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February, 2017 Monthly archive

I’m Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But…

February 14, 2017
Opinion
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Trump’s White House appears to be spiraling out of control. There’s already massive controversy, back-biting, leaks, subterfuge, carelessness, betrayal, and a generous helping of alt-facts. It’s been less than a month.

Now, one could argue that things just need to stabilize for Trump and that all he needs is time. But Trump isn’t just in a rough patch. He’s a in a whole new environment. Surrounded by a bureaucracy that he condemns and that despises him, betrayals small and large await in the days ahead, and enemies lurk in the shadows of every building in Washington.

The Republican establishment hates Donald Trump. He scares them for a variety of reasons. He’s unpredictable, spiteful, and a loose cannon. He’s also unversed in many matters of government that would benefit a president.They all know he’s in the wrong place and got there the wrong way. They didn’t want him to begin with and only grudgingly accepted him as he won more and more popular support of their mutual voting base.

But support doesn’t translate to love or loyalty, and the establishment would have an easy time convincing their cohorts to turn on Trump given the right set of circumstances. The reason? Pence. An insider. Far more mainstream than Trump, but very conservative. A dream candidate who handled himself well during the VP debate. The presidency would fit nicely with Republican’s wish list were it handed to Pence. They just need a good reason to oust Trump.

So here’s my prediction.

There’s a very good chance that Republicans are secretly hoping for a good enough reason to impeach. But the catch is that the reason needs to be iron clad or they risk the wrath of Trump’s base. They can’t just impeach, but given something egregious enough, they could do it and oust Trump whilst installing Pence.

By the look of it, it might not be long before something like this comes up. With Russian hacking, a Trump/Russian dossier, and now Mike Flynn and the Russians? It’s hard to ignore all of the Russian ties. Any investigation that shows Donald Trump had any secret contact with the Russians could prove to be a terrific reason to oust him and still maintain the support of the faithful.

I guess we’ll all have to wait and find out.

It May Already Be Too Late For Our Democracy – The Republicans Just Executed the Election Commission

February 7, 2017
Opinion
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Trump’s Republicans today killed the Election Commission as part of their continued assault on our freedoms and our right to vote, while still pushing the phony, baseless claim of ‘massive voter fraud’. I haven’t heard of a single person charged with voter fraud. You would think the ‘millions’ of people would be easier to find, eh?
 
Trump plans to rig the next election in his favor with a nefarious combination of voter suppression laws, gerrymandering, and the elimination of this so-called ‘wasteful’ government agency charged with making sure elections aren’t tampered with. Saying it’s shameful doesn’t cover it. California needs to leave the union. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Trump is giving the EPA to a climate change skeptic who has ties to fossil fuel. He’s giving our foreign policy to Exxon, one of the biggest special interests in the country. Our government is quickly becoming too corrupt to salvage under this so-called ‘drain the swamp’ liar.
 
Every day there’s another terrible headline. I can’t even read the news anymore. I think at some point we have to recognize that there’s no longer any middle ground. Either you want your kids praying in public schools, or you don’t. Either you want healthcare for everyone or you don’t. Either you believe in the power of diversity, or you don’t. Either you believe regulation, while more expensive for business, protects people or you don’t.
 
The people I know who support Trump are willing to overlook the obvious danger signs. They claim he doesn’t mean what he says. They claim it makes sense to stuff the government full of morons like Ben Carson and Rick Perry, or billionaires or bankers while they roll back banking rules. They say it doesn’t matter that Trump peddles racism and xenophobia and alternative facts, or has ties to the alt-right and their white nationalist agenda. They are willing to overlook all of it. When they finally realize the full extent of their missteps giving this loose cannon the reigns of power, it may very well be too late.

Muslim Ban? The Illogical World of US Politics.

February 7, 2017
Opinion
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One of the biggest problems in today’s political discourse is that people seem to have lost sight, or purposefully ignore, much of their own commonsense. Instead, political affiliation seems to have taken over as the driving force behind our decisions and points of view.

Let’s take one modern example: Trump’s new Muslim ban. Now let me be clear: I detest Donald Trump. He has no business in the White House, and does not deserve to be president. But, would I call his recent executive action to ban people from certain countries “A Muslim ban”?  Not really. There are dozens of countries that are majority Muslim not on his list. And I know many well-meaning liberal people who are smart enough to understand that an actual Muslim ban would look much different than this limited order.

On the other side of the argument the administration says that an immediate ban from these locations is absolutely necessary. Why? That wasn’t President Obama’s take, and we didn’t have any terror attacks from non-citizens under his 8 years. If these places were really interested in attacking us they could do it very easily. It’s not as if guns are hard to come by in the US. 9/11 was over 15 years ago.

The ironic thing about this specific debate is that both sides have relied illogical arguments to make their point.

So what is really going on?

The political left realizes that continuing to insult Muslims could actually provoke the dangerous circumstances this order is said to prevent. It seems very ill conceived, and was obviously crafted hurriedly and without a lot of thought considering the green card scandal and obvious lack of guidance to the various departments. It’s also been characterized as overly broad. The problem with Donald Trump insulting minorities is that any attack in response to his bellicose blather will just turn into a reason for him to grab more power and suppress his political opposition.

Meanwhile, the political right gets to feel some form of appeasement from their new leader whose first wall “to keep out them foreigners”, as it turns out, is more of an ocean. The xenophobes argue it’s not a Muslim ban, but that’s exactly what they want. So they are approving of the position they are arguing against.

*sigh*

 

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