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Monthly Archives: September 2017

Immigration


All of the talk of immigration reform, deportation and the numerous laws enacted around the USA have overshadowed the makeup of most Americans. Every American except the native Americans are IMMIGRANTS or the product of immigrants. When the talk of deportation of immigrants is raised , ALL of us should pack our bags since we are immigrants or the progeny of immigrants. This talk of immigrants taking jobs or changing America is just that- talk. Talk put forth by folks who hate for the sake of hate and have deep roots in that hate. These are the same people who will not or cannot do the jobs that “illegal or legal immigrants” are supposedly taking. Apparently it is OK for these immigrants to do menial jobs but not skilled jobs that they are trained for. America has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the more Racist countries in spite of the acclaimed “Home of The Free” label touted by many. Racism is the cancer that can (and recently has) create a rift that makes us vulnerable to outside influences. These outside forces have the ability to place our concentration in areas that weaken our perception of the truth. To paraphrase Yoda:” anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side” , so where are we on that scale?

Simply Put


Anyone who has or wants healthcare needs to pay attention to what our Neer do well Congress is doing. Healthcare is not as difficult as it seems since the 535 have protected themselves from any adverse effects of healthcare changes. No matter what you have heard, read or assumed Healthcare is being legislated by people who are not on your side no matter what they say publicly. If as a citizen you do not read everything you can on healthcare and make your representative explain themselves to you then what you get is what you deserve much like the war mongering Baby we have in the Oval Office. Our country is not a reality show , it is a serious affair that requires serious and “honest” people to get work done. We have had neither for many years and have just become adjusted to expect no changes in status quo. With this being said, Don’t you think a little effort to read up on these folks is required by all of us? Too long we as citizens have been lied to and pushed to accept it with a cover lie. We must remember “Lies are Lies and will always be lies, the truth is always harder to take but it is necessary for progress”. Think in terms of math 2 plus 2 will always be 4!

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Fast Talking Truth Benders


After listening to this gentleman on several talk shows, it became clear to me that he is no better prepared to talk about the political issues than any other fast over talking representative of the trump administration. His arguments fall in the same category as “alternate facts” as coined by Kellyanne Conwoman. It is interesting that so many of Trumps spokespeople all talk fast and over talk the people they are being interviewed by or having a discussion(?) with. Apparently it is better to talk over and talk faster than the interviewer or anyone else involved in the discussion that tell the whole truth. While no politician is completely honest, the Trump spokes people seem to relish promoting the half truths and lies with aplomb and gusto ( I might add with gusto and a straight face). The Congressional backers of Trump’s repeal and replace initiative are as bad if not worse and will be in office possibly after Trump leaves by election loss or impeachment. These are the people to watch and not so much the talking heads on Faux news as the are paid to lie and cause controversy to gain ratings. Disingenuous actions and words do amount to the truth. MA

Paris Dennard

Paris Dennard (born 1982 in Phoenix, Arizona) is an American political adviser, political strategist and speaker. He often appears as a conservative expert and commentator in newsreels and discussion rounds at CNN and  NPR. He worked for the White House in 2008[1] as Director of Black Outreach for President George W. Bush. In 2016 he became communications director for the HBCU Thurgood Marshall College Fund.[2] In 2017 he is a commentator for CNN and analyst for NPR.[3]

