Tolerance?

Every so often you see something that makes you wonder.

It could be something good or something bad, but it just doesn't fit into your version of reality so you have to adjust.

Now, I used to think that religious people had principles that led them, such as love thy neighbor or do good works.

Now history shows that religious people have performed some of the worst abuses, and in certain countries still do.

Stoning sinners, burning heretics, wiping out entire populations of heretics, were clearly things that had ties to religion.

However, naively I guess, I felt I lived in a country, and a time where we acknowledge differences but accepted other people's rights.

Now accepting someone's right to be "wrong" can be hard, especially if you think it condemns them to hell.  However, you tolerate their beliefs and they tolerate yours.

Agree to disagree is sort of the phrase I would use to describe our current state of affairs in this country.

However, more recent events have revealed that the intolerant side of religion is alive and well.

I'm not just talking about the anti-abortion advocates who have an argument about protecting the unborn,  This extends to questioning the lifestyle choices of others.

I also find their insistence that this is a Christian country rather intolerant.  If you consider the Vikings, the first Europeans here weren't even Christian and the Native Americans weren't.

Its not very Christian, at least my version of Christianity to give out smallpox infested blankets or to enslave people or to routinely massacre Native American women and children.

Then again maybe it is, maybe it is.

Makes you wonder.

Malevolent Lies

I keep reading small articles here and there about someone in a public sort of job who displays a degree of misinformation that amazes me.

Now thinking that the earth is flat when many people have circled it or that dinosaurs aren't real don't seem to have much impact on one's day to day life except it is simply so clearly wrong that I can't understand how an adult person could still believe these things.

I'm not talking about mentally incompetent people, as far as I know, just average intelligence people who believe things that are obviously wrong.

In some cases it has to do with misguided religious teaching where the bible is interpreted to say the world is only so many thousand years old.

These things are so easily disproved, which underscores the real problem.

People believe there is some giant conspiracy that is trying to control them.

Some might call this God, but ignoring that, it is scary that people have so lost confidence in the press, the Government, the teachers and anyone who is reasonably educated that they believe truly absurd things.

Now these get reported because they are on the extreme edge of this trend.

The vast majority of people understand the world is round and that dinosaurs and fossils are real.

But this mistrust leads to other problems and is fed by shouts of fake news or conspiracy.

Take the moon landing or the Kennedy assassination.  There have been and still are people who believe that the official accounts of this are faked.  They seem to believe this because it would be possible to fake them and you can't prove a negative.

This last one is probably the one that causes the most problem, where someone says prove it didn't happen!

Well the burden of proof, and I mead real proof should be on the person making a claim.

Now sometimes there are a few tidbits of odd information that can be spun into a web of lies, but it doesn't constitute proof.

To believe that there is a group that is so powerful and so malevolent that they twist history and science for some unknown purpose is a claim that too many believe.

Its more than sad, its scary.

Chaos Trump House

Well its hard to keep up with the tweeting fool we have but it seems that all those fully vetted and highly qualified selectees weren't all that great, at least some of them, so far.

Everything that is happening was easily predictable based on his history and lack of experience and what is worse is his lack of any moral compass.

There's no way in my opinion that he won't be molesting the cookies in the white house over time, if not already.

On long Island yesterday he advised the police to go ahead and rough up those bad hombres when they loaded them into the paddy wagons.  Images of keystone kops danced in his head, I'm sure.  However the police being professional said they wouldn't do that.

There are still people who think he is doing something good for the country because I guess bigotry and racism is their thing.  Thanks to his predecessor's policies we are still doing OK and since they are pretty much ineffectual we may stumble through the whole term this way.

People who voted for him fall into a few categories.  Some are the deplorables that really hate this country and what it stands for and want to oppress minorities and other religions.  Some thought he would create jobs and the rest are opposed to abortion and gay rights.

The ones in the middle are the ones who are going to be the most disappointed.  He isn't going to revive manufacturing or coal mining jobs, automation has replaced the workers.

May see some investment with some jobs, but generally going to require some real skills to get them and nothing like the old assembly line days.

In many of our communities the people abusing the system are these ex workers, not all of them, who prefer benefits to the menial jobs they can get.  Its not the minorities or the Mexican immigrants (most of whom work very hard) who are the problem.

Making minimum wage isn't good enough for them, they used to make real money so they simply survive on what they can.

Empty promises isn't going to change anything.

House of Cards

When you think the future is going to be the same as the present you are wrong.

Now some things will be the same, but enough things will change that plans will probably be ruined.

Take Social Security as an example.  When it was created the country had experienced nothing but population growth through immigration and birth and the people at the time would have projected a similar future.  As long as that continued we would have plenty of young workers to support the relatively short lived retirees covered by the benefit.

