Category Archives: Politics

Why Impeachment Is Necessary.

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The Founding Fathers were so concerned about the very real possibility of their new nation being taken over by an authoritarian president, they crafted the Constitution to create three co-equal branches of government: Congress, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. The idea was that Congress and the courts would serve as a check on presidential abuse of power. The Founders also provided for a mechanism to remove the president from office. But rather than specify the actions which would justify the president’s removal, they vaguely referred to them as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” trusting that members of Congress would recognize abuse of power when they see it.

Given the following actions of Trump and his administration, it’s difficult to imagine that the Founders wouldn’t have expected such a president to be impeached and removed from office:

1 – Although Mueller could not find enough evidence to indict the president, his family and his campaign for criminal conspiracy, he documented dozens of instances of collusion and cooperation with Russia and Wikileaks to subvert the 2016 election. In fact, the president’s campaign manager is now in prison as a result of campaign violations and several others are awaiting sentencing. And Trump’s personal attorney is in prison for violating campaign laws at the direction of the president!
2 – Mueller cited at least 10 instances in which the president engaged in obstruction of justice during the Russia investigation, including the suborning of perjury by his associates. The only reason he was not indicted is because of a questionable DOJ opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted for crimes.
3 – Despite the Mueller investigation and the subsequent convictions of members of his 2016 campaign, Trump announced during an interview that he would again accept illegal help from a foreign nation in the 2020 election.
4 – Trump has admitted to illegally holding up congressionally-approved aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to open an investigation to obtain dirt on one of Trump’s political rivals.
5 – Trump and his administration have routinely and illegally obstructed congressional oversight by refusing to turn over documents and ordering anyone connected to the administration – even those who do not work for the government – to refuse to testify by claiming executive privilege.
6 – Trump has routinely violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by encouraging foreign representatives to meet in his resorts and hotels at the expense of taxpayers.
6 – Trump encouraged the vice-president to stay at one of his resorts during his recent trip to Ireland even though the resort was more than 100 miles from his official meetings.
7 – The US military has engaged in a questionable contract with the Prestwick Airport near one of Trump’s resorts in Scotland. In addition, it has quartered military personnel in the resort to financially benefit the Trump organization.
8 – Trump has routinely spent weekends at his resorts along with his government entourage at great expense to US taxpayers. And great profit to his company.
9 – Virtually the entire Trump cabinet has engaged in corrupt activities for personal gain.
10 – Trump’s family and others in the administration have conducted business via personal emails and illegally failed to keep records of their communications – the very thing they accused Hillary of doing.
11 – It has been documented that the president and his administration routinely lie to the American people. According to the Washington Post and other fact-checkers, Trump has made more than 12,000 false or misleading claims since the inauguration.
12 – Trump and his administration have violated numerous federal and international laws in their handling of Central American refugees seeking asylum, including the separation of children from their parents.
13 – Trump has undermined our nation’s relationships with many allies while pandering to the planet’s worst dictators.

The House’s impeachment inquiry may find numerous additional abuses. But, regardless of the findings, the president and his supporters will do everything in their power to dismiss it as another Democrat-led “Witch Hunt.” As you listen to their spin, keep in mind that the “Mueller Witch Hunt” caught a lot of “witches” who were members of the Trump inner circle, some of whom are now in prison.

We do not know if the House will vote for impeachment. And we don’t know if the Senate will convict and remove the president from office. But we do know one thing for certain: If the roles were reversed and a Democratic president had committed even one of the crimes listed above, the GOP would have already impeached, convicted and likely executed that president.

Yes, He Really Is A Russian Asset.

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Trump loudly and repeatedly proclaims that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. Yet, beginning in 2015, after Trump announced his presidential bid, there have been 272 documented contacts between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives. That includes at least 38 face-to-face meetings with those representing our nation’s most dangerous rival. As a result, the Special Counsel investigation obtained indictments, convictions and guilty pleas for 34 people and three companies. Those include several of Trump’s top advisers.

And that’s not the worst of it.

Once Trump assumed office, despite losing the election by nearly 3 million votes, he has taken numerous actions that appear to aid and abet our enemy. To begin, he has steadfastly refused to acknowledge that Russia helped his campaign and interfered in our election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He invited the Russian ambassador into the Oval Office along with the Russian press while denying US press access to the meeting.

