Evil-Echo Empire Update
In links below we see more people are coming around to realize it’s Trump’s words that are fake, not the media. Other articles expose echo-commentators guilty of attacking sanity, these delusions brought to us by the likes of Rush Dimbulb, Insanity Hannity, Alex Jones and even washed-up Pat Robertson. We also see more of the typical nonsense aired on Fox, plus the attacks on the GOP by Stephen Bannon and that alt-right psycho-sphere. But mostly I will simply defer my echo-comments today to the brilliant words of Right Turn’s Jennifer Rubin, whose comments I’ve copied and pasted here which came from the link in the first article below. Basically there are two choices, the party’s base can either follow a foolish deranged ideology, or they can return to sanity saving the GOP and the nation.
President Trump capitalized on unhinged anger that had been brewing for years on the right — among talk radio listeners and Fox News viewers, among anti-immigrant groups fanning fear of brown-skinned newcomers, among more “respectable” pundits spinning a tale that the “establishment” had betrayed “real” Americans. With Hillary Clinton there to generate a vicious Pavlovian response on the right, Trump squeaked by with some substantial help from Russians, who either fantastically understood the dynamic on the right or had some direction as to where to direct their social media messaging. Like the proverbial dog that caught the bus, the GOP now finds it impossible to govern rationally with an irrational base and equally irrational media echo chamber.
In other words, if politicians and voters on the right and center-right want rational, productive governance, they need a new base of voters. That sounds strange. A party or section of a party that wants to fire its base? Two presidential defeats, a shopworn set of policy prescriptions, a right-wing media echo chamber built on irrational fear and baseless resentment and the widening chasm between red/rural America and blue/urban America left the old GOP “establishment” bruised and sclerotic.
Now with the reins of power firmly in hand, the shell of a great national party finds itself at the whim of what amounts to a mob. The populist mob, amplified by the right-wing media, seeks contradictory things (repeal Obamacare, but don’t touch their health care) and remains mesmerized by a set of economic fables (e.g. immigrants steal jobs). Its political identity is warped by resentment of minorities, secular Americans and immigrants. The mob seeks emotional catharsis, not tangible, incremental change. Unsurprisingly, its political leaders are now virtually indistinguishable from the right-wing entertainers who for a couple decades fanned their white grievance. The core of Trump’s base is immovable because it is irrational; experience and evidence will not influence it.
Rather than pursue the fruitless effort to woo and persuade these voters, traditional Republicans should consider reverse-engineering their party. Their beliefs — support for free-market economics with a safety net; American leadership in the world; defense of institutions that restrain demagogic power and faith in government not to solve all problems, but to create conditions that solve some problems; support for civic virtues (empathy, civility, etc.) — may find a following among suburbanites, college-educated voters, immigrants, nontraditional families (who have been scorned by social conservatives), millennials, small-business people, workers in the New Economy and Democrats and independents resistant to that party’s tilt toward Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Western European-style democratic socialism. Maybe that’s enough to form a viable national party; perhaps it’s merely half of a new coalition with center-left, disaffected Democrats.
With OJ just getting his release from jail….
it reminds me of the overwhelming evidence against him from his murder trial two decades ago, including irrefutable DNA evidence, yet he got acquitted. I liken the jury in that trial to the echo-audience we have today. There’s overwhelming circumstantial evidence something was going on between the Trump campaign & the Russians, of which I’m confident the investigations will keep putting the pieces together & produce far more incriminating evidence over the next few months, but no matter how many irrefutable smoking guns are found, it seems the loyal Trumpeters locked inside the echo-bubble will continue to refute the facts as they come out. Much like with OJ, their hero-worshiping assures they’ll gloss over & deny any horrible crimes that may have been committed.
https://www.yahoo.com/music/o-j-simpson-walks-nevada-prison-serving-nine-020410873–nfl.html
http://pages.infinit.net/reparvit/nicole12.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case
Economy section….
Free market capitalist economies cannot survive in the long run if the prosperity is only going to the very top, as has been the unmistakable trend recently. As I’ve warned often, we either find a way to fix this so workers can benefit from shared prosperity in a growing economy, or else the growing anger we clearly saw with supporters of Trump & Bernie during the presidential campaign, may well next time opt for the other extreme by electing a socialist-like Bernie protégé. The challenge is daunting, but the status quo is unacceptable.
The middle class continues to struggle as wage growth remains stagnant. That we’re in a competitive global economy & automation has replaced many jobs, particularly once high-paying manufacturing jobs, help explain why so many workers have lost ground. Another dynamic at play here is so much of new job creation for a long time has centered on the service sector, typically lower paying jobs.
We should also consider the overall strength of an economy & adding to a nation’s wealth is highly dependent on making products with real intrinsic value. That would be items produced by labor which outlives the initial efforts that went into making them, such as manufactured products, agricultural products & natural resources where such assets carry over into the future. By nature service industry jobs tend to be one & done where the value produced by workers doesn’t extend beyond the immediate work being done. It’s been a plus to America that we’ve expanded the energy sector (except for coal), but the decimation of our manufacturing base has crippled the earning potential of a large segment of the working middle class.
