American Coal Miners Can Go Back to Work, Unitl They and the Rest of Us Die from Pollution.

    
 

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    Today Trump rolled back regulations on coal mining and the amount of pollution coal burning facilities can release into the environment, thus fulfilling his promise to coal miners to bring back their jobs. These actions have squarely put America back into the 19th century!  I feel sorry for coal miners who have been out of work because of a lack of jobs, but let's face reality, coal mining and coal powered energy plants are a thing of the past.  Burning coal is a filthy destructive process that is being abandoned by the rest of the world.  There is no way to make coal burning cleaner.  Coal miners, traditionally have gone right into the coal mines as soon as they were able to quit school. They have historically lacked the education or the skills to do anything else other than mining coal.  It may sound cruel, but it is their own fault for not preparing for the demise of the coal industry.  Because of their inability to adapt to the changing workforce, coal miners are forced into doing a job that will eventually kill them.  When regulations that were enforced during Obama's years, are rolled back, owners of coal companies will no longer have to pay attention to the health and safety of their workers. 

    Trump's supporters, will no doubt hail him as the savior of their jobs and the coal mining industry, but in reality they are the losers.  He cares nothing about them, their health or their jobs.  All of this deregulation benefits not the coal miners, but the owners of big businesses, who are now free to spew as much pollution into the environment as they wish,  in order to create even larger profits.  What  is even worse, is that once these coal miners begin to suffer from the health hazards of their industry, the Republicans will have succeeded in taking away their healthcare! When they die Trump will shed no tears!

Obamacare is the Law of the Land

 

    After the Republicans were unable to even take a vote on their repeal of Obamacare, House Speaker Paul Ryan admitted defeat by declaring that "Obamacare is now the law of the land".  The Republican's replacement for Obamacare, Trumpcare, was only favored by 17% of the American people, a dismal failure.  The Democrats did not at all support the bill, while moderate Republicans were against it because too many people would be hurt by it and The Freedom Caucus (the former Tea Party) thought it was too generous and too much like the original Obamacare. Apparently the Freedom Caucus doesn't really give a damn how many poor people dies, as long as there  is a windfall for the wealthy! 

    Immediately after the defeat Trump blamed everyone but himself. He blamed the Democrats because they did not support the bill, while in actuality the Republicans are in the majority and do not need a singe Democratic vote! At first Trump didn't blame Ryan, but just today he changed his mind and placed the blame on Ryan, suggesting he resign. If anyone needs to resign, it's Trump! Trump then totally gave up on offering a decent healthcare bill and decided  to move on to something else to occupy his short and shallow attention span.  He was surprisingly calm about his epic failure, which is quite uncharacteristic. He did however, say he would wait for Obamacare to completely implode, which was a veiled threat that he would do everything in his power to destroy it, regardless of how many people, both his supporters and non-supporters, would suffer.   His whole life he has been a very vindictive person and he is going to retaliate for his failure and take it out on the American people, if he can.

    The United States is the only developed country in the world that does not offer its citizens free healthcare, instead it has the highest healthcare costs in the world, so that CEOs of big pharma and healthcare insurance companies can receive outlandish pay packages.  The Republicans have had over 7 years to come up with a plan that would benefit the American people by offering decent affordable healthcare and keeping costs down, but all they could come up with was a plan to benefit the wealthy, while taking away healthcare from 24 million people and punishing older people, children, middle class families and women! How compassionate of them! 

     For the past 7 years they have promised to repeal Obamacare, the first and only healthcare plan for the American people, which just happened to be from the first Black president.  They succeeded in replacing the actual name of the plan, the Affordable  Care Act, with the name of the Black president who gave it to us, thus linking it to Obama and pandering to its racist base.  It is unbelievable how so many people support the ACA, but not Obamacare!  There is only one sensible solution to the Republican healthcare plan and that is to change the name to something associated to a white person, instead to a person  of color. Perhaps, call it White America Health Plan for Real Americans!  Then all of the GOP and surely all of Trump's supporters can support it!  But the best thing this country can do for its people is to offer healthcare for everyone under Medicare. This will never happen because with the Republicans in Congress, if anything is to be done for the Average American, a hell of a lot more has to be done for the wealthiest of Americans who don't need it!

Who Is Neil Gorsuch and Should He Become a Supreme Court Justice?

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    It's been over a year since Supreme Court Justice Scalia died and his seat has been vacant all of that time , thanks to GOP obstructionists, such as Mitch McConnell. The Republicans did not have enough civility to even interview Obama's nominee for the seat, Merrick Garland.  Instead they ignored both Obama and Garland and waited for the new president to be sworn in, hoping it was a Republican. Now that that disaster has happened and Trump is in office, they are all gung ho in filling Scalia's seat. Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch, a Conservative Republican judge from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Yesterday was his first day of confirmation hearings before members of the Senate.

    Watching his appearance it seemed as his whole performance, especially in answering questions form GOP senators, was very well rehearsed. He was very confident, to the point of arrogance in all of his answers and statements. He declined to reveal any of his views on the many matters which could come before the court in the future.  To me he was a squeaky clean arrogant rich white guy completely devoid of any empathy towards people.  This feeling was shored up by the questioning by Sen. Al Franken, in regards to the truck driver who almost froze to death and was fired by his employer for leaving his vehicle. The truck driver sued his former employer and Judge Gorsuch was the only member of the court to side with the employer in this law suit, sticking strictly with the letter of the law and disregarding any feeling towards the truck driver. This case is known as the "frozen truck driver".

