Observations

1. Why aren’t there any conservative, right wing or pro- Trump comedy or late night TV shows?

 No sense of humor?

2. Where are the great protest songs?

 I haven’t heard any during this Trump era.

3. After Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision, I thought gun owners could relax and allow sensible reasonable gun reforms. Their guns were safe.

  The opposite happened. Why?

4. Don’t Republicans care about deficits and the national debt anymore?

Watch out for the Bond Vigilantes.

5. Contrary to what Trump and Fox News says , almost every country in the world , except those ruled by authoritarians, dictators, kings and thugs, and sadly Israel,

have lost respect for America and hate Trump.

How is it the Trumpkins believe the opposite is true?

Guns, Patriotism and America

Reasonable , sensible restrictions on guns, and gun safety laws, are constitutionally permissible, even according to the late Justice Scalia.

Why then does the NRA , and their core supporters, so adamantly oppose virtually any such restrictions or reforms?

 Perhaps if the broader public understood the real reason behind the NRA’s opposition to any kind of reform or restrictions , Congress would take action.

 The real reason is they hate America and don’t trust our government.

They are actually unpatriotic. Ironically, they say they love America,  and that it’s the government they hate and don’t trust. However what is America if not our government based on our Constitution? Deep down they are in reality anti- American , at least the America most of us love and respect. The issues of personal protection from criminals , hunting and recreational gun use are not the real reasons they are against gun reforms.

They believe they need protection from government tyranny.  They are willing to let the slaughter of children in schools, and gangs and innocent bystanders in our cities, go on unabated all because of their paranoid obsession against our government.

Don't they realize their guns would not protect them from real government tyranny. No matter what kind of arsenal they might have, they'd be no match against  trained troops with tanks, artillery, combat weapons, mechanized armored personnel carriers, etc. ; let alone F-16s and  Hell Fire cruise  missiles and drones !! 

 If the general public understood what really motivates the NRA and their supporters maybe they would see the NRA as the unpatriotic UnAmerican organization that it is .  Only then would the NRA be discredited as unpatriotic , it’s grip on Congress released, and real reasonable gun safety reform  be enacted.

The GOP FBI Memo?

What’s the big deal?

Just because The Memo says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Especially since it was written by a highly partisan Republican.

Confirmation bias on steroids.  

FBI bias charges misplaced

I seemed  to recall that the whole Comey reopening the the Clinton email investigation just before the election  arose from actions of some over zealous FBI agents in the New York office who intensely disliked Mrs. Clinton. I'm confident emails can be found.

So when the GOP starts slinging charges of FBI bias against Trump, they should investigate the New York office of the FBI as well.

In addition, the allegations of liberal  bias within the FBI should be questioned in light of the following observations of a high ranking law enforcement professional who observed that in his opinion, "federal law enforcement officers in general tend to be on the more conservative side of things. There is a  higher than average percentage  of former military personnel and they generally have  a "law and order" flavored view of the world".

It's really crazy to think that the FBI was biased in favor of Secretary Clinton. However stating that Donald Trump was an idiot , or as his Secretary of State said,  "a moron", is just fact.

The New War Between the States

The Reds States have declared war on the Blue States through the Trump Tax Bill. Limitations on the tax deductions for state and local taxes hits the Blue States hard. 

This is particularly galling  because the Blue States contribute much more to the country¹s  economy than the Red States . In particular, this tax bill punishes the very Blue States that contribute

the most to the strength of our economy- California , New York, Illinois .

With Trump as President, the Red States are able to accomplish this punishment through gerrymandered House districts and the basic undemocratic nature of the Senate. 

 The  Senate is incredibly undemocratic. Wyoming has the same

number of Senators as California and New York. To put a point on it, Wyoming only has 1 house representative because its population is so small; yet it has 2 Senators. 

While this is our system, the Republicans are abusing this unfair advantage in punishing Blue

States in the GOP's Tax Bill.

Watch out, the "worm will turn" and the Blue States will get its revenge.

Trump Surrenders, Again

With the withdrawal of support to the  Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Trump has surrendered to Turkey, Iran, Russia, and of course Assad in Syria.

 This cedes control of that whole region of the Middle East to Russia and Iran.

Trump has now strengthened Iran, as well as Russia; all to appease Turkey, an erstwhile NATO ally.

How can GOP conservatives, Saudi Arabia and Israel be happy with this development ?

I said that Trump surrenders again because in my earlier posts I wrote about his surrender of Asia to China and Eastern Europe to Russia. 

 Western Europe stands alone. Of course, Trump has alienated Mexico and Canada, and taken shots at Australia.

At least he's beloved by dictators, autocrats, kings, thugs and ( sadly) Israel.

Pax Americana is over and the US is going it alone for now.  Trump only wants only bilateral trade agreements that no one else really wants.  They may have to trade with us since we are such big, rich bullies; but the resentment will fester and eventually hurt us.

 I always thought  that the goal of trade was "win-win". Not according to Trump. By the way, trade deficits are meaningless "red herrings". 

These developments can only harm America in the long run. 

Tax Cuts For Donald Trump Act

The Tax Cuts for Donald Trump Act: 

That should be the name of the recently announced GOP tax plan. The major beneficiary of this tax plan is not the American public broadly but, instead, Donald J Trump and his family, personally.

First of all not reducing the highest income tax rate for higher earners is not relevant to Trump. Virtually none of his income is taxable at ordinary income tax rates .

Almost all of Trump's income comes from pass-through entities which will now be given a windfall tax rate of 25%. It is grossly misleading to say this new rate benefits small business. Most truly small businesses already pay at a 25% rate. Rather the only pass entities that will receive this unjustified windfall are the kind in which Trump is invested, including, of course, The Trump Organization.

The second major windfall for Trump and his family is the eventual elimination of the estate tax. It is grossly misleading to present this as a benefit for family farms and small businesses because under current law estates of up to $11,000,000 are exempt from  paying estate taxes.  This change is exclusively for the benefit of the .1% . This change alone would save the Trump family billions.

 Finally,  the elimination of AMT, as Rachel Maddow revealed, is the only thing that resulted in Trump paying meaningful taxes for that year, or  any year for that matter. Eliminating it, rather than appropriately modifying it to not apply to upper middle class taxpayers, would save Trump tens of millions of dollars. AMT was intended to insure that the rich still paid taxes. While it has ensnared more than the rich;  just terminating it would once again allow some of the richness among us to avoid paying any federal income taxes. 

Even this simplistic analysis (of but a few salient provisions of the GOP tax plan) clearly shows that  Donald Trump and his family personally would be a very major beneficiary of this tax bill.

Thus , "The Tax Cuts for Donald Trump Act" seems the most honestly descriptive name for the GOP's tax plan.

Eric