Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[David Horn]

The biggest wild card is Trump's use of the military and DHS as enforcement tools domestically. The miltary will resist, but many within the miltary are avid Trump supporters. Whether cooler heads prevail is far from given. DHS is already heading toward extra-legal Trump support -- ICE in particular. I've worked with those guys, and they are pretty RW, top to bottom.

I'm scared, and getting the feeling that my fear is not paranoia.

[TeacherinExile]

(02-18-2017, 08:02 AM)David Horn Wrote: The biggest wild card is Trump's use of the military and DHS as enforcement tools domestically.  The miltary will resist, but many within the miltary are avid Trump supporters.  Whether cooler heads prevail is far from given.  DHS is already heading toward extra-legal Trump support -- ICE in particular.  I've worked with those guys, and they are pretty RW, top to bottom.

I'm scared, and getting the feeling that my fear is not paranoia.

Me too.  Despite my strong opposition to Trump--most especially his appalling lack of civility--I have tried to give him some benefit of the doubt.  Have also tried mightily to avoid violating Godwin's Law. But his tweet yesterday, likening some of the broadcast and print media to "enemies of the American people," well, that's simply beyond the pale.  I'm beginning to seriously question our 45th president's fitness to serve. 

I agree with you that the GOP in Congress will not break with the president anytime soon.  Paul Ryan, in particular, has long-dreamed-of legislation that he desperately wants passed with Trump's signature.  For the next two years, at least, Trump will serve as a "useful idiot" for enacting a conservative agenda.  After the mid-terms, it's anybody's guess as to the continuing fealty of GOP leaders to Trump.  You can already see hints of a possible future mutiny among Republicans, like Lindsay Graham and John McCain.

So last night, I tuned in to the PBS Newshour, one of the news sources not singled out by Trump yesterday.  When the subject turned to Trump's rant against the press, it was as if David Brooks was reading my mind:

"...But then the attack on the press, highlighted by the tweets today saying that my newspaper, NBC, all these organizations are enemies of the people.

"Well, if you want to draw rhetoric straight out of the fascist playbook, we’re enemies of the vote, the people, that is like — that has so many historical echoes. It’s illiberal and offensive to the way democracy is supposed to work and how one is supposed to just act within the institutions of democracy."

We still have a free press, which has survived the opprobrium of past presidents, with Richard Nixon and his equally disgraced "attack dog," vice president Spiro T. Agnew, as perhaps the worst examples in modern times.  Until now. 

One author and columnist has long described America as a "tinderbox," and now we have in Trump a president who plays with matches.  It seems we're drawing ever closer to the "conflagration" that Strauss and Howe alluded to in The Fourth Turning. 

[Eric the Green]

From a left-wing blog:

Nineteen of Donald Trump’s White House staff and advisors have been fired or resigned this week
By Bill Palmer | February 18, 2017

When Donald Trump promised he’d drain the swamp, he didn’t tell us he meant he’d be getting rid of his own people. While the public’s focus has been on Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned on Monday due to his role in the Trump-Russia scandal, it turns out Flynn is just one of nineteen of Donald Trump’s White House staff and advisors have been fired or resigned this week – and the list is growing by the day.

The mass exodus from the White House this week has gone far beyond Michael Flynn’s infamous resignation. On Thursday, six other White House staff members – including at least one who was personally loyal to Trump himself – were fired and escorted out of the building after they were flagged by the FBI. Also on Thursday, ten members of the White House Advisory Commission all resigned in protest of Trump’s racist policies. But the bloodbath was just getting started, and it grew stranger on Friday.

First came the news on Friday that HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s top advisor Shermichael Singleton had been fired without Carson’s knowledge and escorted out of the building after it was discovered that Singleton had previously criticized Donald Trump during the course of the campaign. And then White House National Security Council Director Craig Deare was also fired on Friday for making fun of Trump behind his back. But wait, there’s more.

In addition to the above-named nineteen people who were fired or resigned from Donald Trump’s White House this week, there have also been other notable recent departures. Michael Flynn’s top deputy Robin Townley was forced out of the job by the CIA last week. And then there’s the case of White House chief information security officer Cory Louie, who was fired and escorted out of the building two weeks ago, and mysteriously hasn’t been heard from since. Can the last one out of the White House turn out the lights?

[pbrower2a]

The CIA has the dirt. President Obama let it do its job, and we get to see what a good job it did.

[Eric the Green]

I'm not sure that Eric and Donald Jr. and his other children demonstrate Trump's theory; maybe Ivanka does. Perhaps our local eugenics-believers like Warren Dew might shed some additional light on their theory.


Trump Has Turned the GOP Into the Party of Eugenics

The long-discredited theory is newly relevant in 2017—but maybe it's always been embedded in the Republican platform.
BY SARAH JONES
February 15, 2017
https://newrepublic.com/article/140641/t...y-eugenics

“What is meant by improvement?” Sir Francis Galton asked the Sociology Society of the University of London in 1904. At the time of his speech, Galton was already 35 years deep into a career promoting what he termed “eugenics,” the idea that the human race could improve itself through selective breeding—through propagating good traits and quarantining the bad ones. “All creatures would agree that it was better to be healthy than sick, vigorous than weak, well-fitted than ill-fitted for their part in life,” he explained. “So with men.”

Eugenics enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the most thoroughly discredited theories in scientific history. It is most closely associated with the Nazis and their obsession with racial superiority, but the Nazis did not invent it any more than they invented racism: It began in Great Britain, and swiftly spread to the United States. Beginning with Indiana in 1907, 32 states adopted laws “authorizing the sterilization of people judged to have hereditary defects,” Adam Cohen writes in his book Imbeciles. “They called for sterilizing anyone with ‘defective’ traits, such as epilepsy, criminality, alcoholism or ‘dependency,’ another word for poverty.” Americans adopted eugenics so enthusiastically that 70,000 people were sterilized under laws that eventually influenced the policies of the Third Reich.

But eugenics, though discredited, has never been abandoned. In fact, the most powerful people in America appear to enthusiastically embrace the idea that humans can be divided into inherently superior and inferior specimens and treated accordingly. “You have to be born lucky,” President Donald Trump told Oprah Winfrey in 1988, “in the sense that you have to have the right genes.” His biographer Michael D’Antonio explained to Frontline that Trump and his family subscribe “to a racehorse theory of human development. They believe that there are superior people and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get a superior offspring.”

So does Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, if the reports are to be believed. Sources told The New York Times this November that despite his devout Catholicism, Bannon “occasionally talked about the genetic superiority of some people and once mused about the desirability of limiting the vote to property owners.” Adam Serwer of The Atlantic reported in January that Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the Immigration Act of 1924 in a 2015 interview with Bannon, which could be an insight into the views of both these immigration hardliners: The act required would-be immigrants to specify whether they’d ever spent time in prison or the “almshouse,” and if their parents had ever been confined to a psychiatric hospital.

The work of Trump adviser Michael Anton also reveals a grim obsession with genetic purity. “‘Diversity’ is not ‘our strength;’ it’s a source of weakness, tension, and disunion,” he wrote in the Unz Review last year. As the Huffington Post noted at the time, the same essay claimed that the aviator Charles Lindbergh’s fascist America First Committee had been unfairly maligned. Lindbergh was a eugenicist who admired the Nazis: He once wrote that flying “is one of those priceless possessions which permit the White Race to live at all in a sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown.”

Of course, none of the people in Trump’s inner circle would describe themselves as eugenicists. They would call themselves capitalists, patriots, and Christians. And yet the Trump administration’s overt obsession with white supremacy—which the 2016 election showed to be the ugly beating heart of the conservative movement—has imbued the platform of the Republican Party with a lurid tinge, changing our understanding of its disdain not only for minorities, but for the weak, the poor, and the disabled. The GOP may loathe the term—indeed conservatives often accuse liberal abortion supporters of being the real eugenicists—but the party’s agenda in many ways channels the spirit of eugenics, even if it does not accept the theory in a literal sense.

