Bless Them.

       Good Lord please forgive the evangelicals for forgiving all the sins of their favorite President. He's working on the Ten Commandments. He's got over half committed. He's closing in on three quarters. But the evangelicals are still in his corner. How come you may ask? It's because of the most important promise he's keeping. Most important to evangelicals, that is. He's appointing hard right conservative judges which the U.S. Congress is rubber stamping like the good little puppies they are.
       Now why would a Congress full of supposedly intelligent representatives of the entire country jump at the chance to do the President's bidding. Of course the Republicans do hold majorities in both houses, but that's not the main reason. The main reason is that if they don't do as they are told, evangelicals might not vote for them.
       Now you can't say the same thing for the Catholics of Methodists or any other denomination. These denominations don't march in lock-step like the evangelicals. Your not supposed to think for yourself apparently, if you're gonna be an evangelical. I'm told, they're told how to vote by their church. To me that seems to fly in the face of separation of church and state, but if you've got the ear of the President, well, you know.
       We should start a new church. One that requires every member to vote their own heart and mind. Let's call it America. You can belong to any church you wish, but the church can't tell you how to vote. Only that you should vote in every election and that you should take the time to understand who and what you're voting for. Come to think of it, that church already exists. We call it America. Problem is, too many folks don't try to understand who or what they're voting for. There should be a law against voting a straight party. Because no party fields all the best candidates. Just look at the President.

Presto, Chango.

       Hmm. My last post, I suggested Mr. Trump was like a magician. But I've given it more thought and have decided that calling Trump a magician is unfair to all magicians around the world who work hard at their calling in order to better perform their mysterious acts of magic. Magicians work hard and that's the difference between them and President Trump who doesn't seem to have any interest in becoming knowledgeable on any subject except making his personal wealth grow.
       A far better representation of him is a wizard, as in the Wizard of Oz. He stands or sits behind a curtain and shows a grand personage. One of remarkable ability. But behind the curtain is a small handed, small minded individual trying desperately to appear great. But true greatness eludes this person with a fake hairdo.
       From his largest ever inaugural crowd to his fair and friendly zero tolerance order he exaggerates. While in actuality his was among the smallest of modern day inaugural crowds and his zero tolerance program has proven to be a disaster where we steal children from their parents and then deport the parents to their homeland without the children. Meanwhile what do we do with the children?
       This was and is an embarrassment to America. The Wizard of the White House is an embarrassment to America. He needs to be on a leash and collar and only a change in Congress can provide that restraint. Because the current Republican controlled Congress ain't getting the job done.

Now You See It, Now You Don't.

       Every great magician needs to be able to distract your attention in order to pull off his or her stunt. He needs to keep talking about and pointing to another subject so that he can take your wallet from you and then surprise you by giving it back. That is unless he's something of a criminal and his intention is not to give it back at all.
       Some politicians are adept at such magic. They enact legislation in opposition to the best interests of his constituents by constantly pointing to and talking about something that is far more unpleasant, or some imagined enemy trying to do far more harm to you or himself. In the politician's mind, he has convinced himself that he's doing you a kind service by taking your rights away from you in order to better protect you from dangerous alien invaders from the south.
       At the same time he's causing foreign allies to find dealing with him to be nearly impossible while long-time enemies are befriended. Then again in order to distract you once more, he names news media to be the enemy because of the fake news they point out, such as the deeds and promises he has previously done and given. Any other magician, or politician who does not pledge allegiance to him will find that he's a mean spirited foe. He can get almost any politician who is not for him fired for being against him.
       Such a person lives only in our imagination. He does not exist. No such person could rise to such a lofty position as to be able to cause such disruption. Such a person would have to be a superb actor, filled with greed and self adoration. Such a character would be named Donald Trump.

Walls, Walls, Walls.

       Remember that Mexican wall along the border with America? You remember, the wall that Mexico swore they could get America to pay for? Oh, no,wait, it was the American wall along the Mexican border that Mr. Trump swore he could get Mexico the pay for. Why haven't we heard any more about Mexico paying for it? Could it be that Mexico convinced Trump that they definitely would not pay for it?
       But if Mexico isn't going to pay for it, who will pay for it? Oh, that's right, Trump has threatened to shut down the government unless Congress agrees to pay for it. So what does that mean exactly? Well for starters, if Congress agrees to pay to have the wall built, you and I are gonna have to pick up that tab. That's because Congress can't pay for anything. All they can do is borrow the money which means our taxes would go up. Either that or just go ahead and raise our taxes to pay for the wall.
       The thing is though, Trump is talking about another tax cut. Must be that the wealthy folks are in need of some new cars and vacation spas. But if he gives out tax cuts again and still wants Congress to pay for a wall to be built, where's all this money gonna come from? Maybe we could place some tariffs on the builders of the wall. Of course my guess is that its in their contract that no tariffs can be levied against them.
       Let's hope the government finds some gold veins in some of our most treasured national parks. A whole lot of gold veins and maybe some diamond fields too. On the other hand if Congress refuses to fund his wall and he shuts down the government, who's gonna pay for that? And then what about our credit rating? It was reduced once before. Then it'll cost more for us to borrow the money to run the government and even more to pay for that damn wall.

