Pink Politics is a learning lifestyle company focused on creating a community of progressive “Pinks” through getting personal about politics. We believe with Pinks in politics there is power for real change. I have been focusing on writing and organizational skills on developing this new blog. You can visit us at pinkpoliticsllc.com
April is Sexual Assault Awareness month: This year’s National Sexual Violence Resource Center campaign theme is “Engaging New Voices.” We definitely need more voices to fight President Trump’s budget. Trump proposes eliminating the Justice Department’s Office on Violence against Women. In the U.S.an estimated 1 in 4 women will suffer severe physical abuse in their life-time. About 3 women a day are murdered by someone they date or are married to. The highly publicized killing of a teacher and student yesterday (April 10, 2017) was by an estranged husband. The President’s proposed cuts would reduce services to at least 260,000 victims of sexual assault and violence annually (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-budget-domestic-abuse-victims_us_58cc2184e4b0ec9d29dbd9f7)
Trump Properties Serve as Second White House: President Trump has spent nine of his 11 weekends as president visiting at least one of his properties. While a number of these weekends have been recreational, the world was treated to Trump Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan responding to news of a ballistic missile test by North Korea. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/05/us/politics/tracking-trumps-visits-to-his-branded-properties.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news This week Trump was at Mar-a-lago when he announced firing 50 cruise missiles on Syria. Problems with using Trump properties for White House business include increased security costs, conflict of interest (the properties and Trump brand get continuous advertising at no cost), and informal unscheduled meetings with members to the club. Media and general public do not have access to who is in attendance as required by public meeting laws.
Melania Trump Thwarts Her Husband’s “Made in America” Campaign: Mrs. Trump’s official portrait was released last Monday (April 2, 2017). Rather than showcasing an American designer, Mrs. Trump chose a tuxedo jacket from Italian luxury house Dolce & Gabbana. Mrs. Trump’s choice of European designers for a majority of her appearances seems in direct conflict President’s Trump’s emphasis on American manufacturing and inflammatory rhetoric on imposing limits on global trade. Mrs. Trump looked stunning in a blue outfit by American designer Ralph Lauren for Trump’s Inauguration. Obviously, if she chose to highlight American designers, she could be very influential in selling American haut couture around the world. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/03/politics/melania-trump-white-house-portrait/
Trump’s Tweet Wars Continue: Syria may have provided President Trump with the opportunity to demonstrate his willingness to take dramatic military action. His tweet action continues unabated. Since being elected he has waged tweet wars on the Australian Prime Minister, an acting Attorney General, seven predominately Muslim countries, a “so called” federal judge, Sweden, “Fake Tears”, Chuck Schumer, Saturday Night Live, the FBI, the un-American leakers in the intelligence community, the City of Paris, Mark Cuban, John McCain, millions of protestors, Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal, Chris Cuomo, the University of California at Berkeley, ratings “disaster”, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nancy Pelosi, the “Traitor” Chelsea Manning, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Barack Obama, the City of Chicago, Susan Rice, among many, many others. While Trump pounds out alarming negative tweets about most people, he was call Bill O’Reilly a “good man”. This was at the very time Fox News is hemorrhaging from paying off sexual harassment law suits and loosing advertisers for O’Reilly’s inappropriate treatment of women. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-trump-the-destroyer-w473144
Ivanka Trump, A Goddess in China and Featured as Complicit on SNL in America: Ms. Trump’s daughter entertained Chinese President XI anad his wife when they visited Mar-a-lago April 6 and 7. Ivanka was called a “Goddess” on Chinese social media. This post was one of the most read, shared and discussed posts from NYTIMES.COM last week. Ms. Trump recently became a federal employee and top advisor to the President, without pay, formalizing a role she had been undertaking as a volunteer. Here in America, Saturday Night Live has spoofed Ms. Trump for her failure to defend women’s issues by naming a perfume “Complicit” for her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7o4oMKbStE
Confusion Reigns in Trump White House while Trump Poll Numbers are Lowest in History: Trump is still in his first 100 days of office, a honeymoon period for most presidents. But Trump’s approval rating of 40% (Real Clear Politics) are the lowest of any President in history at this stage in their Presidency. Karl Rove in a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that White House staff needs more structure (https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-presidential-honeymoon-from-hell-1491434155) Recent leaks about infighting in the White House suggest that President Trump is unable to assemble a team with a coherent strategy. This weekend was particularly alarming when Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations stated on national TV that the U.S. was committed to removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria while Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, argued that defeating the Islamic State (ISIS) is the Trump priority. Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary, explained the two differing statements as essentially the same thing. Trump is committed to developing a national strategy which protects Americans. Spicer has to have the worst job in American, trying to make sense out of chaos. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/politics/syria-russia-iran-missile-strikes/
New Spin on Oldest Love Story of All Time, Adam and Eve: Tired of women being the “bad guys” in Genesis, try Bruce Feiler’s The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us (Penguin Press, 320 pp.), Feiler writes that rather than Eve being a secondary creation, Adam and Eve were made to be equal partners. They represent a profound example of true love and companionship. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2017/03/20/the-first-love-story-adam-eve-and-us-bruce-feiler-book-review/99183416/
* Dr. Julia Robinson’s blog “My Private Idaho” will be going dark on May 1, 2017 for six months. Dr. Robinson has been asked to write for Pink Politics LLC . P squared was created to provide a social media platform for progressive women living in red states. Primary activities include a weekly blog synthesizing national news with links for people who don’t have time to keep abreast of changing stories or don’t have access to informational resources. Below the Radar is a second weekly blog on topical information that is not headline news. Commentary and inspirational blogs will also be published by various authors on the Pink Politics page along with a podcast. Starting May 1, 2017 look for Pink Politics on facebook and twitter @Pinkpoliticsusa. Pink Politics logo is P2 pink x politics = power
On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, an official apology to the Japanese people living in America for the creation of Japanese internment camps during World War II (WWII). Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Manzanar,California, one of the relocation camps, now a national historical site. At one time Manzanar, existing on windy plains on the eastern side of Sierra Nevada Mountains, was home to more than 10,000 Japanese families. Experiencing the camp through a movie with survivors telling their stories and participating in an interactive housing display was sobering.