If you think I’m exaggerating, just consider for a moment what it is like to be an American with “bad” genes. I was not born lucky, at least not as Donald Trump defines it: My brother and I have a rare genetic disease that affects our red blood cells. It isn’t terminal, but it also isn’t pleasant. It is expensive and painful, and the only thing I’ve learned from living with it is that all emergency rooms smell exactly the same. It also means that I am not sure if I should have children. It feels wrong to knowingly bequeath a disease to anyone. It feels especially wrong to do so in America, a country that still does not recognize an inalienable right to health care.

Trump’s comments are merely an open expression of a long-standing, institutionalized disdain for the poor and the sick. He helms a party at ease with the fact that American pharmaceutical companies can charge $89,000 for a life-extending muscular dystrophy drug. America charges you for childbirth, for check-ups, for cancer; it will bankrupt you over blood transfusions and ambulance rides. I had medical bills in collections before I’d even finished college, mostly due to a deductible so high that I paid to see specialists out of pocket.

Matters have recently improved. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against people with “pre-existing conditions.” But dismantling the Affordable Care Act is a top priority for this administration and for the Republicans in Congress, if they can ever get out from under a swiftly growing mountain of scandals. At the heart of the push to repeal Obamacare is the idea that dependency is a cancer on the republic and should be excised. Both parties have absorbed this idea, to different extents. The ACA is too market-dependent—too willing to put a market value on human life—to give everyone the health care they need.

But the Republican Party expresses this antipathy to dependency in vicious ways and in all avenues of public life. The GOP gets particularly vicious when dependency combines with race (eugenics and racism are toxins that have always reinforced each other anyway).

If Sir Francis Galton stood before the GOP in 2017 and asked them what they mean by improvement, they’d have ready answers. To Steve Bannon, it is a ban on Muslim refugees trying to enter this country. To Jeff Sessions, it is stricter voting laws that violate the rights of those who are most dependent on the government. To Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, it is an atrophied public school system and a weak Americans with Disabilities Act. To Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, it is “high-risk insurance pools” for sick Americans. To Vice President Mike Pence, it is legalized discrimination against LGBT people. And to Speaker Paul Ryan, it is the destruction of the welfare state.

Republicans target weakness as energetically as eugenicists did. They have embraced capitalism so fully that they will admit no flaw in it. Confronted with inequality, they tell us the problem lies, not with the system, but with the individual and his incurable deficiencies. “We don’t want a dependency culture,” Paul Ryan said in 2013. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Ryan’s “Better Way” budget would increase the wealth of America’s extreme upper class while prohibiting new funds for the Affordable Care Act and expanding work requirements for welfare recipients. The implications—that the wealthy deserve to be even wealthier, and that the poor are poor because they make bad personal choices—have been long reflected in Ryan’s personal views on the subject.

Ryan has since tried to distance himself from his old intellectual hero Ayn Rand, and from the Objectivist “makers and takers” rhetoric that made him a conservative star. He has even generously conceded that, “Most people don’t want to be dependent.” But there is no question that Ryan’s policies would exacerbate income inequality. His welfare reform proposals build on former President Bill Clinton’s Personal Accountability and Work Opportunity Act (note: the compromise with Gingrich), and we now know that deep poverty nearly doubled after Clinton’s welfare policies were implemented.

Race and poverty and disability also intersect in a way that makes the eugenics comparison unavoidable. People with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to live in poverty. Low-income students are disproportionately more likely to drop out of high school. And communities of color suffer the most. According to a new Demos study, the racial wealth gap is so durable that nothing—not Ryan’s beloved two-parent households or college degrees or full-time jobs—closes the gap between communities of color and whites. The experiences of people of color provide the clearest proof that poverty is not a symptom of entitled dependency, but of a corrupt system.

Republicans are dedicated to perpetuating that system. Thus they cut welfare for the same reason eugenicists once sterilized the poor: Poor people drain resources better spent elsewhere.

Then there’s public education ("DeVossification"). Trump and Betsy DeVos both champion the expansion of school vouchers and charter schools as a means to promote “school choice” for low-income parents. Vouchers, which enable students to use public funding for the school of their choice, are especially flawed, since they disadvantage students with disabilities. Private schools are exempt from much of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which means they can receive voucher funds while refusing to accommodate students with disabilities. Patchy application erodes the efficacy of anti-discrimination law, but that apparently doesn’t trouble DeVos. During her confirmation hearing, she told senators that it should be “up to the states” to require private schools to adhere to the ADA, and it wasn’t clear if she’d even heard of the IDEA before entering the chamber.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled that it would fund a voucher expansion by assigning $20 billion in federal funds to vouchers. According to Chalkbeat, teacher’s unions fear that money would most likely come from Title I portability, an old education reform proposal that would reallocate Title I funding from public schools. That funding is currently assigned to public schools based on how many low-income students they serve: “The damage would spread through the system, raising class sizes even in non-Title I schools, threatening academic enrichment programs, guidance, art and music and other services our children depend on,” the United Federation of Teachers asserted in a press release.

Vouchers reinforce a two-tier educational system: Public schools are for the rabble, and private schools are for the elite.
If DeVos funds a voucher expansion in this manner, without also expanding the reach of the ADA, parents of students with disabilities would be trapped in under-funded, under-equipped public school districts. And that’s a throwback to a more discriminatory age of American history. Before the ADA, the IDEA, and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, children with disabilities weren’t guaranteed access to quality public education. Instead, they were frequently confined to institutions or the home; a few attended disability-specific schools. Many were sterilized under eugenics laws.

But the needs of students with disabilities have never dissuaded school choice advocates in the Republican Party (or the Democratic Party, for that matter). The calculus of school choice explicitly excludes them because it must. It relies on the premise that private schools are superior because they are not controlled by the state. Privatization, of course, permits these schools to be more selective than their public alternatives, so vouchers reinforce a two-tier educational system: Public schools are for the rabble, and private schools are for the elite.

That approach harms all Americans, but it’s just one of two blows that Americans with disabilities can expect from Republican-controlled government. If the GOP’s planned replacement of Obamacare looks anything like Tom Price’s “Empowering Patients Act,” people with disabilities will, once again, be at the mercies of private insurance companies.

Price has supported replacing the ACA with age-adjusted tax credits, Medicaid block grants, and high-risk insurance pools for people with so-called “pre-existing” conditions. But the example of welfare reform demonstrates that states typically use block grants as an excuse to underfund aid programs, and high-risk pools have historically failed to meet the needs of Americans with serious or disabling conditions. According to one 2008 study, Kansas’s high risk pool left sick Kansans chronically underinsured, and actually increased the number of people dependent on disability payments.

If Price’s plan ever becomes federal law, he and his Republican colleagues will force Americans with disabilities back into their traditional role as an inferior class. People with disabilities will live shorter, poorer lives. We already have a real-life example of what this would look like nationally: In Texas, Medicaid cuts have already seriously harmed children with disabilities. “We have had a number of families who have had critical medication denied. We’ve had families who have had some surgical delays and have been told, sorry, you’re not in network,” a representative of Protect TX Fragile Kids told The Dallas Morning News.

Trump’s education policies will only make the situation more dire. Many children will be cut off from care, and then cut off from accessible free education, all so Republicans can say they’ve shrunk government. So long to social mobility, so long to life-saving medical care, so long to any illusion of equality: Republicans will accomplish what the eugenics movement sought to do so long ago.

And I will not be surprised when it happens. On the night of Trump’s election I did not sleep. First I thought of my brother, who only has health insurance because of the ACA. Then I stacked questions on top of hours: Should I wait four to eight years to have children? Or do I gamble? And I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t know the answer.

Trump makes obvious what I and Americans like me already understood: We are in the same vulnerable position that we have always occupied. This won’t change as long as we inhabit a world ruled by men who prioritize the free market over human lives. Their ideal society excludes us and every other group ever deemed an obstacle to prosperity. And when they come for us they will call it progress.