Against long-standing international protocol, Trump attended private meetings with Vladimir Putin with only their personal translators in attendance. In one of their meetings, only Putin’s translator was present. And, afterwards, Trump took extraordinary measures to conceal details of the meetings, even from officials in his own administration. No detailed record of any of his conversations and interactions with Putin exists…at least not outside of Moscow.

In Helsinki, Trump publicly bowed to Putin by accepting his denial of Russian interference in our elections while ignoring the overwhelming evidence obtained by US intelligence agencies. At a G20 meeting in Germany, Trump met with Putin for more than two hours then followed that up with a second private meeting that he denied ever happened. In total, Trump and Putin have conducted at least 5 off-the-record meetings. No one knows how many off-the-record phone conversations they have had.

All of this raises concerns about the official actions Trump has taken for the obvious benefit of Russia.

For example, he verbally attacked NATO and our European allies which, in effect, weakens the greatest counter to Russian aggression. He appeared to kowtow to Russia in the Syrian civil war and the fight against ISIS by allowing Putin to prop up Assad. Despite saying that “nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have,” Trump ignored a congressionally-mandated deadline for imposing sanctions on Russians. Trump withdrew the US from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, a move that actually benefits Russia, which has been suspected of ignoring the treaty for some time. It also puts all of Europe at greater risk.

Trump has campaigned for Russia’s re-admission to the G8 after Russia was denied participation in the group following its invasion of Ukraine and its occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. And now we’re learning that Trump apparently held up $250 million in US military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to elicit a Ukrainian investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son – a move intended to get dirt on a 2020 Democratic rival which raises questions about abuse of power and federal election violations. It is also an obvious threat to Ukraine at a time when it’s vulnerable to further Russian aggression.

Add to all of this Trump’s long-standing attempts to build a Trump Tower Moscow, the extraordinary number of purchases of Trump properties by Russian oligarchs and Russian mafia figures, the fact that Russians were running an illegal gambling operation out of a condo one floor below Trump’s living quarters, and rumors that Russian oligarchs backed loans to Trump in 2009 to help him salvage his near-bankrupt organization.

It’s preposterous to believe Trump and his supporters when they dismiss all of the evidence and rumors of collusion between Trump and Russia as mere coincidence. As many have said, “There are no coincidences in politics.”

Trump truly is Putin’s bitch.

Destruction Of The US. (Part Six – Deficits & Debt)

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When President Obama took office, the economy was in flames. Unemployment was soaring and entire industries were in jeopardy. Indeed, the entire world economy was on the verge of collapse. In order to help stem the bleeding, the Obama administration, the Democratic-led Congress and the Federal Reserve implemented a series of stimulus actions, including tax cuts. Those actions temporarily added to the deficit. But they were necessary. Nevertheless, Republicans howled about the “wasteful spending.”

By contrast, Trump inherited a healthy economy and declining deficits. Instead of allowing interest rates to gradually rise, raising taxes to increase revenue and doing what most economists recommended, he orchestrated a massive tax cut for corporations and the very wealthy. Contrary to his grandiose promises and projections, the economy did not noticeably change. Rather, it continued on the same path begun under Obama. What did change was federal revenue, which dramatically dropped. At the same time, deficits soared. The deficit for 2020 is $1.10 trillion and the national debt has now surpassed $22.5 trillion!

And what do you hear from those Republican deficit hawks now? Crickets.

What we are beginning to hear from Republicans is that we must reign in “entitlements” – those safety net programs for the elderly and the poor. They say they want to make serious cuts to Social Security and Medicare. They want to cut food stamp benefits for 3.1 million Americans. They want to cut lunch programs for school children. And they want to end the Affordable Care Act, which made health care affordable for millions of Americans.

In other words, they now seem intent on punishing the poor while continuing to give away hundreds of billions to the Pentagon, an organization that cannot account for trillions in past spending. They want to continue giveaways for corporations. And many Republicans have even stated that they plan to further cut taxes for the very wealthy.

If they are successful, it will mean that the federal deficits and the debt will continue to soar while more ordinary Americans will suffer. Seniors will struggle to pay bills, even to eat. Poor men, women and children will struggle more. The number of homeless will continue to grow. And middle class Americans will not only be asked to make up for the lost revenue with higher taxes. The number of people in the middle class will dramatically decline.

But you can be certain that the incomes of Trump, his family and his wealthy friends will continue to grow.

Mass Murder And Mental Illness.