Dennard attended the Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit boys high school, in his hometown until 2000, where he was the chairman of the school rector. He then studied Public Relations and Political Science through the Richard Eamer Scholars Program at the conservative Christian private Pepperdine University in Malibu. He spent a semester abroad in London and completed a bachelor’s degree in both subjects.
During his studies, he was President of the Student Government Association.
Career in politics[edit]
He was already active in his youth as a conservative junior politician. For instance, he served as the chairman of the Arizona Teenage Republicans , the new generation of the Republican Party, and appeared in the summer of 2000 as the latest speaker at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
Under US President George W. Bush Dennard worked between 2005 and 2009 in the White House . During this time, he was involved in the Office of Legislative Affairs, the Office of Political Affairs and the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs. In the latter, he served as White House Director of Black Outreach and was responsible for maintaining government contact with the African American population. In addition, he coordinated the meetings and travels of the President, First Lady Laura Bush, and the House of Representatives, and was responsible for the planning of various events in the White House.
After his retirement from the White House, Dennard worked as an Associate Director for Coalitions at the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011 . Subsequently, he served as Director of Public Affairs in a law firm in South Carolina operates  as well as in 2014 when as director of events in Washington, D.C. resident and the Arizona State University cooperating think tank McCain Institute for International Leadership. In 2012 or 2013, he and PD Consulting Group established his own consulting office for strategic communication, political management, image and brand development and media training. In July 2015, he was appointed Legislative Director of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which focuses on public HBCUs . Since September 2016, Dennard has been acting as Director of Strategic Communications.
In the presidential election campaign of 2016, Dennard expressed his support for the Republican candidate Donald Trump, and often defended his positions and comments in the media. He gained prominence in early February 2017, when the now elected and sworn US president Trump in a speech about Black History Month praised Dennard’s work as a pundit at CNN:
“And Paris has done an amazing job in a very hostile CNN community. He’s all by himself. You’ll have seven people, and Paris. And I’ll take Paris over the seven. But I do not watch CNN, so I do not get to see you as much as I used to. I do not like watching fake news.”
“And Paris has done a great job in a very hostile [because liberal-democratic] CNN environment. He is entirely alone. You have seven people [liberal members] and Paris. And I prefer Paris to these seven. But I do not see CNN, so I do not see you [personal address to Dennard] as often as I used to. I do not like watching Fake News.”

Under Trump, Most Americans Lack Basic Knowledge to Understand Current Events, Study Finds


In Previous  blog posts I have stated that the three pages that make up the Constitution are largely unread and  misquoted. It appears that most, some or perhaps none understand that it is not written in stone but a document designed to be flexible as the country progresses (matures). The founding Fathers understood that this was a unique experiment in Governing and required a unique document as a Charter. Our civics lessons barely touch on its depth. MA

Stav Ziv,Newsweek 15 hours ago

When the public hears news of a travel ban proposed by Donald Trump being struck down in whole or in part by the courts, it should recognize the interaction between the executive and judicial branches of government and remember that freedom of religion is protected by the First Amendment. When the public reads about Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall, it should be aware that he cannot act unilaterally to make it a reality, but rather that he’ll need the legislative branch to provide funding. And when the public hears fiery rhetoric about deportation, it should be aware that even people who are in the United States illegally have the right to due process under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Unfortunately, many Americans lack fundamental civics knowledge, according to the recent Constitution Day Civics Survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, and therefore cannot understand current events.
“In light of the information in the news about First Amendment issues, the ignorance of the public about the First Amendment is startling,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of APPC, tells Newsweek. “So there are times in which one needs knowledge about the Constitution to make sense of what’s happening in the news environment,” she adds. “In particular when rights are at issue it’s important that people understand what their rights are as they read the news.”

The recent Constitution Day Civics Survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that many Americans don’t know the answers to basic civics questions. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The results, published on September 12, reveal that more than half of Americans (53 percent) believe people in this country illegally have no protections under the Constitution. If that weren’t startling enough, only about a quarter (26 percent) of Americans can successfully name all three branches of government, with one-third of respondents unable to name a single branch, 27 percent who knew one branch and 13 percent who knew two.
More than a third (37 percent) of respondents could not name a single specific right guaranteed under the First Amendment. Roughly 48 percent of respondents named freedom of speech, while only 15 percent said freedom of religion, 14 percent said freedom of the press, 10 percent said the right of assembly, and just a meager three percent said the right to petition the government.

While most respondents said atheists and Muslims have the same rights as other citizens (79 percent and 76 percent, respectively), a staggering 15 percent said atheists do not have the same rights and 18 percent said Muslims do not. “Any percent answering incorrectly is problematic,” says Jamieson, who points out that even the relatively low percentages indicate that a lot of people don’t understand freedom of religion.
Less than half of respondents (49 percent) said they oppose “the U.S. Congress forbidding the news media from reporting on any issue of national security without first getting government approval,” with 39 percent said they were in favor, demonstrating a lack of understanding of prior restraint even when asked without the jargon.
The survey was conducted for Annenberg by an independent research company between August 9 and 13. Participants included 1,013 U.S. adults, age 18 and older, with some responding via cell phone and some in Spanish. The margin of error was roughly 3.7 percent.

