Day 115 Nat'l Emergency: Four More Years

How relentlessly depressing it must be to be a political reporter these days. Sure, election coverage is supposed to be exhilarating, but in the Age of Trump it cannot be anything but depressing, at least if you are a thinking woman or man.

It is not policy differences that traumatize. After all, one can disagree on the best course for the economy or foreign relations. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds for generations.

But if one has even half a brain it is cruel and unusual punishment to be a reporter required to listen to continual degradation of science and medical precautions in the wake of a pandemic that already has snuffed out the lives of 125,000 Americans. The sad tally will rise countless thousands more because Republican administrations in Washington, DC, and numerous states refuse to listen to healthcare experts. 

I don’t listen to Trump’s rally speeches, other than snippets national news programs air. I don’t follow his tweets or Facebook rantings. I am convinced from news reports and, regrettably, from the few friends I know who are Trumpsters, that the Trump-converted cannot be enlightened that he is a danger physically and metaphysically to the health and welfare of the United States. 

Responding to a middle-of-the-road friend’s inquiry as to who would be blamed if Joe Biden fails to defeat Trump, I responded, “The basket of deplorables—not the Trump voters but the deplorables who chose not to vote.” 

Political punsters opine that it is up to Biden to sufficiently enthuse the electorate to unseat Trump. Yes, Biden needs to sell a vision for America. But it is equally important that everyday Americans come to grips with what Trump has stripped from our nation’s ideals and values. They must want to return to civility, to respect, to a position admired, not pitied or flabbergasted, by the rest of the world.

Trump won in 2016 because anti-Hillary voters in key swing states thought Trump would be a lesser evil than Clinton. Some Never Trumpers and disaffected Bernie Bros sat out the election rather than cast their votes for Hillary. Or they voted for third party candidates. Many more, millions across the country, just didn’t vote because. No real reason. Just because. 

All those voters that didn’t go against Trump now have an inflection point decision to make. They’ve seen what Trump can and cannot do as manager of our country. They must decide if the country can survive or thrive four more years of his (mis)management. 

Recent Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights in Louisiana, LGBTQ rights nationwide and Dreamers from deportation provide Trump a red-meat platform to stir up his base and possibly others who want a more conservative court. Having delivered two Supreme Court justices and 198 lower court judges, Trump will argue his work to overhaul the judicial system is not complete. 

Of course, that argument also works as a counterbalance to pump up Democratic opposition.

Unlike four years ago, Trump must run on his record. He likes being the center of attention, but that spotlight comes with liabilities. 

He clearly has an attention span problem. He doesn’t hear what others tell him or what is contained in Internet files he retweets. He doesn’t hear himself. His staff is forever reclassifying what he willingly reveals in public. He plays with his smartphone during meetings of his economic advisors. 

He is what we would call a gifted child, only in his case it refers not to his brain power but to the millions in cash father Fred Sr. gifted him.

As his polling numbers turn south—an otherwise favorite geographic area for Trump (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)—some are wondering if he will decide he’s had enough abuse and just abandon the reelection effort. 

It will never happen! His ego would not permit him to walk away. He sees his rabid fans as sufficient to secure a second term. If he were to abandon them they would abandon his post-presidential role as a TV talking head. 

He will not be restricted by tradition, as past presidents have been, to standing by without commenting in the extreme about his successor’s actions. He has no compunction about destroying tradition or national heritage.

Trump is a tumulter through and through. That’s why if he loses the election he will keep his public profile high through TV work as a commentator on the ultra-conservative One America News Network with an eye to running again in 2024. 

He will use that as a springboard to launch a new campaign because in his mind he MUST avenge his humiliating defeat in 2020, much the way he decided to run in 2016 to avenge his humiliation at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011.

Political reporters will have no respite from Trump for at least the next four years, whether he wins or not. And neither will the rest of us. 

Walled In: What Emergency Powers Could Bring

In my living room and on a plaque on the wall next to my home office desk are two large chunks from the Berlin Wall. I would like to say I chiseled them out from the notorious reinforced concrete edifice, but that would be a lie. My meager efforts February 16, 1990, produced paltry chips the size, perhaps, of dominoes pieces. I came by those two impressive rocks courtesy of a much more adept chiseler who shared his excavation work with me that fateful afternoon just three months after East Germany opened the floodgates on its repressive regime. 

The fearmonger-in-chief prophesied what would happen absent a similar concrete wall spanning our southern border with Mexico. “You’ll have crime in Iowa, you’ll have crime in New Hampshire, you’ll have crime in New York” without a wall, Trump warned during a trip to McAllen, Texas, Thursday. 

ABC News asked the mayor of McAllen what the murder rate in his city with no wall was. Zero, he said, asserting McAllen was among the safest in America. Statistics corroborate his belief. 

Why are Democrats so stridently against funding a wall? After all, friends have asked, $5.7 billion is sooooo small compared to the trillion dollar-plus federal budget fattened by the billions wasted on military and social aid programs every year. 

My response is that the debate over the wall far transcends the dollar amount. The wall, the barrier, the what-have-you, represents a good old-fashioned horse trading negotiation. 

Regardless of its efficacy, Trump wants to show his base he can fulfill a campaign pledge to build a wall, though he has admitted the second part of his pledge to have Mexico pay for it is not going to happen as promised. His dissembling on how the wall will be funded and by whom just adds to Trump’s portrait as a grifter and con artist. 

What Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer want is a commitment from Trump to extend safety to DACA children brought to America by their parents. Every time Trump seems ready to commit to shielding the so-called Dreamers, he turns into the reneger-in-chief when he hears howls from Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and their compatriots on the right. 

Behind the scenes efforts to parlay DACA safety for wall funding have been rejected by Trump. It would take a revolt by Senate Republicans to force Trump’s hand to accept a quid pro quo.

Instead, before the weekend is out our would-be king might invoke national emergency powers to funnel funds into wall construction. Should such a move survive a court challenge, Republicans might rue the precedent. 

Imagine the next time a Democrat is president and a mass shooting occurs. Considering that firearms are used in tens of thousands of homicides every year, far greater than the number of deaths perpetrated by undocumented immigrants, a president could declare a national emergency to ban gun sales and confiscate all assault rifles. 

Now that is an extreme hypothetical (and I doubt any president would do it) but for years the National Rifle Association has fearmongered such a possibility every time a Democrat won the presidency. 

If Trump opens the Pandora’s Box of emergency powers, there is no telling what a president could try to implement.

To stem a measles or flu epidemic turning into a pandemic, a president could declare a national emergency and order the vaccination of all residents. If anyone refuses, he could isolate them in internment camps so they would not spread any infection. To reduce damage and deaths from coastal flooding, a president could order the permanent evacuation of the shoreline. 

Too far-fetched? Perhaps. But it all hinges on how the Supreme Court views presidential power. Given that the Republican majority on the court is believed to endorse almost unlimited presidential power, Trump could win a challenge to the emergency powers question. But such a win could plunge the country into uncharted waters for all subsequent presidents, not to mention Trump’ own crazed view of what a president may do with unchecked power.

Trump said Friday afternoon he wasn’t ready to pull the emergency powers lever. Which to me signals he is about to this weekend, as he constantly contradicts himself.

As I’m writing this a friend related an irony—his community in Palm Beach County, Florida, has many wealthy retired New York City teachers who “want immigration laws enforced.” 

To which I replied, “Maybe the sun fried their brains and they forgot the immigrant history of their families. Sure, they would tell you they came legally but how many of them thought the quota system from 1920 on was a good thing, how many of them thought restricting access to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution was acceptable, how many of them see any comparability to those Hondurans seeking safety from violence in their homeland, how many of them think a wall is a better symbol of America than the Statue of Liberty?”

Walls can and do serve a purpose. The Berlin Wall kept East Germans inside their living hell. Many who tried to seek freedom lost their lives trying to pierce their enclosure. But some succeeded. No wall is impenetrable. 

All objective evidence affirms that most illegal drugs enter the United States at ports of entry, not by human “mules” infiltrating illegally across the border. Most undocumented aliens enter legally, arriving here by plane and overstaying their visas. Though Trump trumpets their egregious murders, rapes and other violent deeds in his bid to instill fear, statistics show the undocumented commit far fewer crimes than the American population at large. 

Bottom line: Some type of restraint along the border will be built. Dreamers will have their dreams fulfilled. Some federal workers will lose their homes, have their credit ratings marred, have their trust in government employment shattered by the partial government shutdown now entering its fourth week because of the inability of the artless-negotiator-in-chief to reach an agreement with the newly emboldened Democrats who control the House and who still maintain sufficient numbers in the Senate to withstand cloture calls on most legislation.

It won’t be pretty, but it will happen. As Trump says, trust me.

Rumbles From Above, Superman's an Illegal Alien, Native Americans are Immigrants too, Oprah Rejects God's Entreaty

Few things are more disconcerting than hearing a rumbling sound during a snowstorm that shakes the very foundation of your house. Not once but at least six times in the space of 90 minutes the house shook Wednesday afternoon as snow from the upper reaches of our home tumbled down to a lower roof level.

Each rumble transported me back in time, more than three decades ago, when I first heard a similarly unnerving cascade that defied my comprehension. 

Back then Gilda and I, and our infant son Dan, lived in a Tudor style house with a slate roof. After an especially deep snow fall, we were getting ready for bed when the rumbling started, lasting about six seconds. I thought someone had rolled up the garage door and was breaking into our home.

I yelled to Gilda to call the police as I threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet and raced outdoors to confront the intruder. 

Outside I saw the garage door had not been opened. I spotted a pile of snow on an otherwise smooth blanket of snow. I looked to the roof and realized the snow had rumbled down the slate. I felt foolish.

But not as concerned as Gilda felt. The police had cautioned her I should not be outside lest they suspect I was the suspected burglar, armed as I was, with a bat. The patrol car arrived just as Gilda opened the front door and screamed for me to get inside.

Not so fast. After due process, the police let me go with an admonition never again to play the brave fool. 

Oscars Followup: Superman was mentioned during the Oscars telecast which got me thinking that despite all the good the caped crusader has performed since 1933, Donald Trump’s Homeland Security authorities would eject him from the United States. 

He is, after all, an undocumented alien. His parents transported him from Krypton to America while still a baby, but he’s too old to be a Dreamer, so he would not be shielded from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). They couldn’t send him back to Krypton as it imploded. They’d have to find a country willing to take someone who “fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way,” not traits readily identified with Trump’s United States. 

Natives, Really? In most conversations, oral and written, about immigrants, legal and illegal, it often is stated that only Native Americans—Indians—did not emigrate to America. 

Oh, really? Let’s be clear: the first settlers of America were immigrants from an as yet undetermined land or lands. Numerous theories abound https://www.voanews.com/a/native-americans-call-for-rethink-of-bering-strait-theory/3901792.html.

Bottom line: Everyone in America is descendant from an immigrant. 

God Couldn’t Talk Her into It: Even an appearance by God on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert couldn’t convince Oprah Winfrey to launch a campaign for the presidency in 2020. The tete-a-tete between titans produced laughs and some real longing by those seeking a cultural change in the White House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkUKRkN-nTY).

Oprah’s progressive positions are well documented, but she is correct in distancing herself from a political future. She need only gaze at the shattered legacy of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) to visualize what her future would be. On Wednesday, a 2012 human rights award she received from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was revoked because of the ongoing mistreatment and massacre of Rohingya Muslims during her reign as Myanmar’s state counsellor (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-holocaust-museum-aung-san-suu-kyi_us_5aa022f4e4b0d4f5b66cd500). 

The minute Oprah equivocated on any tenet of progressivism she would be criticized by leftist radicals no less sharply than by conservatives who would be merciless in their everyday abuse. 

Americans do not want their icons tarnished by real world politics. Since politics is supposed to include the art of compromise, Winfrey could not be expected to deliver on all items on her constituents’ wish list. She is better off leaving politics to the politicians while championing causes and rallying voters.  

Kasich Is All Cuddly But at Heart a Conservative

You have to hand it to John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, who failed in his attempt to secure the Republican Party presidential nomination but who continues to try to present himself as a reasonable, humane, thoughtful, non divisive alternative to Donald Trump should there be a vacancy, for any reason, at the top of the 2020 GOP ticket. 

Kasich appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers a day before Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday. He sounded soooo normal. And Meyers, usually a sharp observer of the political landscape, fell into the trap Kasich set. 

You see, Kasich is a conservative. His tone might be different, more pleasing, than Trump’s, but his substance, the outcome of his actions, were he to inhabit the White House, would not be materially different.

Like an old sweater one wears around the house, Meyers felt comfortable talking kumbaya with Kasich. (Here are two clips encompassing the totality of the interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ4sZY_RowM

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnd-dyL5SIE) 

But Meyers never asked him any nitty gritty questions about what the Trump administration has done and if he would have done the same or acted differently.

What, for example, is Kasich’s position on coal? Is he in favor of softening environmental regulations on coal mining and burning? What’s his position on alternative energy sources? Would he permit oil and gas exploration along our coastlines?

Would he have nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court? In general, what criteria would he use in selecting federal judges?

How would he have fixed Obamacare? 

What are his beliefs on abortion and funding of Planned Parenthood for non abortion related activity?

What are his positions on NAFTA, the Paris climate accords, NATO, the Keystone Pipeline, the Trans Pacific Trade Pact, the United Nations, Jerusalem as the location of our embassy in Israel, the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the Iran nuclear deal?

How would he resolve differing views on the Dreamers? Would he build a southern border wall? What, if any, changes would he like to see in our immigration policy?

Does he believe Russia interfered in our 2016 election? 

Is he comfortable with the influence the religious right is having on government? 

Is the new tax plan acceptable to him?

Many of these questions can be answered by looking at Kasich’s Web site (https://www.johnkasich.com). For example, Kasich champions his opposition to abortion and funding of Planned Parenthood. 

We live today in a sound bite world. For Meyers (and, to be honest, lots of other TV hosts) to give Kasich and other politicians a soapbox to sound statesmanlike without providing specifics would result in saddling us with another Trump, albeit with a more teddy bear demeanor.

We would be shaking our heads and wondering how we got duped again. Meyers is an entertainer. I get that. But he has injected himself five nights a week into the political dialogue so he needs to step up from one dimensional attacks on Trump’s behavior to offer constructive alternatives. 

Have more respect for, and confidence in, his audience, that viewers want not just jokes but hard information when interviewing Kasich et al, as he has done with his Closer Look segments. 

Alternative Universe: What alternative universe does Donald Trump live in? Prior to delivering his State of the Union speech he said his goal would be to end the divisiveness that has existed in the country for many years. 

It’s a laudable objective but does he not recognize that he is a prime reason we are a polarized society? 

From his despicable advocacy of the birther movement questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency to his abusive comments, delivered live and in tweets, mostly about women but also about anyone who disagrees with him, to his embrace of neo-Nazi and alt-right leaders and members, to his denigration of national organizations such as the FBI and the CIA, Trump has done more to divide our country than any president of the last century. 

It’s no wonder that Kasich thinks being a “good guy” might be enough to propel him forward. 

To Legitimize the Dreamers, Fund the Wall

When the Branch Davidians holed up in their compound outside Waco, Texas, the federal government pleaded with cult leader David Koresh to release the children inside the building. They, after all, were too young to differentiate right from wrong, the wrong being the Davidians alleged sexual abuses and illegal weapons violations. The  children should not suffer any consequences for actions taken by their parents. Nineteen children were evacuated before the 51-day siege turned into a conflagration that killed 76 Davidians. That was in 1993. 

For the most part it has been the position of our government, at all levels, to absolve children for the misdeeds, alleged and real, of their parents or elders.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that juveniles should be treated differently than adults. It ordered a review of mandatory life sentences handed out to youths. Included in the fallout from that ruling is Lee Boyd Malvo, the teenage accomplice of the Beltway shooter whose killing spree totaled 10 victims around Washington, DC, in 2002. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/beltway-sniper-lee-boyd-malvo-granted-new-sentencing-hearings/2017/05/27/e252529c-4300-11e7-b29f-f40ffced2ddb_video.html?utm_term=.f0622a41d5fc

According to Allen Weintraub, an attorney involved in asylum law, “The Trump  immigration policy is … denigrating American ideals of justice and fairness by the administration’s refusal to recognize the long-standing  common law tradition, codified in many state and federal statutes, differentiating the application of the law between minors and adults. In civil law, any contract entered into by a minor is void on its face; and in criminal law there are major differences in determining the guilt and sentencing for a minor. In no way are the DACA minors complicit in violating U.S. immigration laws. They cannot be punished for the illegal acts of the adults who brought them into the U.S.”

The sympathy, if not benevolence, of the federal government seems to have dissipated under Donald Trump. His vacillating stances on the fate of youngsters (median age 6) brought to America illegally, mostly by their parents, have become conflicting chapters in an ongoing saga of venality as Trump uses the precarious position of the so-called “Dreamers” to push Congress to fund a southern border wall with Mexico. 

Last year Trump vacated DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by President Obama), setting March 6 as the day deportations could begin if Congress didn’t pass enabling legislation to grant the near 800,000 Dreamers enrolled in DACA renewed residency rights. 

(March 6 happens to be my birthday. I have always comically associated the date with the fall of the Alamo to Mexican forces. How ironic that Trump could exact revenge on Mexico—for the Alamo and for rejecting any suggestion it would pay for the border wall—by beginning deportation procedures on March 6 as 79% of DACA recipients are from Mexico. Here’s a statistical profile of young undocumented immigrants brought here: https://nyti.ms/2xN3tIu.)

Folklore would have you believe America was always a welcoming country. Not so. Our past is speckled with eras of discrimination against the Irish. The Chinese. Southern Italians. Eastern European Jews. Even in the face of death our shores were not open to those yearning to breathe free from persecution.

Trump has cut by more than half the number of legal immigrants permitted to enter the United States each year. It is 45,000, the lowest since the 1970s, an especially harsh number given the unprecedented volume of refugees around the globe. 

Pushed by zealots such as presidential advisor Stephen Miller, Trump says he wants to restrict immigration to an educated, professional class that could integrate smoothly and quickly into the country’s manpower needs and all but erase entry based on family ties beyond spouses and children. 

Miller apparently has forgotten his family history. A descendant on his mother’s side of the Glosser Brothers retail company of Pennsylvania, Miller’s ancestors fled pogroms in Russia. He and other members of his extended immigrant family started a successful, but now defunct, chain of department stores (http://jewishjournal.com/opinion/rob_eshman/214361/stephen-miller-meet-immigrant-great-grandfather/).  

My father, as well, came from Eastern Europe in 1939 when he was 28, with little beyond initiative and moxie, to become a successful small manufacturer who, if memory serves me right, supplied Glosser Bros. with lingerie. As for Trump wanting only the highly skilled and educated, my father, again, had no more than a sixth grade education. He spoke little English when he arrived on our shores. I shudder to think where I might be if Trump’s Draconian immigration measures were in place decades ago.

But enough of my personal story. How about the poster boy for the value of benign immigration? 

As many others have pointed out, imagine if Trump’s restrictions on Muslim immigrants were in place in the early 1950s. The biological father of Steve Jobs of Apple fame, a Syrian leaving Lebanon because of political unrest, would have been denied entry into the United States. He would not have met Jobs’ biological mother. They would not have spawned the co-founder of the richest company in the world.

The question remains, why do all immigrants have to be skilled? Or rich? Or from Caucasian countries? Is there something wrong with immigrants serving in the home health care field, or in foodservice, or in agriculture, or in any field open to those with less than a college degree? 

Late Thursday afternoon the White House packaged sweeping changes to immigration law tied to the possibility of a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/25/white-house-presents-immigration-plan-with-path-to-citizenship-for-18-million-369457?lo=ap_a1).

Hailed as a compromise that could get 60 votes in the Senate, the White House is mum on prospects for passage in the more conservative House where the prospect of amnesty is anathema to hardliners. 

Should Democrats sign on, even though it includes $25 billion for a southern border wall and other security measures as well as changes to our traditional immigration policies?

I’d have to say, yes, as it represents the only avenue Dreamers have to legitimize their lives in the United States. Let Republicans be the guilty party if the proposal dies in Congress. 

Our heritage is as a nation of immigrants. Through quotas and discrimination we have grown stronger because of our open doors. Overwhelmingly, according to surveys, Americans favor granting residency to Dreamers. We should not let a vocal minority, a repressive, self-centered minority, change the criteria upon which the best values of our country rest.

Trump's Plan for Dreamers Is No Surprise

It was a no brainer to figure out Donald Trump, according to multiple reports, would not keep the Dreamer program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children by their parents. The giveaway clue? The Dreamer program was identified with Barack Obama and Trump is committed to eradicating anything associated with his presidential predecessor.

Trump has bern virulently heartless in his approach to illegal aliens despite cautionary words from other Republicans and scores, even hundreds, of business leaders. His plan to give Congress six months to come up with a DACA fix is a cynical ploy to deflect responsibility for his venal action after months of saying he loves the Dreamers. A man who broke up two previous families through his philandering has no compunction or remorse in breaking up countless families by deporting fathers, mothers or children.

It is a good thing I was born in the United States and have no need to emigrate here. I apparently wouldn’t score enough points to gain entry based on Trump’s proposed criteria for immigration acceptance. I scored a mere 20 out of the minimum 30 points required. Take the test yourself to find out how qualified you’d be: https://nyti.ms/2vnARDh

Gardener Murray: Not! I’ve always wanted a riding lawn mower. Gilda has always said a most emphatic, “No.” Not even a “no way” or “we will see,” or some other benign rejection. Just a short, declarative, no room for equivocation, “No!”

So I was excited when Ellie and Donny purchased a used riding mower when they moved into their Omaha house last December. I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to throttle up the blades and cut a swath through their twi-thirds of an acre.

I couldn’t wait to get off that machine. You see, instead of a standard steering wheel the mower has two levers that power it forward, backwards, left and right. Turns are counter-intuitive. To go left, for example, you push forward with the right lever.

I just couldn’t get the handle of it. I guess my fun ride will have to wait until I bum a ride on someone else’s riding mower equipped with a “normal” steering wheel.

Primary Forecast: Lots of talk about Republican challengers to Trump’s nomination to a second term. I believe Trump would want to be challenged so he could once again sharpen his rapier-like tongue to stimulate his base prior to meeting the eventual Democratic nominee.

Houston, We Have a Problem: Reviewing pictures of the devastation in flooded Texas I recalled what I saw some 20 years ago when I visited Houston for a regional shopping center conference. A torrential rain preceded my arrival. 

As my taxi made its way on an elevated highway toward a restaurant we passed a sloped exit ramp. At the bottom of the ramp a truck driver was standing on the roof of the cab of his semi-tractor trailer. He had tried to drive through the water at the base of the ramp only to have his truck submerge above the doors. 

We sped by not knowing what happened to him but the image has remained with me as an example of what could happen if you do not know the depth of the water you try to cross no matter how large or high your vehicle may be.

I also couldn’t help but wonder what some of the holy rollers were saying about Hurricane Harvey. Often after some natural or man-made disaster strikes a location like New York the conservative religious crowd of multiple denominations blame the event on promiscuous residents of the affected area. You know those liberal types. The ones that practice or tolerate homosexuality or abortions or atheism or liberalism.

Sure enough I didn’t have to wait long for the likes of Ann Coulter and the Pastor Kevin Swanson to blame Houstonians’ acceptance of a lesbian mayor from 2010 to 2016 for God’s punishment (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/annise-parker-ann-coulter-hurricane-harvey_us_59acca52e4b0dfaafcf12afc).

With pronouncements like that is there any wonder atheism is on the rise?

Trump and GOP Leave Me Full of Questions

Here’s a question. Or two, or more.  How is it that Donald Trump can claim no knowledge any of his associates met with the Russian ambassador? Did none of them talk with him about their meetings? Do they purposely keep him in the dark? Are they involved in some shadow government?

