An Independent view of law, politics and social issues confronting Angelinos, Californians, and Americans
Author: coastcontact
I am a somewhat cranky but mostly optimistic 65 plus who refuses to give up on this maddening world. The purpose of this BLOG is to express my feelings, thoughts.
Donald Trump wants to be in the lead news stories every day. Everything he does is all about self promotion.
I just can’t ignore the fact that Donald Trump is living in his own world. He obviously sees himself as the most important part of everything. He really believes that most Americans adore him. And if anyone says anything that contradicts that view it’s just “fake news.”
He insisted that the crowds at his inauguration were the largest in history even though the comparison with the crowds at the Obama inauguration were obviously far more significant.
Now his latest nonsense is his insistence that Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama. He apparently used a Sharpie marking pen to show the route of the storm crossing Florida and moving west.
Two things he accomplished. He put himself into the news and provided great opportunities for late night comedians on television.
Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 4, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Joe Biden is trying to run for president on the coat tails of President Obama. His primary argument is that Obama pushed the country along in a moderate way. There were no extreme actions taken.
Biden’s argument should be examined. I argue that Barack Obama did take extreme actions. Some of those decisions were serious mistakes.
Obama’s signature accomplishment was health care insurance. The action he took was a benefit to America that will remembered as consequential as Social Security and Medicare. That is the Affordable Care Act. Called Obamacare by those who opposed it, that law has provided health care to 11.8 million people. While the coverage is not a perfect solution to affordable health care, it did take a big step forward to address the high cost of healthcare. Unfortunately many people are dropping out of the plan due to high deductibles. The GOP efforts to end Obamacare have continued to this day. Repeal and replace has been a mantra of the Republican Party. Even if the law is repealed, health care coverage will be an enduring reality for all Americans.
Unfortunately Obama did not lead a fight for raising the minimum wage from the current paltry $7.25 an hour, gun safety (Isn’t the killing by military weapons a national emergency?), for infrastructure projects, for fighting homelessness, for job training for those who lost their job due to automation. American manufacturing jobs have declined by 5 million since the 1980s and left many communities devastated. I could list many other things that should have been on his agenda.
Sadly Obama’s foreign affairs successes were few. The single outstanding action was 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that did nothing to stop their development of ballistic missiles and their spread of terrorism throughout the middle east.
Stupidly the U.S, blundered into a war in Iraq in 2003. The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq began in December 2007 and was completed by December 2011. But the total withdrawal was a mistake and an American-led intervention in Iraq started on June 15, 2014, when President Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched to the region, in response to offensives by ISIS and its affiliates.
On August 20, 2012 President Obama told a group of reporters the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria would cross his “red line.”A year later, almost to the day, Syrian forces killed more than1,400 people with sarin gas, a particularly horrifying chemical weapon that can cause paralysis, convulsions, or death. But no action was taken. Instead he agreed to a deal with Russia to remove and destroy 600 metric tons of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.
So the question is what part of the Obama legacy does Joe Biden want to pursue? What is the Biden agenda? Hopefully the September and October debates will provide some clarity.
Secret British government documents have warned of serious disruptions across the country in the event that the U.K. leaves the European Union without a trade deal on October 31, according to a report. Still the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is determined to take the U.K. out of the E.U. even without a trade deal.
There have been 12 mass shootings in the United States in 2019 and another 19 occurred in 2018. Donald Trump, despite the shootings continues to side with the NRA telling the public that those shootings are the result of mental illness and video games. Mental illness and Video games in Canada and Europe is just not the same – right.
Rising temperatures are a fact around the world but many government leaders deny there is a problem.
Mass migration are now a fact. People are trying to leave the poor countries of Africa and taking inflatable rafts to reach the southern countries of Europe. The poor of central Americans countries are joining caravans to reach the United States. This is not a new phenomenon. Historically migrations have been a fact. The United States population is the result of migration from other countries from its founding (remember the Mayflower?)
