A simple example of accountability that speaks volumes

The following is a brief example, but speaks volumes as a window into the US President. At one of his pep rallies the past few days, the President ridiculed the former Senator Al Franken from Minnesota, who resigned after accusations of sexual harassment. But, the President was not ridiculing the allegations, he was mocking him for resigning.

Let me be clear on this. The President of the United States was mocking a Senator who did the right thing accepting accountability for his actions. He screwed up, acknowledged it and resigned. The President saw this as weakness. The crowd cheered, but why?

I have written before how the President is not accountable. He rarely accepts blame for anything he does that goes awry. According to his biographers, he was taught by his mentor Roy Cohn to do two things – never say you are sorry and sue everyone. Think about this. He sues everyone or threatens to any time he perceives maltreatment. Before the election, his company lawsuits averaged 1 1/2 per week.

Now, he may have said he is sorry, but I can’t think of one top of mind, in spite of many opportunities. Typically, he changes what he said or backs off, then comes back later to double down. My favorite story to illustrate Trump at his worst is arranging a press conference before the election with the sole purpose to say that he was wrong about Obama’s birth certificate issue.

We need to be reminded that Trump had been raising the birther issue for several years increasing his notoriety appealing to his future base. Yet, when it came time to accept accountability, he blamed Hillary Clinton. Her campaign in 2008 made up the birther issue was his rationale. The idea may have come from them, but they did not execute on it. Trump did for several years, repeatedly. This avoidance of accountability was vintage Trump.

We teach our kids to be truthful, be civil, be responsible and be accountable. Trump is only responsible to himself and his base, everything else is secondary. He tells the truth only 31% of the time and even less when at a pep rally. He certainly is not routinely civil. From several sources, his tirades are legendary indoors as well as out. But, accountability is a trait he severely lacks. Why did people clap at his rally? Because he was ragging on a Democrat. But, that Democrat did the right thing. He was accountable.

 

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I believe the women

There is nothing more that can be done about Brett Kavanaugh. He will be sworn in as an Associate Justice to the US Supreme Court. I think it is a sad day in America, especially for women.

We now have two out of nine Supreme Court justices that have been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Many may not know that Anita Hill was one of two accusers of Clarence Thomas. The second woman waited in a hotel room to testify, but never was called.

Kavanaugh will join the court with three accusers, but only one was asked to testify with the second being interviewed by the FBI. But, not finding corroborating witnesses should not be construed that Kavanaugh is innocent. I believe the women, especially Dr. Ford. He was less than credible as he attacked. She was calm and pained. She also passed a lie detector test.

Yet, we should not forget the man who nominated Kavanaugh has a roster of twenty accusers of sexual assault or harassment. The accusations range from inappropriate groping of private parts in public to be being pinned against a wall in his daughter’s bedroom to walking in on unclothed teenage beauty pageant contestants. The girls knew they had to tolerate the creepy old man. This does not consider his two accusers of marital infidelity whom he paid off. Those were consensual, but his denials are telling.

The President’s strong denials now don’t hold water as he has admitted to doing the sexual misconduct in three separate interviews, two with Howard Stern and one the infamous Access Hollywood tape. Like with the above, I believe the women, some of whom accused him before the interviews were made public. That is more than interesting – it is indicting.

The only remaining actions should be of concern to the GOP leaders. First, a Judge has permitted a case to move forward accusing Trump of defamation as he lied about his sexual misconduct with her. The other will be more problematic as news reporters continue to do the job the FBI was prevented from doing. As I asked Senators Collins and Flake, are you sure this is the horse you want to ride? More will come out, but it is too late.

With all due respect to a large bunch of white men who do not care to know the truth, I believe the women. I have listened to Messers. Trump, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Cosby, Weinstein, Clinton – I believe the women. One final thought to those who have rationalized all of this with a tribal mindset. If Dr. Ford was your daughter, you would want Kavanaugh’s head.

The tribal BS must stop

America’s governmental leaders have become so polarized with a tribal mentality, it is to the point of dysfunction. This has been a negative trend for some time, predating the rise of the lightning rod US President. His style in the role of leader has only made things more divisive.

This tribal BS has to stop. I am an Independent voter who left the Republican Party over ten years ago. I chose not to rejoin the Democrat Party of which I was a member in my early adult years. I define myself as fiscally conservative and socially progressive. I think many people are mixes of various degrees of beliefs. So, being an Independent better fit my belief construct.

I do not mind people being more conservative or liberal than I am. What I do mind is so-called leaders not using facts to make decisions and in some cases lying about or oversimplifying the causes of problems. It is hard enough to govern with facts, but nigh impossible when you don’t. And, what is also frustrating is some of these so-called leaders know better, but their funders told them to believe the opposite of what is true or more true.