Well while population has grown it grew as much from people living longer than young people being born and the system has become financially unstable.

The people who designed it weren't poor planners, no one can plan for the unpredictable.

Breakthroughs in medical science have prolonged our lives.  Women also have moved into the workforce and delayed having children and have fewer of them if any.

Similarly, many pension plans that depended on your workers paying in to maintain long term stability are faced with large numbers of retired workers with many fewer young workers to feed the fund.

The point is that things happen and they weren't predictable.

Moving forward requires the ability to respond to new situations, not try to undo the progress and events that are molding the present.

The Affordable Care Act was a step forward and those who wanted to undo it were envisioning a world that doesn't exist anymore.  They see it as a step towards socialism and maybe in some ways it is.  However socialism in medicine means every sick person gets treated and every healthy person gets preventive care.

What's wrong with that?

Senate Continues to Save Health Insurance For Millions

Generally the headlines talk about how the Senate is failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act but this failure is actually a success for many Americans who would lose coverage under any of the Senate plans.

You may feel that the Government should not be providing health insurance but if you do what is your alternative approach?

In the middle ages they used to collect the bodies of plague victims but don't think that's an acceptable alternative.

Do we allow the fortunate access to things like health care and education and condemn most of the population to poverty and disease?

That's not the world I want to live in, I want everyone to have opportunity and decent medical care.

The other way has been tried in the past and has always resulted in large populations of peasants or serfs or slaves who struggled to survive.

First of course you need to strip the poor of all hope and dignity and make them entirely dependent on the wealthy.

Lets try to avoid the same mistake here.

When Even Your Allies Turn On You

It might be a bad sign when people who you claim to have fully vetted for some of the most important positions in our Government are apparently weak and unable to do their jobs less than six months later.

Of course the vetting that took place was most likely simply a loyalty test that they passed and any actual skills weren't at issue.

Further the ones that are under the most attack are being attacked because they didn't do enough to further the ego of the president more than any procedural issue.

You have a group that seems to have trouble with actual reality and has started to believe their own lies.

The Attorney General, the Secretary of State and others are apparently not living is quite the fictional world this group is.

I suspect pretty much everyone who isn't drinking the kool-aid on a regular basis is effectively in trouble. The basic issue is that if you are in fact in touch with reality, you see that the emperor has no clothes and try to get him to put some on.  Of course that not what he perceives and he refuses to listen and thinks you have a problem.

Underlying all this is the fact that the policies have no basis in the real world and are simply unexecutable.

Still, tilting at imaginary dragon that turn out to be windmills is the order of the day, so drop your visors and charge.

Is Anyone Actually There?

Nobody knows everything, some like to pretend they do, but nobody does.

Now this is normal and you need to rely on other people who actually know things you don't.

Reading the stuff that gets tweeted by our president makes you wonder?

Is anyone telling him how stupid he sounds?

I mean, yes lot of people are talking about it, but is there anyone he trusts telling him?

For example, he accuses Hillary of breaking some imaginary law about deleting e-mails.

Now first it was her legal team who decided what e-mail are indeed private and secondly her obligation to turn them over is hardly a crime, unless they are proven to be Government records.

They were after all on her private e-mail server.

Then he rants about her contacts with Russia and Iran which occurred while she was Secretary of State.

He can't even come up with the right crimes that she was investigated for which were release of secret information, of which she was never charged.

Talk about fake news!

He repeats things that his base listened to in the past figuring they bought this crap once, maybe they will again.  Although his base isn't his problem.

Its everyone else.

Infrastructure Projects

Outside of the two pipelines, one violating Native American grounds and the other destroying the Alberta ecosystem, I haven't noticed any.

These are things that are bi-partisan in nature since they tend to help everybody.

Instead it seems that the administration is defunding some projects that would have created jobs and improved infrastructure.

It seems that the desire to increase the defense budget is causing funding shortages elsewhere.

Now, a lot of the increase is to have more conventional forces and equipment, including more ships.  How many ships we actually need depends on what scenario  you use, one war, two wars, more wars, and number of fronts.

Professional military people can project what and how many we need and especially in the current world that has to take into account but of course all we hear are mostly arbitrary numbers that he heard elsewhere.

To build more ships instead of a third Hudson River tunnel which would actually increase commerce and prosperity is wrong.

Infrastructure is something we all agree on, lets give it a shot.

All The People!

The American people are the people who live in America.

Not some of those who live here, all of them.

Now not everyone here is a citizen and some may not be here legally.

However, they are part of the American people while they live in this country.