Sarah Jones is the social media editor at The New Republic.
@onesarahjones

[Marypoza]

(02-20-2017, 01:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: From a left-wing blog:

Nineteen of Donald Trump’s White House staff and advisors have been fired or resigned this week
By Bill Palmer | February 18, 2017

When Donald Trump promised he’d drain the swamp, he didn’t tell us he meant he’d be getting rid of his own people. While the public’s focus has been on Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned on Monday due to his role in the Trump-Russia scandal, it turns out Flynn is just one of nineteen of Donald Trump’s White House staff and advisors have been fired or resigned this week – and the list is growing by the day.

The mass exodus from the White House this week has gone far beyond Michael Flynn’s infamous resignation. On Thursday, six other White House staff members – including at least one who was personally loyal to Trump himself – were fired and escorted out of the building after they were flagged by the FBI. Also on Thursday, ten members of the White House Advisory Commission all resigned in protest of Trump’s racist policies. But the bloodbath was just getting started, and it grew stranger on Friday.

First came the news on Friday that HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s top advisor Shermichael Singleton had been fired without Carson’s knowledge and escorted out of the building after it was discovered that Singleton had previously criticized Donald Trump during the course of the campaign. And then White House National Security Council Director Craig Deare was also fired on Friday for making fun of Trump behind his back. But wait, there’s more.

In addition to the above-named nineteen people who were fired or resigned from Donald Trump’s White House this week, there have also been other notable recent departures. Michael Flynn’s top deputy Robin Townley was forced out of the job by the CIA last week. And then there’s the case of White House chief information security officer Cory Louie, who was fired and escorted out of the building two weeks ago, and mysteriously hasn’t been heard from since. Can the last one out of the White House turn out the lights?

-- wish he'd fire Bannon

[Eric the Green]

I think Bannon is the real president; he can't be fired. They both work for Putin. Putin will have to fire them.

[pbrower2a]

(02-20-2017, 04:01 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think Bannon is the real president; he can't be fired. They both work for Putin. Putin will have to fire them.

Bannon is taking the game of Karl Rogue  a few steps forward in the direction of totalitarian rule.  A Commie state typically has a formal President and Parliament, but real power is within the Party apparatus. Government by Party boss is how Stalin did things.

It is worth remembering that the Soviet Constitution is a near-plagiarism of the American Constitution, even down to the weak formal government. While our Constitution has tight controls on the potential for despotism of the President, it has none against  someone like  Rove or Bannon who exercises executive or legislative power without being elected, appointed and subject to Congressional approval, or operating as an employee of the Federal government and easily fired for misconduct.

Do not be fooled. The United States of America is no longer a democracy. Lobbyists have controlled the House of Representatives since 2011 and the Senate since 2015. Donald Trump is effectively a puppet of the same corporate interests who pay the corporate lobbyists. Sure, we have a republic, but only in the sense that we have no monarch.

[Ragnarök_62]

(02-18-2017, 04:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is trying as hard as he can to make sure we continue to depend on their oil, and support Israel. It's safe to say we're going nowhere fast, when it comes to getting out of the Mid-East. It seems like a pipe dream to me.


I'm glad you let me view myself as I wish. You might not be so sanguine about the fact that I think you're a world citizen too. We all are; that's the world we live in. So, I'd say, I'm not viewing myself that way. It's just the fact, man.

No, not pure evil at all, and not witchy. Not by a yuge long shot! Just a bit of hyperbole on her part. A bit of braggadocio and that's it.

Well, that's a bit better than your previous rant. I don't disagree, but I don't think whatever is done along those lines will relieve our labor surplus due to tech.


The West allowed Hitler to expand. But yes, it was also WWI and the depression that were causes. This whole time was the end of one age of civilization and the beginning of our own. Cataclysmic.


That's an easy one. Singling out Muslims as he does insults them and provides propaganda for the terrorist recruiters and discourages needed allies everywhere. As far as I can tell, Trump's cutting off refugees entirely, not reducing the number. I agree about bombing, except that Obama's raids on the IS are carefully planned and necessary, and working well unless Drump mucks it up. Other than that, it's not a good strategy. We are lucky the Afghans haven't turned on us.

Mideast Oil:  The fact remains that we're on the cusp of "cheap oil" from anywhere will collide with physics that [energy returned on energy invested will go to such a low number that oil becomes not sustainable. The real pipe dream is that we can run our economy on oil period. The best thing to do now is to use whatever time we have is to use fossil fuels to build renewable energy sources. The time is now to fabricate windmills/solar panels.

I'm not a world citizen Eric. The USA has a chance to escape the trap of physics behind food production / energy getting messed up. Localism in food production/ renewables can work.  The transition from the current energy regime to the new energy regime takes lots of domestic focus, not saving the world stuff. I'm channeling my own inner Boomer which means , yes my own path to take the USA from fossil fuels and my path to a sustainable future.  The age of limits is all so real to myself, but I want to confine that to something that is workable. So, Eric , I want an agenda that is both idealistic, but passes the BS test. Welcome to the "cusper zone. Welcome to the Jones Zone, right?  I think that's the point of contention on a great many things.

Hillery: No Eric, not hyperbole. She's not grounded in reality along with stuff that isn't workable. The same goes for all Neocons. The actions she and other Neocons just simply won't work. Interventionism is just not worth efford, OK ?

Rant?  Really, Eric. Now, think about the things you, yourself exalt. I do that also. I'm and INTP or I'm just a Joneser. I don't know which label is behind my strident pushing said agendas....  So... I think the default labor surplus should be addressed because that part of my reality is something to fix to head off that source of sociatal instability Government in general needs to fix this. I'm one to allow government to address anything that sustains "ensure domestic tranquility". I don't think you'd disagree with that.

So, do you agree that WWII was a one off and the solution does not apply now ?

Muslims:  This not a catch all. Here's the deal. Not all Mideast refugees are Muslim. Here, not all refugees from the Mideast are Muslim. I have no problem with allowing folks from the Mideast are Muslim. Christians and Jews have been persecuted by say IS.  Those folks who are persecuted should be allowed to go to the front of the queue. It's a fact non Muslims are indeed persecuted along with others. Put those in front of the immigration queue. Besides they are far more able to assimilate. Obviously  those who assimilate should be allowed in from a humanitarian stand point.  As far a numbers, yes there is a limit so assimilation happens instead of saving everyone.

Afghanistan:  What you wrote speaks for itself. Leave before blow-back occurs. And of course, bombing is not a way of winning friends and influences people.

.

[Eric the Green]

(02-20-2017, 11:27 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(02-18-2017, 04:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is trying as hard as he can to make sure we continue to depend on their oil, and support Israel. It's safe to say we're going nowhere fast, when it comes to getting out of the Mid-East. It seems like a pipe dream to me.


I'm glad you let me view myself as I wish. You might not be so sanguine about the fact that I think you're a world citizen too. We all are; that's the world we live in. So, I'd say, I'm not viewing myself that way. It's just the fact, man.

No, not pure evil at all, and not witchy. Not by a yuge long shot! Just a bit of hyperbole on her part. A bit of braggadocio and that's it.

Well, that's a bit better than your previous rant. I don't disagree, but I don't think whatever is done along those lines will relieve our labor surplus due to tech.


The West allowed Hitler to expand. But yes, it was also WWI and the depression that were causes. This whole time was the end of one age of civilization and the beginning of our own. Cataclysmic.


That's an easy one. Singling out Muslims as he does insults them and provides propaganda for the terrorist recruiters and discourages needed allies everywhere. As far as I can tell, Trump's cutting off refugees entirely, not reducing the number. I agree about bombing, except that Obama's raids on the IS are carefully planned and necessary, and working well unless Drump mucks it up. Other than that, it's not a good strategy. We are lucky the Afghans haven't turned on us.

