Keeping Track Of The Trump/GOP Agenda.

Voters and the media are all too aware of The Donald’s Twitter rants and the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election. But while we’ve been distracted by the noise, here’s what Trump and the GOP have been doing in the shadows and away from the spotlight:

They passed and signed a bill overturning an Obama initiative to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns.

Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris accords on climate change. We are now one of only 3 nations in the world – the others are Syria and Nicaragua – who are not part of the effort. And Nicaragua only refused to sign because they didn’t think the effort went far enough.

The administration has empowered ICE to arrest and deport thousands of undocumented workers, which has resulted in the separation of families and made it difficult for fruit and vegetable growers to find enough help for harvest.

Trump announced the end of DACA for the “Dreamers” who were brought to the US as children. Now the White House is making funding of a border wall a condition for signing a new bill that would allow Dreamers to stay in the US – the only country they know.

Trump pardoned former sheriff Joe Arpaio who was convicted for criminal contempt of court after refusing to stop racial profiling of Latinos. Arpaio also boasted of running a “concentration camp” for prisoners. Some even died while in custody.

Trump praised the actions of extreme dictators in Russia, Turkey and the Philippines.

Trump refused to denounce Nazis and white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville while, at the same time, giving them a voice in the administration.

The DOJ announced that it is ending a program to track domestic terrorists.

They dramatically increased defense spending despite audits that have shown extensive waste and a lack of DOD oversight.

They attempted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with parliamentary tricks and no debate – an action that would have drastically cut Medicaid, defunded Planned Parenthood, and denied health care access to tens of millions of Americans.

They cut payments to insurance companies that compensate them for losses created by the pent-up demand for health care of new ACA enrollees.

After Congress failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the administration defunded publicity campaigns for ACA enrollment and shortened the enrollment period in an attempt to reduce participation in the ACA marketplaces.

Trump signed an executive order to further undercut the ACA by allowing insurance companies to offer bare bones plans that will effectively encourage the youngest and healthiest people to leave the program and make it financially impossible for insurance companies to offer affordable coverage to those who most need it, especially those with pre-existing conditions.

Trump cut subsidies to help pay the cost of health insurance for low income Americans.

Trump is also considering incentives for employers to set aside money to help employees pay insurance premiums, a move designed to allow them to end traditional employee insurance benefits.

Congress has thus far failed to extend CHIP, which provides health care to millions of poor children who are not eligible for public assistance.

The House passed a bill which would cut $39 billion from SNAP, the food stamp program for the poor.

The House passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks and making doctors vulnerable to prison.

They have packed the court system with young, extreme right-wing, anti-choice judges and justices.

Trump has violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by profiting from foreign guests staying in his Washington, DC hotel.

Trump signed an executive order which allows employers to deny contraceptive coverage to employees forcing tens of thousands of women to pay for contraceptives themselves.

The EPA announced it is ending the Obama era clean energy rules which is designed to replace dirty fuels that contribute to climate change.

The EPA and NASA removed all references to climate change from their websites.

The administration increased the number of mining and oil drilling leases on federal lands, which will allow uranium mining in the Grand Canyon watershed.

The administration has refused to protect Walruses under the Endangered Species Act. At the same time, the administration is considering delisting Gray Wolves, Grizzly Bears and other species.

Trump has waged a name-calling war against the leader of North Korea, putting us on the precipice of nuclear war. Even if only conventional weapons are involved, millions of people would die on the Korean peninsula.

Trump restored many of the Cold War era restrictions on Cuba.

Trump’s proposed budget would make deep cuts to most government agencies, including Health & Human Services, the EPA, the State Department, the Agriculture Department, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Institutes of Health, the Commerce Department, the Education Department, HUD, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Interior and FEMA.

Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate numerous programs, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants and programs that support coastal and marine management. It would cut funding for new transit programs, Amtrak, the UN’s Green Climate Fund, and the Clean Power Plan.

Trump’s proposed budget would make deep cuts to the popular Meals on Wheels program for shut-ins.

Trump has decided to “decertify” the treaty with Iran – an action that will almost certainly accelerate Iran’s nuclear program.