The center has been doing its annual Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey—ahead of Constitution Day, celebrated this year on Monday—for several years. The exact questions included change every year based on what concepts and knowledge might be necessary to understand what’s happening in the news. With immigration and religion at the heart of many political debates since the 2016 presidential election and the media under assault from the president and others, Annenberg crafted questions this year about those issues. It tends to ask the question about the three branches every year, seeing what Jamieson calls a “depressing stability of the results.
“What this survey shows is that we have not done the job that we collectively have to do as a nation in building a deep understanding of what the Constitution says and why it says it,” Jamieson says. And “simply fixing civics education at this moment will not change public knowledge. We have to find other ways to increase foundational knowledge.”

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Trump vows to veto Sanders’s single-payer health care plan: ‘A curse on the U.S. and its people’


It is a safe bet to think that TOTUS has not read Mr. Sanders plan, it is possible it was given to him in a shortened form (easy to read) with negative notations. This has been the normal way that Modern politics works: give inadequate information to base a decision on and maintain the Party line at all costs (usually to the taxpayers). MA.

Yahoo News
Michael Walsh 15 hours ago

President Trump to Republican senators: I told you so.
The commander in chief lamented on Thursday afternoon that the Republicans have been unable to follow through on their campaign promises of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. In a series of tweets, he suggested this failure gave Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders an opening to advance his plan for a single-payer health care system, also known as Medicare for All, which Trump denounced as “a curse” on the United States and the American people.
But Trump assured fellow Republicans that he would save the country from this fate by vetoing any single-payer health care legislation that comes across his desk.
This is far from the first time Trump has chided Republicans in Congress for coming up short in their efforts toward health care reform or attacked Sanders for his Democratic Socialist ideals and proposals.
Earlier Thursday, aboard Air Force One from Fort Myers, Fla., to Washington, D.C., Trump criticized Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for the health care defeat. In late July, McCain effectively killed the GOP replacement plan, known as the Health Care Freedom Act, by joining two other Republicans (Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) who opposed the plan — ending in a 49-51 vote.
“It was a very unpleasant surprise,” Trump told reporters. “Now we have people talking about single-payer. So Republicans have to stick together better. We had the votes. John McCain changed his mind, pure and simple. If the Republicans don’t stick together, then I’m going to have to do more and more.”
Sanders has long been a supporter of universal health care and introduced his Medicare for All bill in the Senate on Wednesday, boasting that it already has 15 co-sponsors and the support of dozens of grassroots organizations.
“Now I know that taking on the insurance companies and Wall Street and the drug companies and the medical equipment suppliers — all those people who profit off our dysfunctional health care system — is not going to be easy fight,” he said in a video. “And the only way that we win this is when the American people stand up as they are and demand real change.”

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Why is Question And The Answer


In the hope that all of us will and do understand what the current administration is about. The TOTUS is merely an approbation seeker who cannot exist without adoration. This why his “town Halls” are campaign style set ups with a group of selected attendees. The Tweeter-in-Chief doesn’t want any ideas that will actually make a difference to the population of the United States. His actions to date have been primarily to undo anything the past administrations have done without investigating the long range or future effects of those actions. His core supporters while thinning out feel he is doing a good job (until it bites them in the Arse). The “MAGA” movement falls right in line with the Radical right and left factions agendas, which is simply anarchy and using the dissatisfaction of his base to further their own needs. I am wondering how many fire extinguishers are in the Whitehouse and the Congress as the outpouring of lies, misrepresentations and similar non truths raise the specter of a massive fire aka :”liar, liar pants on fire”. I can conceive of a modification to the Oval office that was not reported and that is a rubber lining to allow bouncing off the walls. I will watch to see if this administration changes with the recent “bounces” by the administration. My belief is years end will bring changes that can be good and bad, which will be dominant is yet to be seen.