Japanese internment camps were created by President Franklin Roosevelt through Executive Order 9066, signed February 19, 1942. This order led to the loss of property and incarceration of more than 110,000 Japanese, two-thirds American citizens. The relocation camps existed from 1942 to 1945. Those sent to the camps were given several days notice before being evacuated to the camps. Each person was allowed to take only one suitcase. These Japanese, our fellow neighbors, had committed no crimes, had no trials or convictions and yet they had to leave their homes and businesses. These individuals were incarcerated simply because they were Japanese. The majority of those relocated to camps were identifiably Asian from the West coast.Some had sons who fought for the United States and lost their lives while their parents were interned. The Japanese camps were motivated by racial prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership. Executive Order 9066, included Germans and Italians but very few of these groups were ever relocated because their ethnicity is not as visible and because racism in America has long roots.
The internment camps were surrounded by barb wire, had guard towers and armed guards to keep the Japanese separate. The living quarters were drafty barracks. Group showers and latrines made privacy impossible. Despite the desperate conditions, the Japanese in Manzanar remained committed to America. No Japanese in a camp was ever accused of conspiracy.
Manzanar provides an instructive lesson on America’s journey from right to wrong in the area of civil rights. When we feel threatened as a people, we can truly become ugly Americans. The hope of the Japanese who worked to pass the Civil Liberities Act of 1988 was to provide an apology to the Japanese American children who experienced the camps and to try to ensure that public policy mistakes like Executive Order 9066 are never repeated.
President Trump has opened his administration with a flourish of his pen and a flurry of Executive Orders. Manzanar is a vivid reminder that Executive Orders have the ability to dramatically change lives with a pen stroke. The Japanese internment camps were created by a Democratic President. Public policy mistakes are not the providence of one party or the other. Democracy demands transparency and public scrutiny. One person should not be able to take away the civil rights of an entire group of people through administrative fiat.
“A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.” Thomas Jefferson
My daughter is a high school junior. We have spent recent school breaks and long weekends touring colleges. I started this project with the concept that we are fortunate to have resources. We have saved enough in a 529 plan for Kayla to go to the University of Idaho and only be responsible for incidentals. Kayla is Asian. The last couple of years she has begun feeling the pressure of being a rare exotic flower in a sea of all white. She will frequently mention to me that we are once again in a room of Caucasians. Her father and I decided we needed to kick up our savings a notch to allow Kayla to attend an out-of-state school with a more diverse student population. My husband is 70 and still working and I am 66 and retired. Increasing the college fund actually means reducing our retirement savings. I realize these are the same trade-offs most families make but they probably have fewer resources and are at least 10 to 20 years younger.
Idaho is part of the Western Undergraduate Education program (WUE) which means that at participating schools, you do not pay full out-of-state tuition rather you pay instate times .5 This assumes the student has adequate test scores and grade point average. Kayla meets all the achievement criteria. Kayla has toured Montana schools twice. They don’t offer better diversity than Idaho. Montana is, however, slightly more liberal. Montana schools’ tuition aligns with Idaho’s. We have also toured Nevada-Reno, more diverse and a brand new campus purchased by large donors, demonstrating money makes such a difference. UNR is in a price range with Idaho slightly more diverse but not as academically well-rated.
Kayla has always wanted to go to Colorado State. We attended an immersion program over President’s weekend and she was delighted. I was a little less delighted because the in-state tuition and room and board is topping out at $100,000. The WUE tuition is $125,000, significantly above our slight bump-up in tuition. As the financial aid officer was reviewing costs, one mom started crying in the back. She asked, “What if my daughter can’t meet achievement scores?” The financial aid officer suggested loans. I was satisfied we could probably make this work by increasing our savings the next 2 years and continuing to pay for Kayla’s college costs the next four years (mind you my husband will be 76 and I’ll be 72 when we get Kayla through school). I said to the financial officer as I was walking out door, “If we come up with $125,000, this will fund 4 years at CSU for my daughter?” He says, “Probably not, with inflation the cost is more likely to be $140,000.” That sum of money is about the same amount as we sold a 3 bedroom rental house in Meridian last year. It was a number that made my heart sink. We are too well off to qualify for any type of financial assistance. I don’t expect the public to be paying for my daughter to go to a state school. But I do think that public colleges are too expensive. As my husband says, our tours have made the University of Idaho look like a great value. CSU rates slightly better than U of I on academic criteria but not substantially better for almost twice the cost.
