Anthony 'Tony the Mooch' Scaramucci

Tony the Mooch didn't get fired.  

He's just freeing up time on his calendar to study advanced yoga with Steve Bannon.

The Party of 'Hands Off'

The Republican Party claims to be the party that wants to keep government out of people’s lives.  

They, of course, make exceptions in matters of birth, death, marriage, choice or recreation, which bathroom one may use … you know, just the really important places for government to be.  

But hey!  If you want to set up a coal-fired power plant, or a fracking operation, without a bunch of busy-body regulators sneaking peeks at your effluent, well, they say, just let a man live his own life! 

Ersatz ObamaCare Replacement

Despite its shortcomings and compromises, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, sometimes called ‘ObamaCare’) helps provide affordable health insurance coverage to twenty million of our most vulnerable fellow citizens – the working poor, who make enough money to lift them above the official poverty line, but whose employers don’t provide health insurance, and who can’t afford to pay the full price on their own.  It also defined Minimum Essential Coverage, to make sure that any qualifying policies would meet basic needs.    

In every other advanced industrial nation, the only thing even slightly controversial about the ACA is that it is not more comprehensive.  It is axiomatic that access to affordable healthcare is a fundamental human right.  The idea that somebody who is barely getting by, with little job security and hardly any savings—could face huge medical bills and financial ruin as the result of an illness or injury is recognized everywhere else as a human rights violation.  Here it is so common, it isn’t even news.  

The supposed 'replacement' which is scheduled for a vote today would do worse than reverse these gains; dumping 24 million of our working poor into the jungle of the individual health insurance market, where they have no prayer of obtaining decent affordable health insurance.  

Ironically, the best hope we have of avoiding the passage of this disastrous bill today are votes against it from congressional representatives who insist on a system which would be even more cruel.  

EPA and Naugas

In the first major environmental success for the new administration, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announce the removal of the nauga from the Endangered Species list.  

According to the press release:  
“These gentle creatures once roamed the plains in such numbers that the ground was barely visible beneath them; the air a cacophony of hundreds of thousands of their, ‘nauga nauga nauga’ vocalizations.  The naugas were hunted nearly to extinction in the 1960s and 70s for their hides – for use in cheap automobile upholstery.  But thanks to changes in consumer preferences, a successful captive breeding program, and the nauga’s prodigious rate of reproduction, their continued success as a species is all but assured.”    

An EPA spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity hinted at more good news on the horizon, related to the Corinthian buffalo, also once hunted for its fine leather.  

Agree to Disagree

We can agree to disagree with those who say that the world is flat, that evolution is no more valid than somebody’s creation mythology, that there was no moon landing, the size of the crowds at inaugurations or demonstrations, the veracity of a Bowling Green Massacre, and many other issues.  

But agreeing to disagree does not make both positions equal.  It just prevents a meaningless argument with somebody who ignores reality.  

Not a Hater - but Mighty Disgusted

A few months before the last election, somebody responded to something I had written by asking me if I was a ‘Trump Hater’.  I told him that was wrong on two levels; first, I don’t hate – it’s not in my constitution.  At least as importantly though, is that there was nothing about The Donald that merited my defining myself in any way by my opinion of him.  He was simply too insignificant to be part of my identity.  I don’t identify as an Andrew Dice Clay hater just because I don’t like him and think he’s creepy.  I just don’t seek him out.  

I don’t read gossip magazines, and don’t view those mind-sucking fake-ass primetime game shows, so I only knew of The Donald from his serial marriages to, infidelities against, and divorces from attractive, but vacuous fashion models, and his repeated overreaching self-aggrandizing real-estate projects – many of which ended in bankruptcy for his investors.  

Now this sad, strange man, with a lot of money, was choosing to run for President as a vanity exercise.  It was no more significant than if Paris Hilton were running … it was just a joke.  

As stunning as it is that—despite his lack of anything resembling the slightest qualifications, and his very public track record—enough voters favored him to let him move in to the White House, he has not advanced in my estimation, or that of other thinking people.  His elevation is just another manifestation of the dysfunctionality of our nation’s system.  I don’t blame him to taking a shot; he has an obvious narcissistic personality disorder, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  Now  in office, he has quickly become the infected, abscessed pimple on the ass of the American body politic, but it’s not his fault; he is just the surface symptom of the underlying infection.  Unless that infection is remedied, the next abscess will be just as gross as this one.  

Free Public Education

The principle of free public education has been core to our nation’s identity for most of our existence, and is an embodiment of Jefferson’s foundational view that an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.   

This principle has no more dedicated, hard-working, driven foe than Betsy DeVos.  She never attended a public school, nor sent her children to any, and has absolutely no experience in the field education whatsoever, other than using her family’s tremendous wealth to advocate for redirecting vital public funds from free, accountable, public schools toward private, for-profit, often religious schools – not held to the same standards as public schools, and often not free.  

Her nomination is consistent with other Trump nominations; most have a track record in direct opposition to the purpose of the agencies they have been chosen to lead.  What makes the prospect of   DeVos leading the Department of Education more pernicious is that, with education compromised, the rest of the agenda becomes much easier to promulgate.  

Four months ago (it seems a lifetime), the conversation was whether the government would fully fund tuition-free four-year colleges, or if this would be limited to community colleges.  Now, it will be an uphill battle to maintain the integrity of our free, public primary and secondary schools.  

I encourage all who value public education to call or write your Senators and Congressional Representatives.  Let them know what is at stake, and let them know that you will be watching their vote, and will remember when it is next time for them to stand for reelection.