Author: spider

Now that it’s been a few months since Trump was sworn in as president we can see that the level of deception in his campaign rhetoric was historic. It’s hard to believe anybody could be so disingenuous about their political intentions as Trump was, but there it is.

Trump’s campaign was not only a series of shameless lies, it looks now like it was an international conspiracy to penetrate our government, if you believe the growing allegations of collusion between the Russians and Trump’s team of ‘top people’.

Trump knew the public thirsted for change and proclaimed he was that change. He went from the language of draining the swamp to surrounding himself with swamp creatures. He is the king of the hypocritical crocodiles, shamelessly abandoning most of those he tricked into voting for him. It’s a terrible reflection on our political system, the electorate, and our collective futures.

President Trump has betrayed those who were also let down by the empty rhetoric of president Obama. Most of the public doesn’t care what party is in power, they just want a decent life. A life that includes healthcare, education, and prosperity. A life both parties have conspired to deprive the public of, by literally outsourcing their opportunity to profit from cheap foreign labor and unfair global trade.

Obama’s failure is the real reason Trump beat Hillary. He didn’t bring the change that people expected. The democrats also undermined any chance the populist candidate, Bernie Sanders, had of winning that election. Those betrayals will taint the democratic brand for generations. If you are unhappy about president Trump and the republican policies, blame the democrats for becoming the bad guys. Their failure was beyond monumental. It was inexcusably short-sighted and self indulgent elitism. They have solidified the perception of themselves as the lesser of two evils at best. Their inability to secure the necessary democratic reform for the public reeks of intentional failure.

Now, a few months after the election, the intention of this president and his cabinet is clear. He has proposed massive cuts in sanity and civility in order to spend more for the war machine. It’s as if he believes his electoral victory is a mandate for more war, inequality, and conflict of all kinds. It’s not even worth listing the specifics of the deceptions of Trump’s campaign because there are too many of them. They are however, a perfect example of how rotten our political system has become. Measure the current results of our political system and you get a president Trump and a hyper acceleration towards our national demise.

All the while president Trump has been assembling his wrecking crew for the coming destruction of our democracy, a swell of evidence is emerging about his shady business connections with Russians oligarchs. Just like Trump’s deceptive campaign rhetoric, there’s too many examples to get bogged down with. It becomes a distraction to his agenda of increased privatization and profiteering, foreign and domestic.

His intentions, like most of his political predecessors, do not have the best interest of the American public in mind. We can expect to see increasing inequality with continuing showers of conflict for a long time to come, despite the contradictory rhetoric of Trump’s team.

There was a hearing in congress this week about the Trump administration benefiting from Russians allegedly meddling in our election. Trump’s presidential victory has been tainted with allegations of Russian assistance. They hacked the DNC is the allegation and flooded social media with robots and trolls. How deep do the covert connections go, we’ll never know, I’m pretty certain, despite the hearings. We do know however that Trump enjoyed non-stop coverage from our own media, giving him far more coverage than any other candidate.

There’s a scandal industry that feeds off of political drama like the brewing Trump-Russian collusion. They have begun to dig for factoid nuggets they can sell. These scandals can go on for years and cost a fortune, but the conclusions are always anti-climactic, with violators being acquitted or pardoned.

The concern is that Trump might be influenced or even beholden to organizations that are global, and seek to undermine our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. It is a big story if true, with consequences of enormous importance to the public, and to our public policy, our prosperity, and our safety.

Our future, and even our collective freedom could be at stake if Trump is as deceptive as the evidence suggests.

The media has been all over this scandal. It promises to sell commercials for years. The funny thing about this story, and scandal, is that it has been trumped by president Trump accusing president Obama of wiretapping him.

The accusation is simplistic and silly. Why would he blame Obama for wiretapping him? Obama couldn’t care less. Certainly Trump was, as everybody like him is, being spied on. Just because there’s no legal paper trail proving it, simply by the practice being possible means it is happening, probably by dozens if not hundreds of private companies. The only reason Trump would make such a suggestion would be to distract from the Russian collusion scandal, which I will refer to from now on as Russia-Gate.

Trump’s wiretap story is absurd and irrelevant, yet the media has chosen to spend endless hours dismissing it. It is a perfect example of the dance of deception I mentioned in a previous post. The white house acts, the media reacts and their story becomes the distraction. It is a distraction from the news the public needs to know, like the president’s agenda towards conflict and inequality, and who benefits from those policies.

What if the Russians are blackmailing the new president? What if he and his associates are personally profiting from shifting our budget priorities from health to war? How do we even know who he is working for if he acts in contradiction to the interests of those who elected him?

One thing is clear by now. Trump’s campaign to make America great again for the forgotten man was a deception. He’s presiding for the oligarchs and not the public. The important question still pending is, are the oligarchs he serves Russian, American, or both?

