Is Biden Making The Same Mistake Obama Made?

  

                         Because progressives in Congress are typically far less vindictive and calculating than their conservative counter parts, progressives typically discover the error of their ways long after the error. On that note, I think it’s important for Democrats to take a moment- a moment much like the vindictive Republicans in the Senate right now, who are stalling and delaying the coronavirus relief bill.....just because, well, they can- and talk about what they might be overlooking with this "go it alone" stimulus bill they are soon to sign into law.

                 Similar to the days of ObamaCare, before, during and after the negotiations died, Democrats are still struggling and striving for bipartisanship that was simply never going to happen in the first place. Our collective efforts as a nation to recover from this pandemic will need to cover all 50 states and territories and be all encompassing even though Republicans seem to believe it can and should be highly targeted and somewhat limited. 

Or do they? 

            Why Mitch McConnell and his party have, once again, taken the posture of block everything Democrat, no matter who gets hurt, is a question only he and they can answer. 

 ONCE AGAIN  

         As it was with Obama, the challenge of knowing whether Republicans are interested in governing or obstructing is, once again, something only they can answer. Because, once again, the signs all say obstruction of any Democrat agenda, even ones both parties have in common, is in fact the GOP agenda. If limiting the president's accomplishments is, once again the name of the game, it’s time for Democrats to place all options on the table, including the filibuster. It's also time to put pressure on their own obstructers- Senators Joe Manchin (WV), and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- to get them to stop helping McConnell and the GOP, and start doing what’s right for U.S. by not publicly negotiating against your own party, once again. 

        Like they did with ObamaCare, some Democrats are blocking their own party's agenda by pursuing the bare minimum they can pass despite already failing in the bipartisanship efforts that warranted bare minimum thinking to begin with.  If Republicans' insist on making Democrats go it alone, and are not putting forth the time it takes to draft a reasonable alternative, doing anything less than everything WE the People need seems silly to me.

        Because I don't want to leave anyone lost over this very important subject, let me say this another way. If you are negotiating with a good faith partner, you both simply ask for what you want, and nothing more. However, if you have no faith in who you are negotiating with, you double, maybe even triple what you ask for so that, despite the give and take process of negotiating, you are still likely to arrive somewhere close to what you actually wanted originally. 

        Truth be told, some of you would negotiate with your own parents in that same manner, and personally, I'm not mad at you for it. But I digress.

        In this situation, are Republicans actually saying they are not pushing a better alternative, so they want no credit or blame for whatever happens to their own constituents in this time of need? If Republicans are truly willing to do nothing but wait the generally accepted timeline of two years for jobs to recover to pre-pandemic levels while trusting tenants and landlords in their voting district will figure it out but not hold any of them accountable, there is no way in hell I would get in their way. 

        Additionally, there is also no way I would continue to think so small or in such a conciliatory manner on a "go it alone" piece of legislation. After all, 1.9 trillion is almost the exact number Republicans gave to rich people and corporations with their "go it alone" tax cut in the height of an economic boom no less. Taking the risk of this bill not being enough and having to try and do it all over again could prove to be the same political mistake Obama made with the Affordable Care Act, more affectionately known as ObamaCare. In that scenario, strategically withheld support from Republicans and the insurance industry itself kept Obama from making healthcare more affordable even if he was able to make it much more accessible to millions.

        Although Obama was able to win a second term despite the foolishness of using the GOP plan exclusively without getting any GOP votes to pass it, it's worth considering if he might have done the same thing if he had a do-over? Or, maybe he would have opted to call his plan the Accessible Care Act instead of the Affordable Care Act knowing what he knows about the strategic attacks against the laws affordability and its' name? 

        If Obama would have thought in advance to focus the name of his healthcare plan on the only achievable goal he had an actual chance to pull off by himself, accessibility, we might still be calling it the ACA instead of ObamaCare, the name Republicans forced on us all when they were convinced they could demonize the name to help kill the law. 

        The accessibility of a cheaper, single-payer option (aka., Medicaid) along with the strict enforcement of payments that limits the value of certain procedures, will eventually drive down prices creating affordability over time. Relative to medical costs, this had been the case for years until recent years when the healthcare costs started to rise again. The increase in use of things such as requiring referrals before covering payments, Duo billing, double billing and even fraudulent billing all seem to me like the healthcare industry's somewhat recent responses to previous years in which we witnessed medical costs in the United States actually going down. 

