Sports Illustrated Cover Model for 2018

The 24-year-old model from Compton, California, received the surprise of a lifetime when SI Swim legend Tyra Banks greeted her at the Sports Illustrated office with her 2018 cover. Danielle Herrington traveled to the Bahamas for her shoot and poses in a hot pink Ola Vida string bikini on the cover.

Dismantling the U.S. Federal Government

There is no doubt that there is a very large federal bureaucracy. It probably needs some reorganizing and some parts should probably be ended. However, Donald Trump appears to be on a path of near total destruction.

It has been reported that he also wants to curtail many of the government programs from health care to the National Endowment for the Arts. NPR and PBS are also in his cross hairs.

Trump’s cabinet is studded with people who also fought to undermine the missions of the agencies they now lead. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt built his political career suing the agency. Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss has called public education a “dead end.” Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing, has no problem with proposals to slash housing. Rex Tillerson is in the process of laying off hundreds of people in the State Department. Trump has appointed lower level department heads who have fought many departments in the past. These department heads and leaders have dreamed of ending the very departments they are now leading.

David Bernhardt, Deputy Interior Secretary. Former lawyer representing Statoil
Erik Baptist, Senior Deputy General Counsel at the EPA. Former lobbyist for Energy API
Susan Bodine, Head of Enforcement for the EPA. Former lobbyist for American Forest & Paper Products
Nancy Beck, Deputy Assistant for the EPA’s chemical safety Office. Formerly employed by American Chemistry Council
David Zatezalo, Head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Former lobbyist for Rhino Mining a coal mining company
Joseph Otting, Head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Former CEO of OneWest Bank

Whose interests do you suppose they will be thinking about when they perform their jobs?

Fear of Deportation from the United States

Fear of deportation is a real fear that most Americans will never know.

President Obama’s DACA program was a well-meaning effort to protect those people brought into the United States illegally. However Obama did not understand the illegal immigrant’s fear of being arrested and being deported. That fear is most likely prompted by the illegal parents of those children.

When the program was first announced I immediately identified the potential consequence of announcing to the government your name and address. What if the program was ended? I asked. Wouldn’t ICE know exactly where to look for all those children and their families. That same quandary exists in states that have granted driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Their addresses are now public record. ICE now can obtain those addresses and deport those people.

So when Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, suggest many DACA eligible people were ‘too afraid’ or ‘too lazy,’ he is half correct. They were ‘too afraid.’ We can see why those concerns are well founded as more illegal aliens, or those suspected of being here illegally, are being arrested.

By the way my family moved legally to the United States when I was six months old. I would not have divulged my name and address to any government office and I would not have applied for a driver’s license if I was an illegal alien. It would be out of fear!

When I renew my passport I have to surrender my citizenship document. After reviewing it they return it along with my new passport. I am always concerned that some bureaucrat will not return that citizenship document.

My sympathies are with the people brought here as children.

Unintended Consequences

The lower income tax rates passed into law this past December seemed like a wonderful idea. Who can object to bonuses and higher take home pay?

The U.S. stock market indexes fell sharply today (Friday, February 2, 2018) as investors digested a stronger-than-expected jobs report that stoked inflation fears. “The details of this jobs report, especially the numbers behind the wage growth suggest that companies are competing for workers and the shortage of skilled workers is pushing up wages. The trend in inflation is ticking higher and the big question is whether the incoming Fed, which is more hawkish, will allow the economy run hotter in the short term or tighten aggressively,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist, at Prudential Financial.

Investopedia: A government or economy often defines full employment as any rate of unemployment below a defined number. If, for example, a country sets full employment at a 5% unemployment rate, any level of unemployment below 5% is considered acceptable. Full employment, once attained, often results in an inflationary period. The inflation is a result of workers having more disposable income, which would drive prices upward.

The short term benefit of lower income tax rates are obvious. It results in a bigger paycheck for almost all workers. However, with America’s unemployment rate at 4.1% for the past four months and below 5% since November 2016 the shortage of workers along with lower corporate taxes could easily result in a horrible surge in inflation.

Many of us saw the consequences of high inflation. In 1974 and again 1979 to 1981 we experienced inflation as high as 14.7% in a single month. We spent using a credit card knowing that the repayment would be in cheap dollars. Buying a home meant paying an inflated interest rate on the mortgage. We refinanced when the rate fell.

I have read nothing about economist’s concerns of higher inflation. The Federal Reserve Board did not raise rates at last Wednesday’s meeting. They left its benchmark interest rate unchanged in a range of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent, a relatively low level that the Fed said would help support continued job growth and stronger inflation.

Wow! Is the Fed correct or are stock market investors correct? When you are working you can demand a pay raise to compensate for inflation but if you are retired inflation can destroy your retirement plans. Roaring inflation will also destroy the party in power in Washington.

Self Aggrandizement

The first 20 minutes of Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was all about telling us what a great job he has done.

Happily Trump did not digress from his planned speech.

It is not difficult to find words that describe Donald Trump. He is the super promoter of himself. He is the P.T. Barnum of the early 21^st century who emphasized with extreme exaggeration his place in American history. Braggadocio, glorification, and boasting are the words that best describe his State of the Union speech. He clearly reveled in the attention and honor he received both entering and leaving Capitol Hill. He was in his glory with every moment of applause during his speech.

If you heard his speech or read the transcript you know that other than calling on the Congress to produce “a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment” and an “administrative fix for high drug prices” there were no other plans proposed.

This speech will go down in history as a boring and an utterly uninspiring waste of time.

