Posted in2020 election Donald Trump National politics

Let’s act in defense of Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died yesterday. Today, and tomorrow, and for as long as it takes, us progressives need to do what Ginsburg would want -- act to defend the integrity of the Supreme Court seat that she held with great distinction since 1993. Action relieves anxiety.  When I heard about Ginsburg's death I was deeply troubled. I knew that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell would try to get her replacement confirmed by the Senate as soon as possible.  Maybe before election day, November 3. Surely before Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021. Just because McConnell said in 2016 that Merrick Garland,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

I’ve got an important question for Trump supporters in Salem

In 2016, Donald Trump got 38% of the presidential vote in Salem, while Hillary Clinton got 49%. So when I go grocery shopping, as I did today, likely around a third of the people I see are Trump supporters. (I'm hoping his support has slipped a bit during the past four years.) Obviously there's a wide gulf between conservatives and progressives these days. Yet being a moderate sort of progressive, in no way do I view those who want another four years of Trump as crazy. Having been raised by a fiercely Republican mother, who never wavered on her conservative…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Trump’s use of the White House as a political prop — disgusting

After more than three and a half years of enduring Trump's disgraceful presidency, I thought my psyche had become inoculated against further outrages. How much lower could Trump morally go than rock bottom? But when I saw this image on Twitter last night, I realized the answer was, as low as he can get away with until he leaves office. Walter Shaub is a former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics. Being 71, and interested in politics for almost my entire life, I've seen countless photos of the White House. This is the first time it has ever…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

“End of suburbs” one of countless Republican Convention lies

The good news is, my brain survived -- watching part of the first night of the Republican National Convention. Yes, it came close to exploding at times (actually, many times), but I was able to press the "stop" button on my remote fast enough to avoid serious damage to my truth-loving neurons. The bad news is, just about everything else.  Given all the GOP talk about the Democratic Convention being too dismal and dark, with the Republican Convention going to be all Reagan'esque sunshine and positivity, I was thinking that maybe that actually would happen. Nope.  Fear and trembling before…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Mary Trump reveals Trump’s pathologies in her compelling book

Sure, we all know what a pitiful human being Donald Trump is. Weak, a crybaby, narcissistic, egotistical, incapable of empathy -- to name but a few of his pathologies. But it took reading the book by his niece, Mary Trump, a Ph.D. psychologist, to make me fully appreciate how badly our country is being served by a president who is utterly incapable of meeting even the most basic demands of the office he holds. Last week Barack Obama made a right-on comment in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't.…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Trump’s attack on Postal Service needs to backfire on him

With a 91% approval rating, the U.S. Postal Service is American's favorite government agency. So Trump's attacks on the USPS and mail-in voting should lead to a substantial backfire upon his already-depressed approval rating and re-election prospect. But this won't happen all by itself. Defenders of the Postal Service and mail-in voting have to apply maximum pressure, keeping this issue front and center in the minds of voters from now until election day. A few days ago I started following the American Postal Workers Union on Twitter -- @APWUnational. I seem to recall that they had something like 60,000 followers…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

Kamala Harris will be a great VP. Then, a great president.

At 1:14 pm today Joe Biden personally texted me with the news that he's chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate. Thank you, Joe! I appreciated being the first to know, along with the millions of other people who had recently texted FIRST to 30330. The news lifted my spirits for the rest of the day. Well, along with doing some marijuana shopping this afternoon. Along that line, Harris apparently now is in favor of marijuana legalization. Hopefully she can bring President Biden along on this issue. Not that I'm counting my presidential election chicken before it is hatched.  Even though…
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Posted inCoronavirus Donald Trump

Trump pushes COVID advice by doctor who warns against sex with demons

Whew. I can relax. A few days ago I read that Trump was vowing to act more presidential now that the election is less than 100 days away. Since I desperately want him to lose, I was worried that Trump was going to at least sound as if he valued the advice of public health experts when it comes to combatting the COVID crisis, even if he continued to act otherwise. I should have known that Trump was incapable of pretending to be a science-loving leader of our nation, since that goes against his compulsion to attempt to lie his…
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Posted inCoronavirus Donald Trump Humor

Trump is a genius! He just solved every problem on Earth.

Ever since he was elected president of the United States, I've been a vociferous critic of Donald Trump. But now I realize how wrong I've been. A recent statement by Trump points to a solution to not only the COVID-19 crisis, but every conceivable problem that afflicts our planet. Behold the genius of Trump the Almighty: I bow down before the glory of this single marvelous sentence which, in eight carefully crafted words, cuts through the thicket of confusion that has prevented humanity from dealing with so many issues that have bedeviled people for millennia.  Trump, though, did expand upon…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Trump’s dictatorial desire was on full display today

Driving home from grocery shopping this afternoon, I listened to CNN reporting on a protest near the White House against George Floyd's murder by a police officer that was happening at the same time Trump was getting ready to give a law-and-order speech in the Rose Garden. When I got home, I turned on the TV to learn what CNN was saying now -- after federal authorities cleared out the peaceful protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang explosives half an hour before a Washington D.C. curfew was to go into effect. Here's a photo of what CNN was…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics Oregon politics

Trump will have to pry Oregon’s stay-home order out of my cold, dead hands

Today President Trump's authoritarianism reached a peak when he said at the White House coronavirus briefing that his authority is total. This was in reference to his supposed ability to order states to relax their stay-at-home and physical distancing orders. “The president of the United States calls the shots,” he said at his evening news briefing. “They can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.” Asked what provisions of the Constitution gave him the power to override the states if they wanted to remain closed, he said, “Numerous provisions,” without naming any. “When somebody’s the…
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Posted inCoronavirus Donald Trump

Don’t fall for Trump’s latest coronavirus B.S.