Trump vs The Press – Crowd size matters

Friday, Trump was inaugurated.

Saturday, millions of people marched in the streets. The crowd size of the protestors dwarfed the inaugural ceremony by huge numbers.

The protests were in every state and people were marching worldwide, demanding a better equality for everybody, under the banner of women.

Protestors know Trump will increase conflict and promote policies of division, despite his pledge of allegiance to the people.

During the protests, the white house chose to complain about crowd size coverage, accusing the press of lying. They claimed there was no quantifiable way to measure attendance, after shutting down the park service communications who tweeted an image of inauguration crowd size comparisons, comparing 2009 and 2017.

Trump also complained about press dishonesty to the CIA, in a masterpiece of Orwellian symbolism and doublespeak, implying that the truth from secret sources is more reliable than what the public can collectively witness themselves, with their own eyes.

The press spent the rest of the weekend discussing inaugural crowd sizes. The reporting was a diversion from the grievances of the millions of people marching in the streets.

The press always finds a diversion from discussing the specifics of public grievance, or presenting possible solutions to alleviate social dysfunction. That’s why their approval ratings are so low.

Normally, when covering protests, corporate media pundits marvel mindlessly on crowd size, mainly mocking participants, until a window breaks allowing them to condemn the entire event. What makes this weekend different, the fist weekend of the Trump term, is the collusion of the press and the white house toward a superficial narrative, was dramatic and obvious.

Millions of people marched for equality and the corporate media assembled panels to discuss inaugural crowd sizes, agreeing that they don’t much matter. Which of course is also another incorrect assessment by the professional pundits. Crowd sizes measure popular support.

Without a credible press, or a credible public consensus system, crowd sizes are the most believable method we have to measure public support of anything. That’s how we can believe Trump beat Hillary. That’s how we know Sanders would have beat Trump.

In reality, what we have just witnessed was the opening dance of deception between the new Trump administration and the corporate media. One acts, the other reacts. Together they distract. They themselves become the story for you to consider.

It’s an old strategy to distract the public from understanding the reforms being requested by the majority of the public, as measured by the millions of people who are marching, compared to the modest crowds who came out to support president Trump.

Sunday, the weekly news pundits neglected to mention the precedent set by an administration blatantly lying to them and then denying them questions. It implies information is a privilege that can be denied if they disagree with the official version.

The white house assembled reporters together to insult them and call them liars for reporting a truth we all knew would be the truth before it happened. Trump would get smaller crowd sizes, compared to Obama, as he was sworn in as our new president.

Now, the truth itself is in trouble. Freedom of speech is meaningless without a common understanding of what is true. If something as easily provable as crowd size can be disputed for partisan purposes, or presidential pride, or some other Orwellian agenda, we are all in trouble.

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Now that the general election is over, it’s easy, in hindsight, to see how wrong the Democrats were for choosing Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders to be their candidate to run against Donald Trump.

I was pretty sure Trump would beat Hillary just by the size of the crowds that came out to see them at their campaign rallies. The Trump crowds rivaled the size of the crowds that came out to support Sanders, which were a lot, while Hillary had events with much smaller crowds.

Despite the popularity of Sanders with the public he was practically blacklisted by the democratic establishment, across the country. Party loyalty is what lost the election for the Democrats, where personal relationships matter more than citizenship, apparently.

Obama and Hillary both rolled over for Trump after he won, like their democratic predecessors did in previous presidential elections, deferring to the tradition that the credibility of our system must not be challenged.

If Trump had lost, he would be fighting the results of the election with every dollar he has. He would have declared the system rigged and many people would have agreed with him.

The Democrats on the other hand are content to concede a peaceful transition of power to him, and to what many perceive will be an administration that will give license to violence, against them.

As Sanders and Trump clearly articulated in their campaigns, voters are angry about the bad trade deals that give unfair advantage to foreign competition. The establishment that Hillary represents has exported our jobs for decades. That along with a number of other negatives doomed her chances of victory.

But, the Democrats backed Hillary, despite the massive audiences that gathered for Sanders, and lost.

Not only did the Democrats lose because of their participation in the bipartisan destruction of our economy, they scoffed at the political solutions offered by Sanders, which are correct, and must now be embraced if they care to remain relevant.

The clear choice of this presidential election was between Sanders, an America First from the bottom-up, or Trump, an alleged America First from the top-down, or Hillary.

Trump took the nomination hands down for the Republicans. Hillary and Sanders battled it out all the way to the democratic convention. It was Sanders and the people versus Hillary and the party.

Choosing to support Hillary, the Democrats deprived the American people of the debates and election we all deserved. A contest that would have likely ended with Bernie Sanders becoming the president of the United States, instead of Donald Trump.