Mideast Oil:  The fact remains that we're on the cusp of "cheap oil" from anywhere will collide with physics that [energy returned on energy invested will go to such a low number that oil becomes not sustainable. The real pipe dream is that we can run our economy on oil period. The best thing to do now is to use whatever time we have ... to use fossil fuels to build renewable energy sources. The time is now to fabricate windmills/solar panels.

And it's up to companies, customers, blue states and foreign governments to keep this trend going, since the Rust Belt has hired Drump to try to keep fossil fuels going and stop the transition. His crew believes in pollution, ignorance, wealth-grabbing and prejudice above all else.

Quote:I'm not a world citizen Eric. The USA has a chance to escape the trap of physics behind food production / energy getting messed up. Localism in food production/ renewables can work.  The transition from the current energy regime to the new energy regime takes lots of domestic focus, not saving the world stuff. I'm channeling my own inner Boomer which means , yes my own path to take the USA from fossil fuels and my path to a sustainable future.  The age of limits is all so real to myself, but I want to confine that to something that is workable. So, Eric , I want an agenda that is both idealistic, but passes the BS test. Welcome to the "cusper zone. Welcome to the Jones Zone, right?  I think that's the point of contention on a great many things.

I doubt that has anything to do with it. We are all world citizens, and that's not idealism; just the fact. Yes, we can all do our part in the energy transition. It would be so much easier if the federal government was helping, as it was under Obama. Now that won't happen for a while.

Quote:Hillery: No Eric, not hyperbole. She's not grounded in reality along with stuff that isn't workable. The same goes for all Neocons. The actions she and other Neocons just simply won't work. Interventionism is just not worth effort, OK ?

Hillary was grounded in reality. She did not send troops anywhere, nor advocated it. Rigid rules do not a foreign policy make, but in general I agree interventionism is to be avoided.

Quote:Rant?  Really, Eric. Now, think about the things you, yourself exalt. I do that also. I'm an INTP or I'm just a Joneser. I don't know which label is behind my strident pushing said agendas....  So... I think the default labor surplus should be addressed because that part of my reality is something to fix to head off that source of societal instability Government in general needs to fix this. I'm one to allow government to address anything that sustains "ensure domestic tranquility". I don't think you'd disagree with that.

Yes I agree, although unfortunately we don't have a federal government now, and you don't have a state government (and I do). The labor surplus should be addressed, but stopping illegal immigration is not the fix, since it's not the cause of said surplus.

My grandfather worked at the capitol of that state government of yours. He did good work for it, building the bridges you drive on. But now, that state government is not doing the work that needs to be done today for the future. Its attorney general has been hired by Drump to re-pollute the world.

Quote:So, do you agree that WWII was a one off and the solution does not apply now ?

Every time and place is different. But we need to learn the lessons of history. Tyrants and international outlaws arise, and world order must be maintained. The USA plays a major role in that, but should not play the only role, and a USA war is a last resort not a first one.

Quote:Muslims:  This not a catch all. Here's the deal. Not all Mideast refugees are Muslim. Here, not all refugees from the Mideast are Muslim. I have no problem with allowing folks from the Mideast are Muslim. Christians and Jews have been persecuted by say IS.  Those folks who are persecuted should be allowed to go to the front of the queue. It's a fact non Muslims are indeed persecuted along with others. Put those in front of the immigration queue. Besides they are far more able to assimilate. Obviously  those who assimilate should be allowed in from a humanitarian stand point.  As far a numbers, yes there is a limit so assimilation happens instead of saving everyone.

The most persecuted people today are the people of Syria. They are not persecuted because of their religion. As a realist/idealist and an INTP like me you can be aware of facts, beyond propaganda. Assad's and Tulsi's propaganda is dead wrong. The Syrians are fleeing genocide and political murder, and we are locking the door. NO, if we are the USA, then we have no religious test for immigration. That has been properly ruled unconstitutional. Trump's madness need not sway you; leave it behind, and cling to facts and American basic values and laws instead. You are smart enough not to be caught up in Drump's crap, even if you live in a red state.

Quote:Afghanistan:  What you wrote speaks for itself. Leave before blow-back occurs. And of course, bombing is not a way of winning friends and influencing people.

Leaving might be the right choice, but it won't happen. We are stuck there, probably as long as there is a USA. That could be at least 300 years.

[Marypoza]

(02-21-2017, 12:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-20-2017, 11:27 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(02-18-2017, 04:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is trying as hard as he can to make sure we continue to depend on their oil, and support Israel. It's safe to say we're going nowhere fast, when it comes to getting out of the Mid-East. It seems like a pipe dream to me.


I'm glad you let me view myself as I wish. You might not be so sanguine about the fact that I think you're a world citizen too. We all are; that's the world we live in. So, I'd say, I'm not viewing myself that way. It's just the fact, man.

No, not pure evil at all, and not witchy. Not by a yuge long shot! Just a bit of hyperbole on her part. A bit of braggadocio and that's it.

Well, that's a bit better than your previous rant. I don't disagree, but I don't think whatever is done along those lines will relieve our labor surplus due to tech.


The West allowed Hitler to expand. But yes, it was also WWI and the depression that were causes. This whole time was the end of one age of civilization and the beginning of our own. Cataclysmic.


That's an easy one. Singling out Muslims as he does insults them and provides propaganda for the terrorist recruiters and discourages needed allies everywhere. As far as I can tell, Trump's cutting off refugees entirely, not reducing the number. I agree about bombing, except that Obama's raids on the IS are carefully planned and necessary, and working well unless Drump mucks it up. Other than that, it's not a good strategy. We are lucky the Afghans haven't turned on us.

Mideast Oil:  The fact remains that we're on the cusp of "cheap oil" from anywhere will collide with physics that [energy returned on energy invested will go to such a low number that oil becomes not sustainable. The real pipe dream is that we can run our economy on oil period. The best thing to do now is to use whatever time we have ... to use fossil fuels to build renewable energy sources. The time is now to fabricate windmills/solar panels.

And it's up to companies, customers, blue states and foreign governments to keep this trend going, since the Rust Belt has hired Drump to try to keep fossil fuels going and stop the transition. His crew believes in pollution, ignorance, wealth-grabbing and prejudice above all else.

Quote:I'm not a world citizen Eric. The USA has a chance to escape the trap of physics behind food production / energy getting messed up. Localism in food production/ renewables can work.  The transition from the current energy regime to the new energy regime takes lots of domestic focus, not saving the world stuff. I'm channeling my own inner Boomer which means , yes my own path to take the USA from fossil fuels and my path to a sustainable future.  The age of limits is all so real to myself, but I want to confine that to something that is workable. So, Eric , I want an agenda that is both idealistic, but passes the BS test. Welcome to the "cusper zone. Welcome to the Jones Zone, right?  I think that's the point of contention on a great many things.

I doubt that has anything to do with it. We are all world citizens, and that's not idealism; just the fact. Yes, we can all do our part in the energy transition. It would be so much easier if the federal government was helping, as it was under Obama. Now that won't happen for a while.

Quote:Hillery: No Eric, not hyperbole. She's not grounded in reality along with stuff that isn't workable. The same goes for all Neocons. The actions she and other Neocons just simply won't work. Interventionism is just not worth effort, OK ?

Hillary was grounded in reality. She did not send troops anywhere, nor advocated it. Rigid rules do not a foreign policy make, but in general I agree interventionism is to be avoided.

-- christ on a crutch!! I don't ever, evah wanna hear you accusing me of bringing up that irrelevant bitch again

Quote:

Quote:Rant?  Really, Eric. Now, think about the things you, yourself exalt. I do that also. I'm an INTP or I'm just a Joneser. I don't know which label is behind my strident pushing said agendas....  So... I think the default labor surplus should be addressed because that part of my reality is something to fix to head off that source of societal instability Government in general needs to fix this. I'm one to allow government to address anything that sustains "ensure domestic tranquility". I don't think you'd disagree with that.

Yes I agree, although unfortunately we don't have a federal government now, and you don't have a state government (and I do). The labor surplus should be addressed, but stopping illegal immigration is not the fix, since it's not the cause of said surplus.

