December 31, 2016

Keep your eyes on BOTH Congress and Trump

...don't be lulled into believing he's just some clown. Whatever he is, he's going to be in control of one of the most powerful offices in the world.

What I would say to those who are dismissing the importance of paying attention to the raving lunatic, is that we are challenged to respond forcefully to both Congress and the presidency. However, the Executive's potential to employ a Bush-era disregard for the Constitution, the law, or the will of the people, with impunity, is the biggest danger we face.

Think of all of our major military engagements initiated by the POTUS and rubberstamped by Congress, afterward. IMO, that power to war is one of the most dangerous prospects, recalling, as if it were yesterday, how consequential Bush as president turned out to be after 911, and how his decisions in office transformed the nation.

In addition, the President has control and responsibility over immigration, environmental concerns, health, finances... all of which he can exercise and enact almost unilaterally, to a degree which affects the nation.

Trump can also be easily manipulated in the exercise of that Executive power. That terrifies and concerns me more than the deliberations of Congress, which, quite frankly, at least affords our party a voice, albeit a less influential one in the minority.

December 21, 2016

Lots of talk about the ethical and legal violations w/Trump finances, less about propriety

Most Americans couldn't fathom throwing money around like the Trumps, much less flaunt it the way that family does. There's going to be a point where even their most delusional supporters, imagining that Trump is going to make them wealthy, as well, are no longer going to be able to stomach the garishness of the first family, as working-class folks struggle to provide for their basic needs.

I was thinking about this as I read where the Trump sons who make sport out of killing threatened animals, were offering a chance for some average Joe or Jill to accompany them on a hunt, for a mere $500,000 to $1 million.

___Donors willing to write a check for $500,000 to $1 million would be granted access to Donald J. Trump the day after he is sworn in as president, along with the opportunity to participate in a multiday hunting or fishing trip with his oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.

Once this got out the sons backed off from the hunting trip, but the event is still scheduled, no doubt finding more than a few donors willing to pay and play.

Trump and his family can dodge accountability under the law. When they get caught, they just pay their relatively paltry fines and move on. Yet, most Americans can't begin to operate their financial affairs with the impunity the Trumps enjoy.

Most of our elected officials are wealthy. If they're not when they get to Washington, they soon will be, if they learn how to network their influence out into the corporate world.

Harry Truman was quoted saying: "You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook." Great deal of truth there.

In his 1960 book, Mr. Citizen, Mr. Truman reflected on his refusal to accept the numerous corporate offers, even though he famously struggled to maintain his income when he left the presidency:

"I turned down all of those offers. I knew that they were not interested in hiring Harry Truman, the person, but what they wanted to hire was the former President of the United States. I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and the dignity of the office of the Presidency."

Trump comes into office spinning off of a lifetime of privilege with virtually no substantial effort made which most Americans would understand as charitable or altruistic. Trump has no civic experience; no local government involvement; no political internships; and operates a 'charity' foundation which looks and functions like his personal slush fund.

It shouldn't surprise anyone to find this is the way he'll operate as president. He'll lead with his self-interest, all the while, insisting what's best for him is what's best for the rest of us, as he has throughout the campaign. He has zero experience in governance, but that's not his goal. He's coming to the WH to consolidate every measure or expenditure contributing to the public good he can manage, and squeeze and funnel whatever resources he can find into his golden chalice, with a miserly pittance devoted to measures benefiting the majority of us.

...and I go back to Harry Truman (1945), for contrast:

"The people will not go back to the day when their destinies were controlled by tight little groups of selfish men who made their policies in secret and exercised economic control over millions of people," he said.

Jesus, Harry, look at us now. I'm waiting for the country to get to the point of anger and resentment over these elitist grifters feathering their privileged nests with our taxes (which Trump boasts of avoiding), and assumedly, every other decision he makes in office, while most of us scramble to pay our basic bills.