We are now taking a spring break to tour California schools. I call it our fantasy land tour. I have three girls with me including my daughter. One has a trust fund and can afford to go to any school she can get into. One is having trouble funding her meals on the trip though she has excellent grades. I am paying for everything but food. We are staying in hotels where breakfast is provided so she only needs to cover lunch and dinner. She asked to come on the trip because she has never been to California. I am sure she will probably qualify for financial aid but not enough for the high cost of California schools. Then there is my daughter. We think she should be somewhere with high academic standards and where diverse populations are welcoming and abundant (sounds like California to me). But when we looked with my son six years ago, there was a gap of $60,000 annually between the scholarship he received and the cost of the school where he wanted to go. We said we wouldn’t pay it and he ended up at Idaho. He has graduated now and we are hopeful a college education will help him land in the middle class as it did my husband and I. But I don’t know that for sure. He has yet to land a job on the west coast where he wants to go for the same reason my daughter wants to go out of state, more diversity and more liberal thinking.
What I do know is if upper class, highly educated professionals find the cost of education daunting it must be terrifying for most families. I think we need a well-educated workforce. To achieve that, college needs to be accessible to most people. That means public universities need to have a reasonable tuition for the middle class. I don’t agree with Bernie Sanders that college should be free for everyone. But I do understand why his message resonated with college students trying to make their way through school while studying, working, and carrying large loans. I think public colleges need to be affordable. If that means, my husband and I pay more taxes to make that happen so be it. We need a workforce of the future that is well-trained, creative, and not dragged down by debt.
Political appointees serve at the pleasure of the elected official, period. End of story. In my early years in government, I was one of these exotic creatures who can do as they please as long as their elected official is willing to support them and remains satisfied with their work. I even had three possibly four Department heads over me who wished me gone. I served at the pleasure of a Democratic Governor for ten-years in upper management. The Governor respected my work and knew my family (personal connections are essential to success in political jobs). This Governor even nominated me for a national award for my work with troubled youth. I was subsequently selected as the national winner by the National Council of Women of the United States from all the nominees throughout the nation and flown to New York, put up in a hotel on Park Avenue viewing Central Park and featured as the main speaker at their national lunch; a heady experience indeed for a young naïve, highly-educated professional woman from Wyoming. This Governor never promoted me to head of the Department, my dearest desire because I had the administrative credentials but he knew (though I didn’t understand it at the time) I didn’t have the political connections.
I accepted a position as Cabin Secretary of a similar Department in Montana working for a newly elected Republican Governor. I was brought in from another state because there were major complaints of sexual harassment by male Department executives. A thorough housekeeping was in order. The Governor and his personal staff didn’t know me well but respected my administrative acumen. I did manage to reorganize and clean up the mess I inherited but at great personal cost to me. It is hard to work in an environment where those around you are untrustworthy and you can find your name in the paper any morning.
After 4 years, a new Governor was elected. The existing cabinet was all asked to submit our resignations the day after the election, effective at the end of my Governor’s term. We all did so. I subsequently met with the new Governor and he told me that I had done a good job, “but these positions are like hair spray, and there was a shelf life.” I had apparently outlived my shelf-life because I was terminated. Out of a job, I was recruited by head hunters for several other political jobs. There are always places where someone’s friend appointed to a high position has made a huge mess and the politician needs an independent executive to help clean up. However, without the correct political connections, it was clear to my husband and me that taking any of these positions would lead to a life dependent on the vagaries of politics and whims of politicians. The political appointee is not judged by their skills or aptitudes at their job but rather by their ability to please their boss, be on the right side of news stories and not upset the politician’s base.
I have been surprised by the brouhaha around the recent request by President Trump that 46 Obama-era prosecutors resign. While many things in the Trump administration have upset me, this request is actually standard when political parties change power. The political appointee has two choices either carry out the wishes of the politician who selected them to the best of their ability or resign. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’s refusal to implement the Trump Travel Ban didn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t have supported it and neither have the courts. However, what did surprise me was that she didn’t immediately resign. Rather she said she wouldn’t implement it and waited to be fired. She had to know that she would be terminated. She was not appointed by Trump, she didn’t embrace his politics and she didn’t want to help him implement his campaign promises. The high ground in this scenario would have been to resign and clearly state to the President, the press and the American people the problems that she saw with the immigration executive order. Taking such a tack, she could have explained her inability to maintain her integrity if she continued to serve in the role of Acting Attorney General. Understanding and maintaining integrity in political roles is essential to sustaining Democracy. Instead, Yates opened the door for President Trump to attack her and seize the high moral ground with incendiary language such as “betrayed” and “weak on immigration” when the moment was hers to win. Instead, I fear Trump followers ended up feeling the federal bureaucracy was once again out of control.
I am not a Trump fan but when the press makes headlines out of routine politics as if it is some horrendous scandal, the media is contributing the charge of “fake news.” All of us need to focus on the issues that make the Trump administration different and outrageous and not pretend that routine political patronage is something out of the ordinary.