During elections its become common to attack your opponent and more recently its become a bit of a tactic to attack their supporters.

However, until I think this election, the winners have always realized that they had to represent all the people to the best extent possible.

Now of course, some policies might be things large groups oppose, but being America we accepted the right of the people to protest and assemble and defended those rights.

Could be that my memory is fading but outside of specific groups like drug dealers or other criminals, the presidents never made it an us versus them thing once elected.

We are experiencing an era where more and more things are defined as us versus them and sadly the "them" is "us".

We have met the enemy and they are us.

Slogans like "Make America Great Again" mean nothing when you inspire hatred of your fellow Americans.

Police who are afraid of the people they protect are not really public servants anymore.

Armed men who come and drag away a father or mother, son or daughter because their papers weren't right are police state thugs.

Gleefully allowing a policy of seizing property when no crime has been proven is atrocious.

Banning people because of what religion they practice or what country they were born in is tyranny.

We have a leader who acts like everything is about him, not the people he serves.

God help us.

The Policy Is ?????

The Obama administration took over during a terrible financial crisis that threatened the stability of this country and sort of fixed it.

Now I say sort of because in fairness, economics generally will fix itself and what politician's do to fix it may or may not be successful.

What the policies did do were to create and save both jobs and homes and pretty clearly stopped the decline.

What didn't happen was a return to the America that existed in the 50s and 60s.

Of course that America didn't exist right before the crisis, but the crisis expedited some of the changes that had been happening anyways.

Now certain jobs and therefore people who held those jobs had been faced with a declining economy already.  Generally many of the jobs in manufacturing, mining, and other trades that were manually intensive were moved overseas or automated.  The second is the bigger factor and irreversible factor.

What used to require 1000 men can now be done by 10 with robots.

Now the jobs that went away paid well and the jobs that replaced them didn't pay as well and were in many cases simply not "the right" kind of work.

Now much of the country was doing quite well as high tech, creative jobs were created and housing came back leading to construction work.

Now for eight years the Obama administration was criticized for not fixing the economy, although clearly it was a lot better and it was likely the deciding factor in those states that swung the election.

So what's the policy?  I watch the administration seemingly completely unaware that less regulations or even less environmental protections isn't going to create a lot of jobs companies don't need.

Now promises have been made but coal isn't going to come back and the robots aren't leaving.

What else do you have?

If You Can't Stand the Heat...

The current administration is taking a lot of heat about things they did and said, pretty much like every other administration.

Of course to hear them tell it they are getting attacked more than anyone else in history.

They might be, they seem to have done more stupid things than anyone else.

However, this is how politics are and why politicians try to avoid saying anything that can be used against them.

If you are going to play the game you need to understand how it works.

Of course when you are used to being the one to dish it out you don't know how to take it.

Now clearly the old adage about loose lips never took hold in this group.

Criticize you own selections for doing what they should and display ignorance with every tweet.

Sadly as amusing as it is, its really not a good thing for the country since real problems don't get addressed while fake ones occupy every one's time.

Of course this group can't shoot straight so we are going to have to bear with them until the public gets it right.

Sigh.

A Hero

Sad news about John McCain who I have always admired even if I didn't always agree with him.

I wish him the best care in the world and hopefully a full recovery and many more years.

I sometimes see him on the news and it seems like the current Republican party is a mystery to him.

They became the not so loyal opposition and now as the majority only know hoe to oppose each other.

Of course they may have bought into the rhetoric that has surrounded a lot of issues, like health care.

The vast majority of Americans were only impacted by the Affordable Care Act is good ways, dependents up to 26 being on your policy and a lot of preventive care being required.

Some saw increased premiums, but its hard to say if the total cost of health care increased for those people without knowing what they actually used.

If you never use your health care, any cost is too much, except maybe as an emergency backup.

The only real way to stabilize the cost is have large groups that include healthy and not so healthy people.  This means the healthy people pay a bit more but the unhealthy people can afford coverage.

The math is simple and the idea that you can let young healthy people escape the group until they get old and sick simply doesn't work and doesn't understand how insurance works.

The only group that actually makes sense is a national group under a single payer system.

Instead of premiums we would pay taxes and the ones paying taxes would subsidize the ones who don't but, everyone would have coverage that works.

What else do we want?

Progress Hurts

There are a lot of people who seem to hate other people out there.  Hopefully you're not one of them.

What exactly is the reason for this is difficult to understand.  In some cases they seem to believe that the people they hate are trying to destroy the country they love.

Of course most of the changes are the result of forces that no one really controls.

Doing things cheaper, faster and better is the American way and its also progress.

