I'm supposed to be getting ready for Rosh haShannah, the Jewish new year. This is supposed to be the start of a period of introspection and reparative consideration. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to start the process, not like I have a choice.
There are so many scary things happening right now that I can't even begin to put my fears into words. The fires in the Amazon rainforest are monumental in impact and danger....I mean screamingly dangerous....to the ecological future of our planet. The trade war with China is certainly impacting our farmers and factories alike while the senate leadership is blaming Social Security and Medicare for the $4.8 billion increase in the deficit. Really? What ever happened to fiscal responsibility? Or is that just for us little people?
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Feh, I am tired of writing about that crap. It's not going to be changing any time soon. On PBS News Hour, the most reliable source of news we've got these days, it was pointed out that Feckless Leader's campaign has already raised more money than the entire Democratic field of candidates. If that doesn't make you stain your bloomers, you probably really liked TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and thought the original PSYCHO was funny.
Buying Greenland is not funny. It's a harbinger.
I think I could live with the buffoonery and the aphasia if I thought he had reliable back up keeping the country safe. But the sanctification of his lies by his minions really bothers me. The great chasm between fact and the oval office is okay with a whole lot of people who seem not to really care about that. They seem to love it when he retweets stuff from conspiracy nutball Wayne Allyn Root.
"Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world...and the Jewish people in Israel love him.......like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God...But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for........all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow!
from Twitter:
@realDon·
This is not a tv show, it's not a movie. You can't just turn it off, go get a beer from the fridge, and forget about it. If your grandfather was talking like this, you'd be calling the local hospital for a mental health intervention. Where is a strait jacket when we need it?
Folks, there are real lives and livelihoods at stake here. Real farmers who are in real jeopardy of losing their farms if they can't sell their crops. There are real workers who will never be able to retire, much less afford food, utilities and medication if Social Security and Medicare shrinks to pay off the national debt. Paying into the fund for all of their working lives, lots of people are trying to figuring out how they are gonna manage without a portion of their income upon which they were including in their financial planning. And then there are the low-wage workers who cobble together life but never are solvent enough to have enough income to even plan with.
Once upon a time, when people didn't live all that long, the family cared for its elders. There was no "sandwich" generation; this is what everybody did. They raised you and you care for them. If, G-d forbid, there was no one left, there was the city poor house. Or the local asylum, or some other loathsome institution where old people went to die because they could no longer care for themselves. Lots of people froze to death because there was no heat, or starved to death because there was no food. I'm not talking about Democratic Republic of Congo or Haiti. I'm talking about the United States, about Mississippi, New Mexico, Kentucky, and Alabama. People die there even today because they have no access to basic services.
The US Census Bureau Official Poverty Measures reported that in 2017 one in eight Americans live in poverty. About half of those live in deep poverty, living on less than $2.00 per day. Think about that. In America there are a significant number of people living on less than $2.00 per day. A cup of Starbucks costs more than that. Let's not get into a discussion about welfare and/or the working poor. Just think about kids. Just for a moment. All those babies being born because birth control is too expensive or just plain unavailable.
The most terrifying part of this is that We, the People of the United States, the same ones who wanted to form a more perfect Union, elected a man who is a sexual predator in an age where that is highly unacceptable, a man who was a serial cheat on several wives, a man who has habitually lied to the contractors he hires and cheats them out of payment, a man who cozies up to foreign dictators who suppress human rights, a man who considers those same enemies of the United States his close, personal friends and favored associates. He wants Putin back in the G-spot:
He’s a proud person. Would I invite him, I would certainly invite him. Whether or not he could come, psychologically, I think that’s a tough thing for him to do. You have a G-8, now it’s a G-7, and you invite the person that was thrown out really by President Obama, and really because he got outsmarted
He being President Obama who was outsmarted. He blames President Obama for Putin attempting the annex the Crimea. Sure. This was immediately followed by pimping for his Miami resort as the site of the next G-meeting. Is this even legal? A large segment of the population thinks so, and thinks that's okay enough to send money in support of this pathological excrement.
What's the point of harping on this stuff? It isn't going to change a damn thing. Whether or not he actually wins the vote, he will remain president. The detention centers will be turned into a chain of for-profit concentration camps. Farmers will lose their farms, crops will rot in the fields because there is no one left to harvest, people will starve and die. The planet will continue to attempt suicide by climate and fires, and Feckless Leader will blame President Obama. In the end, a paternalistic, feudal monarchy will crown that asshole as King. We elected the president we deserved.
And then, he will announce he IS the second coming. All bow down.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Going to State Fair?
Forget the Pronto Pups ....
just eat roasted corn. It is totally to die for.
Thank you for this blog. Like you, I am sickened, worried and frightened that more or less 40% of our country thinks this maniacal, narcissistic sociopath is wonderful. He and his followers are destroying our planet (I am a retired climate scientist - believe me, we are in dire trouble) as well as dismantling our democracy at a rapid pace. I don't even recognize this country any longer. It seems like a lifetime ago that we had a stable, intelligent, empathic president, yet it has been less than three years.
ReplyDeleteI cannot sleep most nights worrying about the future of everything. What will it take to stop this madness?
I have been trying to not watch as much news, because what is the point. I already know what deep shit we are in. So all I can do is continue to outreach, via letters, postcards, phone calls, marches, etc. to try to make damn sure we elect an intelligent, moral and stable president, house and senate. How we will cope with "the base", I don't know, as reason, facts, ethics, etc. seem to matter not one whit with them. How do you reach across that aisle?
https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than_europe.asp
ReplyDeleteIn order to examine how the poorest in the U.S. truly stack up, Just Facts analyzed data from the OECD, the World Bank, and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The study "found that the Times is not merely wrong about this issue but is reporting the polar opposite of reality."
The Times reported OECD poverty rate data. The OECD measures relative poverty within nations, not between them. The figures represent the proportion of people with "less than half the median household income" in their own countries, so "two countries with the same poverty rates may differ in terms of the relative income-level of the poor."
The OECD assigns a higher poverty rate to the U.S. (17.8 percent) than to Mexico (16.6 percent). World Bank data, however, shows that 35 percent of Mexico's population lives on less than $5.50 per day, compared to only two percent of people in the U.S.
OECD data focuses on "income," which excludes many non-cash benefits the poor receive from the government and private charity. Just Facts listed a few examples: health care from Medicaid, free clinics, and the Children's Health Insurance Program; food from food stamps, school lunches, soup kitchens, food pantries, and welfare programs; housing and amenities provided through rent subsidies, utility assistance, and homeless shelters.