December 10, 2016

Russia's Man at State

Kurt Eichenwald ?@kurteichenwald 15h15 hours ago
If Trump wants 2 end suspicions he's 2 close 2 Russia, shuld stop considering ppl 4 office who pose in Putin selfies http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/12/06/russia-ties-complicate-exxon-ceo-rex-tillersons-prospects-trump-secretary-state-gig

Russia ties complicate Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson's prospects for secretary of state gig

As head of Exxon Mobil, the world's 8th largest company, Tillerson has plenty of negotiating experience and face time with world leaders -- though limited experience when it comes to the gamut of issues the nation's chief diplomat deals with.

He's under pressure for ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, especially given questions about the president-elect's outspoken admiration for the Russian strongman.

Few Americans are closer with Putin than Tillerson, who has long represented Exxon's interests in Russia.

"He has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger," John Hamre, a deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration and president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where Tillerson is a board member, told the Wall St. Journal.

In 2011 Exxon beat out BP and other competitors in a historic deal giving it access to Arctic and other deposits in Russia, while allowing state-owned Rosneft its first-ever access to energy projects in the United States. The next year, "the Kremlin bestowed the country's Order of Friendship decoration" on Tillerson, the Journal reported.

read: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/12/06/russia-ties-complicate-exxon-ceo-rex-tillersons-prospects-trump-secretary-state-gig

Kurt Eichenwald ?@kurteichenwald 15h15 hours ago
Romney or Huntsman would skate into confirm as Sec State. Tillerson less qualified & would be an endless battle. Would Trump really do this?

*update*

Mark Murray ?@mmurraypolitics 6m6 minutes ago
@mitchellreports reports that Trump has chosen Exxon-Mobil's Rex Tillerson to be his Sec of State.

December 1, 2016

Who's Looking Out for the Least Fortunate of Us in the Trump Presidency?

You know what's f'd up?

Every time Pres. Obama won an election, there was an endless drumbeat of concern that he was going to ignore the millions who voted against him. Not that the president ever intended to tune out his republican opponents. He practically bent over backward to include them in his policy deliberations, and in the policies, themselves.

We all know that Trump will treat those who didn't vote for him like traitors who deserve some kind of vengeance. It's his style to retaliate, and retaliate he most certainly will.

This isn't the first time I've wondered about when the time will come for someone to take my own interests, progressive Democratic interests, into account. It seems like every election cycle, no matter the outcome, there's always a push to accommodate conservative voters like it was heresy to disregard them. Indeed, this very election produced calls from Democratic and republican quarters to focus even more on whatever concerns white working-class voters may have, even though it appears the Trump WH will do little else.

I'm still waiting for an election cycle's end where the consensus was that we need to seriously address the needs and concerns of groups of Americans who have consistently done worse in our economy - namely, black and Latino Americans, respectively. They are our party's most dependable voters, yet there's always a push to look beyond and above them when the appropriations start. We never get around to their communities; never get around to issues which disproportionately affect them. Instead, they're scapegoated as obstacles to whatever politicians expect for the majority.

Almost every president elected has pledged to be the leader of ALL of our citizens, but Trump will only recognize those who kowtow to him. What these communities will actually provide us with is a true yardstick to measure whether Trump is president of all Americans, or merely for a select few, like the thousand fortunate Carrier workers who just got the better end of the bribe he and Pence gave to the company.

Others who have regularly been left out of consideration at policy time, like women, disabled individuals, and members of the LGBTQ community, are also benchmarks for the Trump presidency in translating his and his supporters' victory into success for the rest of the country. As those of us with the most acute needs which have gone unaddressed and unsolved over the decades go, so goes the nation.

November 30, 2016

There's a bit of culture shock looking at the relative impunity Trump is enjoying

...rules and norms Democrats have been held to at risk of their careers or livelihoods if they strayed a millimeter are being brushed aside at lightning speed for Donald Trump.

That shouldn't surprise anyone here, but it's still stunning how much bashing Democrats have taken on over the years for even suggestions of impropriety, or, been subject to endless hearings and investigations for unsubstantiated claims about conflicts of interest or influence-peddling.