So moving production to the most economic location is simple economics, not an attack on anyone.

Using automation to improve productivity is the same.

There's a famous line in the Godfather "its only business".

Of course in that world business got pretty personal and when a factory shuts down it not very comforting to think of it as a pure business decision, but it most likely was.

Similarly, you may believe that socially the country is in trouble with new religions around and people with different sexual preferences being allowed to express their love openly.

None of this should of course matter to anyone not actually involved, but a lot of people read the end of times into some of it.

Probably not, but of course I don't really know.  I do know that trying to make other people conform to what you think is right is not an American value.

Now some of these things come and go and you see examples, such as Iran, which was becoming progressive at one time but took a step back under the Ayatollah.  Now I hope nothing like that happens here but its the sort of thing that can happen if people feel threatened by change.

Change is part of progress and progress is like a rollercoaster at times.

You really need to hop on board and try to enjoy the ride.

How About an Open Inclusive Approach?

Watching the "politicians" in Washington spin their wheels has a certain sort of entertainment value.  I put politicians in quotes because these clowns are partisans, not politicians.

Politicians have to be ready to conduct politics which requires the interest of the polis or people to be taken care of.  Now this is pretty simple in concept, but if all you do is try to score points for your side instead of trying to come up with solutions that help the MOST people you aren't politicking.

Now over the ages the world recognized some great politicians who were able to solve issues and lead their countries forward.  In American history we have generally had fairly mediocre leaders with a few exceptions.

We had even fewer capable politicians.  Its not being much of a politician to whip your own side into shape to pass a bill that you promote when you have the majority.  The fact that this played out in public a few times now indicates the lack of skill in Washington.

The political process is a lot like sausage making, you don't want to watch how it is done, you just want to enjoy the sausage.

We tend to decry back room deals, because, well, we are naïve.  Deals need to be made to make progress and if we micromanage the process it won't happen.

Of course you still need to make inclusive deals, hopefully that will come out so good that they can actually do some good.

If you can pass them of course.

Minority Control

If you live in a country where the decisions on what to do are made by a group that composes about a third of the total population, it is hard to call that a true democracy more of a situation where you have one group dominate the majority.

Now it is of course possible that the ones controlling the Government are in agreement with the majority but its also very possible that they aren't.

Now of course in America we have a fairly apathetic electorate and because of Gerrymandering and voter suppression, the party in control is clearly not the majority.

They weren't even the majority of those who did vote, but because of the way we set up our results were able to win the Presidency, and both houses of the congress.  This will most likely let them dictate the composition of the Supreme Court for a period of decades.

So does the Government as constituted represent the people of the United States?  Well not all of them or even most of them if you can trust polls.  They represented enough voters for certain issues that as I just said they control the Government and it was all done legally.(ethics may be a different issue).

Part of the reason for this is that liberals, or progressives are less pragmatic than conservatives.

For example, evangelicals who probably washed their hands after every handshake with the Republican candidate still voted for him because he took their position on abortion if very little else.

Similarly many republicans looked past his glaring faults but voted for him because of his tax stance, ignoring the fact that they were in bed with the racists and xenophobes.

The statement that a large group of his supporters were in fact deplorable was used by many as a rallying cry, even though it was obvious to almost everyone that he had supporters that you wouldn't tolerate socially.

Now on the other side, every little flaw in the candidate, real or imagined was a reason to shun both her and the election because, well, they are idealists.

The fact that one candidate would clearly better promote liberal and progressive goals was overshadowed by the fact that she had made speeches to wall street firms and banks.

This list goes on and on and simply, until it changes we will live in a country where progressive ideals are ignored despite their popularity.

Sitting out an election because the candidate isn't perfect doesn't get you perfect representation, just he opposite.

Defend Against Disease.

Health care saves lives so having accessible health care is clearly a life saver.  Now if you don't have accessible health care some of those people will die, because they didn't get diagnosed early enough or they didn't get treatment because they couldn't afford it.  Now people with health care will also die and some of them will die because they didn't use their benefits.

You can't confuse those two groups as in the debate sometimes the second one is used as an example of why health care doesn't work.  Unused health care is the same as no health care, probably worse since it was available but its those who get health care and live longer fuller lives we should look at.

Also, having affordable health care might persuade some from group b to start getting check ups.

Every estimate I've seen, and I don't thnk its actually debated, just the actual number, shows the current Republican plans insuring less people over time.

That means some of those people will die who could have lived longer because they didn't have insurance, its a statistical certainty.

The goal of this is vague, its claimed it reduces premiums, but certainly not for the people who need it the most and while it will reduce Medicaid costs that will be at the cost of lives.