Quote:So, do you agree that WWII was a one off and the solution does not apply now ?

Every time and place is different. But we need to learn the lessons of history. Tyrants and international outlaws arise, and world order must be maintained. The USA plays a major role in that, but should not play the only role, and a USA war is a last resort not a first one.

Quote:Muslims:  This not a catch all. Here's the deal. Not all Mideast refugees are Muslim. Here, not all refugees from the Mideast are Muslim. I have no problem with allowing folks from the Mideast are Muslim. Christians and Jews have been persecuted by say IS.  Those folks who are persecuted should be allowed to go to the front of the queue. It's a fact non Muslims are indeed persecuted along with others. Put those in front of the immigration queue. Besides they are far more able to assimilate. Obviously  those who assimilate should be allowed in from a humanitarian stand point.  As far a numbers, yes there is a limit so assimilation happens instead of saving everyone.

The most persecuted people today are the people of Syria. They are not persecuted because of their religion. As a realist/idealist and an INTP like me you can be aware of facts, beyond propaganda. Assad's and Tulsi's propaganda is dead wrong. The Syrians are fleeing genocide and political murder, and we are locking the door. NO, if we are the USA, then we have no religious test for immigration. That has been properly ruled unconstitutional. Trump's madness need not sway you; leave it behind, and cling to facts and American basic values and laws instead. You are smart enough not to be caught up in Drump's crap, even if you live in a red state.

Quote:Afghanistan:  What you wrote speaks for itself. Leave before blow-back occurs. And of course, bombing is not a way of winning friends and influencing people.

Leaving might be the right choice, but it won't happen. We are stuck there, probably as long as there is a USA. That could be at least 300 years.

-- nah l don't even give it 30. Seccession- that's what this 4T is about

[Eric the Green]

(02-21-2017, 12:14 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-21-2017, 12:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-20-2017, 11:27 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(02-18-2017, 04:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is trying as hard as he can to make sure we continue to depend on their oil, and support Israel. It's safe to say we're going nowhere fast, when it comes to getting out of the Mid-East. It seems like a pipe dream to me.


I'm glad you let me view myself as I wish. You might not be so sanguine about the fact that I think you're a world citizen too. We all are; that's the world we live in. So, I'd say, I'm not viewing myself that way. It's just the fact, man.

No, not pure evil at all, and not witchy. Not by a yuge long shot! Just a bit of hyperbole on her part. A bit of braggadocio and that's it.

Well, that's a bit better than your previous rant. I don't disagree, but I don't think whatever is done along those lines will relieve our labor surplus due to tech.


The West allowed Hitler to expand. But yes, it was also WWI and the depression that were causes. This whole time was the end of one age of civilization and the beginning of our own. Cataclysmic.


That's an easy one. Singling out Muslims as he does insults them and provides propaganda for the terrorist recruiters and discourages needed allies everywhere. As far as I can tell, Trump's cutting off refugees entirely, not reducing the number. I agree about bombing, except that Obama's raids on the IS are carefully planned and necessary, and working well unless Drump mucks it up. Other than that, it's not a good strategy. We are lucky the Afghans haven't turned on us.

Mideast Oil:  The fact remains that we're on the cusp of "cheap oil" from anywhere will collide with physics that [energy returned on energy invested will go to such a low number that oil becomes not sustainable. The real pipe dream is that we can run our economy on oil period. The best thing to do now is to use whatever time we have ... to use fossil fuels to build renewable energy sources. The time is now to fabricate windmills/solar panels.

And it's up to companies, customers, blue states and foreign governments to keep this trend going, since the Rust Belt has hired Drump to try to keep fossil fuels going and stop the transition. His crew believes in pollution, ignorance, wealth-grabbing and prejudice above all else.

Quote:I'm not a world citizen Eric. The USA has a chance to escape the trap of physics behind food production / energy getting messed up. Localism in food production/ renewables can work.  The transition from the current energy regime to the new energy regime takes lots of domestic focus, not saving the world stuff. I'm channeling my own inner Boomer which means , yes my own path to take the USA from fossil fuels and my path to a sustainable future.  The age of limits is all so real to myself, but I want to confine that to something that is workable. So, Eric , I want an agenda that is both idealistic, but passes the BS test. Welcome to the "cusper zone. Welcome to the Jones Zone, right?  I think that's the point of contention on a great many things.

I doubt that has anything to do with it. We are all world citizens, and that's not idealism; just the fact. Yes, we can all do our part in the energy transition. It would be so much easier if the federal government was helping, as it was under Obama. Now that won't happen for a while.

Quote:Hillery: No Eric, not hyperbole. She's not grounded in reality along with stuff that isn't workable. The same goes for all Neocons. The actions she and other Neocons just simply won't work. Interventionism is just not worth effort, OK ?

Hillary was grounded in reality. She did not send troops anywhere, nor advocated it. Rigid rules do not a foreign policy make, but in general I agree interventionism is to be avoided.

-- christ on a crutch!! I don't ever, evah wanna hear you accusing me of bringing up that irrelevant bitch again

Since I didn't bring her up here, no I can't make such a promise to you, if you do it. Sorry.

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:Rant?  Really, Eric. Now, think about the things you, yourself exalt. I do that also. I'm an INTP or I'm just a Joneser. I don't know which label is behind my strident pushing said agendas....  So... I think the default labor surplus should be addressed because that part of my reality is something to fix to head off that source of societal instability Government in general needs to fix this. I'm one to allow government to address anything that sustains "ensure domestic tranquility". I don't think you'd disagree with that.

Yes I agree, although unfortunately we don't have a federal government now, and you don't have a state government (and I do). The labor surplus should be addressed, but stopping illegal immigration is not the fix, since it's not the cause of said surplus.

Quote:So, do you agree that WWII was a one off and the solution does not apply now ?

Every time and place is different. But we need to learn the lessons of history. Tyrants and international outlaws arise, and world order must be maintained. The USA plays a major role in that, but should not play the only role, and a USA war is a last resort not a first one.

Quote:Muslims:  This not a catch all. Here's the deal. Not all Mideast refugees are Muslim. Here, not all refugees from the Mideast are Muslim. I have no problem with allowing folks from the Mideast are Muslim. Christians and Jews have been persecuted by say IS.  Those folks who are persecuted should be allowed to go to the front of the queue. It's a fact non Muslims are indeed persecuted along with others. Put those in front of the immigration queue. Besides they are far more able to assimilate. Obviously  those who assimilate should be allowed in from a humanitarian stand point.  As far a numbers, yes there is a limit so assimilation happens instead of saving everyone.

The most persecuted people today are the people of Syria. They are not persecuted because of their religion. As a realist/idealist and an INTP like me you can be aware of facts, beyond propaganda. Assad's and Tulsi's propaganda is dead wrong. The Syrians are fleeing genocide and political murder, and we are locking the door. NO, if we are the USA, then we have no religious test for immigration. That has been properly ruled unconstitutional. Trump's madness need not sway you; leave it behind, and cling to facts and American basic values and laws instead. You are smart enough not to be caught up in Drump's crap, even if you live in a red state.

Quote:Afghanistan:  What you wrote speaks for itself. Leave before blow-back occurs. And of course, bombing is not a way of winning friends and influencing people.

Leaving might be the right choice, but it won't happen. We are stuck there, probably as long as there is a USA. That could be at least 300 years.

-- nah l don't even give it 30. Secession- that's what this 4T is about

Yes, very likely. But Afghanistan was a 3T war to start with, so whatever its dates are, has nothing to do with what the 4T is or when it ends.

And for the record (again), there is a danger of the USA going to war again abroad at the same time as the highest danger of secession occurs. The year 2025 or 2026. The Jupiter cycle will be coming round again; plus the Uranus cycle. The two domestic and foreign events could be related, and I don't expect either event to last past the end of the 4T in 2028 or 2029.