       Like a batter that swings but misses, even if Biden doesn't intend to run for reelection, he'll be handing the embarrassment over to his VP in waiting or his party nominee if he signs a go it alone bill into law but it fails to do enough soon enough. Desperation has many U.S. citizens sounding like starving college kids, saying, 'send whatever you can, quickly', but prudence should be saying to Biden and the Democrats, do what's right the first time because doing too little, too late was already tried by Trump and it barely helped the people who needed it the most.

               What only a few Senators are mentioning thus far is, under our current scenario; a one-time check of $1400 or $2000 that takes too god-damn long to arrive, will be gobbled up in late fees alone. The only segment of America that these late arriving stimulus checks could possibly benefit is the segment of America not teetering to close to the edge the late-fee abyss that every poor person knows about oh too well. For way too many struggling Americans, two or even three insufficient and delayed stimulus checks are not at all what the doctor ordered for our current health and economic crisis, which essentially are one and the same.

            Unless this is an effort to make ourselves believe people living paycheck to paycheck never existed, I’m confused about what we hope to achieve with a $1400-2,000 check that arrives too late? Maybe this opinion seems like an opportune moment to promote former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s philosophy of Universal Basic Income, because I am 100% Yang Gang, but I genuinely think it’s time to focus our  attention on where it matters most. Increasing access to food stamps as well as revving the engine that produces food in America is a step Biden can and did already kick into action. The other thing that matters most, keeping people in their homes so they have a place to cook and eat their food, takes a little more thinking.

            In a way, it’s clear to see we knew keeping people housed during a pandemic mattered quite a bit because, immediately, city states and the federal government invoked eviction moratoriums to save people from the inevitable impact of this pandemic. For a moment, it seemed everyone understood what was at stake and was ready to respond to America’s paycheck to paycheck reality. Now, it’s as if we believe every one of those pay check to pay check people took the past year of pandemic shutdown to dig out of their old debt scenarios and get their finances totally in order.

         Without question, millions of Americans have increased their personal savings during the pandemic, many whether they wanted to or not. The challenge of not being able to go to movies or eat food at someone else's dinner table as readily as we used to has proven to be a financial benefit most never expected or had the discipline to try out. As a result, the notion that everyone is suffering the same is totally wrong. In reality, targeting does have merit, but it's difficult in the middle of a crisis to do it, and, as we learned from this pandemic, if even one percent of 330 million people get missed by the targeting approach, it means a lot of people will suffer who probably didn't have to.

        Many are doing well right now, but for million of others, the pandemic has forced them to survive off of unemployment level wages (which vary state to state) subsidized by stimulus checks mostly talked about and not actually received. In our effort to focus on economic stimulus and bailouts for so many, how is it we are invoking moratoriums while excluding support for landlords, the people most negatively impacted by that word?

        Aside from ignoring America’s paycheck to paycheck reality, WE are also behaving as if most landlords are Donald Trump and his late father, which is far from the truth. The truth is, most landlords are regular people who came into a small amount of money and took a chance on themselves via real estate so they wouldn’t have to work  for people like Donald Trump and his father for the rest of their lives. 

        While a handful of landlords are regretting the decision to get into the business right about now, all of them need to be considered as a significant focus of how we deal with the worst of this pandemic. Said another way, if we are not focusing on landlords we are ignoring them and the desperate constituents the moratorium is forcing them to house. a half of million dead people and counting is a tragedy. Millions upon millions of evictions without a plan to mitigate it from happening will be a travesty.

          I envision the time- similar to the moment when Democrats looked back on Obama care and wish they’d pushed for the single-payer option sooner, not later- when Democrats will wish they’d gone even bigger than 1.9 trillion to fix this mess as well. Although they have mentioned this bill as step one in a multi-step process, step one resulted in 11 hours of bipartisan Senate aids reading 600 pages of a bill way too many people needed yesterday, not tomorrow. If they don't see a clear enough sign of what to expect from the GOP in steps two, three and four, Democrats will have already failed during step one.

         Because courthouses are finally opening all across the land, there is a day soon to arrive in which, by legal necessity, the word moratorium will be laughed out of the courthouse. Unless Congress moves to save landlords in particular by paying them the back-dated rent and late fees that so many of US can't right now, there may not be any way to target support to save the beneficiaries or the victims of the moratoriums.

