Friday, January 27, 2017

DESPICABLE AND DEPLORABLE

President Donald Trump's administration has abruptly halted ads and outreach for Obamacare set to run during the final days of the 2017 open enrollment season, according to a report published Thursday by Politico.
....


The decision to halt outreach and ads came from the White House, according to the report. (My emphasis)
Just six days before the window to sign up ends, vindictive Trump and/or his advisers put road blocks in the way of people who need health insurance.

For Trump and crew, this is just one more petty exercise of power to take vengeance on whom?  Obama? Democrats?  People who didn't vote for him?  Protesters?  Anyone who prevents him from enjoying himself in his first days in the White House?  Sadly, it could mean the difference between life and death to people who need help, including Trump supporters.

Another example of Trump's pettiness and vindictiveness is the order to the National Park Service to post photos of his inauguration that he liked, photos that didn't show areas on the Mall where there were no people.
In a Saturday phone call, Trump personally ordered Reynolds to produce additional photographs of the previous day’s crowds on the Mall, according to three individuals who have knowledge of the conversation. The president believed that the photos might prove that the media had lied in reporting that attendance had been no better than average.
Trump was especially angered by pictures that showed the crowd at President Obama's inauguration in 2009 side by side with his inauguration crowd.


There are more, so many more, examples of the president's child-like, bullying behavior than I have time to note, but he's had a busy week and done much harm and no good for the people of the country.

Trump's soured the relationship between the US and Mexico, our friend, neighbor, and third largest trading partner.

He's endangered our troops deployed in the Middle East by stating he believes torture works.

He's endangered our troops in Iraq who are deployed to advise the Iraqi military by threatening to take the oil from their country.

He's stated he will open a major investigation into massive voter fraud in the recent election, for which there is no evidence.  Trump believes three to five million "illegals", as he calls them, may have voted in the election and caused him to lose the popular vote.

He's put gag orders on federal agencies, forbidding the employees from speaking to members of Congress.

And Trump's been in office for only a week.  God help the United States of America!

UPDATE: The halt to outreach publicity in the final days of open enrollment in the ACA health insurance program has been reversed by the Trump maladministration.
HHS officials on Friday said automatic phone calls and other online and digital outreach — including Twitter messages and emails — would continue through the Jan. 31 deadline for obtaining coverage.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

1984, ALTERNATIVE FACTS, THE NEW NEWSPEAK

After incorrect or unprovable statements made by Republican President Donald Trump and some White House aides, one truth is undeniable: Sales of George Orwell's 1984 are soaring.
....

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway coined an instant catchphrase Sunday when she called his claims about crowd size "alternative facts," bringing comparisons on social media to "1984".
Heh heh. We're back to Newspeak with another name, and Orwell's book is as relevant today as it ever was.

"Quotes from Orwell's 1984 :
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
....

"Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else."
And now, for Donald Trump, reality exists only in his own mind and in the minds of his followers who choose to believe his reality.

UPDATE: Adam Gopnik's essay in The New Yorker on Orwell's 1984 is excellent.
"1984” seemed...too brutal, too atavistic, too limited in its imagination of the relation between authoritarian state and helpless citizens.

An unbidden apology rises to the lips, as Orwell’s book duly climbs high in the Amazon rankings: it was far better and smarter than good times past allowed us to think. What it took, of course, to change this view was the Presidency of Donald Trump. Because the single most striking thing about his matchlessly strange first week is how primitive, atavistic, and uncomplicatedly brutal Trump’s brand of authoritarianism is turning out to be. We have to go back to “1984” because, in effect, we have to go back to 1948 to get the flavor.
....

Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress, thoroughly intimidated, fear shining from one eye and cupidity from the other, will exploit the “question” of voter fraud to pursue policies of actually suppressing minority voters. 

