Melania's "Let them eat cake" moment

The first lady, Melania Trump, wore a jacket to and from her visit to the border to see the children separated from their parents when seeking asylum entering America.  She sent a remarkable message with words painted on the back of her jacket - "I really don't care, do you?"  

What?

Hard for me to imagine what kind of mind would come up with this message. Reminds me of “Let them eat cake” by Marie Antoinette. 

Triggered a revolution as I recall.

I guess her husband wanted to reassure his white supremacist base that might have been worried that he actually had a heart.  No.  No sign of a heart in the Trumps or their avid supporters.

 

Jeff Sessions racist justification for pulling children from their parents

Leaders from the Confederacy have been quoting Romans 13 to justify their own racism for a couple of hundred years.  Most recently, Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, defended separating children from their parents who are seeking asylum in the United States with that reference.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions said during a speech to law enforcement officers in Fort Wayne, Ind."

Journalists Zauzmer and McMillan pointed out in their article today:
 
There are two dominant places in American history when Romans 13 is invoked,” said John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. “One is during the American Revolution [when] it was invoked by loyalists, those who opposed the American Revolution.”...

The other, Fea said, “is in the 1840s and 1850s, when Romans 13 is invoked by defenders of the South or defenders of slavery to ward off abolitionists who believed that slavery is wrong. I mean, this is the same argument that Southern slaveholders and the advocates of a Southern way of life made.”

I am really tired of being ruled by the Confederacy, which came to power in the 2016 election of Trump. Racism in some of its most vile manifestations are front and center in this Administration and in some of the more extreme of Trump's base.  

I want America back.  White Supremacy is as odious today in Trumpland as it ever was during the days of slavery and the Jim Crow south.  It is time for it to crawl back under little rocks where it belongs.

Kim Jong Un gets what he wants from Trump

Trump and Kim met and shook hands.  The good news is that they have not decided to launch nukes at each other.  

More good news for Kim - he got something he and his predecessors have been wanting since the Korean armistice, a face to face meeting with a president of the United States, and thus a significant boost in the status of the leader of North Korea, a legitimizing of him and his brutal regime.

Another thing Kim got was a cessation of military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, a long desired outcome for him. 

And what did he give up?  I don't think he gave anything in return.  Oh, a vague promise to denuclearize, but that is a standard promise from the Kims which they promptly break.

What did the U.S. get? I don't think we got anything.

What did Trump get?  A headline.  An "historic headline and photo op".  Trump got the only thing he ever cares about.  Applause.

The great negotiator did what he always seems to do, give away the farm for a headline. Ratings you know...

I am truly grateful that both men found something else to do rather than nuke each other.

Trump’s trade deficit obsession

Our willfully uninformed president obsesses on the idea that trade deficits are bad. But they are only arithmetic. As explained by conservative economist, Martin Feldstein -

If a country consumes more than it produces, it must import more than it exports. That’s not a rip-off; that’s arithmetic.

If we manage to negotiate a reduction in the Chinese trade surplus with the United States, we will have an increased trade deficit with some other country.

Federal deficit spending, a massive and continuing act of dissaving, is the culprit. Control that spending and you will control trade deficits.

But, of course this president and his Republican Congress just massively increased the deficit. All the better to gut Social Security and Medicare next year, doncha know.

I long for leaders who actually know things. 

Robert Kennedy Assassinated 50 years ago

Fifty years ago Robert Kennedy was shot, he died the next day, and I graduated from the University of Illinois and got on a plane to fly to Los Angeles.  My California life had begun, and I’ve never looked back.

1968 was a very tough year.  MLK and RFK were assassinated, cities were burning out of black rage, Viet Nam turned a critical corner toward defeat with the TET Offensive.  The country and the world were in chaos.

But, I continued to live my life and live it happily. 

My point is that today’s country and world is also in chaos today – our president claims he can pardon himself from any crime he commits in office, our country is starting trade wars, white supremacists are feeling empowered to be “politically incorrect”, women are rising up and taking down abusive male fortresses, the Republican Congress is not able to summon the courage to even criticize let alone impeach even the most egregious constitutional offenses of their president.

Globalism is disrupting the economies and workforces of America and all of the Industrial world.  Terrorism is a constant pressure on so much of the world.  And corruption, greed, and fear are undermining so much of the world order.  Things are a mess.

And we each can create our own happy and successful lives.  Just like we did in 1968.  This country is too wonderful to be destroyed by the forces tearing it apart.