Destruction of the American Democracy

The first amendment to the United States Constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The American democracy depends on a free press. Donald Trump continuously attacks the press. His favorite words are “fake news” whenever the press reports something that puts him in a bad light.

His admiration for Vladimir Putin (President of Russia), Saddam Hussein (deceased dictator of Iraq), Moammar Gaddafi (deceased dictator of Libya), Xi Jinping (president of China), and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of Turkey) to name just a few tells us what kind of presidency Trump wants in the United States. All of these government leaders have one thing in common. They have or had no opposition. There is no press to report on their misbehavior. That is Trump’s dream.

The National Review, a conservative publication, posted the following on its website
Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even if they are misused by a minority.

The ACLU says we must defend free speech even when we disagree with the speaker. That organization did defend the KKK when it wanted to march through Skokie Illinois, a predominantly Jewish suburb of Chicago.

There was no free press in Nazi Germany. There is no free press in China, Russia and Turkey today. Donald Trump’s war on the press is the first steps to end our democracy. CNN’s “This is an Apple” campaign is an effort to tell all viewers that they will defend their right to report the facts. Everyone should be applauding their efforts.

We must all join hands to defend freedom of the press or soon there will be no free press. The day there is no free press a dictator will be on the rise.

Horse Manure Package left at Steven Mnuchin’s House

An L.A. mental health worker takes credit for horse manure package left at Steven Mnuchin’s house.

LOS ANGELES/BEL AIR DISTRICT >> A clinical psychologist with the county of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health has taken credit for the package of horse manure that was left at the Bel Air home of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over the weekend.

Dr. Robert Strong, who goes by “Dr. Robert” on Twitter, cited the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that was approved last week by the U.S. Congress and signed Friday by President Donald Trump as his motivation. Strong agrees with critics who say the policy favors the rich at the expense of the poor and working class.

“If the GOP can fleece the American people in such a brazen fashion (then) like Hunter S. Thompson once said, “when the going gets weird, the weird turns pro.”

The package, discovered at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at 965 Bel Air Road, was a box filled with manure and wrapped in Christmas paper, Sgt. R. Briggs of the LAPD West Los Angeles Station said.

The bomb squad X-rayed the package and opened it to reveal the contents, she said.

It was determined the package contained a “pretty good quantity” of horse manure, police officials said.

Strong also included a handwritten note reading “Dear Misters Trump and Mnuchin, we are returning your Christmas gift of the Republican tax plan because it’s complete horse …. Sincerely, the American people.”

A neighbor discovered the package and alerted authorities, according to media reports.

No injuries were reported and no evacuations were ordered.

Bel Air Road was closed during the investigation, but the scene was cleared at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Officials with the Secret Service were aware of the stunt and planned to pick up the package, according to media reports. So far, Strong said he had not been contacted.

But he told KPPC radio that he realizes he could get fired and face other consequences.

“In the long run,” he said “if we don’t do stuff like this, what are we going to have left.”

It’s not clear that any local laws were violated even though the package provoked an extensive law-enforcement response early Saturday evening, said Officer Ray Barron, of the West Los Angeles Division of the L.A. Police Dept.

“There was nothing other than insulting comments,” said Barron, describing a note that accompanied the box. “There was nothing dangerous in the box — no controlled substances. No threats were made.”

So I drove over to Mr. Mnuchin’s home. I had never been in Bel Air before. Surprisingly there is no gate guard at the entrance. The street is lined with gated mansions that cannot be seen thanks to high walls and very tall shrubbery. Dropping the manure on the street was sending a message. I can empathise with Dr. Robert Strong viewpoints. It may have felt good dropping the manure. Was it worth his job? I guess the answer is yes!

The Never Ending Hike to the United States National Debt

Now that the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress and the presidency they have forgotten their “no new debt” crusade. It was just six years ago that Grover Norquist transformed a single issue – preventing tax hikes – into one of the key platforms of the Republican Party. Norquist’s biggest coup was getting more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, to sign a pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes. Norquist may be happy that there will be a reduction in taxes but the price will be a new higher national debt.

President Barack Obama’s oversight of the deficit was leaving “America’s future in the balance,” the Republican National Committee said in 2011. A year later, Senator Mitch McConnell said the federal debt was “the nation’s most serious long-term problem.” The debt was “killing our economy.”

How can today’s GOP vote for a new tax law that will raise the national debt over the coming decade? The answer is they are more interested in helping the rich get richer. The proof is the rise of the stock market since Donald Trump’s election.

Look at the history of our national debt since 1981.

Ronald Reagan, a member of the Republican Party, took office as the 40th President of the United States on January 20, 1981. After serving two terms the national debt had grown from just short of $998 billion to over $2.6 trillion. That was after his promise that the debt would shrink due to his plan that would encourage more spending that would more than make up for lower taxes.