Neither party has all of the good ideas and both have some bad ones. This statement is worth re-reading for emphasis. It is important to note, a key reason I left the Republican Party was its tendency to make things up abetted biased news sources. That coupled with their stance on climate change were deal breakers for me.

Both parties have been untruthful and will continue to be such. Yet, it frustrates me that my old party has deviated greatly from what they were. It is now the Trump Party and many more Independents are former Republicans. The number of Conservative pundits who actively do not support the GOP is telling – Will, Gerson, Erickson, Brooks, Schmidt, et al.

But, Democrats must not govern as Republicans have done the past few years. They must focus on the issues and help get things done. Our country must have collaboration or lasting changes will not occur. Leaders must follow process. Any time, leaders deviate from normal process, take it to the bank, it is political. Kavanaugh must answer to questions from his accusers, but this should have come up earlier when the hearings were underway. On the flip side, Merrick Garland not have a hearing in 2016 was an injustice, as well.

The tribal BS must stop. Find common ground. Ask good questions and listen to the answers. Insist to our leaders the truth matters. It is a problem the US President lies more than he does not. And, remember the real tribe is the United States of America. If that is not enough, know this, what Vladimir Putin accomplished most through his interference and meddling is helping drive a larger wedge in America and he is still doing it.

Thursday thumbnails redux

Since I am kicking around several topics, let me throw a few together for your reading and reaction. Your thoughts are welcomed and appreciated.

• It would be terribly unfair to say Republicans are racist, but it seems there are more than a few racists running for important offices in various states under the GOP banner. In Virginia, Illinois  and Florida, for example, a few candidates have a history of racist comments and associations. To their credit, the GOP leadership is not backing all of these candidates, but they should not back any and should condemn their words and actions in no uncertain terms. It is disappointing that the US President has done neither and has greased the skids for white supremacist hate groups who now feel empowered. Trump had a truly a low bar to step over to condemn white supremacists last summer and he tripped.
• Sexual assault is a heinous crime, yet the accuser does not often come forward given the backlash they get. So, for it to take years to come forward is not uncommon. The fact they do so when the accused is being considered for high office, should reveal a greater sense of character. Professor Blasey Ford deserves due consideration and time for her accusations of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Call me crazy, but we should take the time to get this right as this is one of the nine most important people in our courts. Because we did not take time back in 1991, we may have a man guilty of sexual misconduct on the bench already.
• I have written before that Democrats are lousy marketers. Even when they have a better story to tell, they often let Republicans define the talking points. The Democrats have many fine candidates running for office. Some are running uphill battles in gerrymandered districts, but they are running well. What should be shouted from the rooftops is they will help improve and stabilize the ACA as it continues to be sabotaged by the GOP making premiums even higher, they will protect our environment against the further roll back of regulations enabling polluting and stay committed to the Paris Climate Change accord, they will make sure we do not devalue our allied relationships and retrench further from our global leadership role, and they will advocate for rights of all citizens, especially those in poverty. And, to be frank, since the GOP has ceded its leadership toward addressing the debt and deficit, the Democrats can be seen as better financial stewards.

Truth be told, the President touts what he has done with the economy, but what he fails to tell people is we are in the 113 consecutive month of economic growth, the bull stock market traces back to March, 2009 and unemployment was low when he took the reins. What has been done, is he is borrowing from our future to make a good economy a little better, but the cost is doing nothing but add fire to our burning debt.

Presidents get too much credit and too much blame for the economy. They do provide headwinds and tailwinds, though, and this President has done both. The headwinds will show up later as noted by most economists, while the tailwinds add today.

Capitalism and socialism coexists

On more than one occasion, I have seen letters to the editor speak of setting up beachheads in the coming election around capitalism vs. socialism. To me, this is a name-calling gimmick to persuade a voter who does not do much homework. Voters that are prone to listen to name-calling as debate will buy into this logic time and again. The irony in this debate is the United States’ economy is a blend of “fettered” capitalism with socialistic underpinnings. So, both co-exist here.

For readers in the either camp, this observation probably surprises them, especially those who are gung-ho capitalists. But, the word in quotes is also important as we do not have unfettered capitalism. If we did, the US President would have run out of money long ago with his many bankruptcies. I believe in capitalism as well, but we need to understand why we ventured down the path of the socialistic underpinnings.

These underpinnings spoke to a nation that was in a great depression and who seemingly got lost in poverty later on. Social security is a low-income weighted pension, disability and survivor benefit program that is funded equally by employers and individuals. To determine the base level benefit, 90% of average wages are used for the earlier wages then added to 32% of the next tier of wages which are added to 15% of the highest wages up to a limit.

