job than doing their job.

Meanwhile, we have an electorate with eyes glazed over with “news”. Imagine… a woman interviewed says “I’m so tired of hearing about the Mueller Report. I don’t care what’s in it.”

This is the media’s fault. Months of speculation filled newspaper pages, editorial pages, talking head shows. How many important things were pushed off the script because they were sure that the report would be the sizzle item of the day?

I knew Donald Trump would be a terrible president. He is not and has never been a public servant. He thinks the kinds of people who give their lives and their minds to the betterment of others are chumps.

Each person who actively supports the reelection of Donald Trump needs to look deep into their conscience to find out why. It’s not economic — Wall Street runs that show along with the Fed. It’s not regulation — the ever increasing scares of infected food, disease outbreaks, planes falling out of the sky — are all byproducts of decreased regulation. When profit is the motive and there is no 3rd party watch dog… bad things happen.

Look again… Immigration? Are you of proud Irish descent? The ones call “Mick”. Are you proud Italian descent? The ones called “Dago”. Are you now using the words “Wetback” or “Towelhead”.

 

Tell the truth… why do you want Donald Trump to be your president for another four years? Can’t blame it on Hilliary anymore.

 

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Tone Deaf

There hasn’t been a talk show that I found worth watching except Johnny Carson and the early days of Oprah when she allowed audience participation… then she went a little (a lot) nuts.

This week Meghan Kelly was slashed from the airwaves because she threw in a little comment about black face being okay when she was a kid…. not today, when she was a kid.

She was probably a kid in a neighborhood with no black kids, had seen old movies, and did think it would be okay to smear a face with black. Sports fans in stadiums cover their entire bodies with every color imaginable.

Her mistake was not to continue her statement (which I’m sure is also true) that “I do not condone this now. It was a terrible idea then, but we were kids and didn’t know any better.”

Axed by omission, no recourse. Even her apology didn’t save her.

Can’t say that I agree with that… even though I watched the show once and found no reason to watch it again.

Then this happened.

Eleven human beings were murdered with a semi-automatic assault rifle while in prayer at their house of worship.

The President of the United States, speaking off the cuff, answered the question about his thoughts on this heinous crime with… and I summarize;

Thoughts and Prayers

The police did a great job

It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if they had an armed security guard at the door.

The police did a great job.

The President of the United States is so brilliant that the best he can offer to keep the citizens he was elected to serve is more guns at the door to stop the gunman coming in the door.

And Meghan is tone deaf?

Medicare

The screaming on the webbernet this week is all about cutting Medicare to save us from a hideous debt load.

“You can’t cut Medicare, we paid for it, it’s not an entitlement.”

A government trying to do anything or stop anything using hyperbole in all directions does not serve the nation.

Anyone who makes any attempt to pay attention knows that the ages chosen for retirement and medicare were established when the life expectancy was far less than it is today and long before anybody thought about the advancements in medical care; really expensive medical care.

These ages were set long before the advent of for-profit nursing home that are more interested in keeping patients alive to maintain cash flow than to allow death to take it’s natural course.

Sensible governance should have begun ten years ago, but the elected are cowards making choices to keep their jobs rather than do their jobs.

The age for retirement must to moved. Sensible management for end of life must be addressed.

And while you are at it, give up on the notion that all versions of health insurance are idiotic. The size of insurance companies and big phara tells us everything we need to know about for-profit medical care.

Every American citizen should be given an annual check up, be provided the necessary vaccines, basic dental care (including annual cleaning), basic eye exam and a pair of glasses as needed. Each of theses visits must include a conversation about ways to modify behavior to offset trends toward poor health. Pain medication should be given sparingly. Physical therapy repairs most issues.

Don’t scream that we can’t afford it. Yes we can. Paying for this far out ways the cost of caring for problems created by not doing this. Medicaid expenses would fall. Diabetes would fall, heart disease would fall.

Columbus Day?

The whole Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria is a good adventure tale. The two dates glued in my brain are 1776 and 1492 thanks to a 1950s education.

My later education gave me deep respect for the 1776 rebels; they had the best interest (at least for the white men) in mind.

The 1492 gang turned out to be one of many brave or indentured souls to search the wide-wide ocean to prove monsters did not beyond there lie. Sadly, one of their great gifts to America was Syphilis and his cousins. Sure the natives had their problems, but the guys in boats brought a lot more.

So what to do about the second Monday in October. The banks, etal like their vacation days.

The argument I read in the string of Columbus Yes! Columbus No! was to move the vacation day to the second Monday in November and make it a national holiday.

Tuesday is a stupid day to vote. How did that happen… good old Wikipedia has the answer, “In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns.”

Well, clearly the remaining farmers can manage to hit the polls on a Monday these days and market day is every day.

Let’s have Election Day! when children discover how government works and how votes truly count.

Elementary schools across American can do art projects of tiny voting booths, middle school can spend a day talking about local candidates and what their jobs are, high schools can hold debates about their local and national candidates.

Bring back the days when high schools held mock elections, followed by a comparison of the students’ votes to the national results.

Imagine… in a few years we might have a more informed and aware citizenry. What would that be like?

Recap

I started this product a long time ago. It sat idle.

Many good things and bad things have happened since that time.

The Trump presidency may not be the worse thing… or maybe it is. Depends on who you ask.

Granting my “possible” tunnel vision, I see a trend in social media strings. A Trump supporter makes a statement they make in full faith that it is the one true thing. A gathering of “others” cite facts that clearly disprove the statement. The result is either silence or a disagreeable comment like, ‘well, I still don’t like her’.

My over-reaching opinion of Trump is that he has no political party. He ran as a lark and did not expect to win. He now spends more energy on his cult-like rallies conducted under the guise of supporting local campaigns than he does expanding his understanding of real world problems.

There is a long history of money wasted by government agencies… all of them. If he cared about addressing the problem, he would have selected cabinet members with extensive proof as efficient corporate managers. DeVos? Price? Carson?Perry?Pruit?

I am not an expert in any of this… as in, doctorate degree in blah-de-blah. I am a citizen trying to wrap my brain around the daily barrage.

I am a birth-right Quaker who has not attended meeting for nearly 50 years, but the early 15 years stuck. Thanks for my fore-mother and father and aunts and uncles and cousins and fellow Quakers.

Moving to another platform

For as long as the Trump presidency has been with us I have been nitpicking on Facebook.

I have decided that Facebook should become less contentious and be the land of pleasant images and stories of family and friends.

Perhaps friend and fake-foe will take the time to click to this world to read my responses to their contributions.

Either way, this virtual page will be my refuse or refuge as warrants the situation.

Hi Ho.

More later