[Ragnarök_62]

(02-21-2017, 12:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-20-2017, 11:27 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(02-18-2017, 04:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is trying as hard as he can to make sure we continue to depend on their oil, and support Israel. It's safe to say we're going nowhere fast, when it comes to getting out of the Mid-East. It seems like a pipe dream to me.


I'm glad you let me view myself as I wish. You might not be so sanguine about the fact that I think you're a world citizen too. We all are; that's the world we live in. So, I'd say, I'm not viewing myself that way. It's just the fact, man.

No, not pure evil at all, and not witchy. Not by a yuge long shot! Just a bit of hyperbole on her part. A bit of braggadocio and that's it.

Well, that's a bit better than your previous rant. I don't disagree, but I don't think whatever is done along those lines will relieve our labor surplus due to tech.


The West allowed Hitler to expand. But yes, it was also WWI and the depression that were causes. This whole time was the end of one age of civilization and the beginning of our own. Cataclysmic.


That's an easy one. Singling out Muslims as he does insults them and provides propaganda for the terrorist recruiters and discourages needed allies everywhere. As far as I can tell, Trump's cutting off refugees entirely, not reducing the number. I agree about bombing, except that Obama's raids on the IS are carefully planned and necessary, and working well unless Drump mucks it up. Other than that, it's not a good strategy. We are lucky the Afghans haven't turned on us.

Mideast Oil:  The fact remains that we're on the cusp of "cheap oil" from anywhere will collide with physics that [energy returned on energy invested will go to such a low number that oil becomes not sustainable. The real pipe dream is that we can run our economy on oil period. The best thing to do now is to use whatever time we have ... to use fossil fuels to build renewable energy sources. The time is now to fabricate windmills/solar panels.

And it's up to companies, customers, blue states and foreign governments to keep this trend going, since the Rust Belt has hired Drump to try to keep fossil fuels going and stop the transition. His crew believes in pollution, ignorance, wealth-grabbing and prejudice above all else.

Quote:I'm not a world citizen Eric. The USA has a chance to escape the trap of physics behind food production / energy getting messed up. Localism in food production/ renewables can work.  The transition from the current energy regime to the new energy regime takes lots of domestic focus, not saving the world stuff. I'm channeling my own inner Boomer which means , yes my own path to take the USA from fossil fuels and my path to a sustainable future.  The age of limits is all so real to myself, but I want to confine that to something that is workable. So, Eric , I want an agenda that is both idealistic, but passes the BS test. Welcome to the "cusper zone. Welcome to the Jones Zone, right?  I think that's the point of contention on a great many things.

I doubt that has anything to do with it. We are all world citizens, and that's not idealism; just the fact. Yes, we can all do our part in the energy transition. It would be so much easier if the federal government was helping, as it was under Obama. Now that won't happen for a while.

Quote:Hillery: No Eric, not hyperbole. She's not grounded in reality along with stuff that isn't workable. The same goes for all Neocons. The actions she and other Neocons just simply won't work. Interventionism is just not worth effort, OK ?

Hillary was grounded in reality. She did not send troops anywhere, nor advocated it. Rigid rules do not a foreign policy make, but in general I agree interventionism is to be avoided.

Quote:Rant?  Really, Eric. Now, think about the things you, yourself exalt. I do that also. I'm an INTP or I'm just a Joneser. I don't know which label is behind my strident pushing said agendas....  So... I think the default labor surplus should be addressed because that part of my reality is something to fix to head off that source of societal instability Government in general needs to fix this. I'm one to allow government to address anything that sustains "ensure domestic tranquility". I don't think you'd disagree with that.

Yes I agree, although unfortunately we don't have a federal government now, and you don't have a state government (and I do). The labor surplus should be addressed, but stopping illegal immigration is not the fix, since it's not the cause of said surplus.

My grandfather worked at the capitol of that state government of yours. He did good work for it, building the bridges you drive on. But now, that state government is not doing the work that needs to be done today for the future. Its attorney general has been hired by Drump to re-pollute the world.

Quote:So, do you agree that WWII was a one off and the solution does not apply now ?

Every time and place is different. But we need to learn the lessons of history. Tyrants and international outlaws arise, and world order must be maintained. The USA plays a major role in that, but should not play the only role, and a USA war is a last resort not a first one.

Quote:Muslims:  This not a catch all. Here's the deal. Not all Mideast refugees are Muslim. Here, not all refugees from the Mideast are Muslim. I have no problem with allowing folks from the Mideast are Muslim. Christians and Jews have been persecuted by say IS.  Those folks who are persecuted should be allowed to go to the front of the queue. It's a fact non Muslims are indeed persecuted along with others. Put those in front of the immigration queue. Besides they are far more able to assimilate. Obviously  those who assimilate should be allowed in from a humanitarian stand point.  As far a numbers, yes there is a limit so assimilation happens instead of saving everyone.

The most persecuted people today are the people of Syria. They are not persecuted because of their religion. As a realist/idealist and an INTP like me you can be aware of facts, beyond propaganda. Assad's and Tulsi's propaganda is dead wrong. The Syrians are fleeing genocide and political murder, and we are locking the door. NO, if we are the USA, then we have no religious test for immigration. That has been properly ruled unconstitutional. Trump's madness need not sway you; leave it behind, and cling to facts and American basic values and laws instead. You are smart enough not to be caught up in Drump's crap, even if you live in a red state.

Quote:Afghanistan:  What you wrote speaks for itself. Leave before blow-back occurs. And of course, bombing is not a way of winning friends and influencing people.

Leaving might be the right choice, but it won't happen. We are stuck there, probably as long as there is a USA. That could be at least 300 years.

[Odin]

(02-20-2017, 02:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I'm not sure that Eric and Donald Jr. and his other children demonstrate Trump's theory; maybe Ivanka does. Perhaps our local eugenics-believers like Warren Dew might shed some additional light on their theory.


Trump Has Turned the GOP Into the Party of Eugenics

The long-discredited theory is newly relevant in 2017—but maybe it's always been embedded in the Republican platform.
BY SARAH JONES
February 15, 2017
https://newrepublic.com/article/140641/t...y-eugenics

“What is meant by improvement?” Sir Francis Galton asked the Sociology Society of the University of London in 1904. At the time of his speech, Galton was already 35 years deep into a career promoting what he termed “eugenics,” the idea that the human race could improve itself through selective breeding—through propagating good traits and quarantining the bad ones. “All creatures would agree that it was better to be healthy than sick, vigorous than weak, well-fitted than ill-fitted for their part in life,” he explained. “So with men.”

Eugenics enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the most thoroughly discredited theories in scientific history. It is most closely associated with the Nazis and their obsession with racial superiority, but the Nazis did not invent it any more than they invented racism: It began in Great Britain, and swiftly spread to the United States. Beginning with Indiana in 1907, 32 states adopted laws “authorizing the sterilization of people judged to have hereditary defects,” Adam Cohen writes in his book Imbeciles. “They called for sterilizing anyone with ‘defective’ traits, such as epilepsy, criminality, alcoholism or ‘dependency,’ another word for poverty.” Americans adopted eugenics so enthusiastically that 70,000 people were sterilized under laws that eventually influenced the policies of the Third Reich.

But eugenics, though discredited, has never been abandoned. In fact, the most powerful people in America appear to enthusiastically embrace the idea that humans can be divided into inherently superior and inferior specimens and treated accordingly. “You have to be born lucky,” President Donald Trump told Oprah Winfrey in 1988, “in the sense that you have to have the right genes.” His biographer Michael D’Antonio explained to Frontline that Trump and his family subscribe “to a racehorse theory of human development. They believe that there are superior people and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get a superior offspring.”

So does Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, if the reports are to be believed. Sources told The New York Times this November that despite his devout Catholicism, Bannon “occasionally talked about the genetic superiority of some people and once mused about the desirability of limiting the vote to property owners.” Adam Serwer of The Atlantic reported in January that Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the Immigration Act of 1924 in a 2015 interview with Bannon, which could be an insight into the views of both these immigration hardliners: The act required would-be immigrants to specify whether they’d ever spent time in prison or the “almshouse,” and if their parents had ever been confined to a psychiatric hospital.

