I have now watched this video twice. It is well done. My conclusion is Donald Trump represents the shrinking White majority. White Europeans descendants will soon be a minority group in the United States. They already are a minority in California. 38.4% of the California population is White according to state statistics. Those of you reading this who are part of that White group, I understand your fear. Try to understand that those who do not look like your ancestors are not here to harm you. They too want their children to grow up and live in the greatest country in the world.
Category: Social Behavior
Why We Need Universal Health Care
Health care insurance is too expensive.
The stated goals of health care reform in 2009 (Obamacare) in the USA were
- lower costs
- cover all Americans
- drive quality
- and be paid for (without impacting the federal budget)
Premiums for Californians’ Obamacare health coverage will rise by an average of 13.2% next year, according to the Los Angeles Times, more than three times the increase of the last two years. Premiums in the insurance program rose just 4% in 2016, after rising 4.2% in 2015 – the first year that exchange officials negotiated with insurers.
An analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of 14 metro areas that have already announced their 2017 premiums found an average jump of 11%. The changes ranged from a decrease of 14% in Providence, R.I., to an increase of 26% in Portland, Oregon.
Ouch! What happened to objective 1 – lower costs?
While Obama Care has provided insurance coverage to 11.7 million people there are still 12.9 million people without any coverage as reported in a Gallup Poll. In other words about 4% of the population is uninsured.
Obama’s intentions were good but his goal have not been met. Single payer health care like Medicare would cover everyone without exception. That would put for profit insurance companies out of business. Putting companies out of business is the stumbling block to genuine health care reform.
Despite Senator Bernie Sanders this is not likely to happen in the U.S. A. that considers free enterprise one of its basic tenants.
Complaining about Sexual Harassment and Rape
It is one thing to be sexually harassed and significantly more horrifying to be raped.
My question is when should you file a complaint about these events?
If you are a high school or college student who has been raped by a boyfriend and you go to the police and school authorities immediately (i.e. within days) of the occurrence that is an appropriate consequence to the event. If you waited five years or some other extended period before filing a complaint, what does that decision tell you about the legitimacy of the story told to authorities?
So we now come to the firing or dismissal of Gretchen Carlson from Fox News, the cable station. The 50 year old lady is a very attractive blond who was the 1989 Miss America. Blondes are a trade mark reality of Fox News. There are a few brunettes but being an attractive blond seems to be a basic requirement. Kirsten Powers and Shannon Bream are two outstanding examples of well spoken and very attractive blonds. Ms. Carlson earned $1 million a year. So while she may have felt somewhat uncomfortable about Roger Ailes remarks or the words of other male fox News employees she has happily banked a significant fortune. Now that her contract has been terminated she suddenly remembered that she felt harassed.
Where were all the women who were “raped” by Bill Cosby? Reports of comedian Bill Cosby taking sexual liberties and more with ladies over the years is not exactly new news. In fact, 13 women have accused Cosby of rape from the 1970s into the 2000s, but keep in mind that he has now been charged for the first time in 2016.
Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby do have one thing in common. Lots of money. It will be no surprise if Ms. Carlson is paid enough money to go away.
Some Good News
The news is all about what bad things have happened during the day or all the way to yesterday. It’s time to write about some good things that have happened.
-Surge of new jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 287,000 new jobs were created last month (June). New jobs have been created every month starting March of 2010. The unemployment rate I 4.9%. All those new jobs were not high paying but that is a record worth advertising.
-The S&P 500 has almost reached it record set May 20, 2015 when the index reached 2134.72. Friday it was almost there again closing at 2129.90.
-JCPenney is adding 350 jobs in LA and Orange counties in California. That is a company that many expected to go out of business this year.
-When Sharay Santora and her two children first arrived in downtown Dallas on Thursday to join the Black Lives Matter protest, she said the interaction between marchers and officers was peaceful, loving. Officers lined the streets as a massive crowd marched past.
“They gave us high-fives, hugs, were taking selfies,” Santora, 37, told The Washington Post. “It was such an instance of love and understanding, that ‘I’m here for you.’ You could feel it. There was no animosity in the air. That was the feeling throughout.”
Santora said marchers noted “these people who came out to protect us, we’re going to be out there for them.”
She plans to take her children to memorials for the fallen officers, for the same reason she has taken her children to Black Lives Matter demonstrations: “You’re either part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem. Even if you don’t know what to do, you can do something, even if it’s showing love.”
Maybe, just may be, the tragedy in Dallas can bring all of us to our senses.