         The best case scenario for everyone involved is the House rejects the Senate changes, (especially the change that lowers the eligibility threshold to $80k per year income) and all of the Democrats decide to go big or go home realizing they look dumb has hell right now continuing to reach across the isle to make this bill fair when no one is standing on the other side to shake their hand.

        No, I'm not over here closing my eyes and holding my breath hoping Democrats suddenly wake up and realize they are negotiating all alone.  This particular motionless, lying down, eyes closed thing I'm doing right now is apparently called dreaming.

  https://soundcloud.com/silkeee1/recording-45

Trump, Biden Have Similarities. Caged Kids Isn't One

     

                              Be it an immigration update or an economic forecast, the intelligence briefings and reports of the general state of the nation an incoming and outgoing president receives are not different, especially during the period of transition.  The primary difference is what they choose to do with the information. The state of the union is laid to bare during a transition as an incoming president can only dribble balls that are already inflated and bouncing when they arrive. Biden got into the race to become president because he was convinced WE needed dramatically new direction in leadership from the White House, and he could provide it. For the most part, he was right, however, there are ways he isn't different from his predecessor.

                            While I don’t want to upset anyone with unfair comparisons between our new president and the past one, I do think it’s important to note, 5 weeks in, where there are some similarities as well as similarities we've heard about that aren’t necessarily true. First and foremost, thank God Biden doesn't govern by tweet, but that's just scratching the surface.

Is President Biden Caging Kids, Just Like Trump Did?

                              Despite the genuine challenge immigration poses, let’s fully debunk the notion that Joe Biden is separating families in the same manner that Donald Trump was. The distorted hypocrisy of Trumpians lying about Joe Biden doing the very thing they celebrated Donald Trump for is typical, laughable and reminiscent of that insurrection they openly planned, conducted and applauded before they decided it was probably smarter to blame it on ANTIFA.

                             To be clear, if Biden has reopened any of Trump's caged-kid facilities, and he has, it is only to deal with the volume of migrants at the border and to find a way to humanely bring them inside from the elements while keeping them together as a family. Had Trump shown the decency to, at the very least, keep families together, none of the controversy over caged kids would’ve ever began. Of course, now we understand that the cruelty and the transformation of the U.S. image as a global humanitarian was not mismanagement. It was the actual goal. Whether they succeeded or not is a question for time and the history books.

                   Under Biden, Trump or whoever is president, migrant families, walking thousands of miles towards the U.S. border and their hope for freedom, turn themselves over to authority willingly, and have never cared about the nature of the facility they eat sleep and get water from in the initial stages of the asylum process provided they remained with the same children they brought with them during the death defying journey. Because Trump chose the cruel path of separating families in this very moment of their lives, Pres. Biden's administration is currently attempting to reuinte hundreds of missing kids with parents, and has promised to allow those families who were separated, to reunite in the United States as a form of retribution for what they’ve endured.                     

Doesn't Golden Calf Trump have
on the Apollo Creed shorts?

                          No matter what OAN and NewsMax tell you, the immigration policy of these two presidents are not the same at all. What is similar between the current president and the former president involves this farce of a political conference that Trump headlined this past weekend. After days of deifying his name and his memory in preparation for the keynote speech of their golden calf, Trump himself finally spoke to the crowd- who would’ve been just as happy if they had called it TPAC and cut the charade- but only talked about old grievances, never offering any guidance to the party nor a commitment of a future presidential candidacy.

           Straw polling from the event determined Trump the clear-cut winner of the conference, but he only achieved 55% of the vote splitting the other 45% of the vote with a sparse crowd of names, none impressive enough to warrant a mention. Of significant note are the two most likely challengers to the Trumpian wing of the Republican throne, Niki Haley (SC), and former VP Mike Pence (IN), because neither were in attendance.

        How does this anti-climactic loser worshipping conference overlap with Biden? To date, Biden himself has not declared as a 2024 candidate either, seemingly suggesting in the early days of his campaign that he’d be willing and interested in handing the reigns of his presidency over to someone else after one term. 

Is President Biden still serious about one term or was that just a ploy to gain progressives support?