The work of Trump adviser Michael Anton also reveals a grim obsession with genetic purity. “‘Diversity’ is not ‘our strength;’ it’s a source of weakness, tension, and disunion,” he wrote in the Unz Review last year. As the Huffington Post noted at the time, the same essay claimed that the aviator Charles Lindbergh’s fascist America First Committee had been unfairly maligned. Lindbergh was a eugenicist who admired the Nazis: He once wrote that flying “is one of those priceless possessions which permit the White Race to live at all in a sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown.”

Of course, none of the people in Trump’s inner circle would describe themselves as eugenicists. They would call themselves capitalists, patriots, and Christians. And yet the Trump administration’s overt obsession with white supremacy—which the 2016 election showed to be the ugly beating heart of the conservative movement—has imbued the platform of the Republican Party with a lurid tinge, changing our understanding of its disdain not only for minorities, but for the weak, the poor, and the disabled. The GOP may loathe the term—indeed conservatives often accuse liberal abortion supporters of being the real eugenicists—but the party’s agenda in many ways channels the spirit of eugenics, even if it does not accept the theory in a literal sense.

If you think I’m exaggerating, just consider for a moment what it is like to be an American with “bad” genes. I was not born lucky, at least not as Donald Trump defines it: My brother and I have a rare genetic disease that affects our red blood cells. It isn’t terminal, but it also isn’t pleasant. It is expensive and painful, and the only thing I’ve learned from living with it is that all emergency rooms smell exactly the same. It also means that I am not sure if I should have children. It feels wrong to knowingly bequeath a disease to anyone. It feels especially wrong to do so in America, a country that still does not recognize an inalienable right to health care.

Trump’s comments are merely an open expression of a long-standing, institutionalized disdain for the poor and the sick. He helms a party at ease with the fact that American pharmaceutical companies can charge $89,000 for a life-extending muscular dystrophy drug. America charges you for childbirth, for check-ups, for cancer; it will bankrupt you over blood transfusions and ambulance rides. I had medical bills in collections before I’d even finished college, mostly due to a deductible so high that I paid to see specialists out of pocket.

Matters have recently improved. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against people with “pre-existing conditions.” But dismantling the Affordable Care Act is a top priority for this administration and for the Republicans in Congress, if they can ever get out from under a swiftly growing mountain of scandals. At the heart of the push to repeal Obamacare is the idea that dependency is a cancer on the republic and should be excised. Both parties have absorbed this idea, to different extents. The ACA is too market-dependent—too willing to put a market value on human life—to give everyone the health care they need.

But the Republican Party expresses this antipathy to dependency in vicious ways and in all avenues of public life. The GOP gets particularly vicious when dependency combines with race (eugenics and racism are toxins that have always reinforced each other anyway).

If Sir Francis Galton stood before the GOP in 2017 and asked them what they mean by improvement, they’d have ready answers. To Steve Bannon, it is a ban on Muslim refugees trying to enter this country. To Jeff Sessions, it is stricter voting laws that violate the rights of those who are most dependent on the government. To Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, it is an atrophied public school system and a weak Americans with Disabilities Act. To Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, it is “high-risk insurance pools” for sick Americans. To Vice President Mike Pence, it is legalized discrimination against LGBT people. And to Speaker Paul Ryan, it is the destruction of the welfare state.

Republicans target weakness as energetically as eugenicists did. They have embraced capitalism so fully that they will admit no flaw in it. Confronted with inequality, they tell us the problem lies, not with the system, but with the individual and his incurable deficiencies. “We don’t want a dependency culture,” Paul Ryan said in 2013. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Ryan’s “Better Way” budget would increase the wealth of America’s extreme upper class while prohibiting new funds for the Affordable Care Act and expanding work requirements for welfare recipients. The implications—that the wealthy deserve to be even wealthier, and that the poor are poor because they make bad personal choices—have been long reflected in Ryan’s personal views on the subject.

Ryan has since tried to distance himself from his old intellectual hero Ayn Rand, and from the Objectivist “makers and takers” rhetoric that made him a conservative star. He has even generously conceded that, “Most people don’t want to be dependent.” But there is no question that Ryan’s policies would exacerbate income inequality. His welfare reform proposals build on former President Bill Clinton’s Personal Accountability and Work Opportunity Act (note: the compromise with Gingrich), and we now know that deep poverty nearly doubled after Clinton’s welfare policies were implemented.

Race and poverty and disability also intersect in a way that makes the eugenics comparison unavoidable. People with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to live in poverty. Low-income students are disproportionately more likely to drop out of high school. And communities of color suffer the most. According to a new Demos study, the racial wealth gap is so durable that nothing—not Ryan’s beloved two-parent households or college degrees or full-time jobs—closes the gap between communities of color and whites. The experiences of people of color provide the clearest proof that poverty is not a symptom of entitled dependency, but of a corrupt system.

Republicans are dedicated to perpetuating that system. Thus they cut welfare for the same reason eugenicists once sterilized the poor: Poor people drain resources better spent elsewhere.

Then there’s public education ("DeVossification"). Trump and Betsy DeVos both champion the expansion of school vouchers and charter schools as a means to promote “school choice” for low-income parents. Vouchers, which enable students to use public funding for the school of their choice, are especially flawed, since they disadvantage students with disabilities. Private schools are exempt from much of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which means they can receive voucher funds while refusing to accommodate students with disabilities. Patchy application erodes the efficacy of anti-discrimination law, but that apparently doesn’t trouble DeVos. During her confirmation hearing, she told senators that it should be “up to the states” to require private schools to adhere to the ADA, and it wasn’t clear if she’d even heard of the IDEA before entering the chamber.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled that it would fund a voucher expansion by assigning $20 billion in federal funds to vouchers. According to Chalkbeat, teacher’s unions fear that money would most likely come from Title I portability, an old education reform proposal that would reallocate Title I funding from public schools. That funding is currently assigned to public schools based on how many low-income students they serve: “The damage would spread through the system, raising class sizes even in non-Title I schools, threatening academic enrichment programs, guidance, art and music and other services our children depend on,” the United Federation of Teachers asserted in a press release.

Vouchers reinforce a two-tier educational system: Public schools are for the rabble, and private schools are for the elite.
If DeVos funds a voucher expansion in this manner, without also expanding the reach of the ADA, parents of students with disabilities would be trapped in under-funded, under-equipped public school districts. And that’s a throwback to a more discriminatory age of American history. Before the ADA, the IDEA, and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, children with disabilities weren’t guaranteed access to quality public education. Instead, they were frequently confined to institutions or the home; a few attended disability-specific schools. Many were sterilized under eugenics laws.

But the needs of students with disabilities have never dissuaded school choice advocates in the Republican Party (or the Democratic Party, for that matter). The calculus of school choice explicitly excludes them because it must. It relies on the premise that private schools are superior because they are not controlled by the state. Privatization, of course, permits these schools to be more selective than their public alternatives, so vouchers reinforce a two-tier educational system: Public schools are for the rabble, and private schools are for the elite.

That approach harms all Americans, but it’s just one of two blows that Americans with disabilities can expect from Republican-controlled government. If the GOP’s planned replacement of Obamacare looks anything like Tom Price’s “Empowering Patients Act,” people with disabilities will, once again, be at the mercies of private insurance companies.

Price has supported replacing the ACA with age-adjusted tax credits, Medicaid block grants, and high-risk insurance pools for people with so-called “pre-existing” conditions. But the example of welfare reform demonstrates that states typically use block grants as an excuse to underfund aid programs, and high-risk pools have historically failed to meet the needs of Americans with serious or disabling conditions. According to one 2008 study, Kansas’s high risk pool left sick Kansans chronically underinsured, and actually increased the number of people dependent on disability payments.