Contrast that against the imminent inauguration of a billionaire with hundreds of business interests all over the globe, assuming control of the Executive Branch. Trump claims today that he'll remove himself from these business interests, but without a strict blind trust, that is just going to be another one of his brazen lies. If he's going ahead with his plan to put his children in charge of his assets, that's an even deeper deception.

I've heard something at least twice on the news today which is disturbing. The suggestion was made - once as a reflection of Trump's thinking, the other as an outright assertion - that since the voting public ALREADY KNEW of Trump's potential conflicts when they elected him, questions of impropriety rest on their judgment (a minority of total voters), as if ethics and adherence to our nation's laws is only accountable to a national lottery.

Who missed the wall-to-wall coverage of Hillary's emails? Almost all of the prominent discussion of Trump's financial conflicts came up AFTER the election. Now the press is reporting one Trump outrage after the other with the routine of a weather report, as if he's some kind of inviolable monarch.

These are strange and dangerous times. The reason there's so much uncertainty as to whether a Trump presidency will be held accountable is all about the republican majority in Congress and their demonstrated indifference and hypocrisy where their own misconduct and criminality is concerned.

Most of the media has already accepted as a given that Trump won't be subject to the same standard of judgment from republicans that Pres. Obama or Hillary Clinton have endured, and, having relied for decades on republican faux-outrage against Democrats to dominate their political coverage, don't seem to be able to find any moral center of their own where Trump is concerned.

I'm not a pessimist. I wake up every day looking and expecting to make a positive difference. I believe in our democracy, and I believe in our democratic system of government. There is a point, however, where those institutions can turn so dramatically and so destructively against our lives and interests that our government becomes a real and present danger. I think that's where we're heading.

Many in the public and press living in autocracies like the one Trump is deliberately developing our nation's government into, either revolt against them, or gradually settle into accepting whatever they can get out of the corrupt regimes that accommodates their interests or needs. Witness the press today, reduced to responding to tweets instead of demanding full access, full press availability, instead of merely advancing pronouncements from our future president as legitimate political discourse.

Witness the instant impotency of the press when confronting a future White House that doesn't give a shit what they think or say. Hell, if you can't hold the President of the United States accountable... witness.

November 24, 2016

Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey

I'M staying home this Thanksgiving and our two adult boys have only to travel the stairway upstairs to eat a decent meal and grace my wife and I with their interminable charm and wit. It's nice to not have to gussy-up and head out to the in-laws' house. Anyway, we're the elders now, all of our parents long passed on.

I'm going to have football on (my favorite sleep aid), and a rare Thanksgiving night off from work... Who can ask for anything more?

____I haven't always shunned traveling to see relatives on the holidays. Nowadays there's just us 'kids' to gather together, since all of the old ones are gone. There's also a sibling from each side of our family missing from the table, as well, so getting together for holidays these days is less ordered and optional. Still, there was a time when traveling to see the in-laws for the holidays was a pretty big deal.

Bad blood between my parents and their brothers and sisters always prevented my sister and I from traveling with more than one of them when they journeyed back to their hometowns. Mom would usually take Maria and I by train, to Charleston, W.Va., to see our grandfather. Dad would drive us to Reading, Pa. to visit his family.

Union Station in D.C. was mom's territory. We'd usually arrive on the run, with the baggage porter following fast behind with our luggage. We'd hit the darkened train platform with the steam blasting across our path and the most polite men I've ever encountered would give us a hand up onto the train with improbably spotless white gloves (sometimes just as the train was starting to pull out of the station). We'd pull the sliding door between the train open and settle back into the mohair-covered seats with the paper-covered headrests and watch out the window as the city shrank out of sight.

The long journey compelled me to memorize every contour of the yellowing plastic controls on the handle of the seats, and to balance the weight of the molded metal footrests that I raised and lowered incessantly (to my mother's practiced consternation), and let drop with a thunk that repeatedly rattled the seat's occupant.