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Despite the fact the US has already experienced 293 mass shootings this year as recorded by gunviolencearchive.org, the president and the GOP do not want to talk about the single biggest issue that contributes to gun violence: Easy access to guns. I’m not referring to shotguns, hunting rifles and six-shooters. I’m referring to weapons of war – AK-47s, AR-15s and 50-caliber sniper rifles – weapons that have no place in the hands of civilians.

Even after the most recent mass murders in El Paso, Dayton and Odessa-Midland, the president and the GOP seem unable to summon the courage to go against the NRA to pass legislation for universal background checks or to pass legislation that would, once again, ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Instead, they seem ready to pass legislation focused on mental health.

It’s a ruse…another con from the conman-in-chief.

Certainly, there is a need for more mental health facilities, more in-patient treatment centers, and more counselors. Far too many of the mentally ill are now housed in prisons with no access to treatment. And when their behavior becomes extreme, they are moved to solitary confinement for the rest of their lives where most Americans can forget they ever exist.

But the truth is, focusing on mental illness will do little, if anything, to stem gun violence. That’s because the vast majority of those with mental illness are far more of a threat to themselves than to others.

The most likely to commit mass murders with guns are white nationalists and neo-Nazis – extremists, many of them Bible-thumping racists who want to turn back the clock on America to make it white again. People who can’t stand the inevitability of the US becoming majority non-white in the next few decades. People like those in Charlottesville who marched with torches shouting, “You will not replace us.” People who were resentful of the election of President Barack Obama and who have been inspired by Trump, the racist in the White House who, after seeing video of Charlottesville claimed “there were good people on both sides.”

The only thing that will curb gun violence in the US is to keep the most lethal weapons out of the hands of extremists by passing universal background checks, passing red flag laws, and passing laws banning the sale of weapons of war, including high-capacity magazines. But I would urge Congress to also pass funding to treat those who are mentally ill. Especially, the one who most obviously is suffering from mental illness and who controls the most lethal weapons of all: President Trump.

How Washington Became Gridlocked.

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Many Americans decry our failed Congress, angry that the institution seems incapable of addressing their needs. Yet they have continued to vote for the same representatives election after election. It seems they believe other representatives are to blame. Not their own. And they hold both parties equally responsible.

But, as it turns out, Americans should rightfully blame only one party for the inaction of Congress – the GOP.

An episode of MSNBC’s American Swamp explained the problem in great detail. It seems the gridlock began in the early nineties when the newly-elected Rep. Newt Gingrich discovered that CSPAN would telecast speeches from the House floor regardless of the circumstances. Realizing that the network focused solely on the lectern and never showed the empty desks, he took the floor in late evenings to rail against Democrats; to challenge them to respond to his demands and to act. But, unbeknownst to the viewers, the Democrats couldn’t, because they were not there. For months, Newt continued his one-man show, calling Democrats a variety of names and asking his followers to hold them accountable for their inaction and lack of response. He published a list of one-word insults which he handed out to the GOP caucus, so they could all speak like Newt.

Not surprisingly, the farce worked. The audiences began calling their congressmen. They began harassing Democrats. And rightwing media took up the attacks. It only stopped when then-Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill asked CSPAN to have their cameras pan the chamber to expose the empty desks. But, by then, the damage had been done.

When the GOP won the House and Gingrich became Speaker, he took matters a step farther. An admirer and teacher of parliamentary-style politics in which party members vote as a unified block (something very contrary to the US system), Newt brought that mentality to the GOP. Under threat of being “primaried” with their opponents receiving millions in “dark” money, the members of the GOP caucus fell in line to vote as the Speaker wished, regardless of their own individual feelings or judgment.

Political tribalism was born. And succeeding GOP actions made it worse.

To ostensibly save money, the GOP majority in Congress cut the staffs of representatives. Without sufficient staff to research the effects of bills, congressional members were forced to rely on lobbyists, think tanks and Political Action Groups for information. And, if they failed to vote as these interest groups wished, the groups would spend millions to defeat them in the next election. As a result, the representatives learned that, if they valued their jobs, it was better to do nothing than to take a stand.

And, since the conservative-led Supreme Court ruled that money equals free speech and corporations have the rights of individuals, congressional representatives have been forced to spend as much as 40 percent of their time dialing for dollars in order to raise enough money to fend off competitors in their next election campaign.

