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

Hillary's Panoramic Picture Needs A Zoom Lens

I must admit.

I was a little afraid for poor Hillary because she messed up and engineered the best group of political speeches we've ever seen as an affirmation to her credibility and an introduction to her as the official nominee of the Democrat party.

The Reverend Dr. William Barber II turned a more mundane list of final night speakers into a night of speaking just as strong as any of the other nights. But that is only because Hillary did the damn thing too.

I could have chosen much more dignified words to meet the gravitas of the moment and the person who owned it, but it was beyond presidential.  It was real talk like we've never quite seen from Hillary or any presidential candidate.

It had so much detailed specificity that the most common republican critique after the speech was not to the detail and planning, but to the fact that she didn't precede it all by saying "I'm going to ask congress for these things", realizing that the only encumbrance to her thorough dissertation would be those do-nothings.

Donald Trump, conversely, not only insures you that he- and only he- can do the things that he promises, he does so with as little detail as he can get away with.  Thus far, that is quite a bit.

On stage last night, Hillary followed up a man that started out his spiritual lambasting of conservatives- of which all of us who are Christian naturally find allegiance to- with a not so veiled refrain that went as follows.

"I am so concerned about those who say so much about what God says so little, while saying so little about what God says so much"

If the point wasn't quite made clear enough, Dr. Barber later added

"When religion is used to camouflage meanness, we know we have a heart problem in America"   

Why In The World Do They Call Hillary Clinton Evil?

Full disclosure.

Why exactly do you want this job again?

I am the person who originally wondered why in the world Hillary Clinton would know as much as she knows about the difficulty of the presidency and still seek the post.  I am that guy who never felt that breaking the glass ceiling was a reasonable enough reason for Hillary to seek to lead the free world while doing it.

I am fully concerned, and hardly convinced that this is the perfect person for the job.  Given the nature of our world, I'm concerned that men hate women worldwide even more than Trump does here in America.  To be effective in her role will be a challenge greater than her skill for negotiation and compromise.  Much like Barack Obama did, her uniqueness will threaten existing power structures into a greater sense of fear and loathing, and a stronger stand of opposition against her than the one they made against Obama.

I totally get the stand against Hillary for president.

What I don't understand is why there is not a legitimate substantive debate against her instead of this incessant "Evil Hillary" nonsense that is founded in nothing legitimate.

Actually, I am not confused about it all.  In the absence of substantive policy conversations, it becomes necessary, almost vital to play like The Donald and drop insults with no substance.

This is one of the nice Obama devil pics

 Insults like those that Photoshop created for the past 8 years of the Obama presidency.  When it became clear that most of Obama's policy decisions had a decidedly right wing lean to them (domestic oil production, RomneyCare 2.0, TPP), the problem with him had to be made more personality driven.

If you trust modern social media, Obama needs to complete his term as president so that he can resume his rule over the Illuminati.  Republicans might have cornered themselves into oblivion with all of the fear bating, but the downside of obsolescence is that you no longer have anything to lose.

Trump and the Trumpians are using any means necessary to win

The GOP has relegated themselves into a segmented party without a true identity.  If they have one, it now belongs to the Trumpians, supporters of Donald Trump who helped to wipe out a huge field of political competitors, by any means necessary, excluding of course by means of sharing policy, plans and details that is.

By any means necessary politics has been known to call Ted Cruz "Lying Ted" and Marco Rubio "Little Marco" for reasons we really don't need to bring up again.

By any means necessary is exactly the approach that is now being deployed against Hillary, and it' feels just like the Obama is a devil claims.

So...are women truly evil?

There really is no major effort needed to sell the notion that women are somewhat crazy and maybe even downright evil.  To levy the charge of "that evil Bitch Hillary"- which is essentially what you folks are saying about her- as a means of running off people who are already leery of women in leadership to begin with, is low-brow, by any means necessary politics.

Why do these evil charges have no merit?

If you look at the only topics that seem to lead this claim of evil, they were all done under the guidance and leadership of men who WE've conveniently forgotten or disregarded. The beef with the mass incarcerations from the Clinton years and the reverberating memories of the word "Super predator" places the blame on the president's wife...not the president himself or even Bernie Sanders who was in congress at the time and voted in favor of the crime bill too, as did many liberals.

The issue with Benghazi or even Libya disregards the fact that every decision made in both scenarios, was at the accountability of the president, not the Secretary of State who has no authority to act without presidential consent.

If Muslim minister, Louis Farrakhan, has a sincere problem with our killing of his Libyan friend Mohamar Qaddafi, he should take it up with Obama, not Hillary. But he's not.  Instead, he'd rather post videos convincing us all that Hillary must be evil because.....because.

Actually, this evil claim has no foundation for existence and needs to stop.  It is low-bar sexism at its worse, and it's an instant reflection of our unfounded fears of a women and worthy competitors. No, many of us do not feel comfortable with women in leadership, reflected in our corporate boards and our wage disparity.  For whatever reason, WE just don't think women are worthy.