There are approximately 11 million people living in the United States illegally. The question is not so much how did they get here but why did they get here and why historically have we offered these individuals a home. We have invited many people to come to our country and serve in positions that we are unwilling to take. I heard an Idaho Dairy farmer on public radio before the election say he was voting for Trump. The farmer employs illegal workers, Mexicans, who have been in Idaho working on his farm for many years. When asked about Trump’s plans for deportation, the farmer explained that Trump wasn’t talking about removing his workers; Trump was talking about removing the criminals.
A Wall Street Journal article, March 4th , 2017 entitled “Time Makes Migrants of Us All” argues that in a global economy rapid change means that at some point in time, even if we never travel afar we will feel foreign. This week, I was visiting with several older women who were discussing how difficult it is for them to keep their computers up to date and how stymied, frustrated and panicked they feel when their computer isn’t working. My attorney recently had his office flooded by Idaho’s ongoing winter. Removing the water and remodeling his office has totally disrupted his work flow. My kids laugh at me when I refer to “The Google” or the snappychat (still a foreign entity to me but certainly a prime purchase on the stock market last week).
We moved from hunting and gathering to farming in the Fertile Crescent, planting crops and domesticating animals. We learned to digest milk and metabolic fats. We got taller, developed lighter skin and eyes in the colder climates. Leprosy and TB emerged and threatened us as did the plague and flu. We are all carriers of this genetic history. The fact that we are here means that our ancestors were survivors. Among us today 2% of us have DNA that goes all the way back to those Neanderthals who we wiped out 50,000 years ago. Their genes are still with us.
A rudimentary look at my own family tree suggests many opportunities for diversity. My son is a fifth generation Wyomingite. My great grandfather moved to Wyoming territory as a miner. His tiny one-room mining cabin in the Snowy Mountains still isn’t accessible by road even in the summer. Hard to believe that a mountain man living high in the Rockies by himself didn’t do some womanizing at some point in time. He later became a railroader when the Union Pacific came through Wyoming, served on the first territorial legislature, and eventually killed himself. No one ever said why. His wife took to traveling all over the nation by train. My grandmother and grandfather were both highly educated for the time. Grandmother was one of the first classes of women to graduate from the University of Wyoming. My grandfather held an engineering degree from the University of Michigan and served as Wyoming’s first Highway Engineer. On the surface, our Wyoming lineage looks extremely homogenous, Caucasian builders of a new state but just like Thomas Jefferson’s family, I can’t swear there aren’t other branches that are more colorful than we are.
My dad’s family is even more likely to have a dramatic history. He grew up in South Carolina on a plantation that was downsized by the time I was young. The big house remained but the land had been sold off and other houses built around it. My grandmother still had “colored” help (her terminology in the early 1950’s). I don’t think my grandmother ever learned to cook. The history of long-term southern families is thwart with secret interracial mixing. I can’t image that ours is not the same. I have an adopted daughter from China and my sister has an adopted daughter of Mexican/Native American descent. So if the historical roots of our tree are not diverse, the new leaves are bright indeed.
When we as a country talk about sending people home, maybe we should first think about where our home is. I don’t mean our literal home but where did we come from in history. Where would we be now if our ancestors had been sent home or couldn’t develop the genetic structure to continue forward? Even in our life time, are we not all immigrants in the new global high tech world? Have we not had to learn a new languages to dwell among the ever evolving technology.In this life time, have we not journeyed far from the party-line rotary dial telephones and manual typewriters to the new frontier virtual reality?
Is my home Ashtree Way, Boise, Idaho, the United States, the world, the 21st century, or all of the above?
The Trump Lexicon keeps evolving as a our President moves forward on his agenda. To see the latest Trump lexicon go to: pinkpoliticsllc.com Prior to the election, I wrote an update of new words evolving during that campaign. The original lexicon can be found at https://wordpress.com/post/julierobinsonblog.com/5172 . Since President Trump was sworn in a short couple weeks ago, many new words are entering my stratosphere. Here is a list of the most prominent at this time.
Alternative Facts: Terms used by Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway in a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017 to explain White House Press Secretary’s Sean Spicer’s description of the crowds at President Trump’s inauguration as “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period.”the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe,” Spicer claimed. These remarks were contrary to the numerous photos taken of the National Mall on Friday that appeared to show a smaller audience than the crowd at former President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Mr. Spicer later clarified it was the largest audience if streaming; tv etc was taken into account. Urban dictionary defines explains alternative facts as lies invented to protect an individual when the truth is too unfavorable to the presenter.
Alt-right (Alternative Right): Loosely organized group of individuals who reject mainstream Republican conservatism. The term was originally coined in 2010 by individuals who supported white nationalism and white supremacists to refer to themselves and their ideology, emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race in the United States. Because of it’s fluid structure alt-right groups have been associated also been associated with anti-Semitism, antifeminism, and homophobia. The generally support President Trump, emphasize preserving and protecting the white race in the United States, oppose multiculturalism and political correctness. The positions of the alt-right exist in a virtual world of web-pages, twitter, and internet memes (a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users).