MY RAMBLING STREAM OF THOUGHTS ABOUT FACEBOOK

What I write here is a rambling stream of thoughts about my time on Facebook. While I've missed contact with my many friends on the site, my thus far short break has been a relief, and I've felt better during the time away. I doubt I can return to FB on the same basis as previously. I was spending far too much there, and, in the end, I was suffering stress from overload. If I could post and pretty much ignore comments, that could work, but I can't. I want to monitor comments to make sure the discussions don't drift into attacks and name-calling on my page.

Also, when my friends take the trouble to read and comment, I feel obliged to return the compliment and read and comment on their pages. Thus, the time problem, and, in the end, Facebook became more of a burden than a pleasure.

Since I've always preferred blogging to Facebook, I'm thinking of taking my writing back to my blog and putting links to my blog posts on FB. A number of my friends will probably not read the posts, and that's okay. Unfortunately, people who have not joined Google tell me they can't leave comments on Blogger. It seems Google has taken over Blogger, and I don't know how to solve the problem. Still, I feel much more comfortable blogging than posting on FB.

I've pretty much made my decision because of the relief I already feel from spending less time and being less active on FB, but it's not set in stone. If I go back to my old ways of posting and commenting on FB, I'll probably soon suffer from stress overload again.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

WHY ABRAHAM LINCOLN LAUGHED

Why Lincoln Laughed:
Basically a melancholy man, he was not humor's slave, and could therefore bend it to his own uses and make it a vehicle for thought rather than mere clownishness.

This was misunderstood at the time, and once in the dark days of the war, when Lincoln was reprimanded for his unseemly levity, he turned his gaunt face and tragic eyes toward his critic and replied, "I laugh because I must not cry; That's all - that's all."
Since the election and inauguration (which I did not watch) of Donald Trump, I'm slowly making my way out of despair to determination to resist. I can't do a lot, but I will do what I can. There's nothing wrong with having a little fun along the way, and we can count on Stephen Colbert and many others to make us laugh.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

IN HONOR OF THE REV MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

For a good part of the day 9yesterday), I'd been struggling to find a way to honor the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr, but, at the end of the day, I can think of no better way to honor him than to use his own eloquent words. His legacy includes a number of fine speeches and sermons. The words quoted below are from his address to the sanitation workers who were on strike in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 18, 1968.

Though there has been progress in civil rights movement, many of the words the Rev King spoke that day were prophetic and are still quite relevant today.
You've been demonstrating something here that needs to be demonstrated all over the country. You are demonstrating that we can stick together. You are demonstrating that we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we are all down.

If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you're commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician. All labor has worth.
....

Now the problem isn't only unemployment. Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working everyday? They are making wages so low that they can not begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. These are facts which must be seen. And it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income.
....


Now you're doing something else here. You are highlighting the economic issues. You are going beyond purely civil rights to questions of human rights. That is distinct…

Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know now, that it isn't enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't have enough money to buy a hamburger? What does it profit a man to be able to eat at the swankest integrated restaurant when he doesn't even earn enough money to take his wife out to dine? What does it profit one to have access to the hotels of our cities, and the hotels of our highways, when we don't earn enough money to take our family on a vacation? What does it profit one to be able to attend an integrated school, when he doesn't earn enough money to buy his children school clothes?
....


So in Memphis we have begun. We are saying, "Now is the time." Get the word across to everybody in power in this town that now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God's children, now is the time to make the real promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God's children, now is the time for city hall to take a position for that which is just and honest. Now is the time for justice to roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.
I don't think I'd ever read this speech before a couple of days ago when a Facebook friend posted quotes and the link. A few weeks later, the Rev King was back in Memphis to give his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. The evening after the speech, he was assassinated.

Here is the link to full text of the address.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

EVENING PRAYER


Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

(From Evening Prayer, Book of Common Prayer)

Just by happenstance, in the World Cycle of Prayer:

We pray for the people of United States.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT


If you have health insurance under the ACA or the Affordable Care Act, which is the same thing, you are covered by Obamacare. If Republicans succeed in repealing Obamacare, you will lose your coverage under the ACA.