Now one of the things our Government is supposed to do is defend its citizens from all enemies both foreign and domestic.  I would argue that disease is clearly an enemy of the citizens that they need to be defended against.

Now the current system can be improved, but any change should insure more people, not less.

Health Savings Accounts

If you are in a certain income bracket, health savings accounts let you avoid some taxes while saving up for future medical emergencies.  I have no issue with them but the people they benefit are generally middle class and up.

They like to avoid paying taxes and they have disposable income that they can put away.

Of course, if you are struggling to make ends meet and can barely pay your bills, you aren't likely to put money into such an account, in fact statistics show you aren't likely to put money into a retirement account already.

Now the people who can benefit from these accounts are not "wealthy" per se, but probably live comfortably, have a good job and a good income.

The new Republican plan will allow them to use this money to pay for health insurance premiums, something that was prohibited under the current law for some reason I never understood.

So to benefit you have to have one of these accounts and buy your own health insurance vs am employee sponsored plan, where the amounts you pay in already get favorable tax treatment.

Its hard for me to estimate how many this will help and I'm pretty confident in saying that a tax break on your health insurance premium, while certainly nice, isn't going to be a life changer the way losing your health insurance entirely when you are poor is likely to be.

This was the big benefit touted by the party today, a nice little positive thing they can focus on but something which has very minimal impact.

The fact that this is what they are using as justification actually shows how bad the bill really is, you would think they would find something more meaningful, if it existed.

I guess it doesn't.

Love a Parade

Reading the news it turns out that a parade of military equipment is one of his favorite things.

Now that's fine and generally not something anyone would object to.

Of course in running a country or pretending to, you actually have to get involved in some real complex work.

In general if you have read his books or followed his career, we are talking about one of the most shallow people you can imagine.

Now, that's not all bad, and it might even explain his connection to middle aged white working class voters.

They pride themselves in being simple hoard working people who want a good job, a good family and a chance to drink beer and watch sports when they can, if not hunting or fishing.

The vast majority are also enthusiastic about parades and fly overs.

Maybe that's something that we can all agree on!

All Together Now

We are trapped in an environment where it is set up as a win or lose option.  Take the current health care debate or whatever is actually going on.

Passing a Republican bill to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act is now the goal, no matter how terrible some of what it does is. 

Now you may argue about how to control costs of Medicaid and you may want to allow younger, healthier people to have cheaper options, but those objectives are probably achievable in a bipartisan discussion without trying to only score political talking points.

Now is everything in the proposed plan  bad?  It can't be, that would be just as hard as making everything good.  It is a series of ideas, some good, some bad thrown together in a back room without much public input designed simply to pass a repeal and replace bill.

Of course it then has to pass the House and that is by no means certain.

Now this isn't just about health care.  The general idea of having elected representatives is that we have multiple points of view represented and everyone (or at least everyone with enough votes) gets to provide input.

So in tax reform what are we trying to reform?  Some argue that business is taxed at too high a rate and some argue the code is too complex.  On the other side the fairness of the system is in question, as some wealthy people pay much less than what some think they should.  However, whatever type of reform package might get cobble together it will not be bipartisan and won't address all the concerns.

This us vs them is simple and popular as we now demonize the other party and its adherents.

Well, we all live in this great country and are born, live, raise families, work and try to be happy.

The hate isn't real, its created at the top and by some of the media.  We need to demand they stop.

Breaking Promises

What we are seeing currently is how the administration is ignoring promises made during the presidential campaign that were only made to get some votes.

Some of the promises were so ridiculous to start with that believing them was an act of folly that is hard to respect.

• Sure we are going to bring coal back, (right after the zombie apocalypse maybe).
• All those good jobs being taken by illegal immigrants.(picking crops, changing beds, washing dishes)th
• Mexico's going to pay for the wall (never a chance of that)
• I'm going to lock up Hillary as soon as I get elected (maybe for some event he is hosting in the future)

Of course other promises sounded more credible, at least on the surface.

• We are going to protect social security and Medicare.
• Going to negotiate better trade deals
• Write a better health care bill

Of course none of that is materializing and he has no concern for most of the people who actually voted for him.  Now when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas and you may claim to be a Christian caring person who respects women and all people, you are busy scratching those racist, sexist, xenophobic fleas you picked up as you see the lies, the collusion, the hate we now have in this country.