Bannon, Steven: Former head of Breitbart News (see below), CEO of Trump Presidential Campaign and now Mr. Trump’s Chief Political Strategist in the White House . Mr. Bannon is considered the primary ideological officer of the Trump administration. Mr. Bannon was quoted in an interview after the election that “Darkness is good. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s Power.” President Trump has given Mr. Bannon a seat at the National Security Council table, a move considered unusual for a political strategist.
Block Grants: While entitlements programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, require that every person receive the same minimum level of service, a federal block grant consolidates a number of programs into one and provides a capped amount of funding to states. Block grants to states during the Reagan administration allowed for significant federal cuts to social programs from previous federal expenditure levels. The argument for block grants is that states should not need as much funding to operate block grants because they can redesign the program, eliminate federal red tape and provide the same services at significantly less cost. Block grants in operation and have led to significant reduction in services because states have been unable to identify significant cost savings measures. Republicans suggestions for eliminating the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) have all included the provision that the Medicaid program be changed from an entitlement program where states receive funding for eligible individual to a block grant.
Bowling Green Massacre: Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President, told Chris Mathews on MSNBC’s Hardball that President Obama had instituted a six month ban on Iraqi refugees after the Bowling Green Massacre. She complained the media had failed to cover the incident. The media didn’t cover the massacre because there never was one. Bowling Green Kentucky was never home to a terrorist attack. Two men were arrested in in Bowling Green in 2011 on federal terrorism charges after one of the men’s fingerprints had been traced to a roadside bomb detonated in Iraq in 2005. Ms. Conway corrected her error through tweeting “Bowling Green terrorists” rather than “Bowling Green massacre.”
Breitbart News: Website featuring right wing views run by Steve Bannon before Mr. Bannon became President Trump’s campaign manager. Mr. Bannon referred to Breitbart News as the “platform of the alt-right”. Known for taking on establishment Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan. Critiques say the website is a platform for white nationalist sentiments of hate groups. http://www.breitbart.com/
Dreamers: President Obama implemented through executive order a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The program initatited in 2012 offered a two-year, renewable reprieve from deportation to unauthorized immigrants who are under the age of 31; entered the United States before age 16; have lived continuously in the country for at least five years; have not been convicted of a felony, a “significant” misdemeanor, or three other misdemeanors; and are currently in school, graduated from high school, earned a GED, or served in the military. The 718,000 individuals taking advantage of the program are called Dreamers. There are an estimated 1.8 million potential Dreamers in the United States presently. Seven-tenths of the dreamers are Mexican American and half live in Texas and California though the rest are scattered throughout the United States. The program is currently accepting applications but the long term status of the program in the Trump administration is in limbo.
Going Nuclear: Nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure allows the U.S. Senate to override a rule or precedent by a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of by a supermajority of 60 votes. The United States Senate has a tradition of requiring a 60 vote threshold for confirmation of Supreme Court nominees. Going nuclear refers to changing Senate rules so a Supreme Court nominee could be confirmed by a simple majority, which the Republicans hold in the Senate. the nuclear option would allow Judges to not only be “nominated to the Court by a Republican president, but also be confirmed by only Republican Senators in party-line votes.”
Johnson Amendment: An amendment to the tax code in 1954, introduced by then Senator Lyndon Johnson, providing a legal separation between religion and politics. Under the law, churches and charitable organizations are unable to directly or indirectly participate in political campaigns on behalf or in opposition to a candidate or risk loosing their tax-exempt status. President Trump has vowed to destroyed this amendment to appease conservative religious groups who want to actively engage in politics and maintain their tax-exempt status. Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr. has said it would “create a huge revolution for conservative Christians and for free speech.” Repeal raises significant questions about the separation of church and state required in the Constitution.
Post Truth: Post-truth describes the milieu of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in which appeal to emotions and personal opinions were more impactful than facts.The 2016 Oxford Dictionary word of the year, post-truth, was selected because usage dramatically rose during the last year becoming a mainstay when describing national politics.
Repeal and Replace (Affordable Care Act or OBAMA Care): The first executive order signed by President Trump was to scale back as many aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)(Obamacare) as possible. The one page order gave broad latitude to federal agencies to change, delay or waive provisions of the law that they deemed overly costly for insurers, drug makers, doctors, patients or states, suggesting that it could have wide-ranging impact, and essentially allowing the dismantling of the law to begin even before Congress could repeal it. Congress voted to repeal the act the following week. The authorization to repeal will only impact budgetary provisions of the act, specifics of this action are still unknown. The Republican intent is clear to kill the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2015, HHS estimated that ACA had provided insurance to 16.8 million Americans who previously did not have insurance and dropped the U.S. uninsured rate by over 5%. With so many Americans receiving insurance through ACA, the Republicans have vowed to repeal ACA but simultaneously replace it with something better. The something better is still undefined. There have been suggestions of replacing Medicaid the state/federal entitlement program with block grants to states. If ACA is eliminated and states are blocked grant Medicaid, funds will be available for the lowest income, even if less funding is available. Funding to help higher income individuals and families now receiving incentives to purchase insurance would be gone. Other popular ACA requirements that would be erased are requirements for insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance until they are 26. Republicans have found themselves in lala land as far as how to replace ACA. It is much easier to vote against something than to find creative, cost-effective replacements.