As I type this, I'm looking at one of the little hand games that she'd pull out of her purse to keep us distracted that she saved over the years. It's one of those little plastic board puzzles with sliding letters that you had to unscramble with the benefit of only one open space. I've also got one with the Addams Family on it, and there were ones with ball-bearings and holes like a miniature pinball machine.

In-between fiddling and snacking on the saltines and mints she'd pocketed from the many restaurants we'd frequented, I'd steal a little freedom from my schoolteacher mom and make a couple of adventurous trips through the doors separating the trains to the restroom. It was a rather chaotic arrangement where the trains were coupled in those days, often with little more than a chain or bar keeping you from falling out the sides between the cars. Later, there would be a more elaborate barrier, but the effect was still the same rush of danger as you could see the tracks whizzing by underneath the shifting metal plates on the floor. I can remember sticking my little head outside of one of the windows to recklessly gauge the violent wind as the train sped along.

When we would go through a tunnel, Mom would have us holler
'OhiOOOOOOO' until we came out the other end -- trying as hard as we were able to do it on one breath. She soon regretted teaching us that, tho...

When we'd arrive at the station in Charleston, Granddad would be waiting with his huge Oldsmobile that smelled like the cigars, pipes, and Pall Malls he smoked constantly.

The rest of the trip was a memorable string of visits to relatives, capped off by an extraordinary meal at my cousin Gussy's who would cook greens in ham fat until they literally melted in your mouth. She had two trees in her front yard that were painted white halfway up the trunk and tiny red bugs crawled up and down. There was an active railroad track a few feet from her back door where we'd put pennies on the rail for the passing trains to flatten.

Life on Thanksgiving was ancient and slow in Charleston; as slow as the snails we poured salt on in front of Gussy's house; as deliberate as my Uncle Moore who would be watching the football game on television with unbreakable concentration... unmovable, except for that one day I fell onto the hard ground from one of the trees out front with a branch in my hand and he ran outside thinking I might be dead.

There was a lady living in town we'd visit who had been stuck in bed for years (I never saw her get up) who was always in her nightgown and robe. Mom said she tried to get up one morning and found she couldn't walk. She was a kind woman with several pictures of Jesus on the wall, and there was a kind, dedicated soul who took care of her who had a huge goiter on her neck. The bedridden lady always gave my sister and I some change before we set off again for countless more visits.

We'd repeat the tradition (and glut) of Thanksgiving dinner on a couple more visits, well into the evening, with several other folks in Charleston who had grown up with mom. Then we'd take another long train journey home.

I remember the dining car and the linens... very formal, but I remember Mom getting something off-menu for us kids from the man behind the bar. We rarely had a compartment, but it was definitely better for sleeping than the seats. Thankfully, they would turn the lights down low past a certain point in the night, and the steward would offer us a railroad wool blanket and a little pillow so we could sleep as best we could in those rough seats...


Travel on the holidays with Dad was a decidedly less formal affair. There weren't any of the social rules or the prim and proper trappings that Mom insisted on maintaining while in her company. The three of us would pile into one of his Impalas (later, Caprices) and hit the turnpike. There would be rest stops and a 'Stuckey's' along the way with string licorice, frosted funnel cakes, and giant lollipops to make our little exodus more enjoyable.

We'd sing every song we knew on the AM dial out loud, the three of us. Roger Miller would come on dozen or more times and we'd belt out every line of 'King of the Road'. I think it was Doris Day who would come on with 'You Are My Sunshine', and Sinatra would sing 'Sentimental Journey' as we sang along. We were the best of friends in that car, away from the strict eye and tongue of my well-meaning mother.

Even my Dad would abandon his suits for the trip and opt for his Army fatigues and sweatshirt (he'd change out of his work suit and tie everyday and put on another to go shopping). He was the only one of nine kids to make it out of that town, so, the buttoned-down bureaucrat look just wouldn't cut it in the town he said was famous for 'pretzels, prostitutes, and beer...' We'd eat at Grandma's house and Granddad would even be welcomed back for dinner.