The Interior Department has proposed cutting the number and size of our national monuments.

The administration has proposed opening the Arctic, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to oil drilling.

Congress and the administration have proposed a tax “reform” bill that will give massive cuts to multinational corporations and the wealthy, provide a tax “holiday” for corporations that have stashed billions offshore to evade taxes, and eliminate the Estate Tax which only affects the very wealthy.

If you don’t think all of that is bad enough, consider the fact that the Trump-led GOP also hopes to replace public education with for-profit private schools, to replace our efficient Medicare program with vouchers and to privatize Social Security, effectively ending safety nets for the elderly and the poor. Or consider the millions spent on Trump’s weekly golf outings at his own properties. Or the millions spent on personal trips in private jets by his cabinet members.

This administration and this Congress are quietly doing everything in their power to undermine the health of our nation, our planet and the well-being of its citizens, except the most wealthy and the most powerful. My advice to voters and the media alike: Stop being outraged by Trump’s Twitter rages and start paying attention to the actions that he and his government are taking behind the scenes.

If It Was A Joke, We’re Not Laughing.

After encouraging Russia to hack the former Secretary of State’s website and reveal 33,000 of her personal emails, the Republican “Presidential” nominee now says he was joking. Having seen his plea to Russia at his news conference, it sure didn’t seem like a joke at the time. And no one was laughing. Not the FBI, not the NSA, not the CIA, not the White House, not the media, not even Republican members of Congress.

And given that the “clarification” was spewed from the mouth of the would-be Liar-In-Chief, it’s difficult to take it seriously. Indeed, the clarification is much more laughable than the original statement.

What is even less funny is the fact that a candidate for the most powerful office in the world called for one of our nation’s greatest adversaries to commit a cyber attack on a rival candidate in order to influence the election. Military leaders called it “unbelievable,” “disqualifying,” and “shocking and dangerous.” Some called for him to be denied the national security briefings traditionally given to the parties nominees for president out of fear that he might share the information with his Russian friends.

Taken by itself, Trump’s request might have been easily dismissed as just another of his bat-crap crazy statements designed to get media attention. But put his plea into the context of his previous statements of admiration for Vladimir Putin; of his campaign manager Paul Manafort’s ties to Vladimir Putin; of his nearly $60 million in profit from the sale of a Florida home to a Russian oligarch; of the reported investments in Trump’s enterprises by Putin’s friends; of his refusal to release income tax statements that might show his ties to Russian oligarchs; of his announcement that, if elected, he might not stand with our NATO allies; of his taking delight in the hack of the DNC email server by Russian intelligence agencies and the subsequent release of DNC emails by Wikileaks. With all of those combined, you have the makings of a real conspiracy – the very real possibility that Trump is conspiring with a foreign power to meddle in a US election in order to affect the outcome.

Trump has acknowledged that he is running on the same law and order theme used by Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Is it possible that Trump is trying to one-up the Nixon campaign’s burglary of the DNC’s Watergate offices? Is it possible that he has so little regard for the US electorate that he thinks, unlike Nixon, he can get by with it?

At times, it seems that Trump’s campaign is a bizarre parody of itself – an attempt to test the limits of American politics; to see how much free publicity he can garner; to see how outrageous he can be before the reaction is so overwhelmingly negative that he has to walk back his statements; to test the gullibility of American voters.

As a result, I half-expect that one day, before the election, he’ll step to a microphone and announce that his entire campaign has been a practical joke. In fact, it already is.

Clinton More Trustworthy Than Media Or Trump.

Let’s be clear, like most politicians, Hillary has made statements that were later proven to be untrue. Still, fact-checking organizations have shown that she has actually made a greater percentage of true statements during the campaign than any of the other presidential candidates.

Hillary has also made several political decisions that were unpopular and later proven to be mistakes. For example, she voted to give George W. Bush the authorization to invade Iraq, if necessary. She permitted Ambassador Christopher Stevens to travel to Benghazi. And she chose to use a personal server – one that was shared with her husband, a former President of the United States – while serving as Secretary of State.

