Republicans have proven they’re not interested in democracy. So, from cabinet nominations to SCOTUS nominations to the simplest rules and procedures for “moving forward,” we don’t give an inch. Not. One. Inch. They did this–successfully–for eight years with Obama and were rewarded with complete control of the Executive, the Congress and the Supreme Court. So, can democrats learn from this? We make them fight for every single issue, and we tell our reps that if they cave we will primary them. It’s time for the democratic party to grow a pair.
Here’s the latest rundown on President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees in an easy-to-digest “cheat sheet” format. Print it out and keep it in your pocket for easy access during water cooler discussions of the coming Apocalypse.
Vice President End Times fanatic and LGBT hater who spends several hours a day figuring out how to get rid of Trump.
Commerce Secretary 80-year-old billionaire who was on duty during the Sago mine disaster that killed a dozen miners.
Secretary of Defense 4-star general who boasts that “it’s a helluva lot of fun to shoot some people” and whose core life principle is, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” Famous for massacring over 40 members of a wedding party in 2004.
National Security Adviser:Muslim-hating former 3-star general and conspiracy-theorist who has licked Putin’s boots and broken multiple Defense Department rules.
Treasury Secretary Billionaire Goldman Sachs guy dubbed “The Foreclosure King.”
Education Secretary Billionaire LGBT hater, public schools dismantler, pro-child-labor advocate, pyramid scheme grifter.
Health & Human Services Georgia congressman who will be in charge of moving health care from an insurance-based system to a bake sale-based system.
Transportation Secretary A billionaire crash-test dummy.
HUD Secretary “Sleepy.”
CIA Director: Kansas congressman who believes torture is patriotism, Muslims are scum, and every move you make should be monitored by The State.
U.N. Ambassador A woman of color whose parents—Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa—have funny names and weren’t even born here. This must be an error.
Attorney General Racist fuck and redneck sheriff wannabe.
Secretary of State Either a xenophobic, philandering, walking conflict-of-interest…
…or a philandering former 4-star general who shared top-secret war documents with his girlfriend
…or a guy who spent months blasting Trump as a “phony, a fraud” and said “If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, and the disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement.”
Chief Adviser #1 cheerleader and propaganda spreader for the American Nazi movement.
Chief of Staff Former RNC chair whose primary job will be to submit to daily wedgies by the roving gang of west-wing billionaires.
(This piece was written eight years ago by a guy in Cincinnati, worth bringing back today)
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment checks because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.
The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
[Note: Labels and party affiliations change. What doesn’t change are the underlying political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism, and the fact that the liberals usually turned out to be right and the conservatives turned out to be wrong. And so it goes]
“November 8, 2016 is the day that proved Americans could no longer differentiate between fact and fiction.” This article perfectly articulates what I have believed for a long time and it’s written by a non-partisan author with factual backup for every claim.
America voted for the story they believed. That story has been manipulated for decades by those whose self-interest comes before effective government. This article, written and researched by a political independent, is must reading for anyone who truly wants to know how we got to this point in American history.
OK, I’ve read enough. Race, economic messaging, rural backlash, apathy, analysis day and night, down my street and up your block. Most pundits and analysts have now concluded that Hillary Clinton lost a winnable race because of what she said and did.
That conclusion completely ignores the avalanche of carefully orchestrated fraudulent “news” that filled millions of people’s Facebook feeds and Twitter re-tweets. 2016 was the first election in which social media was manipulated to create a completely fraudulent reality. In that falseness, amplified by Wikileaks, Comey, and Russian propagandists working covertly, Hillary was about to be indicted, had FBI agents killed, was running child pedophilia rings, was about to die, had dementia, etc ad nauseam. Couple this with the nationwide voter suppression operations run by republicans controlling red states and virtually ignored by the corporate media (whose only interest was “the horse race”) and you have your the answer to “How could she lose?”
Until the massive propaganda operation that brainwashed millions of easily swayed (aka stupid) Americans is accounted for, any other analysis is pointless.