In the 1960s, LBJ’s “War on Poverty” added Medicare and Medicaid to the mix, with Medicare helping retirees and Medicaid focusing on people in poverty. Then, we can mix equal measures of unemployment benefits, workers’ compensation and food stamps which are now called SNAP benefits. Each of these programs are forms of “social insurance” benefits. That is socialism designed to keep people fed, housed and protected.

Taking this a step further, utilities are so needed to our communities, they are either co-ops or fettered capitalistic models where rate increases must get approved by a state governing board. Companies like Duke Energy and Con-Ed must get permission before they change their rates. For the co-op model, the customers own the business.

But, the word “fettered” enters into the mix on other businesses as well. To prevent monopolies, insider trading, interlocking boards, collusion, the misuse of insider knowledge by investors, etc. rules are set up to provide governors on capitalism. Then, there is that bankruptcy thing, where a business or person can claim bankruptcy to pay debtors what they can and restart. I use the President as an example, but his experience is a good one, as he filed for bankruptcy six times on various investments.

I want people to think about our country in this context. We want people to earn their keep and be fully functioning tax paying citizens. Yet, we have programs in place to keep them out of the ditch. As we considering changes to programs, we should consider what they are accomplishing and how changes could make them more effective. And, we must understand that things must be paid for, so how do we get the best return on the investment into those stated goals?

For those that have followed my blog for some time, you know I have been involved for many years in helping homeless working families find a path back to self-sustainability. We help the homeless climb a ladder, but they climb it. Yet, we are also successful in keeping people housed on their own after two years of leaving our program because we measure things and make improvements. The ultimate goal is self-sustainability, so we measure how we can be the best financial stewards toward helping people achieve that purpose.

We need social underpinnings to help people be fed, housed and protected. Some need to be temporary in nature, while others are longer term like Medicare and Social Security. There is a cost-benefit to these equations, but we should understand that we have poverty problem in our country. We must also understand technology advances will continue to change the paradigm on employment as it has throughout the industrial age placing additional pressures to even more wage earners. Not providing ladders out of poverty or ways to avoid it would be a bad path to follow for our country.

 

Questions for Campaigning Republican Legislators

Our diligent and thorough blogging friend, Gronda, wrote a post regarding answers to questions that Republican Party leadership provided GOP candidates. Most of the questions are of many of the messes the President finds himself in of his making, but truly miss the boat on where Republicans and the President have failed to address larger US and global issues.

There is plenty to ask about of these legislators. Here are a few of my questions:

– why are you allowing the easier maltreatment of our environment by industry?

– why are you supporting leaving the Paris Climate Change Accord ignoring the rest of the world?

– why have you failed to address our water concerns in Flint and similar places?

– why have you not only ignored our rapidly rising and expensive debt, but made it worse?

– why have you stood by and let the President trash and cut our diplomacy staff and bully our allies?

– why are we placing tariffs on everyone, without concern for past failures and ignoring better channels to address China involving our allies?

– why have you not listened to Americans and improve the ACA actually harming it instead?

– why have you not done anything to materially address gun governance?

– why have you allowed a President to trash our hard working people in important government departments to create an illusion of conspiracy to save his hind end?

– why have you tolerated a President who believes the civil rights of whites matter more than that of other races?

– why are we doing things to make our poverty problem worse, not better?

– why have we not addressed infrastructure with our significant needs and resulting job creation when interest rates were lower?

That is a start. These folks have a lot to answer to. To be frank, all Americans should be asking these questions, but if I were a young person, I would be even more alarmed. Just with climate change and growing debt, this party is screwing our youth.

But, there is so much more. I am an Independent voter who left the GOP over ten years ago because of their failure to speak to the truth on real problems – Trump has made it worse and his followers have been conned to believe the opposite.

Question for gun owners

Since legislators are more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing their jobs, I felt the need to pose the issue on better gun governance to gun owners. Doing nothing is obviously not the answer, although that seems to be the course too many advocate. My newspaper was kind enough to print the following letter to the editor, with a few edits. Please feel free to adapt and use if you concur.

“After yet another mass shooting in America (this time in my home town), in addition to three shootings over two days in Charlotte, doing nothing to address this issue is not working. I believe we can still honor 2nd Amendment rights and enact better gun governance. I have shared with legislators the suggestions that have majority support in the country. My question is for gun owners – what do you suggest we do to govern the ownership of a device designed to kill? We govern car ownership to keep the driver, passengers and others safe. Surely we can add better governance to gun ownership.”

Since I wrote this, there was another shooting incident in Charlotte this morning at an elementary school. Fortunately no one was hurt. Our law enforcement do a highly credible job, but stopping gun violence is extremely difficult in America.