In the first group of links below, especially review the very first article explaining how the GOP remains lost in the wilderness. Other links just below that disclose how we really don’t have a good plan, but we do have an uneven economy featuring escalating income inequality with a struggling middle class living paycheck-to-paycheck. Another link has an article where Mom & Pop businesses are still taking a beating in this new economy, & another one with poor students having difficulty getting into the best colleges, with another link explaining why Social Security needs fixed. And here are the main topics in the other groups of links below, which there are tons of articles about these issues:
Tax reform: Trump says it will be a giant, massive, beautiful, biggest-ever-in-our-country tax cut, which coming from Trump it should raise our concerns. He claims it will benefit the low/middle class & not the rich, but various projections based on an outline of the plan estimate the opposite is true. One good area to crack down on for starters would be the pass-throughs for the rich. Any new reform can’t kowtow to stodgy old GOP ideology, but be crafted based on changing circumstances where the very wealthy are seeing their incomes skyrocket as many (if not most) others keep losing ground. Plus if we’re going to get the biggest tax cut ever, it would likely raise our annual deficits past the $1 Trillion mark. The growth claims I’m hearing from the right are preposterous, since from any objective analysis the increase to GDP won’t come anywhere near their pie-in-the-sky hopes.
Trickle-down tax cuts remain a lie from the pit of hell, adding trillions to the national debt & steering America towards bankruptcy. If that’s the cornerstone of the GOP’s overall economic policies, they have indeed become a worthless/incompetent party not in touch with reality & don’t deserve to be in power.
Gerrymandering: A very important case being taken up by the Supreme Court. There is universal frustration out in America that DC politicians can’t get things done. For those who get their news from the right wing echo-chamber, they’re getting it all wrong. The echo blames DC inaction on all the wrong things. Although they may play a part, it’s not primarily the fault of McConnell, Ryan, McCain, Pelosi, Schumer, Obama, Hillary, the media, the deep state, RINO’s or any other of their favorite dartboards. The main reason for the entrenched gridlock is extremism on both sides, with the way many House districts are drawn up into far-right or far-left districts, it invites such extremism where reps are elected who are completely incapable of working across the aisle. Eliminating gerrymandering & having districts drawn by independent bipartisan commissions or something similar, could be the single most important step towards making districts more competitive between GOP & Dems, which in turn can get better reps elected to facilitate making DC functional again. If we really want to change the culture so we can get important legislation passed, gerrymandering needs to be scrapped. The one great triumph conservatives tout from this year of Trump is Gorsuch on the Court, so wouldn’t it be ironic if he’s responsible for screwing this one up?
Guns: Our extensive gun violence makes us unique compared to any other free nation. I fully understand the 2nd Amendment & the right to bear arms in defending oneself. But with random mass shootings becoming a routine occurrence in America, we really should have a sober debate on common sense moves we can make. And just like we should follow the lead on healthcare to draw from the best ideas of what works in other countries, we could also look to other countries for sensible gun control legislation. I would hope there’s some middle ground we could land on without the NRA controlling the debate. We should examine everything from mental health measures, to reasonable background checks, & to what extent machine-gun style rifles from bump stocks being attached should be illegal. We’ll never eliminate all the shootings, but we should seek to stem the tide.
Puerto Rico: Trump has been playing catch-up in the Fed’s response to Puerto Rico after been initially caught flatfooted. Private relief organizations in many cases have done a better job bringing help to the remote part of the island than federal relief workers. It took the criticisms of San Juan’s mayor to finally get the White House in motion. Of course, to hear Trump tell it their timely efforts are the most wonderful in the history of mankind, giving zero acknowledgement of the need or the ways to get aid in faster to those desperate for it. People are still dying there. His basic grasp of the situation is nonexistent. His comments consistently miss the mark & are always all about him, not on the plight of those suffering. When Puerto Rican truck drivers were no-shows from having lost communications & dealing with their own personal emergencies, instead of chiding them Trump should have immediately improvised by sending in the troops to get the emergency supplies from port to inland areas. But as political leaders on the island begged for help when many residents lost everything they own, are without food or water, plus many are fighting for their lives with dire medical conditions, Trump has taken the victim-blaming attitude they should be thankful for whatever help the Feds send their way, even calling them “ingrates.” Folks, please pause to consider that for a moment, this is really our President. At least today in Vegas he didn’t sound like a moron (which means Kelly managed to rein him in). And if Rex Tillerson really called Trump a moron, he was just being honest.
It’s an exciting time to be a Cleveland fan….
The Cavs revamped their roster this year one year after breaking our city’s 52-year championship drought. The Tribe enters the playoffs as the favorite coming off their recent 22-game winning streak. And in the Browns’ last 22 games they have actually won A game (yes, only one).
How could they even think about kicking out a fan for falling asleep? For anyone who even bothers going to Browns games, what else is there to do? I’m fine with our football team over the past two decades being the worst franchise in the history of professional sports (which might actually be giving them too much credit), as long as we can get championships out of our basketball & baseball teams. Cubs fan finally got his championship last year, so here’s hoping it’s now the Tribe’s turn.
We lost a rock legend….
Our world seems to be in a crazy place and out of control. From mass shootings like in Vegas, to terrorist threats, to nuclear threats, to natural disasters like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, to the working middle class largely in financial distress, to our nation’s leadership bogged down in polarization and gridlock, to a divisive, thin-skinned narcissistic megalomaniac in the White House, it just seems like we’re free-falling.
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