Trump/Kim? Don't hold your breath
President Trump and Kim Jong-un in the same room while we rely on hope for some good to emerge. Why this isn’t going to happen.
Both of them want entirely different things. Trump wants North Korea’s leaders to come to heel and to divert the media from the Trump/Russia investigation and his many other liabilities. Kim wants to meet as an equal with the president of the United States without giving up his nuclear protection … without coming to heel. That it doesn’t happen may be a very good thing. “Why?” you ask.
First, both of them are thugs and bullies used to getting their own way.
Second, both of them have some form of nuclear weapons at their command. Two bullies frustrated and angry with each other in failure. Are we viewing the end of civilization? You know, what we have always expected from a Trump presidency.
So thankfully, this meeting is very unlikely to occur, but it may just give Trump and his congressional accomplices enough time and cover to allow the Russians to again influence the results of a U.S. election and therefore further destroy our Constitution and country. Our national security leaders recognize that the Russians will be back, as little has been done to dissuade them, and they have reaped enormous benefits in the last year with the election of this ignorant and destructive president.
There is a modest percentage of the U.S. citizenry that still believes Trump. We must live with them, but we sure don’t have to elect them to public office. Let’s throw all of them out of Washington and endeavor to repair the great damage the Republican Insurgency has done to the country. Let’s endeavor to get our military spending under control, release the victims of our global empire and learn to live within our environmental constraints and with our neighbors. We do not have to be the greatest threat to world peace on the planet. We do not have to be envious of the governmental abilities of France and Sweden and Iceland and Norway and … .
We can change if we have the courage to do so.
And a good way to start is by electing progressive leaders.
Finally, “Go Stormy; make the bum pay!!” Can Republicans sink any lower?”
MIKE TABONY
Gladstone
Trade deficits and tariffs
Why are members of Congress, of both parties, opposed to President Trump’s opening actions regarding trade? Steel and aluminum production capacity is important for national defense. The $800 billion annual trade deficit must be considered causative to the federal expenditures of some $782 billion on “entitlement” programs, excluding Social Security and Medicare.
Let us first put aside the politically contrived notion that Social Security and Medicare are like all other entitlements. They are not. The 1935 Social Security Act and the 1964 Medicare Amendment obligated citizens to participate in government-managed-and-controlled retirement and health care programs. These programs are not “general revenue” funded programs. These programs are funded by every working citizen and employer, which cause a reduction in pay of some 16 percent over and above the federal income tax. In addition, a retired couple has today some $3,000 a year removed from their Social Security “entitlement” and transferred to the Medicare Trust Fund. It is the “Swamp” that wants you to believe that all entitlement programs are the same. There are problems with Social Security and Medicare because they are being run by politicians, not by responsible program managers.
Why is it not in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the trade deficit which would in turn reduce the budget deficit causing “federal entitlement” expenditures? The answer is easy. If you bring jobs back to the United States, you reduce the vote value of those “identity politics,” entitlement-created, constituent groups.
The modern progressive movement, a creation of Woodrow Wilson’s of which Hillary Clinton professed herself to be a champion and for which Bernie Sanders campaigned himself as a leader, has brought us to this place in history. We stand now in conflict with our self-reliant heritage, our duty to God not man.
BOB DEWEY
Wintergreen