            Biden hasn’t spoken of it again since making his VP selection, and Kamala Harris could be the protégé Biden hopes to groom between now and the 2024 election, however, is she enough to offer U.S.? If the Democrats hope to go into 2024 with a bench to choose from, shouldn't Democrats consider identifying their "who's next" just like Republicans tried to do this weekend? Can the conversation begin in earnest before Biden public says what he plans to do one way or the other? If Kamala Harris is being set up for a Hillary Clinton style coronation as our next president, don't be shocked if the 2024 presidential election results end similarly to 2016 for Democrats as well. Niki Haley would love to be our nations first female president instead of Kamala Harris. Trust me on this!

A LOT OF PEOPLE WANT THE SAME THING TO HAPPEN WITH SCHOOLS!

            This other area of similarity between the current and former president isn’t necessarily an easy pill to swallow given the heated politics related to the subject, however, Biden and Trump wanted the exact same thing to happen with our schools and probably for the same reasons. No, I don’t really think Donald Trump gives a damn about kids or education, but I also don’t believe Joe Biden’s motivation for opening schools is entirely altruistic either.

                I’m not saying Biden doesn’t care about kids and teachers. His wife is a lifelong educator, and her feelings on most subjects influence her husband immensely. What I am saying is, a significant segment of the U.S. economy is tied to the food service programs of public schools and universities across this land. Consequently, losing the regular flow of so much food across this country has been as crippling to our economy as any one thing could be. 

               Without question, there can be no return to normal without returning our schools to normal. Biden knows it, and so did Trump. Without question, the politics on reopening schools even has the teachers union torn between themselves over what is the right thing to do- open the schools or keep remote learning until the virus passes a bit more? And, without question, lots of kids are suffering as a result of this. Yes, some kids more than others, but all are suffering one way or another from schools being anything other than open for business just like they used to be. 

        Yet, without question, Biden is pushing to open the schools nearly as hard as he's pushing the vaccine because the health of the nation is tied to the vaccine just as the health of our overall economy is tied to fully functioning schools and universities serving tons of food each week. 

            

                Love it or hate it- for our current president, Sleepy Joe, or the former president and leader of the insurrection- much of this school opening conversation is strictly about the economy, not the kids. If that similarity between Biden and Trump is tough to swallow, my apologies, but it is what it is.

#whatdoyouthink

 Recording (44) by SquareBizRadio | Square Biz Radio | Free Listening on SoundCloud

 

 

                               

It's Only A Crisis Because Pelosi Is Afraid To Impeach

     Donald J. Trump, America's current President, wants to be impeached just as Nancy Pelosi says, and he will stone-wall his way into making it happen if he must. Pelosi wants to win even if it means not doing her job, as if Trump will impeach himself for her. 

     So the war is underway. Impeach him and run the risk of helping him get re-elected, or try to beat him at the ballot box while fighting back the morality cops, like Elizabeth Warren, who see this as a clear matter of integrity.

     
 I agree with Warren and I believe Pelosi and the Democrats are joining Republicans in a really dangerous game of wanting to win the politics of the day so badly, they are running from the spirit of justice in a nation much too passionate about honoring that spirit.

     Wantonness is not a great emotion to plan around, but it is the driving force for everything Democrats talk about these days. They want Trump gone so badly, but they are afraid to listen to the Mueller report and just "Do Their Jobs" because of the potential political backlash.

     Instead of simply reading the report- which, I am starting to question if many in Congress have- Democrats want to chase down Bob Mueller and former White House attorney, Don McGhan, who might be forced to testify, but will never be able to say anything that isn't already contained in the report. No matter how much Democrats want their way on this, they will look silly having McGhan turn to pages in the report to read it out loud on television for them. In essence, they want Mueller and McGhan  and Trump to do their jobs for them.

     In fact, Pelosi said as much when she recently resorted to stuttering her way into a weird explanation of Trump trying to "self impeach", a term nobody in the world understands but Pelosi. Even her attempts to clarify herself only amounted to saying that "Trump is building the case for his own impeachment".

     Translation: Pelosi wants Trump to do her job within Congress of whipping up support for impeachment by convincing individuals who are too lazy to do their jobs, to do their jobs and finally read the report. Pelosi herself is more willing to claim that we are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis rather than do her job and accept the answer the Constitution has given for this crisis moment.