The Power of the of Barnum and Bailey
The naivety of the public is astounding. Look at how many “smart” people believed Bernie Madoff.
Have you ever been offered a free vacation at some highly popular place like Las Vegas or Cancun? There is a group of us that accept those offers even though we know that nothing is free. Those people accepting those free trips will find themselves in rooms with other people being pressured to buy something. Usually it’s a time share unit or other expensive luxury. The technique is used because it is very successful.
The people of the U.K. were told that money saved as the result of exiting the European Union would be $325 Million Pounds a month that would be directed to national health care. The individual who made that claim now denies that result would happen.
Immigration of eastern Europeans and Muslims would be dramatically reduced if the U.K. was no longer part of the EU. That ascertain is now denied too.
Here in the United States G.O.P. candidate Donald Trump has promised to build wall along the Mexican border from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. He has promised to bring millions of jobs that have left this country back. He said he would stop all Muslims entering the United States “until we find out what the hell is going on.”
Now, even before Donald Trump is the official candidate of the Republican Party he has changed some of his ideas. Muslims will only be banned from some countries he has yet to identify. He has not been repeating his intention to deport all illegal aliens.
Stay tuned for more of his changed ideas. Just remember the outrageous things he said before Paul Manafort became his campaign manager will be forgotten or reversed as he conducts his national campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Should we believe what he says now as he reads a teleprompter or the unscripted words he used in his fight to be the Republican Party nominee?
There is a growing list of highly respected Republicans who are saying they won’t support Donald Trump. Some have said they are supporting Hillary Clinton.
Actually Hillary Clinton has been part of the establishment since her husband became governor of Arkansas. The accusation that she has Wall Street ties has not been denied. She really is part of the “inside the beltway” crowd. She does represent the status quo and says so when she says she wants to continue the ideas of Barack Obama.
The two-party system so dominates the political spectrum that the Libertarian and Green Parties won’t be on the stage for the presidential debates. The rule is those minority parties must have 15% of recent polling data.
Donald Trump is the outsider with so many negatives that Americans favor Hillary Clinton in all of the national polls to date.
As it stand now we are likely to vote for Hillary Clinton as we hold our collective noses.
Congress Does Not Want to Stop Illegal Immigration
My parents moved to the United States when I was six months old. I have grown up in this country. My first home was a two room cabin that had no running water. My connection with the place where I was born is a ZERO. I have never visited that village.
Fortunately my parents entered the United States legally. They applied for citizenship as soon as was permitted.
What if they had not entered legally? Under that scenario they could have been deported and most likely I would have gone with them along with my American born sister. That is the plight of illegal aliens who have lived in this country for decades. Some brought young children with them and some have children born in the United States.
In my career I have had three employers who hired illegal aliens. Of course all of those undocumented workers signed an I-9 form. They are here illegally so why would they not sign a form swearing they are in the country legally and have a right to work?
This is an issue that makes the United States culpable. The reason is that the E-Verify system has been in place for decades but its use is voluntary. E–Verify was originally established in 1997. If it had been mandatory millions of people would not have obtained employment and the question of deportation would be significantly reduced.
Of course those companies wanting to hire people at minimum pay wages will take almost anyone onto their payrolls. E–Verify would stop illegal migrants from obtaining work but would also reduce the number of people who will accept a minimum pay job.
The only new immigration law we need now is mandatory E–Verify. Businesses will object. Those businesses have lobbyists whose goal is to sustain the supply of low wage workers.
Some Guns Need to be Banned
When will the Federal government stop massacres? Why should the public be victim to crimes that can be reduced? When only about 15% of the population owns firearms why must the rest of us hope and pray that no one in our family is a victim when they go to a shopping mall or other public location?
We have an amendment to the constitution that provides for everyone to own a gun for their own protection and for use in a militia. That right does not say that crazy, mad, and the mentally imbalanced have a right to fire arms.
Semi-automatic weapons and assault weapons used in war appear to be the guns used to for massacres in most instances. So why aren’t these weapons banned? The AR-15 assault rifle was among the weapons banned by the federal government up until 2004, when the ban expired. It has not been renewed. The gun lobby and the NRA have done an outstanding job of preventing sensible regulations. It is obvious that our congress is subject to the will of those businesses and gun hobbyist groups that want to stop all regulation.
Both automatic and semi-automatic weapons should be banned.