WE didn't really think that black men were worthy of being president either, but two elections with an apparent rejection of white male alternatives has made it clear that the WE who decides elections is never fully reflective of US all.  Dylann Roof, Obama bashing, Black Lives Matter, Trump and now evil  Hillary claims have all revealed to US all that WE have quite a way to go on issues of gender, race and equality.

WE've never fully overcome like the song promised we would during those long arduous marches for freedom.  In reality, WE've thrown dirt over the exact issues that now make the Unites States of America the most socially divided accumulation of human beings on the planet, with money, power and influence overtaking gender and race as our key dividers.

I'm not discounting the natural demonic depiction that becomes every president eventually, or the power and inspiration of Photoshop alterations to prove our modern claims of evil.  What I am discounting is this decision to demonize Hillary simply to disqualify her in advance.  Even Obama avoided the label until after he won and suddenly posed a real threat to those who doubted that he really could win in the first place.

Obama Did It!!

Blame Obama for this one too if you must.  Two terms of a black man have made it abundantly clear that we will not simply go back to white men for fear of everything else.  WE are willing, ready and prepared to be lead by a women president, and Hillary is as thoroughly qualified for the job as ANY candidate that has run, maybe ever. Much like racism against blacks, she has had no choice but to be twice as good just to make it half as far.

What can not be ignored is that she has a history of legal issues, alongside her husband, that leave her with question marks on trustworthiness and integrity. But she also has a consistent history of working hard for children and families of America that just doesn't disappear because her opponents yell Benghazi or evil Hillary so much.

She is a woman of principle and motives, and she appears to be the best of what WE have left to choose from.  If Trump is actually able to behave so incredibly devilish throughout this campaign, and Bernie Sanders is an admitted Socialist, something so many  have long since considered evil, how exactly is it that Hillary keeps coming out on the internet as the only evil candidate remaining?

It's because she is winning, likely to win, and because she is a woman.  Just as the black man in me did not idly sit by while folks called my president a devil without cause, the father of 5 women in me does not appreciate this cheap attempt to disqualify a woman on the age old claim of being an evil witch.....or worse.

Because Hillary never ordered a hit on ambassador Stephens, or got caught cheating on Bill, this belief of her being genuinely evil comes exclusively from her gender.

I thought WE were better than this. 

Trump Won Iowa, Sanders Proves Socialism Okay

Nobody really wants to hear me say this, but I have to keep it SquareBiz for those of you who need it.

Trump won Iowa.

No really.

Trump won Iowa, and it wasn't even close.  Well, it was close, but not in the way that you think. Iowa is AS full of religious fundamentalism as any state in the union.  Not only is Iowa full of it (so to speak), it is full of religico's who are highly politically active as well- possibly more so than any other fundamentalist spot in America.

In other words, betting Ted Cruz to win in Iowa would have been a wasted bet in Vegas because you would have had to put down $3,000 just to win $100.  I just made up those odds, but you get my point.  Iowa chose Mike Huckabee two cycles ago, and Rick Santorum during the last presidential election primary/caucus season. because the Tea Party has owned Iowa for some time now.

Polls might have threatened to hand Iowa to Trump, but they didn't have a great way of knowing who would actually leave their home and caucus for Trump.

Now we know, and the numbers are staggering.

Cruz might have stopped Trump from finishing on top like he claims he always does, but he barely kept Iowa from shifting itself away from its religious roots and firmly into the area of social dissent with many other parts of the American electorate.

If there is any reason for Marco Rubio to be doing victory laps over a third place finish (and there is), Trump has just as much a cause for applause for finishing second in a place that his heathen arse should have never finished so high, but he did.

Without the benefit of a real ground game in a state that he knew would be a waste of money to fight in, Trump still came up second.  Cruz committed mightily to the outcome he got, and should also consider the Rubio result to be a considerable challenge to his evangelical claim over the GOP.  As for ground game, the same could be said for Clinton who had a representative in each of Iowa's 1681 democrat caucusing precincts.

Hillary and Cruz worked like crazy to insure the Iowa outcomes that they sorely needed.  Trump and Bernie Sanders will be hard to beat in New Hampshire, so a loss in Iowa too would have been a rough start for Hillary, too rough in fact for either to allow for such an outcome.  So she didn't lose, and neither did Cruz. 

But they almost did.

Did Cruz win by a wide enough margin to celebrate?

Rubio can feel happy about the large portions of Cruz's voters that had to be a part of the results he enjoyed last night.  Yet if Rubio has any legitimacy to his joy (and he does), than Trump and Sanders should be sipping champagne too.

From my perspective, they answered the question of how loud will the voice of the angry populist actually be in this upcoming election.  Will unusual voters show up to do something that they've rarely done before?


After our first sampling, it is clear that they will be pretty damn loud if we heard their voices all the way from fundamentalist Iowa. 