Homelessness is on the rise. Based on national reports, it’s estimated that no less than 150 million people, or about 2 percent of the world’s population, are homeless. However, about 1.6 billion, more than 20 percent of the world’s population, may lack adequate housing.
Where are national leaders to address these issues? They are absent. Local and immediate politics drives their decisions. Who is to blame? We all are. Majorities keep re-electing those same clueless people for another term in office.
The new census projections indicate that, for youth under 18–the post-millennial population–minorities will outnumber whites in 2020.
This is scary stuff for racists and bigots.
Donald Trump and the white supremacists are trying their very best to sustain the white population as the majority group in the United States. That is the reason the U.S. government has developed new regulations for green card holders. The idea is to encourage immigrants to leave this country and discourage anyone else, except perhaps the wealthy, to attempt entrance. The KKK couldn’t be happier.
The problem for the white supremacists is they are too late in their efforts. As reported by Brookings Institute, the U.S. Census Bureau 2018 statistics show “that for the first time there are more children who are minorities than who are white, at every age from zero to nine.”
The Bureau projects that by 2045 the White population will be less than 50% of the total.
Donald trump will employ the fear factor, “they are coming and I can stop them”, and it will play well in mid-western states that have small minority populations in the 2020 election. But the Census Bureau prediction for 2045 means that White people will not have the power they have today. And “That’s the way it is!”
This column by Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times points out that ownership of guns does not necessarily lead to mass shootings but sadly does not diagnose the reason for our national acceptance of repeated massacres.
“Canada has mental illness, the internet and violent video games, too — the same video games, in the same language — and its rate of gun violence is far lower.”
Read from a teleprompter were words written by his staff to convey an idea that he doesn’t really believe but he hopes will mollify those who are horrified by current events. That is what Donald Trump did on Monday, August 5, 2019.
“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” the president said, reading from a script that scrolled on a teleprompter in front of him. He added, “Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside — so destructive — and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion and love.”
Does anyone believe he really cares? I don’t.
This is the man, after the Charlottesville attack said there are “very fine people on both sides.”
After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida Trump said ‘we will act.’ The president hosted a discussion at the White House about school shootings. Several students from the school recalled the shooting that they survived. No new laws were even proposed. Trump did nothing and voiced his support for the second amendment.
We will see Donald Trump visiting El Paso and Toledo (oops, I mean Dayton) offering words of prayer, condolences, and telling us that we are all united against hate. His speech writers are very good.
He will return after the next shooting and all of those that will follow.
They haven’t buried the three who died in Gilroy California and now there has been another shooting. The latest in Southaven Mississippi. Oh, it was only two people you could say. Most people probably won’t give this killing a second thought. The reason is obvious. The frequency of gun killing happens so often that it has become routine. Just last week a deranged man killed four people in the San Fernando Valley.
Out of the world’s 251,000 gun deaths every year, there’s a group of six countries that make up more than half of those deaths — and the United States is in it, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
For comparison, the US’s rate of 10.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people was much higher than Switzerland’s rate of 2.8, Canada’s 2.1, Germany’s 0.9, the United Kingdom’s 0.3, and Japan’s 0.2.
The United States has the highest number of civilian owned firearms of any other country. Thanks to the Second amendment to the Constitution we can all own almost any weapon we want. You have to be tested for competency before you are granted a automobile driver’s license but there is no test requirements to own a firearm.
The National Firearms Association (NRA) is more about keeping the laws as they currently exist than training people in the use of weapons.
Legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard is looking to knock out a hefty sale in Pacific Palisades, where his home of nearly 50 years is for sale at a whopping $51.995 million. Covering nearly two park-like acres in the Riviera neighborhood, the estate weighs in with a 16,700-square-foot mansion, a two-story guesthouse, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a putting green. The house has seven bedrooms and a theater.
Maybe you could rent the guesthouse to defray the maintenance of the estate or perhaps cover the cost of a live-in maid. What do I know? My house is less than 2,000 square feet.
Coast Contact 