Trump's Cabinet Picks

Aside from the ones who were FOX News employees there are a couple of Wall St. barracudas. Instead of draining the swamp "The Donald" is filling it with vipers.

Trump Taps Billionaire Who Owned Deadly Coal Mine As Commerce Secretary | The Huffington Post

Wilbur Ross profile - Business Insider

Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin—Profiteers of the Great Foreclosure Machine—Go to Washington

nunchin nunchin Politics Trump's New Treasury Head Made A Fortune Expelling Seniors & The Poor From Their Homes 32

But hey, "what have you got to lose"?

Holding Trump to His Word

Now that some Republicans have accepted Trump's policy ideas it's time to put them to a test. If they truly believe that too many American companies taking jobs overseas is bad, then the Democrats should immediately put a bill on the floor of the House and Senate which will remove the tax deduction/provision which enables companies to keep offshore profits untaxed. Then we will see what the Right believes.

Wealth Inequality in America, Circa 2016

.1 percent of us have the same wealth as 90 percent of us have. This seems perverse. A lot of the people who are suffering, both Democrats and Republicans say something has to change. They can hardly survive. Where have the jobs gone? Why haven't they received any pay increase since the 1970s? Why do they have to work 2 or 3 jobs, some part-time, to make ends meet? The answer may be found in the following graph.

Share of US household wealth by income level - Business Insider

Hate and Leadership

We don't need to be inspiring one another to hate, even if that leaves us at a disadvantage against political opponents who do engender hate. When Donald Trump says he doesn't think about Alt-Right and doesn't know why they support him and doesn't believe Steve Bannon is racist, he's showing very clearly why he isn't the ideal person to be president.

Sheriff David Clarke: If You're Upset At Being Called 'Boy' You're Hypersensitve

California teacher's lesson plan on equality: 'If you hang one black person, hang them all'

Hate-filled old man murders unarmed 15 year old black teen in Charleston WV.

5th grader brings gun to school to kill Muslim 3rd grader. Please don't act surprised.

These are stories I don't think I would have read if Donald Trump had made an effort to keep hate out of his campaign. He could have avoided hiring Steve Bannon, but he didn't.

We've already gone through a turbulent time discussing and observing the relationship of police to the African-American communities in various cities across the country. Now, we have the KKK endorsing Trump.


Just a reminder about who the public supports the most:

Hillary Clinton currently leads in the popular vote by about 2 million votes, but she did not win the electoral college. Our Democratic processes seem to be failing us.

Swing State Politics -- Why They Voted for Trump or Against Hillary

I was watching Meet the Press this morning and they did a section on the voters of the upper Mid-West states. Why did they vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and yet also voted for Donald Trump in 2016? I wish they had shown more interviews. It was interesting to hear those folks and what was on their mind. It appears there were many things they considered, mostly the same issues everyone in the country considered. There was Hillary's criminality, Trump's business experience, racism, misogyny, and bigotry, and probably some other things the t.v. spot didn't reveal. It mostly came down to the fact they were still out of work and they didn't feel Hillary Clinton was the president who would improve their lives. Chuck Todd also made the point that during the Democratic primaries these same districts voted for Bernie Sanders. How you go from voting for Sanders to voting for Trump says as much about their feelings toward Hillary Clinton as it does about their feelings for Donald Trump.

It appears the biggest piece of luggage Hillary was dragging around was the NAFTA treaty her husband Bill Clinton signed into law long ago. She didn't sign it, but she got the blame. If many of these folks believed she was a criminal, then we would have to ask them if the Comey letters played a part in a last minute decision to vote for Trump.

That, in a nutshell, seems to sum up the election: lies, misunderstandings, and people who believe these things because they are desperate.

I suppose we could argue that the Republicans last left the economy in a shambles and the Democrats salvaged it, creating millions of jobs. I suppose we could show them how Hillary's e-mail problems were simply not criminal. I suppose we could show them the NAFTA treaty was a culmination of Republican treaties and policies begun under Reagan and that Bill Clinton only signed the law because the Republicans would have passed it over his veto anyway. None of those things would have been believed or of any value to those voters.

The desperation of these people who have lost their unions, their jobs, their businesses, and their lifestyles, has left them desperate. Desperation is irrational and yet real. It shapes our thinking in ways another person who isn't desperate can't understand. It can't be argued with on a rational basis. Worse yet for politicians, sometimes the desperate person is absolutely correct. Yes, we could tell them that when their parents voted for Ronald Reagan their fate was sealed. But, that vote isn't on them, is it?

What did the Democrats do wrong? Was it that we didn't take Mitch McConnell out back and shoot him to break the Republican filibuster? Was it that we told gays it was alright to marry? Was it that we kept American soldiers out of war and harms way and that left them back home unemployed and stewing. Maybe we should have been crazy like the Republicans and sent them to war so their family could at least be proud they died in war.

