June 14, 2018

Free Parking June 13 2018 -- The cost of Trump to the Right AND the shift from democracy to dictator

This week I offered two different columns--most of this stuff just writes itself. So here is the printed version that made it into the paper and then I'll print out what didn't get any ink or cyber time. My mind is working overtime and I am gobsmacked daily by how people/media seem to try and make all this seem normal. Our flag flying next to a murderous human rights criminal's flag is an insult to all who died defending it. But, I digress.

http://eureka.news/free-parking-36/

We Arkansans just got kicked in the teeth by our hero president, Trump. Our state is set to lose almost a half billion dollars income this year because of his beautiful trade war tariffs. Of that money, it’s going to cost us workers $261,000,000 this year. 4,400 Arkansans will be laid off from their jobs and Arkansas unemployment rolls will grow exponentially. Thanks Trump.

Gas prices, the cost of food, medicine and housing continue to rise with no end in sight. Meanwhile Trump’s family, friends and administration are spending our money faster than we can earn it. His cabinet has spent millions upon millions of our hard earned dollars on themselves, while continuing to cut our services, as though the money in the US treasury belonged to them and not us taxpayers. I guess we could call ourselves Trump’s Chumps.

His trade wars are causing prices on everything to rise, costing American jobs and company profits with broad tariffs and counter tariffs. I guess Trump doesn’t know that the Great Depression was deepened by a trade war anymore than he knew the War of 1812 didn’t include Canada.
Please click on the link for the rest of the column--I'm addicted to those little eyeball click numbers
[link:http://eureka.news/free-parking-36/|

Here is the column that was rejected -- I can see why, it is a small town filled with MAGAts.

This has been an emotionally difficult week. Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, both suffering from depression, committed suicide. A refugee father whose child was ripped from his arms at the US/Mexico border committed suicide from horror and despair.

Statistics show US suicide rates are the highest since the Ronald Reagan era. Despair permeates the atmosphere. Republicons have defunded Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); now Trump wants to reinstitute the pre-existing conditions clause to determine insurance accessibility and rates. Many people will die from Trump’s cutting off access to healthcare. The tragedy of this is, insurance needs to broaden to actually include mental health services.

Because our health care system is in disarray, many who suffer self-medicate with opioids, alcohol, prescription drugs and methamphetamines as a way to dull the pain of life.

The tension this administration brings to everyday life is becoming unbearable; doctors note that more and more patients are citing the cause of their mental distress as the uncertainty and chaos produced by the tweets and contradictory statements, the obvious corruption of Trump and his cabinet and the crumbling civility in our society.

Hannah Arendt, a survivor of the Holocaust, watched her country slip from chaos to authoritarianism to brutal, murderous dictatorship in only a few short years. She wrote that because the changes seem gradual, it’s important to publicize the changes.

I’m sure the people of 1934 Germany felt the same tension and fear that permeates our society today. Trump generates chaos as a distraction from his real intentions. He doesn’t want to be president; he wants to be a dictator.

The latest debacle at the G-7 summit is so deeply concerning that I am reminded to publicly note the latest alarming change. Donald Trump has cut us off from our friends and allies and is aligning with the malignant dictator of Russia and the madman dictator of North Korea. If Trump has his way, we’ll become Russia’s satellite in George Bush’s “Axis of Evil.”

Like Cassandra at Troy, I am sounding the alarm. We are moving rapidly from a democracy to a dictatorship. Does anyone care?

June 1, 2018

Free Parking May 31 2018 -- 61% don't know about indictments

http://eureka.news/free-parking-34/

snip

Sixty-one percent of American adults are so ill-informed they don’t know there have been any criminal indictments in the Russian affair, much less 19 indictments and five guilty pleas. One perpetrator is already in prison and George Papadopolous is awaiting sentencing for conspiratorial and treasonous actions. Paul Manafort’s first trial is scheduled for July 24 and evidence of the many Trump cabal crimes could be exposed.

Memorial Day has come and gone; basically now a three-day weekend with mattress and car sales. A stunning number of Americans have little knowledge of WWII, that the Holocaust occurred, that millions of people were heinously murdered by Nazis and that millions more died stopping them.

In Germany, where the Holocaust occurred, it is a felony to deny the horror inflicted by their fellow citizens. What Holocaust memory remains in the US is the perverted, hated Nazi symbol proudly displayed by ignorant, hate-filled people.

Germany’s 1934 descent into inhumanity began much like our current depraved slide; blatant lies, demonizing the press, ritualized dehumanization and cruelty toward minority groups. In Rwanda, the 1993 genocide began with hate speech radio, imported machetes by hate-mongers and it ended with 800,000 Tutsi being hacked to death by their next-door Hutu neighbors.



Please do click on the link to my column! Feel free to make comments there, no account needed!