It’s not “Fake News”, it’s “#FakePresidentSAD!”

When Trump and his administration lie and bully each and every day, they lose respect with a large percentage of the American people. It’s gotten so bad that Kellyanne “Con Job” Conway was blacklisted from numerous political TV shows because she always answers with alternative facts. Ever notice how the Trump team talks in slogans and never gives any specifics?

Ignore the question asked.
(spin)
Answer the question you want with vague generalities.
(spin again)
Blame the other side with all the anger you can muster.
(spin harder)
Promote your message with no specifics. “I’m gonna make America great again. Believe me.”
(Rinse, repeat)

Is there anyone else in the Trump Administration who conveniently forgot they had talks with senior Russian officials these past two years? They’re comparing the first days of the Trump Administration to the last days of the Nixon Administration. Former Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein said, “We’ve never seen, in an American President, such open authoritarian moves and rhetoric.”

You, I and every other person lives in reality on planet earth. Then there is Trump and his administration that lives in the alternative reality called Trumpland. Trump has created a chaos universe within his White House. This is the worst start to a new administration since William Henry Harrison, our 9th President. He died just 31 days after being inaugurated. FYI: He was the last President not born in America.

During Trump’s first State of the Union speech he actually said, “We’re going to provide access to healthcare for all Americans.” The key word was “access”, not “coverage”. That’s like saying you and I have access to a Ferrari 488 Spider. Except we can’t afford the down payment on a $350,000 sports car, the monthly payments, the auto insurance, nor hiring Hans as a full-time mechanic. Sleep good at night knowing you have access to a Ferrari.

Trump also said, “The federal government should help Americans purchase their own (health) coverage through the use of tax credits and expanded Health Savings Accounts (HSA).” Fact: 45.3% of all Americans don’t pay any federal income taxes so tax credits are worthless and if you don’t have any money left over every month to save for a HSA, what good are Trump’s words?

Trump also said, “Dying industries will come roaring back to life … Our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity.” Well that’s great news as I’m sure the capitalist market economy won’t mind paying higher energy prices for coal and the urban inner cities will immediately reverse 72 years of social decay.

I might feel better if Trump’s inner circle was not Assistant to the President Stephen Bannon, the former CEO of Breitbart News; Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka, an anti-Muslim scholar; and Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, who has a shocking resemblance to Joseph Goebbels. Now the latter really pisses me off as I like Steve Miller, the musician.

“The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned”.

Stephen Miller

WTF!? The powers of the President will not be questioned? Maybe I’m a little fuzzy on my civics lessons or the Trump Administration never heard of the checks and balances from the Legislative and Judicial branches of our government that our Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution. Ya know, that piece of paper that Republicans claim to follow to stop a dictator from running amok.

Trump recently declared the news media the “enemy of the American people”. There’s a reason Trump is taking on the main stream media (MSM) as most of his supporters don’t read newspapers. They live in a bubble watching Fox News, listening to AM Hate Radio talking points from Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and about the only thing they read is fake news on Facebook.

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

Jeez, I thought ISIS was the enemy of the American people.

I’m a history buff and can see many similarities between 1933 Hitler and 2017 Trump. The first thing Hitler did was eliminate any press that wasn’t pro-Hitler. Then he went after the “undesirables” such as the Jews, Catholics, Slavs, communists, Gypsies, gays, disabled (Google “Nazi T4”), etc. Repeat any lie you are propagating over and over again. Sound familiar?

Trump’s travel ban (Libya, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen) is nothing more than a Muslim ban. May I remind you that 15 of the 19 9/11 highjackers were from Saudi Arabia and the others from United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.  Notice which countries are not on the travel ban?

Just recently Muhammad Ali, Jr. (yes, the son of boxing legend Muhammad Ali) was detained for hours by U.S. Custom officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after returning from Jamaica with his mother. They kept asking him, “Where did you get your name?” and “Are you a Muslim?” For the record, he was born in America, he’s a U.S. citizen and yes, he is a Muslim. On a recent SFO to New York domestic flight, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents demanded to see IDs from the exiting passengers. They claimed they were trying to serve a deportation order on an illegal immigrant. Reminds me of a time in recent history, circa Germany 1933-1945. With Steven Bannon in Trump’s ear you can bet that his ultimate goal is not just a travel ban on Muslims, but the deportation of all Muslims.

Trump’s Executive Order on immigration is really an excuse to deport Hispanics. When I read that one of the crimes that ICE (U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement) will use as a ruse to deport Hispanics is “human smuggling”, as in bringing their own children with them when they came to America, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Didn’t Trump state he was going to put a freeze on all federal hiring or is he going to hire 10,000 additional ICE agents to deport all the “bad hombres”? Which is it? Does bad hombres include students and hotel maids?

Next time you’re in a major city, look behind the curtains by going into the kitchen of almost any restaurant. Sure they may have the 20-something AMW (actress, model, whatever) as the hostess and maybe a celebrity chef, but most of the cooking, bussing and dishwashing is done by Hispanics. Same with the hotel, landscaping, construction and agriculture industries. They show up on time (sober and no drugs), they work hard and they work cheap. Here’s another Sig Dig: Today 1 in 5 adult American males between the ages of 25 - 55 does not work, nor pay any income taxes. 1 in 5. They’re on SSI, they’re selling drugs (including a good chunk of Humboldt’s male population), they’re in prison or they just gave up and are living in their parent’s basement.

 

I think we can all see what the true meaning behind Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats now.

Tell me, what’s the ethnic makeup of 99.99% of the people wearing his hats? There were plenty of black, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim and LGBT people at Donald Trump’s rallies… they were protesters.