Trump Policies

       President Trump tells us he "gets along great with Vladimir Putin." Putin loves Trump. You would too if he did everything you wanted him to do and say. Trump likes Kim Jung-un too and Kim loves him, for pretty much the same reasons. Hey, even Rouhani of Iran is offered the friendship of the President.
       Its easy for these guys to like Trump and to express that likening. After all, Trump seems to go along with just about anything they say. Putin tells Trump, why no, we didn't interfere in your 2016 elections. Trump thinks 'well good enough for me'. Kim says we're done with nuclear, even though they're working on bigger and better models, but Trump says 'mission accomplished'.
       Then he tells Iran's Rouhani, hey if you want to get together for lunch, I'll buy. All these bad guys, who would sell us down the river in a heartbeat, are Trump's friends. But our allies, the folks who have sworn to help protect us as we have sworn to protect them, well, hey, this NATO and this EU? I'm hitting them with tariffs, the losers.
       And then there's all those criminals trying to get into our country to work at jobs that Americans don't want. Trump's idea of punishing these people is to take away their children and then quick deport them back to their home country. Now as to the whereabouts of their kid? Who knows, check the cages. It may be a low point for his daughter but for Donald Trump, its just another promise kept.

Didja Know?

       Here are a few "Didja knows." Didja know that Trump has averaged 7.5 lies or misrepresentations per day since his inauguration? Didja know that he has escalated his scorn for the news media the closer Mueller's investigation gets to him? Didja know that Russia really did try to manipulate our elections in 2016 to favor Trump? And may have succeeded.
       Didja know that Trump not only punished parents who tried to enter America and were caught, but he also punished their children for being brought here? Some as young as infants? Didja know that Trump's 4% economic growth was matched four times during Obama's presidency? Didja know that only the wealthy are enjoying this economic growth? Didja know that income for the vast majority of Americans is not growing?
       That's just a few didjas, just a few of the very many. If you're already wealthy, you're likely to get even richer under Trump's lack of leadership. But if you're not already wealthy you're not likely going to have a chance to become wealthy under Trump's time in office.
       You're not likely to get healthy under Trump either. He has broken with so many rules to help all Americans be safer and healthier that, given his way, we'll all be breathing coal dust and smog, even in the countryside. Environment seems to be a nasty word in his mind and environmental safety seems to mean firing coalminers. We're not firing coalminers, the lack of demand for coal is doing that. And we'll be drinking water unfit for human consumption. Those are just some of his goals.

Inflation My Foot.

       Now why would you suppose President Trump and his minions feel it's important to make the very, very rich even richer? There's a plan afoot to tax capital gains only after inflation. Now that sounds perfectly harmless, doesn't it. But in fact all it really does is make the rich even richer. How can I say that with a straight face? Easy, because it's the truth.
       The way it's currently taxed and has been since the late 1920s is you buy for one price and sell at a higher price, the difference is taxable. But the plan is to allow for inflation. So if you buy some stock for $8,000 and sell it later for $16,000 then you deduct for inflation at let's say $4,000 then only $4,000 is taxable.
       It wouldn't make anyone wealthy on that one deal, but for the very wealthy, such a deal would be small chump change. See, in order for this to amount to anything like a windfall, you'd have to be trading in the millions. And that's exactly what the super-wealthy do. So what you say? So it means that much less is being paid in taxes overall. Which means the government has to cut out programs. That's something the government hates to do. They prefer to expand programs. The only way to accomplish that would be to raise our taxes.
       I hate to say it, but this is exactly the kind of deal a super-wealthy real estate developer dreams of. Someone like Donald Trump. But certainly not people like you and me. The last time he cut taxes the wealthy made out like bandits while the rest of us saw very little. If he pulls this off, he should get an award. The screwdriver award. But he'll get a whopper of a deal for himself.