I was reading today how some conservative Republicans oppose his proposed cuts to federal retirement benefits because they think the Government should keep its promises.  Trump has proposed:

• Lower retirement benefits by basing them on the average of the high five years of salary instead of the current high three.
• Abolish cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for current and future Federal Employee Retirement System employees.
• Reduce the COLA for Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) employees by 0.5 percent from what the formula otherwise allowed.
• End supplemental retirement income for FERS employees who retire beginning in 2018.
• Increase individual out-of-pocket FERS payments by 1 percentage point each year until they equal the government’s contribution. This would take up to six years and would amount to increased payments of about 6 percent. Payments from federal law enforcement officers would increase by the same amount but would not equal the greater contributions from law enforcement agencies.

Gee he even is screwing the law enforcement people, what a winner.

Left Hand, Right Hand, so far apart

There are a number of ways to convey a coordinated message.  All of them actually involve a degree of coordination which doesn't seem to be happening currently in our Government.

Now it is theoretically possible that a lot of individuals all acting independently come to a common goal.  For example everyone can decide to go to the beach on a hot summer day.  Probably won't be everyone, some might just stay home but you can get a lot of similar reactions to certain stimuli.

Not hot weather is pretty much the same for everyone but politics is not quite so clear.

Politics though isn't so consistent.  I think its more like arguing over what temperature to keep the air conditioner at,.  Never going to make everyone happy and hopefully you arrive at some compromise.  Sometimes of course one person manages to gain control and set the temperature where they like it making everyone else miserable.

Clearly a compromise is better than the second option, except of course for the one controlling the temperature.

Still in any event coordination generally works better than not coordinating if you want to get the best result for the most people.

Unless you are totally clueless, which might be our situation.

Take any big policy action.  If all you know is what they did was bad and what we do is great, it isn't much of a position.  Unfortunately understanding issues gets a bit complex and who knew being in charge would be real work?

Watching what we call our government do whatever it is they are doing can be either extremely funny or extremely depressing. 

I think at this point finding it humorous is better for overall sanity.

Does He Have the looking Glass?

When you read Alice in Wonderland you are normally captivated by the wild imagery and characters as well as how the world Alice enters is so different than ours.

However as time has progressed and our world has developed a degree of absurdity the world of Alice starts to look all too real.

One big difference is that in our world, things actually have consequences and as we see the absurdity grow we need to remember that soldiers dies, the environment gets worse and people go without needed health care.

This is despite assurances that it will be "really good" or "hugely successful" when it isn't or that a bill that I'm sure he never read or understood is so much better than what we have.

Now its not like we didn't know his career of failures and fantasies, his multiple bankruptcies and failed marriages as well as disastrous  public statements over the years.

Now businessmen have failures but most also have a sense of reality and realize when they haven't done well.

A few have no sense of reality.

Its possible that much of this is simply performance art for the folks who want to confront authority and who eat up the sort of outlandish stuff that he says.

So instead of "off with her head" we got "lock her up", instead of "paint the roses red" we got "largest crowd ever", we of course are experiencing a lot of this.



We are going somewhere though.

News

Our news media is currently under attack and is among the least trusted institution in the country.

Not sure calling it an institution is accurate but generally the public has a low opinion of it.

The problem it has is that it includes almost everything the purports to be news.

If you have ever been involved in a story that makes the news, you know that what gets published is inaccurate, not necessarily malicious but definitely inaccurate.

What you hope is that they get the basics correct, the who, when, what, where and hows.

They can't print or report everything and a lot of people won't even talk to them because they don't want to take the time or be involved.

Now the other problem is they need to sell their story.

So take a headline going around today.

Voters withdraw registrations because of voter fraud probe.

Sounds sort of important until you see its based on a single state and involves a few hundred people.

One statistic quoted is that the number is up a ridiculous percentage, because going from 5 to a couple of hundred is that increase.

Well, I don't know who these people are and I don't know if they are doing it out of fear or out of protest.  Some of that may still come out but the story is getting pretty big headlines and for those who only read headline (way too many of us) it is effectively fake news.

Now we have a phenomena on the Internet that is the equivalent of what headlines did to sell papers called click bait.

You get paid for how many visitors click on your site.  So you just need to get them there in order to make money.

Its one of the reasons fake news got so crazy and it is just something we need to live with now.

Sigh.

Saturday Musings

The goal of congress should be to improve things, not just show they can pass something.

The two party system is destroying this country.  You can have two districts almost identical in most respects but if one elects a Republican and the other elects a Democrat, they will be represented totally differently.

The needs of the electorate, the health of the country and the protection of the future should be what every representative strives for.

Its so expensive to run for office that you can't usually do well as an independent, no funds or infrastructure so we have to rely on primary battles.

Primaries are ruining the parties since small special interest groups can get a candidate nominated because of widespread voter apathy.

The parties need to consider alternates to how they conduct business, maybe they need to find a way to get more members to vote, electronic?