A bullshit detector should be mandatory equipment for everyone who watches Trump's coronavirus press conferences, which was held today in the White House Rose Garden for some reason (maybe so the roses could be fertilized by the crap that came out of Trump's mouth). It's difficult for me to pick the most disturbing thing Trump said today, given how many candidates there are. But I'll start with what irked me the most: Trump's repeated claim that if there are only 100,000 to 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States, that's a good thing, a success, because supposedly there could have…
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Posted in2020 election Coronavirus Donald Trump

Trump wants people to die so he can be re-elected

I can't believe how many times I've said, "Trump can't do anything worse than what he did today." But he does. And today was the latest example of appalling worstness. During the daily White House coronavirus briefing, where Trump hogs the microphone while other officials cower in the background, doing their best to keep a poker face as Trump rambles on semi-coherently, our Idiot-in-Chief announced that he wants to make saving lives a distant second priority to resuming business as usual by the end of March. Why? Well, because he doesn't want the country to be in a recession, or…
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Posted inCoronavirus Donald Trump

Experts agree: Trump horribly mismanaged the U.S. COVID-19 disaster

Two days ago my daughter lost her job as sales manager for a small business in southern California. She's shocked. Her company's financial problems arrived very suddenly because of the COVID-19 outbreak. As I described in a previous blog post, with no retail outlets being open, with the companies that owe them money being unable to pay, and with them being unable to pay their suppliers, every employee has been furloughed. I blame Donald Trump. For good reason. Trump is why the United States is facing a massive disaster. Lots of sickness and deaths. Economic recession, if not depression. Shortages…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Progressive policies will win the war against COVID-19

Have you tried to buy toilet paper? Good luck with that. There isn't any available. Here in Salem, Oregon, a friend reported there's none at Costco today. The shelves were bare at several grocery stores I went to this week. Amazon has none, aside from a bunch of ripoffs trying to get people to buy masqueraded paper towels with a cautionary notice: "Don't worry if this product doesn't fit on your usual toilet paper dispenser." Of course it won't! It's a freaking paper towel! That's the free market at work. Or rather, not working.  Sure, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, these…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump

Here’s what really scares me about Donald Trump

As I said a few days ago, progressives like me are going through an anxious period. There's no obvious Democratic presidential candidate who seems fully up to the job of beating Trump in the November 2020 election.  Meanwhile, polls show that Trump has managed to hold on to his base of support, and maybe even has expanded it a bit. This befuddles people, again, like me, who wonder what 44% or so of the country sees in a guy who is so obviously immoral, a habitual liar, and mean. A book I just finished re-reading gave me a new perspective on…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Iran, if you’re listening…

Even though I can be prone to magical thinking at times, I haven't gone down that rabbit hole deep enough to really believe that if I'd written a blog post with the above title a day or two ago, Iran wouldn't have fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq today. But since I spent some time this afternoon prior to the attack thinking about what I wanted to say in an Iran, if you're listening... post, I might as well start off by summarizing my advice to Iran -- some of which still makes…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Jojo Rabbit, impeachment, and Trump’s authoritarianism

Let me make this clear. The United States isn't following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany. So when I speak of the danger of Donald Trump's authoritarianism, I'm not equating him with Hitler, though he does have Hitler'ish tendencies. However, this doesn't make Trump any less of a risk to our nation's democratic institutions and the Constitution. So his impeachment needs to be viewed from the broadest possible perspective, not just Trump's attempt to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and then obstruct Congress in its 100% legitimate impeachment inquiry. That's bad enough, of course. Much worse, though,…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump National politics

Indivisible scorecard ranks Elizabeth Warren #1

Great idea, Indivisible folks. You've fashioned a clear, easy to understand, transparent scorecard for the Democratic presidential contenders that rates them on three criteria: Policy Platform: Indivisibles want a candidate who is committed to enacting bold, popular, progressive policies across a range of areas, including immigration, climate, economic justice, health care, and other critical policy areas. Day-One Democracy Agenda: None of the policy reforms we want to see in 2021 are possible without a democracy that responds to the people. Indivisibles want a candidate who is committed first and foremost to ambitious reforms to save our democracy. Building Grassroots Power: Indivisibles know that…
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Posted in2020 election Donald Trump National politics

In 300 words, Katyal makes a great argument for Trump’s impeachment

Today I started reading Neal Katyal's compelling little book, Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump. Katyal has personally argued thirty-nine Supreme Court cases. He's a law professor at Georgetown University. He's taught an impeachment course there twenty times. And he's an excellent writer. Below is how his book starts out. In a bit less than 300 words, Katyal nails the case for impeaching Trump. The rest of the book is icing on the impeachment cake. So if you're in favor of impeachment and someone questions why this makes sense, say you'd like to read them a brief argument by a…
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