     Because of the Providential perfection of our amendable Constitution, you can never have a Constitutional crisis until you run into a problem that the Constitution has no answer for. The problem right now is that the politics are historically horrible on impeachment, which has nothing to do with a crisis at all. This is about Pelosi wanting to have her cake and eat it too. But, everyone wants to have and eat their cake right now, and it's not a good look for any of them.

     Progressive Democrats say they want a woman to be the next President of the United States, but can't find one the masses seem willing to support yet. In addition to their Medicare-for-all plans, these progressives really want America to finally get serious about climate change vis a vis their Green New Deal, which is currently just a cool name and not quite a deal or a plan yet.

     Many of the new progressives in the party came to Washington D.C. on a commitment to impeach this President, but they have been quieted by Pelosi even though the Mueller report gives them more ammunition to impeach than they had when they arrived.

     Republicans have their own wants, but they are limited because they got that tax cut that turned out to be 4-5% bigger than anyone ever wanted or asked for. As it stands, way too many Republicans simply want Democrats to move on from Mueller's findings and turn a blind eye to the outlined obstructions and impeachment instructions messaged in the report. If you read between the lines on Pelosi's "self impeachment" comment, she seems willing to comply.

     Unfortunately for the GOP, moving on from Mueller means moving on to a huge spending bill that Trump negotiated directly with Chuck and Nancy (Schumer and Pelosi) realizing Congress is hardly the right place to make agreements anymore. This odd trio have agreed to a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will probably get jammed by the politics of deficits, special interest add-ons, or a combination of both

     But I am mostly upset with Pelosi who is convinced the impeachment process will "die at the Senate's edge" and has fended her party away from the process, even though she seems more and more willing to discuss the option herself after the controversial AG Barr Senate testimony recently.  If Democrat voters start to feel this President deserves more than he is getting, they will stop pressuring this President and start pressuring his enablers instead- Democrats included.

     Pelosi is correct in her view on the dead end road impeachment faces in the Senate, but she is dead wrong in her overall analysis of the benefit to detriment because justice can never be about politics. Whether every Senator in America chooses to align themselves on the right side of history or not doesn't diminish the importance of making them have to. 

     In fact, this is not the time to run from the process and suggest the ideal of a Constitutional crisis. This is the time to use the process and make every person in Congress have to place their marker in the history books for our grandchildren to study. This is a time to shame those who haven't read the report, and this is also the time to better explain what the word impeachment means.....because, in the minds of many, the word means removal, and Americans don't like removing people WE voted for unless we have no other choice. The first Democrat to own the process of explaining impeachment to US all will help drive the process to its proper conclusion, and they might even win the White House for their efforts.

     An impeachment is a trial.  Period. It is a fact finding process intended to investigate cabinet officials who could be immune to such an inquiry if not for impeachment. Anyone geeky enough to be reading this already understood that. Many Americans do not. The only crisis currently is that Congress is at a stand still in getting documents from the White House for every current congressional investigation, including Russian election interference, and Congress can't begin their duty of oversight without compliance from the Trump administration.

     Insert AG Barr, who runs the Justice Department and is the key lineman blocking out front for all of Trump's obstruction efforts. Ultimately, someone in the Department of Justice will have to decide to indict their boss if Democrats attempt to hold Barr in contempt for not testifying before the House as requested recently. Lying to Senators about the letter he had received from Mueller is also perjury, which is an impeachable offense. As with Nixon, obstruction of a congressional investigation is also an impeachment worthy offense. 

     At the very least, Trump and his administration have promised to obstruct and are presently living up to the promise. The reasons to shut up and do something about this administration are recent, ongoing, and exist outside of the Mueller report, a report which also begs for something to be done.

     Impeachments alone have never resulted in the removal of a President because they were not necessarily intended for that. Before the Senate ever gets a chance to vote to remove a President via impeachment, a majority vote has to happen in the House first. The Founding Fathers intentionally designed an impeachment to be just as difficult as it should be. 

     Despite popular perception, the politics of impeachment are much more damaging to the party of the President, but that is beside the point. The impeachment process is the point and it is a provision designed for scenarios that demand it. It is part of the oath of the office that Congress promises to fulfill when the President and his cabinet fails to fulfill their own oaths.  History has painted impeachments as toxic, but politics themselves are naturally toxic and occasionally corrupt. By reinforcing the toxicity of an impeachment, Pelosi and Democrats are blaming the remedy.