Shock and Awe: These terms come from the military and refer to rapid deployment of military strikes to demonstrate dominance, forcing an opponent into a rapid reactionary response. President Trump’s rapid issuance of executive actions has been referred to as “shock and awe” approach to executive administration. In an effort to impose Trumpian philosophy on the federal government and force Democrats and the world into a reactive position, President Trump has acted aggressively through executive order causing significant problems for many vulnerable people in the wake of his pen. Whether America is safer as a result of his actions remains to be seen.
Travel Ban: Trump executive order issued January 27, 2017 banning all immigrants and visa holders from seven majority Muslim countires(Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Syria) from entering the US for 90 days, and opening the door to more country-based bans in the future. Also bans all refugee admissions for 120 days—and bans Syrian refuges indefinitely. The order essentially overhauled US refugee policy—laying the groundwork for a fundamental shift in how the US allows people to enter the country. Signed late Friday afternoon without consultation with Congress or impacted federal agencies, the order caused chaos at airports for individuals traveling from the seven countries listed and all refugees in transition who had been granted approval to come to the United States. By Wednesday, February 1, 2017, the Trump administration said the ban did not include citizens from the 7 countries who held a valid U.S. green card, a permit allowing a foreign national to work permanently in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security asserted Friday, February 3, 2017, that the order does not apply to dual citizens with passports from countries other than the seven listed. Also on Friday, the Justice Department estimated that the order impacted about 60,000 visa holders. Tens of thousands of visas for foreigners inside and outside the U.S. have been revoked without notice. If any of these people are in the U.S. and leave, they have probably lost their ability to return. Judge Brinkema, Federal District Court in Alexandria, described the Trump’s administration lack of planning and notice as causing “chaos.” Judge Brinkema went on to say, “This order touched something in the U.S. I’ve never seen before. People are quite upset.” By Friday evening, a Federal judge in Washington State had temporarily blocked implementation of the order across the nation. The Department of Justice has appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit located in San Francisco. On Saturday, the Justice Department said individuals with approved Visas would be allowed to travel.
Women’s March: Protests for human rights and other civil rights issues and against President Trump’s positions on these issues held January 21, 2017 in Washington D.C. with sister marches throughout the world. The largest single day demonstration in U.S. history, drawing at least 500,000 marchers in Washington D.C. and an estimated 4.8 million world wide. A theme was “Build Bridges not Walls” in response to President Trump’s inauguration speech the day before the march which focused on “America First”.
Christmas may be over but the work of Christmas is just beginning; to help those who are most vulnerable. One example of need in our communities is Flint, Michigan’s water problems. No public official in Michigan was deliberately trying to poison children in Flint. There is no public enemy number 1; rather we see a series of bad choices and then a cover-up. “Administrative Evil” is normal administrative professionals engaging in evil acts without being aware that they are doing anything wrong (Adams, Balfor 2009).
My poem “Flint (2014 ongoing) captures a real case of administrative evil in action.
Flint (2014 ongoing) by Julie Robinson
WATER
purveyor of health
taken for granted
streams out of taps
into our mouths
circles down drains to
contaminated rivers
WATER
cycles around
no filters in place
brackish, brown, stinky
budget reductions
a public disgrace
WATER
none of it safe
flows through the body
poisons children
irreversible harm
WATER
restricted to bottles
apologies abound
costs unpredictable
WATER
nature’s gift
public malfeasance
WATER
vital, virulent
Water!
Summary of the Flint, Michigan Water Issue
My husband, a physician, frequently says the United States health system is more dependent on our high quality public health programs than on our abundant supplies of physicians and hospitals. One example of this is drinking water from the tap. If you have travelled in other countries where the water is undependable such as Mexico or China, you know what a gift it is to be able to drink water directly from the faucet in the U.S. Of course, that is not true everywhere is the U.S. The place that has received the most publicity for public health problems over the past few years is Flint, Michigan. In Flint, a decision was made to move the drinking water to the Flint River in 2014. This decision was made to allow time to build a pipeline to connect to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA).
Mayor Walling explained the decision as follows: ‘It’s regular, good, pure drinking water, and it’s right in our backyard… this is the first step in the right direction for Flint, and we take this monumental step forward in controlling the future of our community’s most precious resource.’ “
Rather than testing the water first to make sure the public was safe. The City chose to take a less expensive route of “waiting to see” what happens.
High lead levels started being documented in February 25, 2015. This information was deep-sixed by public authorities. By December 2015 as lead levels continued to climb, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency over the elevated lead levels in the city’s water. “I am requesting that all things be done necessary to address this state of emergency declaration, effective immediately,”
The water continued to be unsafe in Spring 2016. Both Presidential candidates Trump and Clinton and President Obama visited to symbolize their concern. Concern is not corrective action! By July nine public officials in Michigan had been charged with criminal offenses for the problems with Flint, Water. These public officials were charged with misconduct and misuse of public funds.
By December 2016, four officials — two of Flint’s former emergency managers, who reported directly to the governor, and two water plant officials — were charged with felonies of false pretenses and conspiracy. They are accused of misleading the Michigan Department of Treasury into getting millions in bonds, and then misused the money to finance the construction of a new pipeline and force Flint’s drinking water source to be switched to the Flint River.