Driving back from Florida the week after the election, I saw dozens of ramshackle rural homes and farmhouses with Trump signs in the yards or spray-painted on the barns. It seemed bizarre: these folks actually expected a 70 year old billionaire who lived on the 65th floor of his own building in Manhattan and, in his entire life, had never lifted a finger to help anyone else—to somehow get to work making their lives better.
From Daily Kos:
There’s a thickening clique of plutocrats around him, as Politico’s Ben White and Matthew Nussbaum noted late last week in an article with the headline “Trump’s Team of Gazillionaires.” They observed that his emerging administration is largely a rich man’s (and woman’s) club, including Betsy DeVos, his nominee for education secretary, whose family is worth an estimated $5.1 billion.
Trump is also considering high-level roles for the “oil mogul Harold Hamm ($15.3 billion), investor Wilbur Ross ($2.9 billion), private equity investor Mitt Romney ($250 million at last count), hedge fund magnate Steve Mnuchin (at least $46 million) and superlawyer Rudy Giuliani (estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars),” according to the Politico article. “And Trump’s likely choice for deputy commerce secretary, Todd Ricketts, comes from the billionaire family that owns the Chicago Cubs.”
So we’ll get public schools shaped by people who’ve never attended one, law and order from people who’ve lived their lives behind security gates, health care from people who have personal physicians, and transportation policy from people who have their own jets. We’ll also get a lot of extra drug testing, reduced wages, and cuts to unemployment—because these billionaires know it’s you working people who are taking more than you’re worth.
This is the best article I’ve read explaining how we got to this point, about to inaugurate a con man, a human skidmark. The central irony of the 2016 election: Trump country has elected a president who will harass, deport, and bar the very people desperate to live there, the people who would help rebuild its small towns and cities.
San Francisco’s Official Response to the Election of Trump
SFBT-11.24.16-FINAL
SF-SEALThe San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution, introduced by Board President London Breed, in response to the election of Donald Trump. The resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS, On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That no matter the threats made by President-elect Trump, San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one third of our population. This is the Golden Gate—we build bridges, not walls; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we will never back down on women’s rights, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or any other area threatened by a man who treats women as obstacles to be demeaned or objects to be assaulted. And just as important, we will ensure our young girls grow up with role models who show them they can be or do anything; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That there will be no conversion therapy, no withdrawal of rights in San Francisco. We began hosting gay weddings twelve years ago, and we are not stopping now. And to all the LGBTQ people all over the country who feel scared, bullied, or alone: You matter. You are seen; you are loved; and San Francisco will never stop fighting for you; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we still believe in this nation’s founding principle of religious freedom. We do not ban people for their faith. And the only lists we keep are on invitations to come pray together; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That Black Lives Matter in San Francisco, even if they may not in the White House. And guided by President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, we will continue reforming our police department and rebuilding trust between police and communities of color so all citizens feel safe in their neighborhoods; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That climate change is not a hoax, or a plot by the Chinese. In this city, surrounded by water on three sides, science matters. And we will continue our work on CleanPower, Zero Waste, and everything else we are doing to protect future generations; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we have been providing universal health care in this city for nearly a decade, and if the new administration follows through on its callous promise to revoke health insurance from 20 million people, San Franciscans will be protected; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we are the birthplace of the United Nations, a city made stronger by the thousands of international visitors we welcome every day. We will remain committed to internationalism and to our friends and allies around the world—whether the administration in Washington is or not; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That San Francisco will remain a Transit First city and will continue building Muni and BART systems we can all rely upon, whether this administration follows through on its platform to eliminate federal transit funding or not; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That California is the sixth largest economy in the world. The Bay Area is the innovation capital of the country. We will not be bullied by threats to revoke our federal funding, nor will we sacrifice our values or members of our community for your dollar; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we condemn all hate crimes and hate speech perpetrated in this election’s wake. That although the United States will soon have a President who has demonstrated a lack of respect for the values we hold in the highest regard in San Francisco, it cannot change who we are, and it will never change our values. We argue, we campaign, we debate vigorously within San Francisco, but on these points we are 100 percent united. We will fight discrimination and recklessness in all its forms. We are one City. And we will move forward together.
UnclePuke 