Somehow I'm on the mailing list of both major parties and I don't get anything from either of them that doesn't end up asking for money.

I guess in some ways its good for the economy that so much is spent on these races, but I can think of much better uses for the amounts being spent.

We need a system that reflects what the American people really want, because what we have doesn't do that.

I don't want any American to lose, its not some sports event even though we sort of conduct it that way.

How can we create a future for our children with a healthy environment, good education, good jobs, good health care and a chance to raise a family, before retiring comfortably?

Is anyone opposed to those things?

Simple Tax Plan

Our current tax system is the result of lots of politicians over the years tweaking things that constituents wanted imposed over the idea that we should tax income and profits.

Now the progressive income tax is by its nature a way to redistribute wealth since those who make more money pay more for benefits that in many instances are either the same for all are geared for the unfortunate.

The main advantages of this system is that it is complex and creates a lot of jobs in interpreting and enforcing it while still not creating enough revenue to pay for what we spend.

Of course there are also payroll taxes to pay for social security and various other taxes that come into effect after certain events, like estate or capital gains tax.

Now there is talk about reforming this into something simpler, but all the talk I see is related to basically keeping the current system.

I should note that the states and local governments also have a tax system which is more varied.

Problems with our current system, besides its complexities, is that it can be gamed with the right expertise, funding of charities and political campaigns is partially subsidized by the government, it makes us less competitive, and lets the government subsidize certain things without appropriating funds, using tax breaks.

Now what the government should and should not subsidize should be something that is clear to the American public and not hidden in some mysterious legal code.

The solution is pretty simple but unlikely to happen because the current system has its advocates.

Tax items sold in this country no matter where they originate.

Yes a national sales tax, exempting perhaps basic necessities needed to survive.

That part would help the less affluent who don't have money to spend on luxuries.

Now this should be instead of the current system, not in addition to and it has a lot of advantages.

First it levels the playing field, allowing our companies to compete fairly with its competitors and it makes can be effectively invisible to the consumer if structured correctly.

Now most of Europe uses a value added tax which is built into everything you buy.  Note however that if it replaces business taxes as well as income taxes, it should result in about the same amount of economic activity until the effect really kicks in when American products become more and more competitive.

I'' talk more about this coming up but as I said it isn't likely, at least not right away since we have too many invested people in our current system and out generally incompetent government.

Better Healthcare

Almost everybody I know, agrees that a person who is ill and goes to a doctor should be treated.  Almost everybody agrees that the treatment should be the best possible.  The only issue that comes up is cost.

Now how the providers of this treatment get paid is the controversy  How much they get paid is also an issue.

Now, currently they can charge whatever they can get generally unless the patient is covered by a plan they accept.

I recently had a situation where an optometrist billed us a certain amount for services because the patient didn't provide the proper information on coverage.  When we clarified the coverage the cost went down for us to less than half, some of which will be paid by the insurance company but not most of it.

The coverage I have for this service mostly relates to what they can charge for the items provided (the eye exam is covered) so it simply means the contacts cost less.

Now I have to assume the place is still making money so why charge so much more when it appears to be pure profit?  Guess the answer is, they can.

Now there is plenty of competition but they know someone who is there is unlikely to walk out over cost unless it is truly outrageous.  So while I'm sure they would negotiate the higher price down if it would cost them a sale, they charge what they can against the inexperienced.

Is this the way health care should work?

Republicans mostly say yes, let the free market decide and let our most vulnerable bear the cost.

Most of the civilized and not so civilized world has rejected this model and gone with a single payer system, meaning that the provider gets paid a fair amount by a national health service.

A fair price for services rendered and care for all who need it, an idea who's time has come.

Its a better way.

Simple Solutions for a Simpleton

The world is a complex place, even more complex than health care.

Now if you get all your news and analysis from certain TV networks you may not realize that what they present is extremely simplified and distorted in order to appeal to some of the audience that isn't interested in complexity.

For example letting private industry compete for your health care dollars might sound like a simple solution except for those who are unprofitable customers, the ones who need health care the most.

Government needs to protect its weakest citizens not its strongest.

Eliminate regulations and it will make coal and oil profitable and it will come back.

Well it will get more profitable but the air and water will get more polluted and the demand won't change.  Americans and the world are on a path, not a straight line, to cleaner energy and more renewable energy.  No one will produce unneeded coal or oil.

The United States should insist that its International Partners do (add your favorite here) and they will.

No, they won't.  They will do what is in their best interest, just like we always have.

Obama isn't respected around the world because he is too soft.

Well no, he was respected and now we have a laughing stock instead.

Immigrants and refugees are hurting American workers and committing crimes.