Pretty damn loud indeed.

Donald Trump: "We'll Win Until You Are Sick Of It"

Communication is a powerful tool.  The more you bathe in its power the more you realize that words are only one manner of communication.  Often silence speaks louder than words ever could.

As in that moment when you confront your spouse with the question of "are you cheating on me" and they do not say a word.  The level of communication associated with certain moments of silence are absolutely astounding once you condition yourself to pay close attention to such things.

Donald Trump has been virtually silent on details but has parlayed a wealth of conversation into a sizable lead in the Republican race for the White House. 

Don't look now, but Ben Carson is racing from behind  and is polling as the second option for Donald Trump supporters who may be asked to choose a more reasonable second option before this is all over.

What's happening at the top and the bottom of the Republican polling?

Yet, what critics of Trump keep claiming of him is a dangerous lack of specifics connected to bold claims of wide sweeping reforms.

What I have begun to really believe of this Trump run is that he is in fact an internal plant of the Democratic party designed to corner the Republicans into a web of their own often confusing rhetoric of fear, which they've used for way too long, and with way too little to show for it.

Can We Soften Rich Hearts Into $12 min wage?

Either Socialism is really bad and Bernie Sanders needs to be killed before he kills America, or the cash is not going to trickle down like Reagan promised it would. Right now is a prime opportunity for the wealthy to open the faucet  and rain on the regulars. Instead, they are proving  the case that human greed will always dictate human behavior where strong policy doesn't resist it.

Have you heard the billionaire Donald Trump talking about taxing those hedge fund managers recently?  You better believe that those hedge fund managers and those who they elect to correct this kind of stuff heard it. The millions that are closely watching Trump, including those who actually hope he wins should have heard it also.  From my estimation, that excludes about 3 people in America who don't have media access because they live on the street............ and can't hear, speak or talk. (had to cover that last base)

In some ways, the election feels like it is a long time from now.  For us political junkies it feels like Christmas is here again.  Speaking of Christmas, if you don't start taking advantage of  early purchasing and best price guaranteed, you will get the worst parts of the upcoming Christmas shopping season which starts up in 90 days.

I didn't say that to scare you. I recognize that the sun is still shining in most places across the land, however, way too many of us just drug those Christmas lights to the basement or attic.

I'm more sympathetic now to those bold or lazy folks who have taken to simply leaving the lights hanging instead of enduring that deja vu  that you just put the lights up that happens every year as you put them back up again.

A year is never as far off as you think, and several SuperPAC's with a struggling candidate had better spark up the lights and start spending that money to justify all of their other hard work of getting behind that candidate in the first place.  That should translate into heavy media blitzes (sooner and not later) and the feeling of an elongated campaign season that we'll be ready to burn in effigy when its all said and done.

Hard to imagine a better helper to the Hillary's cause than Donald Trump is right now.  How come Trump blows up Megan Kelly but only offers predictions about his great friend Hillary?  How great a friend is Hillary Clinton, Donald?

Currently, conservatives are adopting the copycat model relative to Donald Trump and what to do about his surge.  Every time he gets attacked, the attacking candidate loses steam in the polling, so few are eager to take him head on anymore, preferring to mimic him and see how that works instead.  
This is where and why I've come to see this guy as a genius spy planted by the other side with a mission to implode a party with an unstable foundation- from the inside out.

eep opp ork- ah ah!....and that means I love the Bible,
The Tea Party, Mexicans and Women- and they love me.

What makes him so genius is the ability to talk so long and say so little.  In reality, he is saying just what needs to be heard by the people needing to hear it. He has learned to stick his thermometer so deep into the back side of social media and media types that he not only understands what they had for lunch, he's chosen their dinner and desert to hit them in  that visceral spot that words can only partly reach.

That viscerally pleasing silence, where Italians prefer a gesture or odd sound so they can perfectly fill in their own blanks. (Must be all those years of living in New Jersey for Trump)

Donald Trump wipes and reinserts his thermometer as we sleep, and wakes up saying what needs to be said the next day to bring that angry political fever down and push his poll numbers up.  No one has ever done it quite so well, or done it so badly all at the same time.  Donald has tools that Ronald Reagan would only dream about, both technology and a supreme media savvy from catering to the green light of a camera all of his life.

Trump Talk or Donald Speak?

When Trump tells you that voters don't need detail only the media does, believe him. The need for detail either happens late or never during campaigns; substantially less when power and charisma are the traits we're pursuing in the first place.   When details don't matter, someone has to stand in the communication gap that happens from what Donald is saying and who, in fact, he is actually saying it to.

If he actually wins the White House, time will help us all learn what he means versus what he says, but that might be a bit too late. In the process of selecting a president, it's vital that we are clear about the leader we select, and right now the lead republican is just too difficult to get a read on.

So I Will Translate For You 

Trump:
"The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this," Trump wrote. "Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world."