Yes, those decisions can be second-guessed. But, like many Senators, she did not necessarily expect the Bush administration to fabricate information that indicated Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. She could not have known that terrorists would attack the US compound in Benghazi given the fact that Stevens was both familiar with the situation and unafraid. And she likely didn’t expect that her use of a private email server to stay in touch with her subordinates (the State Department’s actual business is actually conducted through cables and phone calls) given the fact that her immediate predecessors – both Republicans – had also used private servers. (Ironically, the official State Department email server was hacked early in her term while her private server remained secure.)

However, my intent is not to serve as Hillary’s apologist. Rather, the purpose of this piece is to compare her trustworthiness with her Republican opponent and with those who helped his rise to the Republican nomination.

After all, with regard to truthfulness, the non-partisan fact-checker Politifact.com has noted that, out of 183 of Trump’s statements it has checked to date, 75 percent of the statements have been rated mostly false, false or “Pants on Fire.” Moreover, the organization noted that Trump has more statements rated as “Pants on Fire” than all of the other presidential candidates combined.

Only 5 of Trump’s statements (3 percent) were rated true.

By comparison, the website notes that 114 (51 percent) of 223 statements made by Hillary have been rated true or mostly true. Only 3 were rated “Pants on Fire.” In other words, she has told the truth more than twice as often as Trump! Given this comparison, why has Hillary been labeled untrustworthy while Trump has been labeled as someone who “tells it like it is?”

The level of trust in Trump is even more questionable given the fact that Trump is currently under investigation for fraud over his failed Trump “University.” Trump is also under investigation for tax fraud. And, despite his claims of success, he has filed for bankruptcy 6 times. Further, his ghostwriter for Art of the Deal has raised additional questions about Trump’s trustworthiness, saying, “If Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.” Even Trump’s two previous wives found that he could not be trusted.

And, though Hillary has long been battered by allegations that she cannot be trusted, she has a long list of accomplishments to her credit. Indeed, she may be the most qualified presidential candidate ever. After her time as First Lady, she was a popular and effective Senator who was known to work across the aisle. She was a successful Secretary of State at a very difficult time in US history following the disastrous foreign policy of the Bush administration. And despite the nearly $100 million of taxpayer money spent by Republicans to investigate numerous trumped-up accusations (Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Fostergate, Benghazi and Emailgate), she has been cleared of all wrongdoing. Even when the FBI Director, a Republican favorite, stated that “no charges are appropriate” in the case of Hillary’s use of a private server for public business, Republicans have refused to accept his judgment. They were not even persuaded when General Colin Powell, a Republican and former Secretary of State, stated that none of Hillary’s emails were classified when she sent them. And he went much further, saying that no such emails should be classified.

Yet following Chris Christie’s persecution…er…prosecution of Hillary on stage at the Republican National Convention, the GOP rabble turned into a lynch mob screaming “Lock her up.” Others have suggested that she should be hung or worse. Such comments should make one wonder, “Am I still in the United States, or have I been transported to Turkey, Syria or the Islamic State?”

Complicit in such behavior and Trump’s rise to the head of the party are the media. For years, rightwing radio (more than 90 percent of talk radio programming) has fomented distrust of the federal government and fear of the “other.” In search of higher ratings, broadcast news has focused on violent crimes even as they have dramatically decreased in the US.

The media has largely ignored the inequities in the treatment of blacks versus whites by law enforcement. The media has also ignored the racial disparity in education and opportunity. And the media fell all over themselves to cover Trump’s campaign while ignoring others. For example, in Phoenix, the leading TV station devoted the first 12 and a half minutes of its 10 PM newscast to Trump’s first visit. Yet, when Senator Sanders visited a few weeks later, they gave him a 20-second story more than 8 minutes into the newscast despite the fact that Bernie drew a crowd nearly 3 times that of Trump’s.

By now, Trump has received nearly $3 billion in free publicity! And that number is still climbing.

One suspects that the media’s ultimate goal is to help Trump get elected so they can sensationalize his fall from grace. It might be a great spectacle and great for ratings. But it would be unbelievably destructive for our nation.

There’s one way to avoid that possibility: Trust Hillary!

Il Douchie.