Grandma was a striking Indian woman with long tan-white hair. She had a voice like angels purring, but she was a powerful woman who raised her nine children on 'relief' after Granddad fled with them to Reading from Black Mountain, N.C., after some trouble with the sheriff down there. He kept the kids out of school until the state agreed to provide clothes for them, and about half of the nine kids ended up integrating the Quaker school nearby. Later in life, Granddad could be found every day outside of the factory gates at noon and at quitting time watching the women go by.

All of their kids but two would show up for Thanksgiving (one died young from a stabbing, the other died young due to another misfortune of their rough life). One uncle would have to sneak in after dark, as the sheriff would always lay in wait to try and arrest him on holidays and other occasions (especially at the funerals), for neglecting the several children he had here and there around town.

We'd eat a magnificent meal cooked in the tiny kitchen hanging off the back of the house, prepared in iron skillets and served on ancient porcelain dinnerware on the pastel blue-washed, oak table with highback, wooden chairs. Granddad, dressed in his purple suit, yellow shirt, and green shoes, would say grace...

I own all of these holiday memories from my childhood now, as all of the members of the immediate family I grew up with have passed on. I can only remember the good and the bad times with equal nostalgia. I am the only one left who can recall the sights, smells, and flavor of that past. It's all become part of a wonderful stew of memories to measure my own family's holiday experiences against. Holiday travel; always a sentimental journey...


Gonna take a sentimental journey
Gonna set my heart at ease
Gonna make a sentimental journey
To renew old memories

Got my bag, I got my reservation
Spent each dime I could afford
Like a child in wild anticipation
Long to hear that: "All aboard!"

Seven, that's the time we leave at - seven
I'll be waiting up for heaven
Counting every mile of railroad track - that takes me back

Never thought my heart could be so yearning
Why did I decide to roam?
Gotta take this sentimental journey
Sentimental journey home

November 16, 2016

Worrying Over Economic Winners

Out of all the people to worry over after the Trump-bomb hit last Tuesday, some folks are wringing their hands over the plight of the 'white working-class,' and what the Democratic party might have done to woo them away from voting for a man who makes David Duke blush.

Even one of our own party's candidates in this election couldn't resist sending out sweet-nothings of regret to the wwc into the miasmic air of the 2016 postmortem.

Without a tinge of self-consciousness that he's not actually a true member of the Democratic party, Bernie Sanders, nonetheless, anguished openly this week about what he claims is the inability of Democrats to "talk to white working-class."

Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders
I come from the white working class, and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from. 10:55 AM - 14 Nov 2016

In an interview on 'CBS This Morning' Sanders insisted that Hillary "...should have won the election by 10 percentage points. The question is why is it that millions of white working class people who voted for Obama turned their backs on the Democratic Party?”

The first answer to that question is that, obviously, Trump was a different candidate than Romney and McCain. He had a lurid and prevaricating campaign appeal which would have been an anathema to his republican predecessors. I'm not talking about the types of campaign rhetoric that came from Sanders during the primary that Hillary's 'Wall Street connections' meant that she couldn't or wouldn't represent the working class. Whatever the truth is about Hillary and that nebulous campaign meme, 'Wall Street connections' couldn't be all that important to anyone who voted for this ruthless capitalist who's demonstrated nothing but antipathy to the people who've worked for him over the entirety of his privileged life.

Trump appealed to the insecurity of some white Americans who have been convinced their share of the nation's economic benefits are being unfairly threatened by blacks, immigrants, and anyone else who dare assert their rightful role in our country's economy. The often-bigoted, demagogue left no dog-whistle behind as he promised to restore these psychologically-displaced souls to their assumed place of prominence in society.

Of course, Hillary Clinton ran a different campaign than Sanders or Trump, but she also ran a markedly different one than Barack Obama. Hillary certainly did reach out to the working-class in her campaign. While white working-class voters may well have questioned her embrace of the Obama economic record, Hillary also enmeshed her own economic proposals with a pragmatic, yet populist appeal which echoed the progressive bent of the rival Sanders and O'Malley campaigns.