Sarcasm aside, it's really hard to blame Democrats for anything except perhaps not having the absolutely perfect candidate for that region of the country. We seem to get that a lot. If only we had better candidates. Then again, maybe if we had voters who would have given Democrats the House of Representatives, so we could actually implement all our plans, then the economy might have grown faster and employed more people. Again, with filibustering we weren't going to achieve that.

In the end, I blame the Republicans.

What can we do now? Continue to uphold the Constitution and our values, continue to offer great plans to make America an even better place, find good candidates, avoid circular firing squads and focus on helping people and fighting the Republicans. These aren't new ideas and the devil is in the details of how we do these things. But, we're smart. We can do this. And, perhaps now, more than at any other recent time, we're motivated to fight and not take the crap the Republicans usually dish out to us and America.

I'll also take the advice of my political leaders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: keep an open mind and give Trump a chance. Being negative because just we're upset isn't the best way forward.

Potential Daesh/ISIL/ISIS Backlash

I've been wondering what form a backlash from Daesh might take after our (Iraq, US, et al) recent assault on Mosul. Clearly they like the idea of the terrorist attack against innocent non-combatants because they can't win except against unarmed vulnerable civilians.

I suspect they've been plotting for some time, perhaps over a year, to pull off an attack bigger than the ones we've already seen. The weaker target in Paris isn't available, so they will be looking at the United States or maybe the U.K. or Germany. Since Pres. Obama has made it an American priority to destroy them, they will probably attack America and perhaps Pres. Obama in particular. They aren't bright enough to realize we are not so dependent on one person so that our assault on them would continue in any event. We won't stop until they're destroyed and their supposed ideology with them. It's not Islam, just sick psychopathic violence.

Let's say for arguments sake that they have people here in America already. Our national security team might know if that's true. I don't. But, it's pretty certain they could have people in Europe and the last leap to America isn't the easiest. But, let's say they're here. What resources would they have? What manpower, transportation, safe houses, money, weaponry, explosives would they have? Where could they keep these things? I think they would be distributed to avoid attention. That means they have to have quite a few people and communications for coordination. That's something which might be spotted.

Assume the worst: that they have all they need to do a lot of damage. What would their target be? I don't think they would target New York City, as al Qaeda did. That's been done and now they're worried about Washington. I think they would likely target the White House, some public event, perhaps an inaugural event or earlier. How could they get through security? As usual they would pick the soft target and easiest safest routes. So, before inauguration day they might find a place and path to it which is relatively safe. These aren't people looking to survive, so an exit path isn't something they (the weaponized persons) need. Frankly, Washington would seem to be a pretty easy target in general. But, how about events with lots of people? How soft are those targets? I suppose it depends a lot on whether federal officials are there or just lots of civilians.

How would we identify the threat and block it? A lot depends upon what kind of attack they use. Stopping a sniper is a lot different than stopping a truck bomb. I think our security people are expert at this kind of thing if they know where and what and when they're going to face a threat.

There's the overview. The devil is in the details and whether our security people (from a cop on the beat to the president) can find enough information and put it together to know what the target could be, when an attack might occur, and where; then create a plan to stop the attack and kill the attackers. It's a lot to expect, but work like this has to be done for us to stay safe.

Americans Want America to be a Better Place

It's common for people to be amazed when a new technological achievement is made. I remember reading about a kind of glass Corning made in the 1960s and they didn't find a good use for it until the smart phone revolution of the 2000s. Now it's common. I often read about great improvements in the computing world which are astounding. Tesla's latest improvements in battery storage is fantastic. You would think America is just brimming with ideas to improve things, but only the smart people have these ideas.

Not so. Americans of all stripes have great ideas.

I read a lot of blogs and listen to television and sometimes radio and I hear great ideas all the time. Sometimes they are couched in terms of a problem which exists, but which could easily be fixed -- but it's an idea to improve America.

So, the question which has to be asked is, "why don't all these great things get done?" The answer lies in the way we organize our society and how ideas "move up the food chain" or "are ignored".

Take for example the question of whether there is massive voter fraud. Are people voting in more than one location/city/state/etc.? The Republicans have a project to prevent that by comparing names of voters in several states (about 30 I think) to see if the same name appears in several locations. This sounds like a great idea except that they are only comparing the most common first and last names. The most common names these days belong to African-Americans, Latinos (is Latino-American a phrase?), and Asian-Americans and they vote in high percentages for Democrats. Thus, by finding matches the Republicans are almost singling-out Democratic voters for elimination from the voter rolls. Bad idea. Furthermore, they only look at the first and last names which means Juan Samuel Lopez and Juan Francis Lopez are wiped off the rolls for having the 'same name', even though they aren't the same person. A good idea gone wrong.

Back to the drawing board. Now the Republican plan is clearly inadequate and has to be stopped. But, what would be an adequate way to prevent voter fraud? We can only find good solutions to problems like that by discussing it and letting more people offer suggestions. When the only solution is clearly partisan and intended to eliminate voters from the other party it is just wrong.

OTOH, letting healthcare insurance companies sell insurance anywhere in America if it is regulated by the federal government is probably a very good idea.