No, they actually are generally more law abiding than our native born citizens and they work jobs no one else wants.

Political correctness has gone so far that you can't say Merry Christmas any more.

You can and you always could if you wanted.

Sigh, the list goes on and on and reality can be a real bitch.

Independence Day

I find it a little odd that we celebrate the day we declared our independence much more than the day we actually won it.  In 1776 in Philadelphia in July we declared that we were no longer subjects of King George but it was a long way from a done deal then.

Most of our fighting lay ahead and many dangerous times before the battle of Yorktown and ultimate victory.

Also, in 1776 a large part of our population still wasn't in favor of independence.  Not sure they were ever actually won over, but our bold founding fathers forged ahead.

Some consider it the birthday of America and that is fine.

We have barbecues and go in pools and shoot off fireworks, wear the red, white and blue and generally have a nice celebration except for those who drive drunk or use fireworks carelessly.

So Happy Birthday AMERICA!

Presidential Behavior

Watching the latest antics in the White House thee does seem to be a common link to the Jackson presidency.

He was widely considered to be a social pariah who engaged in uncouth behavior by the standards of the day and who pandered to the common man.

Now of course looking back at his behavior now indicates nothing that we would consider all that outrageous, but at the time he was a real renegade.

Now we seem to have a president who has decided to engage his perceived enemies in a media contest as if he were just an ex-reality show star not above the fray.

In fact he is the fray.

Generally I'm not sure its not a bit refreshing since for the last administration I always thought that president didn't engage enough.

Now of course whatever you think presidential behavior is supposed to be, by definition it is how the president behaves.

Elect an ape and you get apish behavior.

The fact that you walk away with a fistful of feces is pretty much our new standard.

Grasping reality

In one sense you could argue that there is no reality.  Everything we perceive is filtered via our minds and we can't be sure that what we perceive to be true actually is.

You can trace this back to some of our earliest philosophers and its a fun thing to discuss, especially if you are enjoying some reality distorting refreshments.

However, in general we have a pretty good idea that we are perceiving for the most part the same things the rest of humanity is perceiving so we can define reality by that standard, since any other standard would lead to chaos.

We get on an airplane trusting the reality of the science that brings us flight.  We eat food trusting that the people who provide it and inspect it are using real standards.

Now one thing that some people do is look for an anomaly to question something they don't accept or want to accept.

Take something like voter fraud.  Registering to vote is generally something you only have to do once.  Finding people who registered years ago and subsequently moved or died is to be expected, especially if the scrubbing of voter rolls is low priority.  Its low priority because what matters is who actually votes.

Now we know the dead people aren't voting and the odds of someone travelling between states to vote more than once is something which wouldn't be happening on any scale big enough to matter.

These are not evidence of voter fraud to anyone with a grasp of reality.

Now take something like climate change.  One can find examples of climate change throughout the history of our planet which were caused by non-human events but that doesn't eliminate or bring into question the science that tells us that adding enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will impact the earth's temperature. This would be a factor that exists in addition to any naturel changes and clearly we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

The math and the science behind that are not really in question.  To have a political discourse about this is simply insane, the science is real and the discussion should be what needs to be done.

Of course you do need that grasp of reality I mentioned which seems to be becoming less prevalent.

Where's the sin?

Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.  (This may have been a reference to a gate into Jerusalem not a sewing needle)

We also know that avarice is forbidden by the ten commandments.

Yet we have many quite wealthy people who tout their wealth and flaunt it as a sign of worth and not n occasion of sin?

These same people also claim to be Christians.

It seems lie a conflict but we do have "preachers" who will tell the their wealth is a sign of God's favor.

Now having wealth isn't the real problem its the avarice and clearly those who use their wealth to do good works are in a better position than those who don't.

Generally speaking wealthy people like money.

Especially those who built up their wealth form a humble start.

Now, it not totally true and it seems that mostly by the second generation the obsession decreases, but it is understandable that if you built your fortune from almost nothing, you have a great concern about losing it, long after that should no longer be a concern.

You also tend to think that other people could have done what you did, and should work for what they want.

Now part of this is because as you acquire some wealth, you get a lot of people who want some of it offering to help you.

You might even have a few bad experiences with people like this who jade your opinion of the world.

Now this leads to suspicion and distrust and you begin to think everyone is out to take your money.

The fact that they use the Government to do it is even worse so you want to shrink Government and make everyone fend for themselves.

You support small Government candidates and reduce tax candidates because they promise to let you keep more of your lucre.

Now poor people who need Government help?

They are good at quoting the bible here, "the poor will be with us always" so it would be sinful to try to help them.