Today, filtered Flint water is safe to drink but not everyone, especially low income families, have access to working filters. The courts have ordered that these individuals be provided with bottled water.
A $170 million stopgap spending bill for repairing and upgrading the city of Flint’s water system and helping with healthcare costs was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on December 8, 2016.[8] The Senate approved it the next day.[9] $100 million of the bill is for infrastructure repairs, $50 million for healthcare costs, and $20 million to pay back loans related to the crisis.
Now that Christmas has come and gone, I can turn my investigatory energies to more important obsessions (other than politics) such as identifying 2016 strangest Christmas gifts. We teach our children that these gifts are made at the North Pole but we all know they come from China. Rather than being produced by happy, elves dressed in green and red felt, paid with nothing but a smattering of magic dust and Christmas cookies, these items are probably produced by abused child workers, violating ever American labor law and paid by the piece rather than by the hour. This is why Americans are squabbling about the renewal of Asian-Pacific trade agreement and not a North Pole agreement combining fines for melting icebergs because of Santa’s unregulated energy use with a tariff on flying sleighs bringing untaxed goods into the country.
The proposed North Pole agreement would be easy to enforce because Sara Palin could be appointed Nordic ambassador and provide enforcement services from her Alaskan front porch, pulverizing those pesky elves with buck shot when they tried to slip into the US in search of our highly coveted minimum wage jobs on dairy farms and in fast food joints.
I waited until after Christmas to release this list because I wanted to save my friends the agony or ecstasy of choosing the appropriate gift for their worst enemy. P.S. I understand from Santa that President-Elect Trump got one of each item on the list in his stocking this year. Trump was hoping for lumps of newly mined coal given his promises to restart America’s coal industry but Santa wanted to reward Obama’s strategy to ban offshore drilling in the Artic and Atlantic so this year Santa handed out pinwheels with blades saying “Support alternative energy” to those who had been naughty. Santa’s failure to leave all the naughty businessmen a sock full of coal may result in a coal shortage among billionaires, which could further the stock market’s zeal for fossil fuel but it is too early to tell.
Top Ten Worst Christmas Gifts in 2016
10.Handrapants: These fingerless gloves (designed to look like men’s tidy-whities) are a perfect gift for anyone with fixation on being touched by real human hands but still wanting to be able to engage in real world activities. I actually own a pair of fingerless gloves that I find quite handy (please excuse the pun) but they are suede with a gorgeous fur muff around the fingers. The men’s brief design for fingers must meet some sexual fantasy of where the hands want to go.
9. WowWee: Chip is an interactive dog robot, programmable to a special watch (included). Chip will greet you at the door, follow you around, play with a programmed plastic ball and has a strange low woof for such a small dog. Chip doesn’t need to go outside, be fed, bark at guests, and tear up panties or the other assorted novel character traits of a real dog. He recharges himself during the night ready for the next day without having to be let outside or taken for a walk.
8. Unicorn Farts: These are bags of cotton candy. As I understand the design concept, while you can’t see human farts but you can see people, in this case you can’t see unicorns but you can see and actually eat their farts. Clever indeed and to provide further incentive for purchasing these tasty treats 10% of the proceeds go to a children’s charity.
7. Poop Like a Champion: This is a cereal for those of us old enough to remember the advertisements for “Breakfast of Champions” Wheaties but now find our digestive system is a little slow. The advertisement for this cereal is “Number 1 high fiber cereal for number 2s”. Imagine going through all the effort to receive a marketing bachelors degree and your first job assignment is to create slogans for a cereal that provides the pinnacle of pooping performance. The cereal is currently sold out after a pre-Christmas rush (please don’t let you mind wander in the direction of that pun). Kudos to that new marketing graduate, you exceeded everyone’s wildest dreams, possibly because of a constipated electorate in all the Blue states. But don’t despair, if you need an extra push in the bathroom, you can load up for the New Year with a 25% off coupon and emailing your name in to be wait listed.
6.Wonderwoof: This is an activity tracker bowtie for your dog. You and your dog can begin a new healthy life style in the New Year. Designed in stylish colors such as baby blue, red, orange, teal, pink, black, grey and for an extra $9.95 you can add designer bands to match your outfits. Before Christmas a tracker was a $100. Unfortunately, these guys didn’t sell out . You can now own one for $65. If you live in a big city and hire a dog walker, these little gizmos are for you. They are particularly helpful if you are paranoid imagining your highly paid dog-walker lazing around your high rise apartment sipping a latte from your cappuccino machine rather than out marching Fido around Central Park. One dog walker in New York reports taking 40 or 50 dogs for walks 5 days a week, spending about 25 hours a week and making about $110,000 a year. Take that you lowly U of I graduate starting out at best around $45,000 as a professional in Idaho. My advice, if you need Wonderwoof for Fido, you should probably consider trading in your dog and getting WowWee for Valentine’s Day.
5.Giant Inflatable Cockroach: Almost 6 feet by 6 feet and a foot deep, this ugly guy can either scare people out of your highly sought after swimming pool or provide a lovely floatation device for someone large enough to cover most of it. The roach’s legs hang out in any possible scenario. I have to admit to an aversion to cockroaches of any size. When my husband went to medical school the only apartment he could afford was roach infested. We had to buy dozens of tiny roach hotels to strategically place around the apartment in hopes one would stop by for a visit and be terminated.The Inflatable cockroach was judged the “best new inflatable toy for summer 2016″ suggesting to me that America needs to find new designers for pool toys.