In an August address in Warren, Michigan Hillary outlined her economic plan and views:

"...there are common-sense things that your government could do that would give Americans more opportunities to succeed," she said. "Why don’t we do it? Because powerful special interests and the tendency to put ideology ahead of political progress have led to gridlock in Congress."

"How can you not be frustrated, and even angry, when you see nothing getting done? And a lot of people feel no one is on their side and no one has their back and that is not how it’s supposed to be in America. If I am fortunate enough to be your President, I will have your back every single day that I serve. My mission in the White House will be to make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top."

"This is personal for me. I am the product of the American middle class, I was born in Chicago, I was raised in a suburb. But my grandfather worked at the Scranton lace mill in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for 50 years. And because he worked hard, my Dad was able to go to college, and eventually start his own small business – and then send me out into the world to follow my dreams."

"No matter how far those dreams have taken me, I have always remembered, I’m the daughter of a small-business owner and the granddaughter of a factory worker — and proud of both."

"So here’s what I want. I want every American family to be able to tell the same story. If you work hard, you do your part, you should be able to give your children all the opportunities they deserve. That is the basic bargain of America."

As solid and compelling as that appeal may have been, candidate Clinton went even further. Hillary took a leap ahead of her opponents (and history) and offered a full and unapologetic voice to the needs and concerns of the black community. Most notably, in a historic speech in Harlem, the first for any presidential candidate, Hillary directly challenged the white community to accept that a majority of black lives and livelihoods have consistently lagged far behind white American's opportunities, successes, and well-being, and that white economic gains had often come at the expense of their black counterparts.

"We face a complex set of economic, social, and political challenges," Hillary spoke. "They are intersectional, they are reinforcing, and we have got to take them all on. So it’s not enough for your economic plan to be break up the banks. You also need a serious plan to create jobs, especially in places where unemployment remains stubbornly high. You need a plan to address the generations of underinvestment and neglect."

"Now even if we succeed on raising taxes on every millionaire and billionaire in America, and believe me, I do intend to succeed at that, we still need to face the painful reality that African Americans are nearly three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage. Something’s wrong when the median wealth for black families is just a tiny fraction of the median wealth of white families. And when gun violence is by far the leading cause of death for young African American men, outstripping the next nine causes of death combined, there is something deeply wrong..."

"We have to begin by facing up to the reality of systemic racism. Because these are not only problems of economic inequality. These are problems of racial inequality. And we have got to say that loudly and clearly..."

If there was one message the white working-class got from Hillary in this campaign, it almost certainly was that black lives were going to matter in her presidency. Hillary challenged white Americans to acknowledge their economic successes and take heed of those who have been left behind in the recovering economy. More importantly, Hillary insisted that white Americans should recognize and appreciate the role race plays in the failure of the black community to fully benefit from the economic recovery.

"For many white Americans," Hillary said, "it’s tempting to believe that bigotry is largely behind us. That would leave us with a lot less work, wouldn’t it? But more than half a century after Rosa Parks sat and Dr. King marched and John Lewis bled, race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind."

That seemingly obvious reasoning should be commonplace in our political debate, but these truths have been overlooked throughout our nation's history. Black economic gains have always lagged behind those of white Americans, certainly not just during the Obama administration. In the present economy, blacks have experienced the slowest economic recovery of any group of Americans.

from 2015, Phillip Bump at WaPo:

"Since the government started tracking unemployment data by race, the unemployment rate for black Americans has never been lower than that of white Americans. In fact, it has never been less than 66 percent higher -- i.e. it's never been close. In the newest jobs report, blacks are the only demographic group besides teenagers with an unemployment rate over 10 percent."

...the high point in unemployment for black Americans didn't hit until March of 2010, at 16.8 percent. This means this demographic group has had less time to recover from that high. If we shift all of the groups to the same starting point (peak unemployment), you can see that black unemployment is still dropping more slowly relative to the peak, but less dramatically different. In other words, the trajectory is similar; it's just happening a bit later.