In addition, former GOP Speaker John Boehner banned earmarks – the tradition of adding provisions to a discretionary spending bill without floor debate. Though sometimes abused, earmarks were a form of congressional horse-trading to provide funding for projects in an individual representative’s home district. In most cases, it was how new bridges were funded; how new roads and road expansionss were funded; how a city got funding for programs and grants. But since the end of earmarks, the process has become more politicized than ever with the decisions on spending often being directed by the executive branch to reward supporters.

Any bills that do make it out of the House must go to the Senate for votes and be signed by the president before they can become law. The current House has sent more than 100 bills to the Senate. But even the most popular bills supported by a vast majority of citizens have been blocked by the self-proclaimed “grim reaper” of legislation – Moscow Mitch. He refuses to bring them to a vote unless they meet his very narrow agenda.

It’s all a recipe for gridlock.

To make matters worse, over many decades, Congress has yielded much of its constitutional authority to the executive branch rendering itself somewhat powerless. So much so, that congressional delegations have been turned away from immigration detention centers despite their role of oversight. Executive branch agencies have refused to turn over documents or respond to subpoenas issued by congressional judicial and oversight committees. And Trump has redirected money from agencies to build his wall despite congressional authority over the budget.

Despite Trump’s very public calls to drain the swamp, he ignores the fact that it was largely created by the GOP. Indeed, he has only made it worse by ignoring the emoluments clause; by using his office to promote his properties and to make money each time he visits one; by placing industry lobbyists in charge of the agencies responsible for regulating the industries they represent.

The interests of the American people be damned.

Destruction Of The US. (Part Three – Racism and Discrimination)

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One of the many ways that Trump and the GOP are destroying our democracy is through discrimination – creating fear of those who look different, who speak a different language, who practice a different faith, or who love someone of the same gender. Under the guise of rejecting “political correctness” the GOP and its propaganda outlets, such as Fox News, have emboldened their followers to blame the “other” for all of their social and economic problems.

Their political strategy has led to a divisiveness not seen since before or after the Civil War. It has also led to increasing violence.

For example, inspired by Trump, two Boston brothers brutally attacked and urinated on a homeless Hispanic man. Three Trump supporters in Kansas planned to bomb Somali immigrants. A white male in Washington stabbed an interracial couple, citing Trump’s rallies. The young man who rammed his car into a crowd of people protesting the racist Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia killing Heather Heyer was emboldened to act by the election of the most overtly racist president since Woodrow Wilson or, perhaps, even Andrew Johnson. An ardent Trump supporter in Miami was moved to send package bombs to Democratic leaders and the media he believed engaged in “fake news.” Likewise, the mass killers in Pittsburg and El Paso were inspired to act by Trump. In addition, there have been many less visible and less successful domestic terrorists who were inspired to violence by Trump.

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has led to dozens, maybe hundreds, of threats and hate crimes against brown and black people – some of them US citizens – for daring to speak Spanish or to look like immigrants. In addition, there has been a growing number of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community. GOP-nominated judges have sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians on so-called religious grounds (the religion of hate). And the rhetoric of GOP candidates and supporters has inspired anti-abortion protesters to murder doctors, nurses and patients at medical clinics.

At the same time, the Trump administration has used ICE and CBP to engage in a form of violence against immigrants – many of them seeking asylum from dangerous and hopeless situations – by ripping their children from their arms and, in some cases, placing the children in foster homes or putting them up for adoption. They have crammed immigrants into cages with no toiletries, no soap, no showers and no beds, often without sufficient room to even lie down.

All the while, Trump’s supporters, including many so-called evangelical “Christians” have cheered.

And, for decades, the GOP has practiced racial discrimination by gerrymandering districts to minimize the impact of black voters. They have purged people of color from voting lists. They have demanded photo IDs from state motor vehicle departments then closed the locations in black districts. They have also closed polling places in black areas, forcing voters to stand in line for hours.

The GOP has intentionally positioned itself as the party of choice for white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-immigrant militias, and “Christian” evangelicals. Its candidates have all been endorsed and funded by the NRA, which has made gun violence possible, perhaps inevitable. And Trump has even been endorsed by the David Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK.

What do all these groups have in common? They are all paranoid, feeling that they are persecuted by the educated and secular “elite.” They fear that our white Christian culture will be “diluted” by people of color and people of other religions. They fear they’ll lose the advantages of their white privilege. And they fear a government that limits their freedom to rape and pillage the land, air and water; a government that forces them to pay for their fair share of infrastructure; a government that denies men the right to control women; a government that denies them the ability to discriminate without consequence.