George Herbert Walker Bush was left to explain the giant tax cuts passed into law under Reagan. Remember his “No new taxes” campaign? He did raised taxes and the debt continued to soar. It was almost $4.4 trillion when Bush left office in just four years. HIs loss for a second term was the result of raising income taxes and a recession.

During the Clinton presidency of eight years the debt had grown to over $5.7 trillion. That was a relatively small expansion of the national debt.

Between 2001 and 2008 the debt climbed from $5.7 trillion to $10 trillion. Those were the years of the George W. Bush administration. That was after a tax cut and the cost of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama did even worse than his predecessor leaving office with a $20.5 trillion debt. For eight years, Republicans warned the American public that we were hurtling toward certain fiscal doom. In 2012 Senator Mitch McConnell said the federal debt was “the nation’s most serious long-term problem.” John Boehner, when he was the House speaker, in 2013: The debt was “killing our economy.”

There is nothing in the current plan to cut taxes that will change the trend of more national debt. The party out of power seems to always cry over the growing debt. Republicans have a history of opposing any thing that will increase the debt as long as they are not in the majority.

Who Is Doug Jones, Newly Elected Alabama Senator?

My take on the Jones versus Moore election is at the end of this post.

After earning his law degree in 1979, Jones worked as staff counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Alabama Senator Howell Heflin. He then worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the early 1980s, before resigning to work in private practice. In 1997, Bill Clinton named Jones U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Jones left office in 2001, returning to private practice. In 2013, he co-founded his own firm, Jones & Hawley.

Jones is perhaps best known for having successfully prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan over the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African-American girls. As a former federal prosecutor, the 63-year-old had never before run for office prior to his Senate bid.

Here is the time line for the prosecution of those responsible for the bombing.

September 15, 1963 – Four girls are killed and 14 injured in a bomb blast at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
– Riots break out, and two African-American boys, Virgil Ware, 13, and Johnny Robinson, 16, are also killed. In all, at least 20 people are injured from the initial bombing and the ensuing riots.
– Alabama Governor George Wallace sends 500 National Guardsmen and 300 state troopers to the city. The next day, they are joined by 500 police officers and 150 sheriffs’ deputies.
September 16, 1963 – President John F. Kennedy responds by saying, “If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state – if they can only awaken this entire nation to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost.”
September 16, 1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holds a press conference in Birmingham, saying that the US Army “ought to come to Birmingham and take over this city and run it.”
1965 – Suspects emerge: Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss and Herman Frank Cash, all Ku Klux Klan members. Witnesses are reluctant to talk and physical evidence is lacking, so charges are not filed.
1976 – Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopens the case.
September 26, 1977 – Robert Chambliss, 73, a retired auto mechanic and former Ku Klux Klan member, is indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on four counts of first-degree murder.
November 15, 1977 – On the second day of the trial, Chambliss’s niece, Elizabeth Cobb, testifies that before the bombing, Chambliss confided to her that he had “enough stuff put away to flatten half of Birmingham.”
November 18, 1977 – Chambliss is convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment.
1985 – Chambliss dies in prison.
1994 – Herman Frank Cash dies without being charged in the bombing.
July 1997 – The case is reopened by the FBI, citing new evidence.
May 16, 2000 – A grand jury in Alabama indicts former Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton with eight counts each of first-degree murder – four counts of intentional murder and four of murder with universal malice.
May 1, 2001 – Thomas Blanton is found guilty of first-degree murder and is sentenced to four life terms.
May 22, 2002 – Bobby Frank Cherry is found guilty and given a sentence of four life terms.
November 8, 2004 – Cherry dies in prison.
February 20, 2006 – The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is declared a national historic landmark.
September 12, 2013 – Fifty years after the bombing, all four girls who died are awarded Congressional Gold Medals.
September 14, 2013 – A bronze and steel statue of the four girls is unveiled. It is located at Kelly Ingram Park, on the corner of Sixteenth Street North and Sixth Avenue North.
August 3, 2016 – Thomas Blanton, the last living convicted bomber, is denied parole. Blanton, 86, had asked the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to let him die as a free man. He won’t be eligible for parole again until 2021.

Roy Moore stood before his supporters refusing to concede his loss to Doug Jones. Among his words were “Wait on God, and let this process play out,” Moore said. “It is not over.” Perhaps God has interceded to say the election of Doug Jones is a good thing.

Corporate America Must Prove Tax Reform is Good for Average Americans

Lowering the tax rate from the current 35% to the planned 20% will be a dramatic change for corporations. The GOP controlled congress contends that their planned corporate income tax cuts will result in more investment in new business and higher wages for American workers. Will it actually happen? We will have to wait until next year.

Read this report from CNBC.
A meeting of CEOs might seem to be a friendly gathering place for President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs. But at a gathering of chief executives hosted by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday November 14, business leaders called into question one of Cohn’s top arguments for slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent.

When one of the Journal’s editors asked the crowd if they planned to up their capital expenditure if the GOP’s tax plan went through, only a smattering raised their hands.