For some time, I’ve been trying to figure out who Donald Trump reminds me of. He seems all too familiar…the bullying attitude, the pouty lips, the chin thrust forward in defiance, the arrogant posture, the unbridled narcissism, the sense of privilege, the ridicule of others, the refusal to apologize for anything, the “trust me I’ll make it great” assurances, the fascist ideas. I had seen it all somewhere before.

Finally, it came to me. Donald Trump is Benito Mussolini reincarnated!

Don’t believe me? Then look up Mussolini on-line. Check out his pictures and films of his speeches. I think you’ll be amazed at the similarities. Mussolini was the founder of fascism – defined by Mussolini himself as the marriage of corporations and government. Named Italy’s Prime Minister in 1922, in 1925 Mussolini assumed the role of dictator or, as he preferred, Il Duce (the leader). And though, Trump is running for president, he talks like a dictator. And like another, more famous fascist leader, Trump attempts to vilify and marginalize segments of our population.

Other similarities include the use of media and propaganda. Like Trump, Mussolini was an expert at using the media for self-promotion. And, like Trump, Mussolini created a cult of personality. Even their statements are creepily similar. For example, see if you can match the following quotes with Trump or Mussolini:

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

“State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all.”

“Without passion you don’t have energy, without energy you have nothing.”

“It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

“Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.”

“It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a co-ordination of values which is the work of centuries.”

“What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.”

“Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story.”

“We become strongest, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral guidance.”

“You have to think anyway, so why not think big?”

“Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hand, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well been documented, are various other parts of my body.”

“The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people.”

“Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.”

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

“You must always be doing things and obviously succeeding. The hard part is to keep people always at the window because of the spectacle you put on for them. And you must do this for years.”

“Let me tell you, I’m a really smart guy.”

Despite all the similarities, there are significant differences between the two. Unlike Trump, Mussolini was a self-made man. Mussolini served in the military while Trump did not. And Mussolini was far more thoughtful and intellectual than Trump. There is one other, more glaring difference. Mussolini promoted an inclusive society while Trump attempts to divide us by turning Americans against Mexicans; Christians against Muslims.

Given all of this, I hereby name Donald Trump “Il Douchie,” the leader of right wing douche bags.

Far From A Cancer On The Conservative Movement, Trump Represents It.

Contrary to Rick Perry’s assessment of Donald Trump, The Donald embodies everything that’s wrong with today’s Republican Party. He’s loud, arrogant, abusive, mean-spirited, greedy, narcissistic and an unapologetic bully. He’s a friend of soulless multinational corporations and an enemy of the environment. He’s opposed to immigration, yet he happily hires immigrants for menial, low-paying jobs.

Trump is the ultimate representative of the GOP’s “I’ve got mine, you can’t have yours” mentality.

He places corporate interests above those of consumers. He despises regulations – anything that may stand in the way of his insatiable greed. He demands a strong military, yet he refused to serve, receiving 5 student deferments and a medical disability (he had a bone spur in one of his feet – he can’t remember which). Of course, that bone spur never stopped him from participating in college athletics.

Despite his claims of having earned everything he owns, Trump was born on third base and brags that he hit a triple. He inherited most of his wealth, yet accuses anyone who is impoverished of not working hard enough. He complains of high tax rates and complicated tax codes, yet he pays none.

The only reason the other GOP candidates are upset with Trump is not because they disagree with his politics. It’s that he’s willing to say what they all believe.

Moreover, Trump’s popularity with Republicans has exposed the fallacy that the mainstream media are liberal. The faux journalists are fawning all over him. I’m not just referring to the loudmouths who fill airtime on the Faux News Channel. I’m talking about those who call themselves journalists at every level – from national and international networks all the way down to local TV stations and newspapers.

And why wouldn’t a “reporter” more interested in personal advancement than real journalism cover Trump? Trump is good for ratings. He’s good for the infotainment masquerading as news.

So get used to seeing and hearing about Trump 24/7. He’ll be the focus of the Republican presidential race until real reporters (if any still exist) ask him to articulate real solutions for the nation’s problems. And until people begin to picture a clown in the White House and the impacts of his antics on the nation and the world.