For more on the subject, I encourage you to read Bring The War Home, The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Kathleen Belew.

Destruction Of The US. (Part Two – Justice)

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While much of the nation is fixated on Trump’s alarming statements on Twitter and outraged by his many personal transgressions, he has quietly gone about reshaping the federal court system for a generation or more.

When Trump entered office, there were nearly twice as many judicial openings as when Obama entered office. Indeed, the 108 vacancies at the beginning of Trump’s term (many kept vacant by the obstruction of Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell) represented about one in eight lifetime appointments. With a compliant Senate, Trump almost immediately filled the Supreme Court seat that had been kept open for nearly a year by McConnell. In his first 200 days, he also nominated 43 other federal judges, 7 of which were quickly confirmed. Most, if not all of these nominees were proposed by the very conservative Federalist Society. And all met the approval of “Christian” evangelicals who not only hope to overturn Roe v Wade. They are dead set on turning the US into a theocracy with the help of their “Chosen One.”

According to Wikipedia, as of August 14, 2019, the US Senate has confirmed 146 Article III judges nominated by President Trump, including two Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, 43 judges for the US Court of Appeals, 99 judges for US District Courts, and two judges for US Court of International Trade. A priority has been placed on relatively young nominees who can serve for decades.

Additionally, Trump’s two US Attorneys General have reshaped and politicized law enforcement as never before.

His first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, dropped recommendations from the previous administration dealing with the findings of abuse by law enforcement, the courts and the city government of Ferguson, Missouri. He dropped investigations into white supremacy groups and other domestic terrorists. He rescinded DOJ guidance for schools which was designed to protect transgender students in bathrooms and locker rooms. And, as a southern “Christian” theocrat, he sided with a cake shop owner who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Sessions undermined a major voting rights case in Texas by deciding that his civil rights unit would no longer investigate patterns of excessive force and racial profiling by local law enforcement. He threatened to withhold US grants from cities that designated themselves as sanctuaries for immigrants. He decided that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was “an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch” and could not be defended in a court challenge by Texas and other states. More disturbing, under his “zero-tolerance” policy, Sessions ordered the separation of children from parents seeking asylum and crossing the United States’ southern border. Sessions proudly proclaimed, “If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple.”

Sessions also revoked an Obama-era policy that gave federal prosecutors discretion in making decisions about charges in drug cases. And he reversed another Obama-era policy by announcing that the Justice Department would continue to use private prisons.

By almost any measure, Trump’s second Attorney General is even worse. William Barr was nominated by Trump based on his opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. He quickly rewarded his new boss by misleading the public about the Mueller Report, falsely announcing that there was no collusion and no obstruction (a conclusion disputed by more than 1,000 former US attorneys and prosecutors). Taking it a step further, Barr even stoked conspiracy theories by announcing his intent to investigate FBI agents, CIA agents and others over the origins of the Mueller investigation, unabashedly stating, “I think spying did occur.” He chose not to defend the Affordable Care Act in court, potentially leaving millions of Americans vulnerable to a predatory insurance industry. And, more recently, Barr tried to block Mueller from testifying before Congress, ultimately limiting his testimony to the redacted report.

Perhaps the greatest threat posed by Barr is his belief that, contrary to the Constitution’s First Amendment, there should be no separation of church and state. Moreover, he has stated that he will oppose any attempt by the legislative branch to pass secular laws. He has also steadfastly refused to respond to lawful requests and subpoenas from Congress – the branch of government that the Founding Fathers considered most important as evidenced by it establishment in Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution.

It’s startling to think that the man charged with defending our Constitution either hasn’t read it. Or doesn’t believe in it.

Why You Should Really Want Immigrants To Have Health Care.

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Who raises and picks the produce you eat? Who works in slaughterhouses and butchers the meat you eat? Who cooks your food when you dine in restaurants? Who washes the dishes? Who cleans the tables? Who serves your food?

Immigrants, that’s who!

That’s because immigrants are willing to do the jobs that few American citizens are willing to do. They are the only ones who are willing to perform back-breaking work for long hours at minimum wage. Yet, despite the fact that most of these immigrants pay taxes – including payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare – they do not have access to affordable health care. Moreover, if they are undocumented, they are now afraid to show up at a hospital or clinic for fear of being apprehended by ICE. That’s especially true following the recent raids of Mississippi chicken processing plants.