If Price’s plan ever becomes federal law, he and his Republican colleagues will force Americans with disabilities back into their traditional role as an inferior class. People with disabilities will live shorter, poorer lives. We already have a real-life example of what this would look like nationally: In Texas, Medicaid cuts have already seriously harmed children with disabilities. “We have had a number of families who have had critical medication denied. We’ve had families who have had some surgical delays and have been told, sorry, you’re not in network,” a representative of Protect TX Fragile Kids told The Dallas Morning News.

Trump’s education policies will only make the situation more dire. Many children will be cut off from care, and then cut off from accessible free education, all so Republicans can say they’ve shrunk government. So long to social mobility, so long to life-saving medical care, so long to any illusion of equality: Republicans will accomplish what the eugenics movement sought to do so long ago.

And I will not be surprised when it happens. On the night of Trump’s election I did not sleep. First I thought of my brother, who only has health insurance because of the ACA. Then I stacked questions on top of hours: Should I wait four to eight years to have children? Or do I gamble? And I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t know the answer.

Trump makes obvious what I and Americans like me already understood: We are in the same vulnerable position that we have always occupied. This won’t change as long as we inhabit a world ruled by men who prioritize the free market over human lives. Their ideal society excludes us and every other group ever deemed an obstacle to prosperity. And when they come for us they will call it progress.

Sarah Jones is the social media editor at The New Republic.
@onesarahjones

How long before they go full Nazi and decide to start murdering us because we are "burdens on society"?

The Republican Party is evil, and so are every one of you who vote Republican.

[pbrower2a]

We need to cultivate ability and not damn the disabled. People struggling need help. They will appreciate the help.

[SomeGuy]

(02-21-2017, 07:43 AM)Odin Wrote: How long before they go full Nazi and decide to start murdering us because we are "burdens on society"?

The Republican Party is evil, and so are every one of you who vote Republican.

We're having trouble deciding on the right design for our armbands. 

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-21-2017, 11:43 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(02-21-2017, 07:43 AM)Odin Wrote: How long before they go full Nazi and decide to start murdering us because we are "burdens on society"?

The Republican Party is evil, and so are every one of you who vote Republican.

We're having trouble deciding on the right design for our armbands. 

Just stick with the red baseball caps.  The slogan can be changed easily enough.

[Eric the Green]

Our wonderful new wolf to guard the chicken coup of the environment we all depend on, and other horrible decisions. And Monica Crowley! Any of us who watched the McLaughlin Group remember what a creep she was. Typical that she would be considered by the Drump for his Dump.

[Eric the Green]

Commentary: Trump needs to fire Steve Bannon


Steve Bannon, chief strategist and senior counselor to President Donald Trump, sits before Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as they hold a joint press conference at the White House on Feb. 10, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

Jennifer Rubin
The Washington Post
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opini...story.html

There was some cosmic justice. After stringing along a slew of nominees for secretary of state, ultimately humiliating Mitt Romney, President Donald Trump got a dose of his own medicine. The Post reports:

"Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward has turned down President Trump's offer to become his new national security adviser, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

"Harward would have replaced Michael Flynn, who announced his resignation late Monday amid allegations that he discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian official before Trump took office and then misrepresented the content of that conversation to Vice President Pence and other administration officials.

"One factor in Harward's decision was that he couldn't get a guarantee that he could select his own staff, according to a person close to Trump with knowledge of the discussions."

No, it's not normal for a high-level pick to turn down the president — publicly.

Multiple former national security experts conjectured that the hang-up specifically was Trump's deputy national security adviser, KT McFarland, a TV commentator who has not served in government since the Reagan era. Few foreign policy professionals consider her qualified for the job.

An experienced former foreign policy official tells me: "Harward insisted on a very reasonable condition, which was naming his own deputy. Now the administration has an even deeper problem: either the next candidate will make the same demand, or he or she will appear to be weak and overly ambitious by accepting conditions Harward turned down." The official suggested: "The way out of this is to give KT McFarland a nice, sunny embassy — fast."

Harward certainly knows the struggles that Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have had hiring their own staff — neither has an announced deputy; Harward was not about to subject himself to the same micromanaging from the White House.

Former State Department official and vocal Trump critic Eliot Cohen says, "It makes it very difficult for any serious person to take the job under less reasonable conditions than Harward seems to have demanded, i.e., control of staffing." He explains, "No sane person would take this extremely important and difficult job without (a) control of staffing, and (b) eliminating or neutering Bannon's shadow NSC staff." He adds: "Without those things you're doomed not to frustration, but failure. The question will be whether Trump can bring himself to accept that, or go looking for a mediocrity — who will, in turn, help facilitate more failure."

Harward's decision reflects how far the president and this administration have fallen in the eyes of esteemed national security experts, including current and former officials. The White House is without an experienced chief of staff or normal internal decision-making procedures. Stephen Bannon got himself inserted into the National Security Council's principals meeting; Trump plans to bring on a crony, Stephen A. Feinberg, to "review" the intelligence operation. The president is in the middle of a crisis of his and Bannon's making. Trump delivered an unhinged monologue at his news conference on Thursday, which re-raises questions about his emotional and mental health.

As CNN's Jake Tapper tweeted, "Vice Admiral Harward declined the NSA job yesterday, having told a friend the WH was too chaotic and the offer a "(expletive) sandwich."

Sooner rather than later, we hope that for the country's sake, Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump (or someone else Trump will listen to) will lay it out bluntly: He can have Bannon running roughshod over the administration, or he can be a successful president; he cannot have both.

Bannon has intruded into national security matters and wound up embarrassing the president with, among other things, the failed travel ban. Bannon's pro-Soviet tilt is unacceptable to Cabinet-level hires, to both political parties and to our allies. That Bannon would not foresee this nor understand the folly of his effort to push Trump into the embrace of an aggressive foe is political malpractice of the highest order. He has managed to make half of the country think Trump is a Russian spy or up to his eyes in financial debt to Vladimir Putin.

Trump — not unlike President Bill Clinton after an ineffective first year in office — should clean house, find a heavyweight chief of staff and banish Bannon, who has no clue how to develop and implement policy, at least not any policy that withstands scrutiny. Bannon can head up Trump's political operation, or cut out the middle man and be a lobbyist for Russia.

Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

[Eric the Green]

URGENT: Trump to push TWO new executive orders to gut the Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule »


This is not a drill: Donald Trump is expected to announce TWO new executive orders targeting critical climate and water protections.

— we just got word that Donald Trump could sign two new executive orders as soon as this week to gut President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule. This is really, really bad.

The Clean Power Plan is our nation’s biggest step ever to fight climate change and transition to a clean energy economy.

The Clean Water Rule clarifies pollution protections for our drinking water. Without it, water for 1 in 3 people in this country is at risk.

These executive orders make it crystal clear that Donald Trump is putting the interests of Big Polluters over the air we breathe and water we drink.

We have a long fight ahead of us. These orders are just the start of the process to fully cripple these standards, which could take months, or years. We must prepare for the battles ahead, but resources are seriously low and we need your help.

Every single person has a right to clean air and clean water. Don’t let Trump destroy our planet without a fight.

With notorious fossil fuel shill Scott Pruitt now officially at the helm of the EPA, it’s hard to see how this news could get any worse. But we must remember, the public is on our side!

When the EPA first proposed the Clean Power Plan, LCV supporters sent in 420,000 comments to the EPA supporting the plan. And we joined over 800,000 people in calling for drinking water protections under the Clean Water Rule. We know that our planet cannot afford any delays in fighting climate change, and that every single person, regardless of race, age, or income, deserves access to clean, safe water.

These executive orders are just the start of sweeping attacks designed to drastically diminish the EPA and the work they can do to protect our health and the environment. It is up to us to be the resistance — it is up to us to secure a better planet for future generations.

We will keep fighting Trump, his cabinet, and extreme Republicans in Congress who try to roll back vital environmental protections every single day, but we can only do it with your help.

Thank you,

Gene
Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters