New Year's Surprises and Resolutions

Have you broken your New Year’s resolutions yet? I am not in the habit of making any resolutions, not that I consider myself perfect in all ways. I just don’t see the need to focus on an arbitrary day to begin any transformative plan.

But I have been mulling a change that would affect you as well. I am considering reducing the percentage of blog posts that deal with the Trumpster. It is hard to imagine anyone who has launched more terabytes into the blogosphere but I will try my best to adhere to my resolve.

So what will I write about? Life. Just ordinary life. Take, for example, the surprise that greeted Gilda and me when we returned home from a less than 24 hour trip on Monday. The intake pipe to the master bedroom’s bathroom toilet froze during the frigid cold snap. Good thing our house has three bathrooms.

It wasn’t the first time we experienced this inconvenience since we remodeled the bathroom 13 years ago and put the toilet, and the offending pipe, up against an exterior wall (in the 20 year priors to the remodel, the pipe never froze as it was attached to an inside wall). 

Apparently, according to our plumber, frozen intake pipes next to exterior walls are a common predicament during prolonged cold snaps accompanied by high winds. All we could do, he related, is hope, and pray, the pipe wouldn’t burst while we warmed up the wall with a portable heater. After several hours we were back in business.  

More Tales From the Cold: Thursday’s “bomb cyclone” blizzard dumped eight inches on our driveway and front walk. But the high winds kept most of the snow from sticking to our solar panels. Around 4:15 pm I confronted the inevitable, suited up in snow pants, boots and balaclava and spent the next 45 minutes making sure to propel the fluffy snow in the direction of the wind. It was, actually, one of the easiest snowstorms I’ve ever had to clear.

Time to Break My Resolution: Heck, you might think I have no willpower, but keep in mind four days have gone by since the New Year began. So here are some Trumpian thoughts:

In case you haven’t heard about it, there’s an informative article in The New Yorker by Evan Osnos detailing how our bumbler-in-chief is making China great again. Here are two links, one to the print article (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/making-china-great-again) and the second to an interview Osnos did with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air (you can either read the transcript or click on an audio link: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575288560/journalist-as-u-s-retreats-from-world-stage-china-moves-to-fill-the-void).

One of my takeaways from Osnos was that we no longer have just Russia to worry about concerning the integrity of our elections. Here’s a short clip from Osnos:

“I asked a strategist in Beijing, this very prominent figure, a guy named Yan Xuetong. I said, how long does the period of strategic opportunity last for China? He says, well, it lasts as long as Trump is in office.”

Thus, not only Russia but China, as well as other countries that have stroked Trump’s ego, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, have a vital national interest in keeping the dumb-as-a-loon-in-chief in office in 2020 and in retaining a Republican controlled Congress in 2018. 

Interference in our electoral processes may well become commonplace, but Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are more interested in stopping state sanctioned marijuana sales than in preventing the sanctity of our most cherished right. 

News Flashes: One of New York WCBS TV’s field reporters Thursday evening confirmed that “slush is wet!” 

Does anyone else find it amusing that ABC News correspondent Eva Pilgrim reports out of Boston? 

Was anyone else surprised Gail Collins did not include any mention of Seamus, the dog Mitt Romney strapped to the top of his station wagon when taking his family on a vacation years ago, in a New York Times column about Romney’s potential candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Orrin Hatch? (https://nyti.ms/2E38sXV)

Questions to Trump the Trumpless

With the first votes ready to be cast Monday in the Iowa caucuses, how much do we really know about the positions of the Republican candidates. Sure, we know they all want to repeal Obamacare and undo virtually everything he has accomplished. But specifics are sorely lacking, at least to my general knowledge and perhaps to yours as well. So, with The Donald not on the stage Thursday night (at least as I write this), here are some specific questions I’d like to see asked to and answered by the Republican contenders (some might remember that I posed similar questions last September):

1. Should worker health and safety be protected by OSHA? If not by OSHA what recourse would workers have under your administration?
2. Which cabinet departments and government agencies would you eliminate? Would you replace any of their functions?
3. Do you believe in a federal minimum wage? If yes, what level should it be at? Should it be pegged to rise with inflation? 
4. Do you believe in the Social Security system? At what age should workers be entitled to collect social security? How would you protect its solvency?
5. In a global economy what incentives would you favor to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States?
6. Should the federal government own any land, such as national parks or wildlife refuges? If not, how should the government dispose of that land?
7. Are there any Defense Department programs you would eliminate?
8. After scrapping the Affordable Care Act, would you replace it with a different form of health insurance available to all Americans? Are there any aspects of the Affordable Care Act that you would retain? 
9. How would you replace the non abortion-related health care provided by Planned Parenthood if you defunded it?
10. Does the federal government have any obligation—legal or moral—to help its less fortunate citizens?
11. Should there be any restrictions on voter registration such as producing a valid ID or driver’s license?
12. Should medical marijuana be legalized in all states?
13. Should marijuana for general use be legalized?
14. Do you support stem cell research? Would you impose any restrictions?
15. Would you build a wall along the border with Mexico?
16. Would you restrict immigration from any country, region or religion?
17. Should the federal government have any role in education?
18. Is there a need for campaign funding reform?
19. Do you favor any form of regulation for Wall Street, banks and the financial sector?
20. What is your plan for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure?
21. Does ISIS or any Islamic fundamentalist group pose an existential threat to the United States?
22. What and from whom is the greatest threat to our country?
23. Are you in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact as currently negotiated? If not, what changes would you want?
24. Do you believe in “personhood,” the concept that an embryo has the same rights as a fully born person, such as the right of inheritance and the right to sue for damages if injured in an accident?

I am under little illusion that any of these questions will be aired but at least you know what I would want Megyn Kelly and her Fox News cohorts to ask.