Is This Helping America?

When you consider the middle east and our involvement in it, it boils down to two issues, Oil and Israel.

Now for various reasons we have been identified as enemies by many natives in the region resulting in various attacks on us as "The Great Satan".

The current situation has a rather long and complex history, with escalations at each stage involving us more and more in countries which in all honesty have no great impact on America, except of course for the fact that we have troops there.

What is probably the next stage is increasing hostilities, possibly war, with Iran which I'm sure we can "defeat" but which I doubt we can subjugate.

We had at one time installed a friendly ruler there, the Shah, and we know how that worked out.

The question now is how many Americans and Iranians are going to die now?

It is almost certain that in ten years time we can use the following sentence,

"After xxx casualties and $xxx dollars we have no resolution in sight and must maintain our presence in the area."

So dead Americans and wasted billions, if not trillions.

Refugees and ruined lives for many Iranians.

And the benefit is?

Are the lives of our young people really that unimportant?

What about the potential terrorist victims here and abroad?

And no real reason why.

Clueless Leadership

There was a report that in some private conversation or communication, the administration told the Iranian President that if he agreed to negotiations we would lift all sanctions.  Once the report came out it was denied by the administration.

The problem is that the Iranian regime, for all their fundamentalist beliefs and enmity to Israel, have more credibility than our administration does.

Was this offer made?  I don't know but thinking about it, probably.

The administrations foreign policy efforts have almost no successes.  We and the world are in worse shape than we were before the last election.

North Korea scored a major propaganda coup and has continued to develop its weapons.

We withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal and have nothing with which to replace it.  Our sanctions are hurting Iran but we have seen drones shot down, oil fields attacked and tankers seized.

Our allies don't agree with many of our positions and it shows.

We have allowed China the inside track on trade in the Pacific by leaving the trade agreement.

Whatever our interests are in Venezuela, we are not achieving them.

Russia continues to expand and interfere.  We have embarrassed the Ukraine.

The administration was embarrassed by a teenage girl at the UN and really want's something to distract the public it can call a victory.

Would they have proposed such a deal in private?  I'm sure they would, but they can't pull off private very well either.

Selling Ideas

Its often said that all politics are local meaning we vote because of issues that impact us directly.

Many of the issues being debated have little impact on people's day to day lives.

Things like the size of our paycheck or benefit payment are big issues.  Proposals that will reduce those are not very popular.

What people want to hear is that things are going to be better.  One of the reasons we are where we are today politically is that when Obamacare passed the narrative was controlled by the opposition.

The good aspects were effectively suppressed and the fact that it increased coverage and saved money was widely ignored.

American are very much in support of its provisions now, concerning pre-existing conditions, children covered until age 26 and preventive care at no additional cost.

Major plans have to clearly demonstrate how they help the average American.

Its their country after all.

North Korea

Yesterday marked the 65th anniversary of the armistice that stopped the fighting in the Korean war and it also saw the return of some remains of soldiers who died in that war.

Obviously the symbolism of the first had something to do with the timing of the second, but certainly there is nothing bad about returning the remains.

North Korea is one of the most closed societies on the planet and has a lot to gain from normal diplomatic relations.

It finally got some recognition with the threat of nuclear weapons and since those were its best bargaining chips, its going to play them carefully.

Its main goals would appear to be the formalization of peace, the removal of sanctions, and the removal of the American troops in the South.

There may be other things, but they will become obvious as time passes.

Our position seems to simply be the elimination of their nuclear program when for all these years it was tied to other objectives, like a reduction of the threat to the South.

North Korea is a country that would hardly be worth talking about except they have managed, despite being a fairly backward nation, to maintain a large military presence and have represented a threat to peace in the Korean peninsula since the 1950s.

They also have seemingly figured out that our dontard is mostly interested in getting his ego stroked and public relations so they can proceed without much real cost.

Still any progress there is a good thing, as long as the threat to the South is curtailed.

Its just hard t imagine they aren't ready to unify the peninsula as soon as we leave.

Long Range Consequences

There shouldn't be a lot of politics in the Supreme Court, its simply supposed to interpret the constitution and determine if it is being followed.

Clearly however it has approached that task differently over time and some of that is because of necessity.

The world of the founders was a very different place than America of today and a lot of issues are different in scope and impact.

Certainly if you consider something like the right to bear arms, its impossible to know how they would have felt about guns available today.  What was an essential item for someone on the frontier and almost everyone was on or near the frontier, is now a modern weapon with significant killing potential.  Further the need to hunt or protect against potential attacks is certainly different than it was in the 18th century.

The real problem is that over the years we have not updated the constitution often enough to keep it current.

Take the electoral college.  The need for that is doubtful and as constituted it serves to create an undemocratic outcome.

However because it has tended to allow for results like we saw in 2016, it is defended by certain interests who are more interested in power than democracy.

It is unlikely that we would have a rewrite which would require majorities that are simply not going to happen and even amending it is a slow and painful process, as intended since the founders did not want it to be subjected to mobs and whims.

So the Supreme Court has to some extent filled in the gaps that should be the job of the people of this country and we can see from the decisions and dissents that many of these issues are simply not clear.

We now see another opening which could lead to a change in many of our current positions, or it might not.

For many it is a lesson in how voting and participating in elections is so very important.

It can have consequences for a long time.

Immigration Reform

You didn't think things could get worse in Washington considering how disruptive it is, but then it does.

The policy of zero tolerance which results in Children being taken away from arrested parents is simply a terrible thing to do and its very hard to defend.

There is a fairly strong anti immigration mood in much of the country, but there isn't a pen up little children mood, at least not yet.

The anti immigration mood is fanned by the alt right and is really a form of racism or racial purity, defend America as a "white" country.

That goal is at the bottom of a lot of the sentiment, just like we see people defending the flag or what language we use when neither is under attack.

The typical American is non-existent and the image of a Mayberry RFD type of life is fine, but it was never really the norm.

It did exist but it wasn't the only existence.  For many Americans the image of their ancestors is one of a struggling immigrant, braving the unknown and arriving in a new country with their family to start a new better life.

Many of them did brave the journey to the west to settle on farms, many stayed in the cities of the east to work in factories and workhouses.

Some came to this country to work on the railroads and helped complete our infrastructure.

Some of course were dragged here against their will and enslaved, after which they were discriminated against.

For most it worked out pretty well, if not for them, at least for their children and grandchildren.

This is a country of immigrants or descendants of immigrants and it is shameful how we treat "illegal" immigrants.

We need immigrants and we need to have a way for people to come here legally.

Its in our blood after all.

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?