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Cringing


With the ascension of the “Boss Baby” (apologies to the movie) to the white house it has been difficult for me not rant continuously about the idiocy of our Congress and the die hard followers of TOTUS. Many times in reading and writing including postings from others, I have felt the need to sanitize my keyboard and screens. The rhetoric that appears online from so many talking heads especially the likes of “FOX” commentators and Mr. Rust Limbaugh is absolutely as racist and divisive as you can get without wearing the robes of the Klan on the air. I was looking at the “Blond*” onslaught that we have evidenced as talkers for the right (often to extremes). I am amazed that the mouths and noses of the people can stand to remain on their faces. I do not know if they actually believe what they say but they say it with a seeming conviction that scares the crap out of me and it should you also. The idea that they have prime time spots that contacts millions who through issues that they have allowed to grow because they have paid no attention to the people they have elected over the years. These folks have every right to be upset and should be but they have allowed themselves to be converted to ignorance by the “Hitler-Goebbels” ploy of telling the same lies over and over until it become real to the people. All Americans listen and see the same news (even when it is skewed) but many understand that all news is not equal. A pretty face and great figure does not make lies true. There are too many problems that are being under reported and just ignored for the sake of sensational journalism(?). I have starred (*) Blonds earlier in this post and that refers to this list of presenters of “news” and opinions that do not represent most of us.                                                                                     The list: Tomi Lahren, Ann Coulter, Kellyanne Conwoman, Megyn Kelly and Lara Ingraham. To top of the list of Natterers we have former speaker “Newt Gingrich” seeking recognition for some reason known only to himself.  To be kind, these folks are not dumb they are either misinformed, under informed or just  out to push an agenda for money.

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White House claims ‘dreamers’ take jobs away from blacks and Hispanics. Here’s the truth.


More lies and misinformation from the Oval office- its surprising that any of them can turn without bumping into a wall. MA.

By Tracy Jan
September 6, 2017 at 4:46 PM

It’s a long-running talking point spouted by Trump administration members and the president himself: Undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from black and Hispanic Americans.
Hours after President Trump dismantled an Obama-era program that had granted 800,000 young undocumented immigrants permission to live and work in the United States, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders again made the claim.
“It’s a known fact that there are over 4 million unemployed Americans in the same age group as those that are DACA recipients; that over 950,000 of those are African Americans in the same age group; over 870,000 unemployed Hispanics in the same age group,” Sanders said during Tuesday’s press briefing. “Those are large groups of people that are unemployed that could possibly have those jobs.”
Here’s the problem: immigrant and native-born workers are imperfect substitutes. There is no evidence that the unemployed Americans, be they black, white or Hispanic, have the skills necessary to hold the same jobs occupied by the young beneficiaries of the five-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“It is one thing to say that there are hundreds of thousands of minorities the same age that are unemployed, and a very different thing for them to have the same education, skills and experience as the employed DACA workers,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign.
“And if they do,” he added, “it begs the question as to why they don’t have those jobs in the first place.”
Contrary to Sanders’s assertion, he said, DACA improves the economic outlook for low-skilled, American-born workers. Without work permits, undocumented immigrants are more likely to take any job they can, even work that falls far below their skill or education level. DACA, on the other hand, allows those workers to move to jobs that better match their background, freeing up low-skilled positions.
There is just no compelling proof that immigration — legal or illegal — “squeezes out native-born workers in any systematic way,” Holtz-Eakin said. “We’ve experienced waves of immigration and still, on average, reached full employment.”
The number of jobs in the United States is not fixed. An influx of immigrant workers  generates economic growth and employment opportunities by increasing productivity, said Jackie Varas, director of immigration and trade policy at American Action Forum.
“Many DACA recipients are also more skilled than other immigrants because they possess a college education, so they don’t compete with low-skilled Americans,” Varas said.