Why would anyone, or any country, believe anything Trump or his administration says after:

With no proof, Trump for years questioned the birthright and therefore the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency?;

With no proof, Trump has claimed three to five million illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton, thus depriving him of the popular vote victory?;

Contrary to easily accessible official records, Trump claimed the largest Electoral College victory total since Ronald Reagan?;

With no proof, Trump has claimed thousands of Massachusetts voters were bused across the border into New Hampshire to tip the U.S. Senate election to the Democratic candidate and to vote for Clinton for president?;

Contrary to government statistics, Trump had repeatedly claimed the murder rate is the highest in decades?;

Citing no proof, Trump now alleges Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped before the election?;

Trump falsely claimed Muslim immigrants had made Sweden unsafe?;

Trump has expressed compassion for Dreamers brought to this country illegally as children by their parents but he has set his immigration police on a mission to round up and deport them ASAP?

With these contradictions, and many more, the question remains, why would anyone believe anything he says?

Conservative radio talk show host Charlie Sykes, appearing on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday, wanted to know if any of the people who talked with the Russians asked them to stop hacking our election. Apparently not. Or they didn’t listen.

Of course not. For his part, Trump, you may recall, invited the Russians to hack Clinton’s email server. No matter. Trump doesn’t believe the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s files.

He does believe, without citing any specific source, that Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower telephones prior to the election. Naturally, Obama’s people are denying it, as do intelligence and law enforcement officials including the FBI.

Trump’s latest outrageous claim leaves one wondering, when will Republicans grow a spine and stand up to the conspiracy-theorist-in-chief masquerading as a legitimate president?

One further wonders what it will take for Trump voters to reach their boiling point? They need not worry—election results won’t be overturned. If Trump abdicates or is removed, a Republican will continue to reside in the White House in the form of vice president Mike Pence who may be more, or at least as, radical a reactionary as Trump. But Pence is not certifiably loony. I hope.

Question: How do you control the volume of scientific information that underpins the reality of climate change and global warming?

Answer—by turning off the spigot. In Washington terms that is done by defunding scientific research. Trump’s proposed budget hacks away funding for the basic foundation data that verify global warming

collected by the Environmental Protection Agency and other government departments.

Which raises an even more important question: When did Republicans become the anti-science party?

Even the military believes in global warming and is planning strategies and equipment needs to counter its effects. Yet Republicans, long-time military boosters, reject the science, probably because Big Business wants the shackles of environmental protection laws removed or at least loosened.

Creationism theory has found a home within the Republican mind, no doubt placed there by evangelicals who cannot accept the theory of evolution.

And too many GOP leaders, including Trump, assign credibility to the anti-vaccination crowd that believes autism could result in children despite overwhelming scientific studies to the contrary and the positive effects of immunizations.

What’s next for Republican skepticism? Will they give credence to those who question whether the earth is round? Or if we really landed astronauts on the moon? Or if the remains of extra-terrestrials can be found in Area 51 in Nevada?

I can’t pinpoint an exact date their disbelief in science began but it surely came shortly after Republicans realized the potent combination of Big Business and the religious right.

Postal Note:  In the post office parking lot the other day a car next to mine had three campaign bumper stickers, one for Obama, another for Jill Stein 2016 and a third for Bernie Sanders.

I was too timid to ask the man getting into the car if he was happy now that Trump is in office. I wonder, just how repentant any of Jill and Bernie’s supporters are these days?

Southward Bound: Earlier this week General Motors announced it is moving production of its GMC Acadia SUV from Michigan to Tennessee. D’ya think the 1,100 laid off Michigan workers feel any better that their jobs didn’t go to Mexico? I wonder what Trump thinks about the move considering Michigan is more in play to his reelection bid than Tennessee?

Feeling Old? Not really, though I turned 68 on Monday. I will tell you what does make me feel old. Not the “love you grandpa” messages from Finley, Dagny and CJ. Rather, it is the “Uncle Murray” notes from my nephews and nieces. Uncle just seems like such an old salutation. Uncle Murray seems downright ancient.

Does Donald Trump Have an Ebenezer Scrooge Moment in Him?