Monday, January 9, 2017

MERYL STREEP - MY HERO



It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It -- it kind of broke my heart when I saw it. And I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life. 

 And this instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose. 
Meryl Streep is my hero, and not for the first time.  She said what needed to be said about President-elect Donald Trump in her speech at the Golden Globe Awards.  When Trump mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski's physical disability, he should have been shunned by everyone, including sane members of the GOP, and eliminated from the field of candidates.

When the tape of Trump boasting about assaulting women was released, his candidacy should have been finished, over, done, but that did not happen.

Trump invited his friend Putin to hack Hillary Clinton's email, and I don't recall a GOP outcry at the time.  The vast majority, if not all, Republican members of Congress endorsed Trump in the end. Putin followed through, hacked the Clinton campaign's email server, and interfered with the election.  Now, too little, too late, a few Republican leaders are "concerned".  That Trump is unfit to serve as president is obvious, but where were the sane Republicans who should have been speaking out forcefully against Trump for months and months?

Also, now that the election is over, Democrats are far too quiet about Trump's unfitness to suit me. The Democratic leadership, with some exceptions, seems overly focused on a smooth transition of power, but a smooth transition to what? Maybe the focus should be on the disastrous nightmare that will follow the smooth transition. WTF?

Friday, January 6, 2017

WATCH WHAT THEY DO


Paul Ryan blathers on about Obamacare...we'll repeal it this year, blah, blah, blah...we'll have a plan, blah, blah, blah....  Maybe they will, and maybe they won't, but ask yourself if the continuing conversation about Obamacare is perhaps a distraction from what the members of the GOP are actually doing in the House.  Remember this from early December?
Donald Trump’s transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation’s carbon output.

The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years and “which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.”  (My emphasis)
And then this from yesterday while Ryan was blathering about Obamacare.
House Republicans this week reinstated a procedural rule created in 1876 that allows lawmakers to cut the pay of individual federal workers down to $1, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The Holman Rule allows members of Congress to propose amendments to appropriations bills that target specific government employees or programs in an effort to cut spending.
One wonders if the Trump transition team wanted the present Energy Department to name names and then later Congress will use the old procedural rule from 1876 to cut the salaries of the employees to $1 per year, under cover of cutting spending.  That would be the same as firing them.  Of course, once Trump is inaugurated, he will have access to all the information on the employees and contractors.

Will all efforts to reduce carbon output and lessen effects on the climate from fossil fuels both domestically and internationally come to an end?  The mischief we will see from the present unrestrained GOP Congress will go far beyond repealing Obamacare, which seems to be making its way to the back burner, because there is no plan to replace the ACA, and some Republican members are getting jittery.

As you listen to what Trump and the GOP say, watch what they do, because what they make the most noise about is sometimes no more than a distraction from the mischief the Republican Congress is already making.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters this week that the Holman Rule gives Congress a chance to change how government works, something voters asked for when they voted for Trump.

"This is a big rule change inside there that allows people to get at places they hadn’t before,” he told reporters.
Indeed it is.  To paraphrase Dr Seuss, oh, the places they'll go.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

LORD, WHEN DID WE SEE YOU?

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

(Matthew 25:35-40)
The Kingdom of God turns the present powers of the world upside down.  In God's Kingdom, the proud are scattered, the powerful are knocked from their thrones, the poor and powerless are lifted up, and the hungry are fed, as Mary proclaims in the Magnificat.  Mary's prayer is subversive, as is the entire story of Jesus' humble birth, after which the family was forced to flee as refugees to a foreign land to escape from Herod's wrath.  Jesus was born a Jew, and he died a Jew, and his teachings in the Gospel are rooted in the Jewish bible.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.


(Luke 1:46-55)
The work of building the Kingdom of God is for those of us who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus. In this new year 2017 the challenges are great, and we will have plenty of work to do.