The following list is not a complete listing. The lives lost and the lives permanently maimed should be sufficient motivation for new enforcements.
| Place | Date | Number Killed | Number Injured | Weapon Used |
| Orlando Fl., nightclub | June 12, 2016 | 49 | 17 | similar to an AR-15 |
| Virginia Tech | April 16, 2007 | 32 | 53 | 22-caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic handgun and a 9 mm semi-automatic Glock 19 handgun. |
| Newtown, Conn, elementary school | Dec. 4, 2012 | 27 | 1 | AR-15 assault rifle |
| San Bernardino, Calif., community center | Dec 4, 2015 | 14 | 21 | Smith & Wesson M&P assault rifle |
| Binghamton, New York, outside the American Civic Association | April 3, 2009 | 13 | 4 | 2 hand guns |
| Washington Navy Yard | Sept. 3, 2013 | 12 | 3 | AR-15 assault rifle |
| Aurora, Colo. Movie theater | July 29, 2012 | 12 | 58 | AR-15 assault rifle |
| Charleston S.C. church | April 19, 2015 | 9 | 1 | 45-caliber semi-automatic Glock handgun |
| Stockton, Calif., elementary school playground | Jan. 17, 1989 | 5 | 30 | AK-47 and a semiautomatic handgun |
| Ft. Hood, Texas | April 2, 2014 | 3 | 16 | 5.7-millimeter pistol |
Donald Trump’s new favorite slogan was invented for Nazi sympathizers
Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Is Donald Trump the next Hitler? I am not willing to take a chance of electing him just to find out. Donald Trump is frightening.
, The Washington Post,
Donald Trump greeted Twitter on Flag Day with two words in all caps: “AMERICA FIRST!”
He has made this slogan a theme for his campaign, and he has begun using it to contrast himself with President Obama, whose criticism of Trump’s rhetoric on Tuesday was answered with a Trump statement promising, “When I am president, it will always be America first.”
He wasn’t quite promising “America über alles,” but it comes close. “America First” was the motto of Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930s, and Trump has more than just a catchphrase in common with them.
Trump defines the “America” he wants to put “first” by saying who does not properly belong in it. That definition does not include certain people of foreign descent born in the United States, who are to him still foreigners and whom he labels accordingly (in the past few weeks, Trump has referred to native-born Americans as “Mexican” or “Afghan”). It does not include Muslim residents, whom he would “certainly” and “absolutely” force to register their presence with the U.S. government (asked how this proposed policy differs from Nazi laws regarding Jews, Trump replied, “You tell me“).
Trump wants his exclusionary America to cower behind walls. He would erect metaphorical barriers against immigrants (excluding Muslims from entry to the United States until they can be “properly and perfectly” screened) and trade. And of course, he would build a literal wall along the Mexican border. None of which is to say Trump’s isolated America would decline to fight wars: Trump would increase bombing of the Middle East and fight “fast and … furious for a short period of time” against the terrorist enemy.
This is what Trump’s “America First” means: a white America (committed, to be sure, to “take care of our African American people”), living behind higher walls and screens, lashing out to prove its strength and then retreating again — not a government suspiciously tolerant of foreign threats.
And this is also largely what “America First” has historically meant.
During the early 1930s, as the Nazis consolidated control over Germany, the U.S. media baron William Randolph Hearst began touting the slogan “America First” against President Franklin Roosevelt, whom he saw as dangerously likely to “allow the international bankers and the other big influences that have gambled with your prosperity to gamble with your politics.” Hearst regarded Roosevelt’s New Deal as “un-American to the core” and “more communistic than the communists” — unlike Nazism, which he believed had won a great victory for “liberty-loving people” everywhere in defeating communism.
With the beginning of World War II in Europe and the Germans’ swift conquest of the continent, Roosevelt began to commit his administration more firmly to the aid of the those fighting Nazism. He incurred the ire of various anti-intervention constituencies, ranging from committed religious or principled pacifists to American communists, who supported the Nazi-Soviet pact and therefore the notion that the United States should stay out of the European war.
[Donald Trump is America’s Silvio Berlusconi]
But the most prominent of his opponents were the founders of the America First Committee, formed in September 1940. The committee opposed fighting Nazism and proposed a well-armed America confined largely to the Western hemisphere. It soon afterward adopted the noted aviator and enthusiast of fascism, Charles Lindbergh, as their favored speaker. Lindbergh accepted a medal from Herman Goering “in the name of the Fuehrer” during a visit to Germany in 1938, and “proudly wore the decoration.” He thought democracy was finished in Europe, that the western powers could not effectively resist the Nazi war machine and that the United States had better make terms with Adolf Hitler.