Let’s not forget Alfred Montapert’s adage, “Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.” Trump has made lots of noise and tweets, but taken very little action. FiveThirtyEight calculates that former President Bill Clinton passed 24 bills; John Kennedy, 26; Harry Truman, 55; and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 76 in their first 100 days in office. Despite having a Republican controlled Congress and Senate, odds are Trump won’t enact 10 bills in his first 100 days.

There is one way to hold the Trump Administration accountable for what they say. Tape delay all live press conferences with the magic PAUSE button and fact check each and every statement. When they lie, hit PAUSE and flash on the TV screen “LIE” and explain how what they just said was a lie and document the accurate facts. Now go back to where we left off in the press conference and wait for the next lie.

Rinse, Repeat.

Trump seems to have a problem with math and shrugs it off when constantly told he’s wrong with the facts with, “Well, that’s what someone said to me.” In his State of the Union speech he said, “94 million Americans are out of work.” I guess if you include babies, children, students, disabled, retired and seniors there’s some basis in fact. However, 94 million Americans are not actively looking for work, nor filing for unemployment.

More math: Almost 10 million more Americans voted for someone other than Trump this past November.

Total votes: 135,718,049 - 100.0%

In other words, Trump received almost 63 million votes while almost 73 million people voted for someone other than Trump. Still think he had “the largest election victory since Reagan”?

What’s the plan for Trump and the Republican Congress to repeal ACA (Affordable Care Act) and replace it with something better for the American people? While ACA was not perfect, it did provide health coverage for 20 million of no/low-income and pre-existing conditions folks (including over 18,000 people here in Humboldt County) who were otherwise kept from getting medical services. If the Republicans can offer better health coverage at lower prices for all Americans, I’m onboard. By the way, the Republicans had seven years to improve ACA and didn’t do squat. We should force Congress and their families have the same new version of healthcare they’re offering to their constituents. Maybe that way they’ll get it right.

For eight years the obstructionists Congressional Republicans were nothing more than the “party of no” to President Obama. What goes around, comes around. Karma, bitches. Welcome to “Indivisible”, the 2016 post-election group that’s building a new Democratic Tea Party with the grass roots organizations from Organizing For Action (originally called “Obama For America”), that grew out of the 2008 Obama campaign along with the Bernie Sanders die-hards to teach a new generation of progressives how to get involved with three simple ideas: Organize, Show Up and Be Respectful. Your electeds work for you, whether you voted for them or not.

Most important, the Internet dictum: “Pic or it didn’t happen.” A photo or better yet, video can change the world. Think of the Rodney King beating without the video. Would that have been just another “he said/she said” with the LAPD? However, with the video clip playing over and over, the whole world watched and went, “Whoa!”

MEANWHILE, HERE IN HUMBOLDT…

I’m a little confused as I’ve been called a Trump supporter by some local Berners when I’ve been quite vocal in print of my opposition to Trump. Keep in mind these are some of the same people who don’t have the common courtesy to meet and have a face-to-face adult conversation with me. For the past decade I’ve reached out to The Left and the Right as I believe we have more in common than what divides us. Just because we disagree on political issues, doesn’t mean we have to be disagreeable with each other. Instead of unfriending Facebook friends, we should be sitting down and talking to each other. Sharing a cup of coffee or a pint of brew while having a respectful conversation goes a long way to eliminate rumors and innuendos. We need to more long grey hairs with a ponytail, beard and earring who drive a Prius, sitting down and listening to the dude with a crew cut, wearing a baseball cap in cammo clothing who drives a pick-up truck with a gun rack (yes, I’m generalizing).

If you people can’t get along, then we’re going Old School.

Whether you identify as Christian or progressive, we share many of the same values. We all breathe the same air. We all drink the same water. We all want the best education for our children. We all want to live in safe neighborhoods. We all should care about those less fortunate and offer a hand up to those who want it.

How do you define progressive: social reform - political change? Is it someone who works hard, pays income taxes, gives generously of their time, labor and money to charities and volunteers to make our local community and country a better place for all? Then I’m definitely progressive. If you just want shit for free and don’t have a clue how to pay for it, then you’re not progressive, but a socialist. Margaret Thatcher once said, “Socialist governments do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money to spend.”

Look I’m a pragmatist at heart. “That’s a wonderful idea. How do we pay for it?” My daughter’s attending UCLA. There’s not a parent out there who would like to see free college tuition more than me. So how do we pay for it? Free medical care. Great idea! How do we pay for that? For the record, the City of Eureka went self-insured over a decade ago for their medical and almost went bankrupt from just one employee’s medical claims.

Let me offer you some other opinions based on things I’ve observed over the past two weeks. Here’s a pic of a back door of a Eureka home in a quiet residential neighborhood that was recently hatcheted by a 14-year old tweaker.

When I showed this photo and told this story to many of my friends, most said something along the lines of, “Good thing he didn’t do that at my place as I’m heavily armed. You break into my house at night, with a hatchet in your hands… you’re toast.” Luckily the residents weren’t home and the EPD arrested the suspect. My only question is, where the hell were the parents when little 14-year old “Johnny” is out wrecking havoc in our neighborhoods? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Next up… over two weeks ago I alerted our Eureka City Council and staff that we have a problem home (319 W. Del Norte, off of Summer between Del Norte and Wabash).

I don’t even know where to begin on this one as I’ve been driving by this POS for over a month now and it ain’t getting any better in the rain.

And finally the Nocturnum building (which was recently sold) was vandalized this week.

The front door window was broken and now a homeless camp was set up outside.

So here’s the question: Would you rather have a Human Rights Resolution (for rights we already have) or the City cleaning up the visible crap all over our town, cracking down on drugs, violent crimes and property damage. You decide.