There’s little evidence to support the claim that tax breaks boost employment numbers.

A National Bureau of Economic Research study published in 2014 found “little evidence that corporate tax cuts boost economic activity” unless implemented in a recession.

Far from being short on cash, corporations are sitting on record amounts.

The informal poll was not the only disappointment for Cohn on Tuesday. Another non-scientific poll conducted at the gathering found that more than half of the CEOs present didn’t believe that Congress would pass a major tax bill by the end of the year.

Cohn had previously told reporters that tax legislation would be advanced by the end of the year, calling it a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Is this an opportunity to improve America’s middle class or an opportunity for higher dividend payments to shareholders?

We will know after the tax cut is put into effect. If the result of this tax cut does not provide higher incomes for the middle class the Republicans will lose in the next election.

Antifa Coming November 4, 2017

Antifa is a contraction for “Anti-fascism.” The movements object is to resist Donald Trump and the people who support him in the belief that he stands for those who would create a fascist government.

There are reports that the Antifa movement wants November 4 to be the start of a civil war in the United States. Police are reportedly preparing for the events in these cities listed below.

As someone who is appalled in the direction Trump is leading this country I do support peaceful demonstrations even though they most likely won’t have any real impact.

I am happy to learn that there are others who are determined to stand up to Trumpism. Where will you be on Saturday?

Atlanta, November 4
6:00 pm
Euclid & Moreland Ave NE
Little 5 Points/Findley Plaza, Atlanta
Bring pots and pans, flashlights, glow sticks, lanterns, signs, banners, and everyone you know. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Facebook Event

Austin, November 4
1:00 pm
City Hall 301 West 2nd Street, Austin
Facebook event page

Boston, November 4
4:00 pm
Due to permit negotiations, the November 4th demonstration “This Nightmare Must End” The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!” has been moved from Shoppers’ Plaza to the Parkman Bandstand in the Boston Commons.
Facebook event page

Chicago, November 4
1:00 pm
Federal Plaza, 219 S. Dearborn
Facebook event page

Cincinnati, November 4
1:00 pm
Piatt Park 100 Garfield Place

Cleveland, November 4
1:00 pm
Public Square
Facebook event page

Falmouth, MA, November 4
10:30 am
Move to Remove
Falmouth Town Green, Falmouth, MA

Honolulu, November 4
9:30 am
9:30am: Gather at Ala Moana Park (across from Pi`ikoi St.)
11:00 am: Rally at Thomas Square
Facebook event page

Indianapolis, November 4
11 am & 1 pm
11:00 am at the CVS parking lot, 46th & Keystone
1:00 pm at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, 38th Street entrance

Los Angeles, November 4
1:00 pm
Pershing Square
5th St. and Hill St ~ Downtown LA
Facebook event page

Minneapolis, November 4
12:00 PM
Berger Fountain at Loring Park
1382 Willow Street
Facebook Event

New York City, November 4
2:00 pm
42nd Street & Broadway NYC
Facebook event page

Omak, WA, November 4
9:00 am
Civic League Park
Facebook Event

Philadelphia, November 4
2:00 pm
Thomas Paine Plaza
1401 John F Kennedy Blvd, Philadelphia
Facebook event page

Pittsfield, MA, November 4
1:00 pm
Park Square 1 West Street
Pittsfield MA
Facebook event page

Portland, Oregon November 4
2:00 pm
Jameson Square Fountain, Portland Oregon
PDX Refuse Fascism! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
RSVP and spread Facebook page

Salem, OR, November 4
3:00 pm

Salem Capitol
Facebook Event

San Francisco, November 4
3:00 PM
Union Square, San Francisco
Facebook Event

Seattle, November 4
12:00 pm
Gather at Seattle City Hall Plaza, 4th Avenue & James Street
Facebook Event

Tucson, November 4
2:00 PM
March begins at Tucson Comic Con / TCC
260 S. Church Avenue
Meet @ NO! Banner near front entrance

Donald Trump as Absolute Ruler

Donald Trump seeks to make himself an absolute ruler of this nation in a form similar to Vladimir Putin in Russia. His objective is to end all opposition to his goal. The evidence is everywhere. Trump’s claim of massive voter fraud and his demand for voter information was his first step. A warrant seeking the names and personal information of those viewing the anti-Trump website Dreamhost is a perfect example of the behavior of Putin or Turkey’s president Erdogan. Trump’s threat to deny licensing for NBC is further evidence of his desire to have absolute control over the media. Erdogan like Putin now has authority to issue law, declare a state of emergency, dismiss parliament and to appoint ministers, public officials and judges. There is no limit to the number of times they can be elected to office. Trump has two dictator/ presidents to emulate. Too many Americans seem willing to surrender their freedom to an autocrat. However many of us, like the Von Trapp family in Austria, will be wise enough to depart before Trump reaches his objective.