Lindbergh wasn’t against wars per se; he could support fighting if it came to “a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion.” His definition of the white race apparently had little room for Jewish people, about whom he thought Hitler had a point: “We are all disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures,” Lindbergh believed, though he allowed the country could benefit from “a few Jews of the right type” — just as Trump would presumably allow Muslims who could pass a perfect and proper screen.
The famed automaker and celebrity anti-Semite Henry Ford also joined America First. Like many others, they fought against the “groups” who, Lindbergh said, were pushing the country into war: “the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.”
As with the Trump campaign, not all America First Committee supporters in 1940 were so egregious as their most visible spokesmen. But also as with the Trump campaign, neither did the moderate anti-Roosevelt anti-interventionists quite repudiate their fascist-friendly leaders.
The subsidiary labels may have shifted, but the general idea of “America First” remains the same: The United States should arm itself against foreign threats and stay within carefully defined borders, using the might of the state only to defend a very specific, rather white idea of “America” that excludes certain racial and religious minorities. Then, as now, the phrase offered strength through cowardice. Defeating this defeatism was essential to victory over dictatorships in the 20th century, and it is essential to preserving the institutions of democracy today.
Consequence of the Pulse Nightclub Terrorist Attack
There are two obvious consequences of the Pulse night club terrorist attack combined with the terrorist attack in San Bernardino California.
- There will be more invasion of privacy.
- The fight against terrorism will be a major issue in the presidential election.
One day after the Boston Marathon bombing the FBI released pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers. That was thanks to the battery of cameras that were mounted to buildings and light poles in the area.
We may relish our freedom but the fear of more terrorist attacks will, I believe, cause many Americans to willingly surrender that desire to prevent attacks in the future.
The NRA’s contention that more guns will stop terrorist attacks has proven worthless. Florida, where this latest attack occurred, did not stop the attack simply because most people do not carry weapons. Concealed guns are permitted in Florida.
Donald Trump will be tempted to call for more surveillance of Muslims in the United States. If he does propose that surveillance, American’s fear might prevail.
I anticipate that no matter who wins the general election we will see more loss of personal freedom.
President Barack Obama offered this statement today. “We Have To Decide If This Is The Kind Of Country We Want To Be. …To actively do nothing is a decision as well.”
Donald Trump is a Racist
June 10, 2016
Since posting The New York Times editorial numerous Republicans have spoken out against Donald Trump’s racist remarks. The best was said on June 7, 2016 by Paul Ryan. “I disavow these comments. I regret those comments that he made. Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.”
The following New York Times editorial reflects my views in words that I cannot construct in a better way.
Donald Trump’s Contempt for the Rule of Law
Federal judges have repeatedly and emphatically refused to recuse themselves from cases because of their race or ethnicity. These rulings were driven by two realizations: Ethnically based challenges would reduce every judge to a racial category, which would be racist in itself. And such challenges would make judges vulnerable to recusal motions — for reasons of race, ethnicity, gender or religion — in every case that came before them.
In other words, once these challenges were allowed, there would be no end to them.
The gravity of this matter has clearly eluded Donald Trump, who has cast aside the Constitution and decades of jurisprudence by suggesting both ethnic and religious litmus tests for federal judges. These pronouncements illustrate that Mr. Trump holds the rule of law in contempt.
Mr. Trump started down this road months ago, attacking a federal judge in California who is hearing a lawsuit against the now-defunct Trump University. Last week, he asserted that the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, had an “inherent conflict of interest” because he was “of Mexican heritage.” Mr. Trump implied that Judge Curiel — an American, born in Indiana — was biased against him because he intended to build a wall along the border to stop illegal immigration.
Republican leaders repudiated the remarks and hoped that the issue would disappear. But Mr. Trump went further on Sunday, when he said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” that a Muslim judge might be similarly biased against him because he has proposed a ban on Muslim immigrants entering the United States.
When the interviewer, John Dickerson, reminded Mr. Trump that this country has a tradition of not judging people based on heritage, the presumptive Republican nominee responded, “I’m not talking about tradition, I’m talking about common sense.”
Republicans who say they disagree with Mr. Trump’s racialist statements have tried to assuage the public by arguing that he doesn’t really believe those views. But if that’s the case, it is pretty cold comfort. Cynically choosing to equate ethnicity with bias is hardly more appealing than simply being ignorant or bigoted.
Coast Contact 