Now think about that for a minute. The people who handle your food are as likely as you to contract a contagious disease while riding to work, while shopping at WalMart, or while attending church. (They are, after all, human.) But unlike you, most are unable to see a doctor when they get sick. And given the threat of being arrested and deported, they are afraid to seek help when they contract a cold, the flu or any of the myriad of contagious diseases. And, since they are paid minimum wage or less, they can’t even afford to take a day off.

What could possibly go wrong?

And, if that’s not enough to make you reconsider our treatment of immigrants, consider this: Their children are enrolled in the same public schools as yours. They attend the same classes; play the same sports; swim in the same pools. That means any diseases that go untreated in their homes are likely to end up in your home.

So go ahead, treat them as criminals. Deny them green cards. Deny them a living wage. Deny them health care benefits. Make sure they can’t take time off to recover from an illness. Make them afraid to seek medical care. Push them further and further underground. Just remember: When they get sick, you’re likely to get sick, too.

Of course, if you’re a white nationalist like Trump, you could demand that ICE round up all undocumented immigrants and deport them. (They’d have to include all of those working at Trump properties.) But then what are you going to you eat?

Destruction Of The US. (Part One – The Climate Crisis)

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There are those who say that the US can withstand the damage done by Trump; that the Constitution will prevail; that people will come to their senses. I wish I could be that certain. In the coming weeks, I will be examining the damage done to our nation and our planet by this rogue presidency beginning with what is arguably our greatest threat: The Climate Crisis.

You may remember some of the progress made during the Obama administration: It embraced the UN’s Agenda 21 – a non-binding plan that emerged from the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 that set goals for combating poverty, promoting human health, promoting sustainable development, protecting the atmosphere, combating deforestation, managing fragile ecosystems, conserving biological diversity and more. It created incentives for the manufacture and use of sustainable energy alternatives. It created more stringent standards for coal-fired generating plants. It protected sensitive lands and endangered species from oil exploration and mining interests. It pushed to end factory fishing and created a national monument to protect a sensitive coral reef.

Under the Obama administration, the Navy began to plan for the sea level rise predicted by most of the world’s climate scientists. And the military began to power some of its installations with sustainable energy.

Most importantly, the Obama administration not only signed the Paris Climate Accords. It helped to create the agreement. Indeed, President Obama called it “the best chance to save the planet.”

Then along came Trump.

The racist, anti-Obama chief executive quickly withdrew our nation from the Paris agreement making the US now the only nation on the planet that is not a signatory. (Even Syria signed the pact.) He ordered his administration to relax standards for carbon emissions, in addition to deregulating some of the worst polluters. He ordered government agencies such as the EPA, NASA, NOAA, and others to remove any mention of climate change and its effects. He appointed political hacks and climate change deniers to cabinet positions and numerous other positions of power. He eliminated many regulations on coal mining and oil drilling to encourage further development of climate-changing fossil fuels. And his Interior Department began selling mineral rights on federal lands to the highest bidders. His administration even cut the Bears Ears National Monument – a place of great spiritual significance to Native Americans and of archeological importance – in half in order to make its mineral rights available.

In addition, the Trump administration plans to open the Arctic – a region already suffering from the severe impact of the climate crisis – to more oil exploration.

Worst of all, Trump has cut incentives for the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines thereby ceding their manufacture to foreign companies. He has proposed rolling back emission standards for American-made vehicles. He has cut incentives for the purchase of solar panels and electric-powered cars. And he has abandoned virtually all government research into ways to mitigate the climate crisis.

Do Trump and his supporters not live on the same planet we do? Have they not read the mounting evidence of a true global catastrophe? Have they not heard the warnings of extreme temperatures and rising sea levels? Have they not read reports of dying coral reefs and the extinction of species? Have they not experienced the anguish of watching another community torn apart by an extraordinary storm fueled by extreme temperatures? Do they not understand that one reason for the immigration crisis at our border is climate change? And that mass migration from climate change will only grow?

The world’s climate scientists say that we only have a decade or less to act in order to head off the worst effects of the climate crisis. And every few months, they announce that the climate is spiraling out of control even more quickly than their worst-case scenarios. The climate crisis is not a hoax! In fact, it is all too real. Indeed, the only questions left are: Will we act in time? Will our actions be enough? Will Trump be re-elected.

If the latter happens, it will almost certainly be game over.