    Gorsuch sided with Hobby Lobby in a lawsuit regarding an employer having to provide birth control to employers. He agreed with the owners of the company's view that birth control was against their religious beliefs.  To me this totally disregards the religious beliefs of the employees and allows discrimination  by religious zealots. This really scares me for the potential future rulings of the Supreme Court in regards to LGBT rights, abortion rights, women's rights and same sex marriage.

   It is highly unlikely that Gorsuch will not be confirmed as the Democrats don't have enough votes to block the nomination. As he is replacing Scalia on the court there will not be a significant change in the direction of the court since he is as far right or even more right than Scalia was.  There is a lot more about Gorsuch that we do not know, but I am sure we will find out. For me the bottom line is that Gorsuch is going to be seated on the court in a position that was stolen from Merrick Garland. If Gorsuch, indeed had any integrity he would refuse the nomination, in favor of Garland. But I am sure he can't wait to put his far right stamp and conservative religious views on American society through his stolen seat.

Trump's Accusations of Obama Wiretapping

Pixabay

    A couple of weeks ago Trump accused President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower before and during the presidential campaign.  As usual with any and all of Trump's accusations there is no proof offered regarding his allegations. The Justice Department and our intelligence agencies quickly denied that this every happened or could have happened. But that didn't stop the Conspirator-in Chief. He reiterated his baseless accusations and demanded Congress investigate. Surprise! They are doing just that Donald!

    Today in a public hearing before Congress, FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Michael Rogers vehemently denied  Trump's accusations that he or Trump Tower was wiretapped by anyone. They also reiterated that no President could do this! Comey also disputed Trump's accusation that British Intelligence agencies were involved in Trump's paranoid accusations.

    There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to substantiate these wild , maniacal, paranoid tweets of Donal Trump, yet The White House says the President stands by his claims! What must his staff be thinking? This man is seriously mentally ill. If he were just an ordinary private citizen this wouldn't be so serious, but it would raise questions about his ability to be a part of normal society. But Good God, he is the President of the United States!  He has the ability to nuke the entire world! He does not have the mental competence to carry out the duties of his office, yet the Republican Congress is willing to give him a clean bill of mental health, just so they can stay in power!  If they don't do something about his man our country will soon be in grave danger!







                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                    

The Leader of the Free World and Trump

Washington Post

    On Friday Donald Trump met with Angela Merkel, The Chancellor of Germany, one of our closest allies.  And once again he made a fool of himself and caused our once great nation major embarrassment. He not only stood by his completely outrageous and demented lie about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, both during and after the campaign, he even tried to tie Germany to his insane conspiracy theory, stating that he and Merkel had being wiretapped in common. By looking at the photo above, from the Washington Post, one can almost read Merkel's mind. "This man is completely insane and unfit to be a world leader" must be the phrase she is thinking of.

    If this was not enough Trump went on to embarrass the country further by once again implicating, perhaps our closest ally, Britain in his paranoid conspiracy theory regarding Obama wiretapping him!
It is becoming apparent that world leaders view him as an unstable lunatic, who cannot be trusted to take a leadership role in the free world. He is a clear and present danger to the stability of Europe and Asia. In just a little over 2 months since his inauguration Trump has managed to destroy the credibility of the presidency and our democracy. In those few short weeks the United States has gone from a word leader to a rudderless rogue nation. We have become the laughing stock of the world! Trump has ceded his position of the leader of the free world to Angela Merkel, who is by far the more intelligent and more capable leader.
 
    His behavior frightens the free world, but his followers love his bravado. They don't have the intelligence and the world knowledge and awareness to realize that his actions are not only destroying our standing in the world, but our own survival as a democracy.  Every great nation is destroyed, not from the outside, but from the inside, as what happened to the Roman Empire. This can be seen in Trump's budget proposal, where he has attacked the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled and children, while adding to the wealth of the top 1%. When his disastrous foreign policy leads us into war, it won't be his children or the children of his billionaire cronies who are sent off to die! The future of our country will be sacrificed so that the wealthy few may reap the greatest economic benefits. People like Ryan and McConnell and the rest of the GOP will be at the forefront welcoming Putin as our new leader!

Trumpcare Findings Announced by the CBO!

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Well the Congressional Budget Office just came out with the figures on the Republicans proposed healthcare plan, Trumpcare.  According to the CBO an estimated 24 million more people will love healthcare by 2016! Those numbers will not come from the wealthy, but the poor and middle class. The deficit would be cut by $333 billion, which undoubtedly go for the construction of Trump's useless 'Wall". Healthcare premiums are projected to rise 15% to 20% for single policy holders. Larger tax credits would be given to wealthier people, whose incomes are 400% of the federal poverty line! Those who will suffer the most will be older working people and younger people.  Of course the Republicans made sure that the CEOs of the health insurance companies will be given $400 million in tax credits. Think of all the iPhones they can buy! 

When every single developed country in the world offers its citizens universal healthcare the Republican assure that only the wealthy can afford healthcare and the rest of us be damned. They say that under this new plan we will be given more options. But what good are more options if we can't afford any of them? I have the option to buy a Ferrari, but there is no way in hell I can afford one! I can barely afford my Ford Focus! Why don't the Republicans want poor and middle class American to have healthcare and why do so many morons vote against their own best interests in continually electing the same people like Ryan and Mitch McConnell?

Thanks Politico for these statistics!