3:Toilet Bowl Dog and Cat Fountain: If your pets like to drink out of your toilet and this grosses you out, this gift is for you. Shaped just like a toilet only smaller, the tank provides fresh water on as-needed gravity basis. Also works well for improving the self-image of height-challenged dogs, like dachshunds, which have always wanted to drink out of the toilet but couldn’t reach it.
2.Creamed Possum in a can for holiday dinner: This holiday treat is also sold out but may be available in time for the Super Bowl and Presidential Inauguration . A red neck staple, this tasty treat includes Canned Creamed Possum with Coon Fat Gravy, garnished with Sweet Potatoes! Guaranteed to be made with only the freshest road-kill available
1.Trump Matryoshka (Hand-crafter Russian nesting dolls): These dolls were a rush order after the election. On the largest doll is a likeness of Trump wearing a surprised expression and holding a sign “The Apprentice and you’re hired!”. Inside is Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson holding his 2013 Russian Friendship award and waving an ExxonMobil flag. Beneath Tillerson is President Trump’s strategic advisor, Stephen Bannon in a Prince of Darkness costume. All three larger dolls cover a tiny replica of Russian President Putin, wearing a Cheshire cat smile and holding a sign “Russia Wins!”. These dolls sold out quickly to the alt-right. Plans are to have them mass produced after the inauguration. Right wing enthusiasts are anticipating a juggernaut in sales in the New Year as part of the new administration’s focus on economic development and new trade alliances.
The Dogs of Hell were trained Rottweilers, who escape a military compound and terrorized al small town in a cult movie of the same name (1982). Replicating the actions of these fictional canines, the most racist, bigoted Americans have been unleashed by Trump’s unlikely Presidential win to terrorize people of color, the LBGT community and other vulnerable individuals.
Previously suppressed by societal norms and national leaders committed to inclusion and diversity, the day after the surprise win by Mr. Trump, these marauding dogs began shredding our fragile web of political correctness. The real face of the ugly American is now in full view. Apparently, I have been living in a fantasy world believing that we were slowly eradicating these attitudes but I have discovered to my chagrin that our progress in the area of inclusion is an extremely fragile safety net loosely tethered by a web of civil rights laws, court decisions and public civility.
These Dogs have previously been muzzled by the broader community’s values. 
The Dogs’ attacks after the recent election have taught me that bigotry is flourishing in this country in hidden places like mold spores invisible to the naked eye, thriving in dark moist environments. The election provided the necessary well spring for an explosion of white backlash.
These dogs are even rampaging in Boise, Idaho. Last week, they wrote “Nigger!” as graffiti near our Black History Museum. My family was horrified when I used the “N” word at the dinner table describing the incident. My daughter scolded me and said, “Never use that word again!” I would like to comply; but the only way to grasp the harshness of these attacks on the population they are intended to traumatize is to speak truth. The “N” word does not capture the abuse and rebuke inherent in this demoralizing word scribbled in large letters in plain view for the sole purpose of causing pain.
The lone black female in the Idaho Senate, told me this graffiti is not an isolated incident. She described to me the experience of a two black children playing outside in Boise being accosted by white adults the day after the election and being told; “We can kill you and your parents, now.”
My sister tells of the Asian man she knows, born and raised in Caldwell, Idaho (a town of 50,000, 25 miles west of Boise) who has never experienced discrimination in Idaho. Last week a car driving by him, rolled down the window and an invisible male voice shouted, “Go back to where you came from!” The fact that this man would be returning to Caldwell would be amusing if it weren’t so horrifying.
These are just a few incidents from Idaho, a small, almost exclusively white, homogeneous state. We are generally pro guns but peace abiding. Imagine the power of this unfettered hate in larger cities with more diversity and opportunity to choose “We” versus”They”.
The Oxford Dictionary has named “post truth” as the 2016 word of the year. The word describes a culture in which an individual’s decisions are based on appearances, frequently generated by incorrect or deliberately false social media postings, not on facts. I am fascinated and nauseated by our “post truth” world. In our current political milieu, the Dogs of Hell can become vicious overlords of the most vulnerable. Made up stories of Muslim attacks lead to hatred of innocent neighbors. Women wearing head coverings, symbols of respect for their religion, are suspect.
The trial of Dylann Roof is currently in the news. He is the white young man who joined a black Bible study group at Emanuel African Methodist Church, Charleston, South Carolina and ended up killing nine church members (2015). He has been quoted as saying he, “wanted to ignite a race war.” Roof’s actions resulted in public outcry, prayer vigils and persecutors seeking the death penalty. He failed in his revolution.
Unlike Roof, if not restrained, the Dogs of Hell are capable of phenomenal harm to our constitutional rights. This election, we, the people, have unleashed violent forces of hatred in America.
As Christmas approaches, as Christains let us not just pray for peace on earth as if we are speaking of some distant land. We need to pray for peace in small town Idaho and other parts of America. We must actively engage our spiritual communities and push back the forces of hate which are spreading dark clouds of fear over our land.
My Private Idaho 