TRANSLATION:

Don't worry people of the conservative South.  I realize that there are way too many Mexicans shopping at Sam's Club down South these days instead of just California and Arizona. Just because they have Grandma, mom, dad and all of those bad kids clogging the free sample line doesn't mean that those Latin men are not sexual, drugging rapist., so I'll send them back for you...and make them pay for the fence.

Trump:
Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people.

Translation:
Pick me because I'm smarter than Obama and Hillary or anybody else who makes trade bad.

Trump on ObamaCare:

We do have to help people
. ... we have a 5 billion dollar website. I have so many websites … I hire people. They do a website. It costs me three dollars. 

Translation:
ObamaCare is working pretty well except  for the name and that web site thing, so don't ask me about health care until people stop signing up for the help, because we gotta help people.

Trump:
I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.

Translation:
Nobody cares how they get a good job (i.e., details) so why tell them how you'll do it?

Trump:
When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time.

Translation:
How are we going to make lots of money without cheap Asian goods?  I better tell them that I can beat China and get  Asian goods even cheaper so we don't screw up the TPP.

Trump:
What about Huma??!!! And her husband, the perv??!!

Translation:
I like Hillary too much (and might be her internal plant) to hit on her or her assistant, so I will attack the low hanging fruit cake husband and hope nobody notices how nice I've actually been to Hillary versus everyone else running.

We're Going To Win


Now the latest Trumpeting almost sounds like a replay of Howard Dean's screaming rant during his presidential run.  "We're (republicans) going to win so much you're going to get sick of winning", which translates to mean- "We're so sick of losing to Obama that we just need to feel like a winner again, and I'm going to say "winner" even if I'm voting Hillary".

This present line of Trump stump has carried on for a little longer than expected.  Apparently, the thermometer says that the fever for a victory has not yet subsided and probably won't until Trump fully destroys those unreliable republicans who don't fulfill their promises.

If you had to wrap everything Trump is saying into one digestible quote, even his "Making America Great Again" theme, is all about winning- finally- and not being a loser.  The entire brilliant, understated campaign message of Donald Trump is, don't worry about winning anymore because my name is Donald Trump and I always win.

The evidence is very far from the message, but only reporters research evidence.  Trump doesn't own all of those towers or all of that facade of wealth that he puts up for the sake of the deal. Eventually everyone takes the raw end of negotiations- or runs out of money and has to settle for only putting his name on those Trump towers instead of collecting rent on them too.

Even the Democrats took a major loss during the mid-term elections but the Republicans haven't enjoyed that victory or basked in the feeling of #winning.  Angry conservatives post all day long on social media sites about getting beaten by Obama at home, and Obama capitulation abroad, but they are furious towards their own party's passivity that allows him to do it.

The thermometer says losing  sucks and winning is good, so Donald changes his stump speech to "We're Gonna Win... and win a lot."

Sorry Donald. If you win that means WE all lose.  In fact, there is no win win with Donald.  Every victory that Donald tallies is a victory for Donald, and Donald alone.

........and maybe Hillary too.

Katrina Reminds Us That Rising Tides Also Kill People

The recovery of New Orleans is clearly proving that rising tides do raise all boats- so long as you had a reliable one when those levies broke.

I've never been fond of celebrating or commemorating death and loss, but I understand that it's important to look back and determine where you've come from to understand where you are going.

Yes, republicans! Once again, the nation is engaging in another conversation about the lack of your concern for disadvantaged people in moments of crisis. Even before the smoke of the WDBJ7 killing had cleared, gun restriction proponents screamed foul... .......again, and cried for a fix.  

Was Valvano talking about a good day or
the essence of mental health?

The fix? 
We all should be crying for this FIX because its right before our eyes.

Coach Jim Valvano was really on to something when he declared that a full day means to think, to laugh and to cry.   The more I think about those words, they make me laugh and cry regularly.  I laugh at the struggle we endure to uncover solutions that lie at the tip of our nose, while I cry at the pain we experience from enduring life without solutions.  Whether you agree with what represents the fullness of a day, it is certainly mentally  healthy to think (rationally) to laugh (heartily) and to cry (from empathetic tears preferably) as often as you can.

MORE GUNS CAN FIX THIS PROBLEM?
(IS THAT A PROVEN THEORY?)

I'm not sure if anyone is giving the news a fair view or review, but the most recent story of vigilantism against terrorism is the fabulous story of those American boys in France.

If you didn't set out to be heroes then polo shirts and khaki's
are exactly the correct attire for being awarded.  Suits or uniforms
would make everyday folks forget their role in keeping us all safe from terror.
(read Robin Givhan's article on this subject)

Not one of these men had a gun in hand when they accomplished their victory over the man with all of the weapons.  The NRA and those who insist we must arm ourselves for the challenge before us have to recognize that George Zimmerman remains the poster child for this failed approach, and until someone- not in law enforcement or hired for security duties- pulls the trigger on terror, this peculiar theory remains just that, a theory.



The brutal, live recorded murder of the television journalist Alison Parker and her cameraman  Adam Ward has, once again, stretched the theoretical potential of terrors reach, adding to the imagination of the kind of people who mimic these types of behaviors.

If Dylann Roof indirectly pulled down that Confederate flag,  seeing Parker and Ward die this way should somehow begin the process of some reasonable gun restrictions.

Shouldn't it?

I will go down this road once again with my strong opinion on gun restrictions only because I can't let Andy Parker (Alison Parker's father) fight this fight alone.  He understands that each of US who really decides to get serious about this fight might need to arm ourselves and add to the gun industry in the short term just to prepare for the risk of fighting guns with words.

The fact that gun sales rise every time opponents fight too hard to limit them is a distorted behavior all by itself. The very inclination to reach for a gun with so little evidence of vigilantism's success is a sign of our own mental illness or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), probably caused by the unsettling violence of the world in which we now live.

 Regardless of which end of the lens you are viewing from, the story of mental illness offers enough  context clues for us to follow the pattern and at least lay down the first few blocks on the trail we should follow. How we ultimately fix this will be solved by collective resolve, stubborn resilience and powered by an agreement that we must do something to dig our way out of this mess, and it probably should begin where the soil is softest. 

How we impose restrictions on free American citizens just because they've shown signs of mental illness is a complex question with no easy answer, but so is democracy; so is the challenge of breaking down the powerful obstacle that political lobbyist have become towards fixing problems.


Nothing seems tougher than getting people to act for the greater good before a crisis hits, but ten years later, New Orleans used a corp of engineers and a brand new billion dollar levy system to finally repair the failed one.

Given the televised death of two local news figures and the impact its having on the media fraternity, can we now encourage one of those engineers and a few other really smart people to sit down with the research and the data and uncover the question:

Are more guns really the answer?
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       Gun Deaths        Total deaths Homicide   Suicide Accident  Undetermined

    per 100,00 people   (combined)

United Kingdom	0.26 (2010)	0.05 (2010)	0.17 (2010)	0.01 (2010)	0.02 (2010)	Guns in the United Kingdom[67]
United States	10.64 (2013)	3.55 (2013)	6.70 (2013)	0.16 (2013)	0.09 (2013)	Guns in United States[68]

____________________________________________________________________________

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/2/214.full.pdf

What's more expensive than buying that gun is spending the money it will take to learn how to properly shoot it since a short little course will only do so much for you.  Eventually you have to pay to master the art of shooting, especially under stressful conditions, or you yourself become an accident waiting to happen and not the weapon of defense you intended.

As we start to get ahead of this problem, we might discover a value for both mental health care and free gun education for all of the mentally ill being bred in our violent society. instead of absorbing the cost of restoring those lives when environmental hazards move and clarify social divisions.

In reality, it was always going to cost too much and take too much time to fix the future of the poor families in New Orleans.  What I inspire in my children today might finally take root in my grandchildren or in their children because, before we become parents ourselves, most of us endure parenting rather than embrace it.

Stop Blaming Katrina

Katrina washed over one of America's greatest cities and uncovered what the folks in Louisiana wish we'd stop blaming on Katrina.

Stop blaming the revelation of a problem on the water that revealed it.  Children who live in areas with lots of death and violence grow to suffer mentally, creating a barrier between the good choices they would love to make and the hopelessness that makes it hard to remember why choices matter.

Katrina victims NEVER needed Governor Bobby Jindal to be a proponent of the frivolous lock up of  drug addicts and mentally ill people who only became more ill after the trauma they experienced; they needed mental health care to combine with that gumbo of resilience they brewed out of the remaining bits and pieces of  their storm tattered lives.

 Residents of New Orleans had seen plenty of storms and never failed to fix up and move on. In reality, the worst of Katrina mostly missed and should have left New Orleans in water up to their ankles.

If only those levies did not break.

This was and always will be a failure of infrastructure, one that we will likely repeat if congress continues to block the jobs bill that would fix bridges and roads and other weak areas of infrastructure that will also falter sooner or later, as will the excuses for why we waited to respond to this well known potential crisis.

New Orleans is a microcosm of an upcoming crisis.  Like our tattered roads and bridges, we have mistook standing for sturdy. The people of New Orleans are the reason for the success of this story, and with no great thanks to their resilience.  In fact, some residence feel that the appearance of sturdy resilience is often the excuse we use to avoid fixing the problems of roads and bridges or social disparity in New Orleans and across America.

Had the folks in New Orleans rolled over and coward themselves, would WE have been more aggressive with help?

Resilience is certainly the excuse we keep using for how WE the People are to endure another terror shooting, seeking to drown our lack of wisdom in a double dose of resilience.

Doesn't resilience mean I am enduring something abnormal?  When do WE stop applauding the resilience of New Orleans and start applauding our commitment to remove their need for it.

Fixing levies and economies is the easy part.  Mostly these take a lot of money and a little math.  Fixing disparity and terror caused by mental illness is tough because "How" is typically the start and end point of this conversation.

Republicans believe that no gun law would have stopped Vester Lee Flanagan from losing his mind and murdering Parker and Ward on camera that day. Its right to wonder how we can easily limit law abiding crazed people from getting and using guns; or how can we finally end this hurricane and remake New Orleans with both the flavor and spice from pre-Katrina?

These are real challenges, yet not tougher than the promise of democracy which could not have started before women had the right to vote (1920), and may never begin if voting restrictions persist and strong lobbyist keep controlling our power over reasonable change. 

Mental Illness Is a Sign Of The Times

Ironically, mental health care will provide the answers to fixing New Orleans as well since so many disadvantaged people also have histories littered with drugs and violence within the home and in their neighborhoods.  Violence begot violence, thus the only cure for the PTSD and mental instability that produces generations of bad decision makers is recognizing the signs of the time.  

5 years ago, the folks rescued on that train in France might have all died because none of us readily recognized this new revelation of mental illness and its schizophrenic effect on society as a whole.  Today we are more comfortably paranoid, yet no better at seeing the signs and symptoms of psychosis that produce terror, or social disparities teetering a broken levy away from disaster. 

New Orleans will always be uniquely hot, though it might not ever get back it's old spicy flavor.  Some folks are pleased with this change of recipe feeling that downtrodden places like the 9th Ward had been too bad a blemish on the community anyway, and fixing them too costly in more ways than one. 

Pain & Providence

Maybe we will laugh when we realize how crazy
we were before our mental health care initiative.

Ferguson was but a straw to the back of an old weary camel 

The founder of Black Lives Matter actually credits the Katrina crisis for inspiring this new camel currently carrying the burden of change. As we reminisce on the good, bad and ugly of Katrina, some have theorized that without Katrina, there would have probably been no Barack Obama who was a major beneficiary of post-Katrina anger that found its voice in the ballot box. 

Will the empathetic tears we are crying from the deaths of Parker and Ward be enough inspiration to get us thinking of a fix?  Some of us are hoping beyond hope that this is that moment for gun control and mental health care to converge and change America for the better.

No laughter. 

Immigrants Are Not Our Greatest Problem. Republicans Are.

I wouldn't beat up on Republicans so often if it weren't for the fact that they always stick their chin out every time I'm feeling politically punchy.

I consider myself "THE" Conservative Socialist because I stand firmly for the destruction of the welfare state and I love God and the Bible just like Donald Trump.  I firmly believe that proactive health care and education investments (socialism) have the power to disintegrate all other forms of social welfare since educated and healthy people rarely need welfare (conservatism). I believe we owe it to our future generations to eliminate the welfare mentality more so than welfare itself, which is actually hard as hell to get and keep these days.

Welfare is an ugly word that started in the 20's but became any ugly blight on its recipients during the politically polarized and economically challenged years of the late 60's and  early 70's.  Once Bill Clinton got his hands all over it, it got rightfully relabeled into TANF (TEMPORARY Assistance for Needy Families) .  Consequently, it is no longer the stereotypical handout that it used to be.  Those who get any services these days get them because they are American born or have American born children (anchor or whatever you like to call babies who could be our president one day).

Benefits are temporary because Bill Clinton insured that all welfare recipients return to work via services designed to connect people to jobs. Some poor folks will tell you that welfare is currently the best way for the needy to get connected to a good job because it insure access to the additional (free) training support (education) and (free) health care connections that are needed to make a the transition from welfare to work a success.

In this post-Clinton era, food stamp benefits in particular demand part time work or volunteer hours just to maintain them or get them at all in between any proven period  of absence or reduction of work.  As a result of the Clinton clamp down on welfare,  (almost no one remains on welfare for more than 5 years) because the system NO LONGER ALLOWS IT.

The challenges with getting and keeping any welfare benefit these days is immense for an actual American citizen. Any non-citizen without American born children has no access to anything accept emergency medical benefits, and this only helps to reduce overall health care increases from the proliferation of unpaid emergency care.  In other words, paying a premium for the emergency room or clinic is immensely cheaper than absorbing the entire unpaid bill on the back side.

Welfare in America does insure that American children are eating, but focuses these benefits towards the children only, so even the families who try to hang from the "Anchor" must try diligently to under report the entire household size and incomes just to avoid weighing the anchor down and losing benefits altogether.

Most poor working families that could probably use a little help with food and bills don't care to bother with the struggle Clinton created getting Food Stamps or TANF  because they are dehumanized by the challenge to constantly jump through hoops to prove you really need help.

In some ways welfare has always been dehumanizing for very proud people.
Now it is only worse.

Because of  the diminishing size of all families in America- even poor ones- the old theory of broke and downtrodden welfare recipients bleeding the system and having more and more babies is totally mythical as well.

Yet, if you listen to the current patch of republican leaders (leaders for the lack of a better word), you start to wonder if regular poor people who actually can use welfare are still the target of republicans anymore who now seem more apt to blame the ruination of this nation on the welfare state that immigrants create?

Minorities rarely vote so they typically make for great political targets.  Immigrants can't vote but are assumed to be eligible for welfare so they are also an easy target for blame when a little inspirational blame becomes necessary during voting season.  Women, on the other hand, vote in droves and have exercised their voting privileges for as long as they've had them (1920).

I guess I understand the calculation of upsetting immigrants and inspiring ignorant's who think welfare and the illegals are destroying our nation; although I don't quite understand what message such an attack sends to the mass proliferation of legal Mexicans and Asians who can vote and didn't vote particularly strong for republicans last time around.

You Call This Outreach?

If there is one thing that makes me think that Donald Trump is in fact an internal plant from the Hillary Clinton campaign, it might be his single handed destruction of the republican platform promise to reach out to MINORITIES as a result of the last two presidential campaign failures; failures that Trump criticizes but is doomed to repeat without Hispanics or Asians or Blacks or Women or any strong support from minority groups.

 Among organized American minorities, women lead the power rankings list but remain at the back of the pack in the perception of way too many republicans. Say for example, those foolish republicans who are co-signing the video terror attack being leveled at Planned Parenthood.  These attacks falsely assume that WOMEN who believe choice is important also HAD NO CLUE THAT FETAL RESEARCH EXISTED IN AMERICA. Fetal research has never been a field that we hire women to have babies exclusively for research purposes, and smart women have NEVER been stupid about abortion or fetal research.

In fact, many clueless republicans all throughout the land think welfare is mostly for illegals because they actually tried to get help during these trying years; help that hardworking people who really need temporary help can't really get it anymore, so they blame immigrants for changing our job market and for our stringent temporary assistance laws.

In reality, the conservative Clinton's are responsible for welfare stringency, our job market transition (caused primarily when NAFTA forced Mexican farm workers into America), and might be responsible for finally getting that Keystone Pipeline drilled and all of those infrastructure jobs since Hillary, who's been very vocally opposed to drilling in Alaska, won't tip her hat on Keystone one way or another.  If she's shutting up about Keystone though vocal about Alaska, it's because the distorted structure of today's Super PAC's allows her to get secret donation's (10 time's more than ever before in case you forgot) that a few of her conservative oil loving friends (maybe even Trump) won't regret once she gets elected.


WE Didn't Create Capitalism Nor Do WE Control Its Advance

The Clinton's are not only neo-conservatives just like me and Donald Trump for that matter, they are Global Initiative capitalistic conservatives with a mission to expand capitalism to a universally hyper level in which the nation at the top will ultimately gain the most from capitalism's destined design.  A globalized mission is maniacal  in some ways but so is capitalism.

If capitalism's global advance is inevitable (and it is), America may as well be positioned to benefit the most, since often times WE are asked to sacrifice the most for the sake of capitalism too.

I totally support the make a buck to help me rub more backs approach that the Clinton's are using towards worldwide diplomacy because the nation who gains the most from capitalism will always be challenged by the existence and the needs of the needy.  Even Christ was bestowed with wealth though he shunned it. Because our power to perform Christ-like miracles is limited, our need for money is great if in fact we are to do greater things as Christ' suggested we will.


Make America Great Again By Redefining Conservatism

 I wish the Clinton's could help me recapture the conservative label so that it goes back to only meaning God(Grace....forgiveness...tolerance) and Country(that place made up of a bunch of immigrants) instead of  this distorted meaning of conservatism that republicans are crafting for their own purpose. I'm not sure if republicans or conservatives are driving the Trump frenzy, but I know for certain that they are not the same group of people since the same people who are voting for Donald Trump could never be willing to settle for Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush instead.

 (check out Trump's performance with evangelical's)

I would totally be on board the Hillary bandwagon if not for the Run Hillary Run prelude to this kiss. Hillary is trying to give us her best smooch while avoiding the Jeb Bush label of being dry and flat. Bush is fighting for energy because he too was encouraged into doing all of this by a crowd of normal conservatives like me who keep searching for an electable candidate while wondering why the republicans can only uncover the best of a bad bunch of options.

Now we've got the Draft Biden camp working hard to encourage another presidential run from somebody who wasn't already encouraged to be our president.  While I TOTALLY understand the hesitation to run for this job that produces Teleprompter Hillary or SuperDry Jeb, I also find myself a bit leery of anyone who is already justifiably weary.  I hope Jeb Bush survives to go head to head with Donald so us neo-conservatives can rest assured of holding office like we basically have since way back when trickle-down economics didn't stop the Bush boys from raising taxes anyway.