Pinnacles National Park

Volcanic slopes in Pinnacles National Park, California

Pinnacles was established as a national park in 2013. That makes it a relatively new national park in the United States, but its namesake features—these rock spires—were millions of years in the making. Roughly 23 million years ago, volcanos erupted to form a 30-mile-wide volcanic field, which was then split in two by a shift in the San Andreas fault. The western side of the field gradually moved nearly 200 miles north, all the while being eroded by water, ice, and wind.

The rock that’s left behind after this erosion is now shaped into these pinnacles. The towering spires attract rock climbers, to be sure, but they also provide homes for many species of animals, including the California condor. In fact, this is just one of four places where captive-bred condors are released into the wild.

Minnie Mouse Gains More Fame

It’s been a long time coming. At long last Minnie Mouse, the loved Disney cartoon character, received well deserved recognition for her role with Mickey Mouse. She now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Mickey was the first cartoon character to get a star in 1978, when he was 50.

Minnie Mouse, accompanied by Mickey Mouse and Katy Perrry, gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018

A Dream of Absolute Power

Donald Trump is taking the steps necessary to destroy the American democracy. His objective is a government similar to Turkey, Russia, and other nations ruled by despots.

Trump has attacked the most treasured parts of this country.
1. The court system
2. The press and freedom of speech
3. Libel laws
4. The electoral system
5. The Congress

The courts:
Trump has made a series of tweets and public statements attacking the deciding judges personally, questioning the authority of federal courts to review his orders, suggesting the court is biased, and suggesting that the judges and court system would be to blame for future terrorist attacks.

February 4, 2017 Trump tweet: The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!

In response to U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo O. Curiel’s orders in a class action lawsuit against Trump University, then-presidential candidate Trump made a number of statements attacking Judge Curiel as biased because of his “Mexican heritage” and appointment by a Democratic president.

Trump tweet: I should have easily won the Trump University case on summary judgement but have a judge, Gonzalo Curiel, who is totally biased against me.

The Press, freedom of speech and Libel laws:
Senator John McCain (Republican senator from Arizona, writing in the Washington Post
wrote the 45th president’s assault on American media provides cover for oppressive global regimes to “follow suit.”
“He [Trump] has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit the free press by bestowing ‘fake news awards’ upon reporters and news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with,” McCain writes. “Whether Trump knows it or not, these efforts are being closely watched by foreign leaders who are already using his words as cover as they silence and shutter one of the key pillars of democracy.”

John McCain continued, “For decades, dissidents and human rights advocates have relied on independent investigations into government corruption to further their fight for freedom. But constant cries of ‘fake news’ undercut this type of reporting and strip activists of one of their most powerful tools of dissent.”

Reported by ABC News on January 10, 2018: Pres. Donald J. Trump says he plans to “take a strong look” at libel laws: “You can’t say things that are knowingly false, knowingly false, and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account.”

Perhaps Mr. Trump has not read the constitution. The first amendment guarantees a Free Press. That means the press has the right to publish articles or books that criticize the president and anyone else. The book “Fire and Fury” tells stories of people who think Trump is child-like. Trump wants to stop those kinds of stories about him.

The electoral system:
From nytimes.com
Trump Disbands Commission on Voter Fraud
JAN. 3, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday abruptly shut down a White House commission he had charged with investigating voter fraud, ending a brief quest for evidence of election theft that generated lawsuits, outrage and some scholarly testimony, but no real evidence that American elections are corrupt.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump called for requiring voter identification in a pair of Twitter posts because the voting system “is rigged.” “Push hard for Voter Identification!” Mr. Trump wrote.

Mr. Trump did not acknowledge the commission’s inability to find evidence of fraud, but cast the closing as a result of continuing legal challenges.

The question of voter fraud and rigged elections is not and has not been an issue ever. Dictators don’t like honest elections. Trump’s dream is to pre-determine the outcome of all elections. His recent motivation is the fact that he won the electoral college vote but lost the popular vote. Vladimir Putin ( president of Russia) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (president of Turkey) are the two government leaders that Trump admires because they have shut down any opposition to their re-election by putting them in jail.

The Congress:
America’s system of government demands compromise. When there is no compromise poor legislation is passed and government shutdowns can occur.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing back against President Donald Trump’s calls to end Senate filibusters.

When filibusters of legislation are underway, it takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to halt them.
Republicans now control the chamber 51-49. But strong Democratic opposition and some defecting GOP senators have kept Republicans from getting the votes needed to end the shutdown — now in its second day.

McConnell has long defended the filibuster. He says Republicans will welcome it whenever they are returned to the Senate minority.
As the Senate began a rare Sunday session, the Kentucky Republican said: “I support that right from an institutional point of view.” But he also said, “The question is, when do you use it?”

Trump has made repeated calls this year to end that rule, and did it again Sunday in a tweet.

It is my contention that Donald Trump is working at destroying the American democracy that was created in 1789. I believe he dreams of being a president who has absolute power as many presidents of other nations retain. Everyone should be on guard against Trump’s objective. It was German complacency that gave Hitler absolute power. Marches and demonstrations, like the women’s marches, are the antidote to the Trump dream.

Nighttime on a canal in Venice, Italy

For centuries this city was a major world power and center of culture, religion, learning, commerce—and heaps of intrigue. Consisting of hundreds of lagoon islands connected by some 400 or so bridges, Venice, Italy, long ago relinquished the title of global mover and shaker. Still, it remains a unique treasure beloved by residents and beset by hordes of tourists during the high season. Quiet scenes such as this can still be had, though, if you wander through the backstreets and over the bridges after the tour groups and cruise ships have departed. And if you listen very closely, you may hear echoes of intrigues past.