     A concerted push for a better understanding of the process would offer better clarity to the word itself and to the necessity for invoking it when the Constitution demands. The Democrats anxiously screaming for impeachment need to acknowledge the confusion about the process and clarify it enough to tilt public perception and force Pelosi's hand. 

     The reason impeachments have never removed a President is because our hope-filled dream of Democracy in this fractured Republic typically intervenes. In reality, the standard for removal has always been higher than"... high crimes and misdemeanors", even while the standard for impeachment is not. Until Nancy Pelosi gets that and gets the courage to do what is right and not what is politically expedient, she is failing her country, her party and herself.

     I hate to beat a dead horse, but this horse deserves a beating. Pelosi asking for hearings with Mueller is the equivalent of asking him to slap her and the rest of the Democrats over the head with the obvious before they do what the report begs of them. All of this because everyone in D.C. wants a political victory even if America loses along the way.

     Until political wantonness changes, beating Trump at the ballot box is the only trick the Democrat pony can pull off, and Joe Biden is the best option to do it. Yet, beating Trump in 2020 is what Nancy needs. It has nothing to do with integrity, justice or addressing the reason Trump won in the first place. Trump happened for a reason and his approval ratings have never been low enough for me to think that mysterious reason has changed.

     Yeah, Russia is the easy answer, however, I tend to believe that Russia tipped a scale that was waiting to fall over from eight years of the racial uneasiness from a black president that millions refused to call their own. Now, we have millions on the other end of the political spectrum unwilling to do the same with Trump although the underlying issues from both sides are bigger than either men.

   It might be time for each of US to take ownership of our own part of this problem. We all want the America WE dream of but can't see how we become our own worst enemies screaming to the winds for the America we want instead of pursuing a nation that fulfills the wants of many, Trumpians included. The Trumpian army isn't confused about what's wrong even if they have a fully distorted view of who to blame or how to fix it. 

     Because the "Lord Is My Shepherd" I loathe the word want and wantonness, and I run from the use of the word as often as I can. It is a selfish emotion.  It defies my spiritual upbringing and denotes a desperation that defies the constant provisions of God. It screams desperation, yet, some needs are desperate, and I too want this rightfully elected dude gone just as passionately as the rest of you.

     What I don't want is to use want as a strategy to get him out. I don't want an elected president to lose his job without the full benefit of a due process too politically risky to touch. I would like for Trump to get everything he deserves, even if the process results in a real exoneration and not a fake news variety.

     What I also don't want, is for Democrats to pursue a political gain and
short circuit the process and the pursuit of democracy intended by the Founding Fathers who created the impeachment to properly adjudicate the misdeeds of a President gone array. If the misdeeds are unfounded, only the process can fully investigate and set the record straight, either way.

     No matter how Trump fights it, history will be forced to sniff out the truth. No matter how Pelosi fights it, the impeachment process was meant to deal with certain presidential matters and everyone in Congress currently playing politics instead of doing their job to clarify the historical record will be held accountable by history as well.

     No, this isn't a Constitutional crisis because there is an answer for this moment and it lives in the Constitution. One day in the future, Republicans and Democrats will regret not reading the report soon enough, and they'll regret trying to take this moment to use it as an opportunity for their own political gain.  Every American who lets them get away with it will feel the same regret.

What Exactly Is A President For If Not Reassurance?

First it was just one old guy recalling his boxing days, Now 

he's actually the president with an influence on steroids. As he

calls for civility, will he change his stump speech attacks?

A time consuming writing project forced me away from my typical opining on current events, which has worked out fine because my Super Bowl 50 champion Broncos suck almost as much as our president, and there are only so many ways you can ridicule John Elway or Donald Trump before YOU start to look like the idiot and not them.

My two Trump loving followers who read that previous paragraph are thinking to themselves, Trump doesn't suck, CNN sucks. Even they, however, are smart enough to keep those words inside at a time like this. Our president is not. He is too small a man to simply call the targets of terror and offer his words of sympathy.

As it stands, Trump has postponed his own verbal attacks on CNN and the rest, but he smiled and listened to the ritual chant- "CNN Sucks"- of his campaign crowd,  just one day after FBI agents arrested the pipe bomb terrorist who targeted CNN and others declared enemies by Trump himself.

If news is nothing more than what WE find interest in, these recent acts of terror and violence are mostly news worthy out of decency for the victims not because they are unique, irregular or terribly interesting. I've forced myself to opinionate on this "way too regular" fringe violence crap because I find myself- once again- a normal, Regular American longing and waiting for my president to comfort me into rationalizing away America's violent nature, like presidents usually do. 

I'm still waiting.

If the president of our country were simply capable of saying the right thing at the right time, WE could all feign sadness and quickly return to whatever television show we binge watch over the weekends so we can mentally recharge for our understaffed, underpaid work weeks.

Despite the 11 people murdered at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, following 5-days of pipe bomb terror all over America, President Trump continues to do and say everything except the reassuring words regular Americans need right now.

In reality, there will always be extremists behaving extremely. Regular Americans understand this even as WE wait the 2 hours of post-tragedy grief that is customary before we argue over gun rights, the NRA or just return to our television binging for mental health escape.

WE, the regular People of America, don't blame George W. Bush for wars or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even if we believe Saudi Arabia deserved the brunt of our anger, and maybe still does. Some of US might blame Bush, but the lion-share of America understands the industry of war, the necessity of war and the hair-triggers that cause violence of all kinds.

WE also understand that, sometimes, we war with ourselves whenever weapons of war become tools of terror in our streets, because Regular Americans understand the parable about living by the sword and recognize the inevitability of all this. When things grow beyond our ability to explain, Regular Americans know enough to follow the trail of money to clarify confusion. War an violence bring tons of money even as they bankrupt those who overuse them.

When it comes to war of any sort, presidents are often nothing more than the guys who listen to the advice of the generals and sign or decline their documents to proceed- especially now that Congress has abdicated that role among a few others. A president can choose to fight another day or in another way, but the industry and the machinery chugs along with our without their 4-8 years of consent. Violence in our streets is a byproduct of war in our world. It is a sad reflection of our inner-most nature to confront difficult challenges with rage.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, predicted

 the end of American greatness. Is he right?

And if so, what will be our demise?

As it relates to violence in general, WE, the People, are a peculiar lot. We continue to market our land with milk and honey even though guns like the AR-15 have long since become the item most reflective of modern America and its nightmarish Dream.

The eerie connection between the Dream of America, our gun lust and that caravan from Latin America is a lengthy conversation all by itself.
(The Latin American gun leak. -- LA Times. Jan. 6th 2015)



Any notion that people willing to walk over 2,000 miles for a dream could be lazy is even more silly than the idea that ISIS would fly to the Guatemala just to join their death defying journey. The Trump administrations attempt to stoke fear of migrants by claiming Middle Easterner infiltration of the caravan. Making descendants from the Middle East analogous to terrorists is possibly more shameful than his refusal to be a president for Real Americans when Real Americans need it.

In some ways, WE are a land of type-A personalities who breed, attract and inspire those same personalities from near and far to come, live in our land and argue alongside US about what it means to be American, or how America can ignore the dangers of our violent compulsions, yet, still remain the best country in the world and not just a nation conforming to one man's distorted view of greatness.


WE will never lose our partisan divide even if the lines get blurred by another flawed, reactive socialized program or two that Regular Americans discover they need too much to let go of, flawed or not. Regular Americans want our degrading social programs to be replaced with sensible, dignified hand up legislation because Regular Americans realize that the sacrifices of the American Dream are also the exact formula for achieving it. Regular Americans still believe in the dream and see their dreams as clearly as they see the obstacles because regular Americans understand what it takes to keep ALL of our dreams alive.

On the fringes of American society, we will always have pessimists who think all this a nightmare. Because fear and misery demand company, those on the fringes have no choice but to bring the rest of US into their nightmares just to legitimize their own miserable fear induced realities. The reasons for those on the fringe are numerous and real, but no more real than the fact that the extreme fringes are not the majority. The majority of US love this land for what it is and can be, and are enjoying our chase of the dream the best WE can.

WE the People, know quite clearly what happens if we remain silent when they come for the Jews, so we depend on the civility of our president whenever those on the fringes terrorize our neighbors until we no longer understand how to feel about our country, or ourselves. 

While Democrats focus on the rhetoric of the pipe bomb terrorist, 

Republicans deflect by pointing to his Native American race.

Maybe this pipe bomb terrorist is not a Nationalist like our president recently  announced himself to be. And hopefully this Pittsburgh killer doesn't avow himself to Trump either. Regular people don't really care about the political leaning of killers who terrorize US even if our debate over weapons of war makes it look like WE do.

At moments like this, WE need to be reassured that WE are much more similar than different.

According to Trump, some 

of these are fine people.

Trumpians might have found a feeling of reassurance in the words Trump robotically read before he stepped all over them with some weird attack on the media and a few false equivalencies about congressman Steve Scalise, but Regular Americans are still empty.

Whatever Trump called his moment of reassurance only stoked terror and the debate further. With every shallow call from our president for "all sides" to improve, I am hard-pressed to understand what Trump wants to see from the media, or what he intends to change himself? I am beyond baffled as to who will change first when our president hasn't even declared what change should look like...."on all sides".

If there's anything the media should change if they could, what exactly should it be Mr. President? Lead US! Reassure US, if you can.

I will give Trump this concession on behalf of the media. If Congress was at all worthwhile, guns wouldn't be so rampant and presidents wouldn't be allowed or expected to send troops to war because war would only happen as the Constitution prescribes- via congressional order.

If this current Congress was at all fulfilling it's coequal duty, they might consider this president guilty of yelling fire in a theatre from campaign speeches that have stoked his fringes to act against a hit-list of opponents and other undesirables. It is perfectly legitimate to question the impetus of recent radicals. It is unthinkable that any president would call for civility while running so hard away from it at the same time.

Let me say this once more, for effect! The day after catching the pipe bomb terrorist, our current president was not wise or courageous enough to discontinue the "CNN Sucks" rant while campaigning. Is that a high crime or a misdemeanor? Did those two black people at Kroger die from just being black in Trump's America and or did they die from Trump's inability to promote the very civility he calls for? 

Will  there continue to be more unexplained terror stoked and promoted by our Nationalist president until a seemingly clear connection is no longer avoidable? 

If the next pipe bomber goes a step further after a Democrat mid-term takeover of congress, Trump could easily be considered a cause of this and could be impeached from the deadly toxicity of his presidency alone.

In reality, high crimes and misdemeanors can mean whatever Congress wants it to mean when they are convinced that a president is no longer fulfilling the call of the office. And what is more vital to the call of the office than what WE need from a president at moments like these?

Americans don't like the impeachment of a president, so smart Democrats like Nancy Pelosi won't let her party forget that truth. Unless, of course, the next wave of pipe bomb terror comes at her. How Pelosi managed to avoid pipe bomb terror is as mysterious as why none of them exploded.

Trump: "You should have had an armed guard in your 

church....and capital punishment. God bless all."

From military to economic, Trump has waged war with his own advisers and appointees, yet, none of them seem to care or seem compelled to follow his radical lead in areas of such vital significance. Republicans in Congress have tried to cater to his whims, but even they could only pull off a tax cut for themselves and a controversial Supreme Court pick that might work against them come November 6th.

The quandry for the GOP is that they will either l retain their majority and have to explain why they still can't agree on anything useful enough to turn into law, or they will lose their majority and have to fend off the kind of congressional oversight of the president that used to be part of co-equal governance. Anything left to be accomplished in America can not pay for itself, something Republicans promised their tax cut would do.

The bully pulpit of the president has always mattered because it is essentially their only weapon. Presidents function on influence alone, although nothing is more powerful than being able to influence the media cycle and popular opinion. Congress used to be powerful, but those days are a distant memory.

Presidents don't write the bills they eventually sign, and they obviously can't even force their own party to buy a wall they promised Mexico would pay for. Obama used his influence to complete universal healthcare, but he did it using the Republican plan based on pressure from his own party even though he didn't get a single Republican vote for his conciliatory effort.

Unless the president of the U.S. is attempting to comfort US with their yearly State of the Union- or a monthly address from another act of terror- presidents don't really have a whole lot they can do but comfort US when our world appears frenzied.

Until WE all screwed up and allowed Russia to suppress and influence enough voters into our orange accident, WE had always elected a president with the capacity to speak words of reassurance to the bulk of US and not just those fringe folks who terrorize or tacitly approve.

Now WE have a president incapable of rising above tough coverage, Saturday night live spoofs or the  insults about his spray tan to still do the only thing WE need presidents to do.

And it's sad.