In 2014, a Pew Research Center report found that only whites had seen their wealth rise during the Obama economic recovery:

"White households' median wealth ticked up to $141,900 in 2013, up 2.4% from three years earlier... Net worth for black households dropped by a third during that time to $11,000. Hispanic families experienced a 14% decline in wealth to $13,700.

Whites have 13 times the net worth of blacks, the largest wealth gap that's existed since George H.W. Bush was president in 1989. The ratio of net worth between whites and Hispanics now stands at more than 10, the widest it has been since 2001."

There's no question that the Obama recovery has not been as robust as those of his predecessors. Both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, respectively, saw far more dramatic economic gains than Obama has managed, his peers' admittedly experiencing much less severe recessions than he had to overcome.

Arguably, black Americans are deserving of the most attention when considering the effects of 'economic anxiety' over the pace of recovery, but some politicians and others have reverted at the end of this election to handwringing over the economic condition of folks who have, overall, reaped the lion-share of any vestiges of recovery from the record lows that marked the Bush recession. It's not hard to imagine whose needs, interests, and concerns will struggle to take precedence in the next economic debate.

I understand the need of politicians to pander to the people they wish would vote for them. That's mostly what's happening with the focus of politician's concerns, perversely, falling on those folks whose financial gains make up almost all of whatever can be regarded as Pres. Obama's economic success story.

But it should be remembered, with admiration and regard, that our Democratic nominee for president in 2016 put those whose lives have actually been hardest hit by our economy at the very forefront of her campaign.

November 7, 2016

Hillary Greets Manchester Rally Overflow

Jennifer Epstein ?@jeneps 3m3 minutes ago
Manchester overflow

November 3, 2016

Hillary congratulates Cubs on World Series victory (watches/celebrates end of game after rally)

Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton
They did it! 108 years later and the drought is finally over. Way to make history, @Cubs. #FlyTheW -H


https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/794048612401614848


Andrew Harnik ?@andyharnik 6h6 hours ago
@hillaryclinton reacts as the @Cubs win the World Series after her final campaign rally of the day at Arizona State University




Ruby Cramer ?@rubycramer 6h6 hours ago
Hillary, after her rally tonight in Tempe, Ariz., flying the W with trip director (/diehard Cubbie) @muconn! Photos by the great @andyharnik






Liz Kreutz ?@ABCLiz 7h7 hours ago
Hillary Clinton's reaction when the Cubs won the World Series. (Photo by @andyharnik)

October 25, 2016

Trump's Doral Stunt

The images and footage of workers at Trump's Doral hotel/golf course tops the most despicable stunts of his in this election.

I have no way of knowing if the praise Trump directly elicited from the workers who spoke in that press appearance was genuine and not coerced, but that's the thing. There's an automatic question of coercion; a question of whether these folks working for Trump outside of his campaign feel their jobs may be at risk if they refuse to participate in his praisefest.

Ali Vitali @alivitali
"This guy better say good or I'll say: you're fired," Trump says as employee takes him up on offer to speak. He speaks glowingly of Trump.

The entire thing has a Dickensian creep to it, not to mention the cheesy, Trumpworld backdrop. Is this a presidential campaign or an infomercial?

This was about promoting Trump enterprises, shoring up his brand, hoping to insulate his family business from the toxicity of his campaign by making it look like he's all inclusive. What I see are minority workers in a subservient role being exploited by their megalomaniac boss, using his presidential campaign to generate and attract business to his personal enterprises.


...Brad makes a good point here:

Bradd Jaffy ?@BraddJaffy 53m53 minutes ago
This answer = particularly revealing—considering Trump summoned the media to Trump Doral this am—2 wks till Elex Day http://nyti.ms/2eBssHN




Bradd Jaffy @BraddJaffy 3h3 hours ago
Tues: 'Trump Doral' FL golf resort event

Wed: 'Trump Int'l Hotel' DC event

2 weeks till election — GOP nominee is promoting his properties


Bradd Jaffy ?@BraddJaffy 45m45 minutes ago
Today's (Wed.) DC hotel ribbon cutting marks Trump's 32nd event at a Trump property since his campaign began
(via @AnthonyNBCNews)