His whole lifetime Donald Trump has channeled Ebenezer Scrooge in his quest for boundless riches, often at the expense of the everyman. He stiffed contractors. He wouldn’t rent to minorities to keep his property values high. He chiseled widows and other desperate souls yearning for a semblance of his wealth out of thousands of dollars spent on Trump University tuitions and affiliated expenses. He pandered to the wistful by opening casinos to exploit their get rich quick fantasies. He ran a campaign for the highest office in the land and didn’t pay many of his hired professionals.

I can’t imagine what Trump dreams as he lies next to Melania. If the nation is fortunate, perhaps he will be visited by specters of lives past, present and future. I’ll leave it to others to psychoanalyze exactly which personalities would enter his subconscious.

But if we’re lucky, just as Scrooge changed after visits from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, Trump’s nocturnal apparitions will channel a change from his scorched earth campaign rhetoric. Aides and friends, after all, are saying he will be “a softer, kinder” Trump as president.

Does that mean he will not deport “dreamers,” those illegal immigrants brought to the United States as infants who have not known any other country? Will he resist separating families, deporting illegal alien parents from children born the United States and therefore able to stay as citizens? If he tears up NAFTA and causes the loss of jobs in Mexico, is he ready to deal with an influx of more illegal immigrants, wall or no wall? Will he abandon his ideas to reinstitute torture and to kill the families of terrorists, actions that could prompt resignations from military and security officials? With his Mar-a-Lago home and resort on the beach in Florida, will he be ready to concede the effects of climate change? Will he fend off Evangelicals in their determination to roll back same-sex marriage and LGBTQ equality laws?

Now that he’s been elected, he’s officially a politician and the first job of any politician is to get re-elected. Keep in mind Trump did not win the popular vote. He secured more Electoral College votes than Hillary Clinton. The conventional wisdom espoused by many pundits, including yours truly, is that Trump was elected by racists, misogynists, neo Nazis, anti-Semites and xenophobes.

But that denies the reality that disaffected blue collar white voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin—men and women who twice had voted for Barack Obama—abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of Trump and Republican senatorial candidates. They didn’t overnight become racists, misogynists, neo Nazis, anti-Semites and xenophobes.

They chose populism over traditional Democratic memes. They swallowed his promise of radical change and revived manufacturing jobs.

So Trump must deliver within four years without reducing their health care benefits, regardless of what he does to Obamacare.

Which begs the question, would Bernie Sanders have prevailed over Trump? As a populist himself, would Bernie have negated Trump’s cross-party appeal? We will never know. What we are left with is the reality that we were thisclose to electing the first woman or the first Jewish president.

Trump is an enigma. We don’t really know what he stands for since he has walked back many of his earlier pronouncements, including a tweet from 2012 wherein he called the Electoral College “a disaster for a democracy.” Doubtful he thinks so today.

A most troubling potential aspect of a Trump presidency is who he will include in his inner circle. Ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Steven Bannon of Breitbart are divisive figures who would signal a hard right administration. The danger is that Trump would delegate policies to cronies with more reactionary thoughts than his. It’s especially apropos of vice president-elect Mike Pence, decidedly more radically conservative in voice and action than Trump (http://nyti.ms/29Dx7CO or for another take read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/think-trump-is-scary-check-out-mike-pence-on-the-issues_us_57f137d5e4b095bd896a11db).

Before Trump, Richard Nixon probably was the president-elect (and president) most reviled by Democrats. But Nixon took some decidedly progressive actions. He created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in 1969; achieved voluntary desegregation of schools in seven Southern states; reoriented the Federal Native American policy, becoming the first president to encourage tribal self-determination; established the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and signed into law The Clean Air Act; abolished voter discriminatory tests by extending the Voting Rights Act in 1970; declared war on cancer; and signed Title IX, a civil rights law that prohibits gender bias at colleges and universities receiving Federal aid.

Nixon also changed U.S. relationships with China and the Soviet Union. He signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1) in 1972.

True, Nixon wasn’t always progressive. But his legacy offers clear evidence that the presidency can bring about goodness. 

So, over the next four years we will wait to see if Trump remains the Ebenezer Scrooge of the beginning of A Christmas Carol or if he emerges as the reformed Scrooge at its conclusion.