Furthermore, said Darrick Hamilton, an economics and urban policy professor at The New School, blacks and Latinos want access to quality jobs, not just jobs at the bottom of the labor market.
“Why do we reserve and presume the bottom of the labor market for blacks and Latinos?” Hamilton said. “Many DACA recipients are full-time students not engaged in taking away jobs.”
Of the DACA-eligible immigrants over 21 years old, 12 percent have bachelor’s degrees, 3 percent have advanced degrees, 84 percent have completed high school and some college, and 2 percent did not graduate from high school, according to an analysis by New American Economy.
A Moody’s Analytics analysis of Trump’s proposed economic policies last year showed that removing all undocumented immigrants from the labor force would trigger an economic recession within one year.
Another American Action Forum study found that if all undocumented immigrants were deported, there would not be enough American workers to fill all of the jobs that would be left open. And even if all available native workers filled the open slots, the country would still be short 4 million workers.
Trump and his supporters have often pitted minority groups against one another. But there is no broad economic justification to do so.
“Cannibalizing stigmatized and marginalized groups against each other serves the wealthy interests that benefit from such divisive colonial and labor segmenting tactics,” Hamilton said.

Tracy Jan covers the intersection of race and the economy for The Post. She previously was a national political reporter at The Boston Globe.

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Laura Ingraham: ‘AMERICANS Are Dreamers, Too’


My Question is: What about the Native Americans? MA.

By Craig Bannister | September 5, 2017 | 12:19 PM EDT

Laura Ingraham says illegal aliens aren’t the only ones who want “a better life.”
“Americans are dreamers, too,” conservative pundit Laura Ingraham declared Tuesday as Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for illegal aliens (DACA) is being “rescinded.”

Appearing on Fox News Channel, Ingraham argued that Americans’ dreams are being compromised by the acceptance and coddling of illegal aliens:
“Americans are dreamers, too. They have a lot of dreams that have not been fulfilled because of a variety of reasons — a lot of them have to do with politicians not doing what they said they were going to do.”

“So American citizens want a better life. They want their kids to be in schools that aren’t overcrowded. They want health care that doesn’t rise in its cost [by] 20 percent, 18 percent a year.”

“We don’t rule by emotion. We rule by law,” Ingraham said. She also dispelled the notion that DACA was simply protect pre-teen illegal aliens, noting that the program even protects 36 year-olds.
Ingraham suggested that, if Congress passes an amnesty bill, the American public won’t stand for it:

“So if Congress wants to push basically a de facto amnesty of a million people and think that somehow Middle America is going to stand up and cheer, good luck.”

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Too Angry


Why are so many of us happy with lies? The past 10 years (at least) has brought us news outlets, mainstream and independents that bombard us with information. These streams of information in print and electronics are not all informational in the best way. It appears that some of the information is designed to rile the reader up, accent items to pile on the perceived fears of the reader or listener. This works much like the 1930’s propaganda assault by a European dictator. Some of the same themes have been carried over to some of these outlets even in this “modern” world. Once the fandom is sufficiently worked up and angry, the lies really begin and continue non stop. We now have a CIC (TOTUS) who won the office based on these lies and biases. To that end we are spending tax payer money on his business rather than the American publics business, things like infrastructure, jobs and reforms that make sense. This administration has brought us the rise of anti immigrant and minority sentiments along with the organizations who support it. These anti American groups (yes they are!) have the tacit and sometime explicit support of the Oval office. What has happened is the American public has been angry for years but blaming the wrong people for any real or perceived injustice. The real onus is on the voters for not paying attention to what their elected representatives are doing or have done. The Constitution is 3 short pages long and many have not read let alone understood it but so many invoke it. Primary issue here is anger toward the Government. That is  OK if you understand why you are angry and use that anger to write and contact the person (s) you elected to work for you. It is important to remember that a well crafted letter  or whatever form of communication you prefer is better than an endless profanity laced  rant. As an analogy: it is commonly known that in boxing and other sports anger leads to defeat. This applies to voting also, get informed (or woke) then vote. Understand the issues whether you like them or not. Always remember:

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Hitler lied his way into office and led his country into an unwinnable war against the world (sound familiar?).