I am Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and every neo-conservative socialist that appreciates immigrants and enjoys praise and worship service too much to accept that kids started struggling in school right about the same time they kicked God out the door. From the sounds of it, I am Jeb Bush too.  All of us neo-conservatives want to do something RIGHT NOW about immigration, but none of us cared for gay marriage until we discovered that our gay friends and family had been struggling to breathe for years. Abortion is hardly preferable to neo-conservatives, but we certainly accept the intelligence of both women and the Roe .v. Wade decision enough to leave that topic alone too.

The Clinton's and I are in lock step on the importance of a global economy for the sake of diplomatic outreach and for America's vibrancy over time. Trump clearly agrees, and we all know how the Bush family reacts to the word oil.  Whether we like it or not, the global economy WE resist already exists but begrudgingly, which is what creates so much counter productive competitive corporate sabotage like the Chinese did with their inflated market valuations in the hopes of helping themselves and hurting the dollar at the same time.

As we recently discovered ourselves, all balloons will eventually pop. What we are now waiting to uncover is how attached to the struggling Chinese market are WE really, and what long term impact does China's market struggles have on U.S. economic strength?

My market hunch is that our economy has inflated enough rich Americans in recent years for US to totally exploit the self off in China, of China.  Aside from cheap loans from China that our economy is fully positioned to re-pay if necessary, we are disconnected to China just enough to use them more than they use us since their citizens do the back breaking work that allows us to enjoy the benefits of The Dollar Tree, and our farmers export enough products to insure the health of the American farmer and the long term necessity of farm work in America.


Now That Oil Has Fallen, Are Cheap Workers The Greatest World Commodity?

In reality, rich Americans are perfectly positioned to take full advantage of Mexicans or Asians, including the one's who stay in America on visa's and are now working illegally all over America as we speak.  Since the common immigrant flies into America, none of them will be stopped by Donald's big wall or Donald's big rhetoric that keeps placing the most valuable assets in the American economy in full opposition to the republican party and its fence building, gobble up and deport, change the 14th Amendment and, oh yeah- defund Planned Parenthood agenda. (did I miss anything)

Donald Trump might be really good at pretending that he doesn't call anyone a bimbo except Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Kelly (via retweet), but the rest of the republican field is not so good at this media trick.  They will be held to account for the direction that the lead polling republican candidate took the entire party when it comes time to really address immigration instead of temporarily using it just to drive primary poll numbers.

These same republicans are currently being asked to own the false fear that they've created of immigrants on welfare just like they are being asked to own the unsubstantiated fear they created of ObamaCare; a fear that they mysteriously refuse to address now even while a few of those fear mongering republican governors gave in already and adopted the very program they denigrated.

A real conservative would have quickly taken advantage of the opportunity to receive federal financial support for the vital duty of providing health care access to the people who need it the most and who elected officials are duty bound to serve.  A real conservative would never accept poor schools that don't offer EVERY American citizens the best of America's educational opportunity.  Most importantly, a real conservative would never give a man a fish, or not share one, when he could feed that man while teaching the skills to acquire a good job in the fishing or food processing industries.


Republicans Are Not Necessarily Conservatives

I'm drawing the lines between those republicans and US conservatives because I want to make it clear that creating free benefits to insure life long healthy and educated Americans who don't need welfare or excuses makes me much more a conservative than socialist. Once Hillary comes clean on Keystone,  I will probably decide to join her in support of the Keystone Pipeline because creating really good pipelines that don't actually burst open and spill everywhere will someday minimize the environmental impact on our roads and railways- that just so happen to need to be rebuilt as they've become human death traps. These bills have long since been jammed together as one.  Both need to move forward and get Americans back to work.
        _______________________

Trump Supports Rebuilding Roads & Bridges Too (does he know about that jobs bill that republicans jammed up in Congress over the Keystone pipeline?)
      _________________________

Continuing to destroy our roads and rails with oil transport won't be a great way to fix or maintain our infrastructure,  or achieve cleaner air, an initiative we've promise to lead the world in as well.

Why do we have droughts in California at the same time we have
floods in Colorado?  Can't one problem address the other?...
..and whatever happened to that jobs bill to fix our roads and bridges?
Are republicans using the Keystone Pipeline to get people killed?

In the long run, increasing oil production to the point of extreme saturation is the best way to devalue the price of the commodity and usher in the era of alternative fuels and the era of alternative thinking. Smart companies who currently produce oil, have already anticipated the coming change and are transitioning into the future of alternative fuels,



Being A Conservative Is A Good Thing.

My greater vision relative to alternative thinking is the day when we consider the greater good of people and the economy as mutually achievable; when we embrace conservative sensibilities like pipeline technology for its value and its worth instead of run from it and never use it to mitigate the impact of oil transport or the floods in Colorado at the same time we deal with droughts in California.

Or when we realize that you don't have to agree with climate change to recognize the value of destroying the grip of oil and dominating the alternative energy industry at the same time we minimize the emissions
causing this debate.

It seems plausible to my small brain that people who are dying to carry humans into space or dirty oil across risky pipelines could also transform floods from immigrants or water into resources and not problems.

There will probably come a time when we have no choice with either.