The debate of the century would have been Sanders versus Trump, The Democrats deprived us of that debate by supporting Hillary. The DNC cheated against Bernie to favor Hillary and she rejected him and his supporters by picking a conservative, comparatively, to be her vice president.

Hillary and the Democrats insulted millions of voters who supported Sanders. And that is why they lost, in my opinion.

In the end, the voters got the choice between an America-First from the top-down candidate, with Trump, or Hillary and the global elites, another top-down candidate. The choice was a continuation of the national demise, either way. Trump versus Hillary. A lose lose as measured by their approval ratings in many polls.

Ironically a hope for change was the winner. Like Obama, Trump offered something other than the establishment candidate, and he won, by lying.

Trump pretended to be the outsider, but just days into the transition you can see the old republican guard coming from the shadows to share the stage with Trump, the alleged populist victor.

Most Democrats will continue to prosper under Trump rule, most of their constituents will not, which shows the Democrats serve their donors, not their voters.

The failure of this election by the Democrats will likely be disastrous for many people. The economy will continue to grow based on debt and division instead of healing and consumer demand. The inequality and the suffering will increase, along with the profits from conflict.

Days after their defeat, the Democrats are already thinking about the next election.

What to do now?

Now, Bernie, the ostracized socialist, thinks the DNC should be run by a Muslim. That way the democratic party might become more democratic.

So much for his political revolution.

Though I believe Keith would be great for the position, I believe the DNC itself is the problem and therefore the position should probably not exist. Nor should either of the national parties for that matter.

Political parties are the obstruction to democratic reforms and the trend should be away from them, away from identity politics, and towards issue-based politics.

The national committees for the political parties are not even compatible with the electoral college. The intent of the electoral college is state independence. States are not independent of the federal government if national organizations can run the federal government and state governments.

One intention of the electoral college is to make sure that electors are not incumbents, or people that profit from serving the government. The national parties are exactly that. They profit from serving the government.

The electors are also members of those parties who profit from serving the government, which can be a conflict of interest and defeats the purpose of the constitutional intention of the electoral college.

The thin veil of constitutional compliance is the use of party members to serve as electors for the electoral college. Seems normal, but the allegiance then becomes to the party not the public. There is no provision accomodating political parties in the constitution for a reason.

Political parties make division inevitable and unity impossible.

The intention of the constitution in preventing incumbents, or their cronies, from being electors in the electoral college is undermined by choosing party loyalists for electors who are the friends and family members of incumbents.

Like all organizations, the national parties have special interest priorities that often conflict with the best interests of the American public. Because the political parties have so much more influence over who gets elected, compared to everybody else, it makes their advantage undemocratic.

Bernie has now surrendered his revolution to the DNC and Trump is shopping the RNC for his ‘top people’. So, in reality the major political parties are not defeated at all. They are just going through the motions of business as usual trying to convince the public that they are not responsible for the mess that is their government.

The path to representative government, to make America great again, is to support more democratic policies, not personalities who supposedly believe something. The system itself is designed to be divisive so the system itself should be changed to be more democratic.

There’s a lot of great ideas to achieve a more democratic system. A more accurate consensus would result in more representative public policy. Which would result in law that more accurately reflects the values of the voters.

Organizations, like the RNC, and DNC, are built on top-down hierarchical relationships and are also incompatible with the constitution, which assumes a unity of purpose, peace and prosperity.

The political parties prosper by division and allegiance. The competition between the parties undermines the national unity of the public.

National cable news companies also reinforce the ideological division and allegiance. Like political parties they profit from dividing the public.

The public is every citizen treated as equals for democratic consensus.

So, whether it’s a political party or any other group identified as something other than a citizen, it is a special interest group, and its existence is a reflection of our inequality, divided relationships and priorities.

If we remove all of the special interest labels every candidate and issue can then be measured on their own merits by the electorate. If everyone was represented properly there would be no need for special interest groups.

Special interest groups would not be necessary if everybody was treated fairly and equally under the law. The goal should be securing minimum standards for everybody, that includes ample opportunity to be productive with an adequate income.

Universal opportunity will require education, participation, and investing in consensus tools for the public to achieve a better democracy. Then the legislation for the changes necessary to achieve a more accurate representation might become law and then finally begin to be implemented.

If the Democrats want to stay relevant they should start advocating the necessary changes to create a better democratic process. Creating a better perception of democracy is not good enough.

The Democrats should attempt to be more democratic.

They should start by surrendering the super-delegate process. They don’t know better than the electorate and their votes should count the same as everybody else.

By losing control of the government to Donald Trump and the Republicans, the Democrats have proven they are out of touch with the public. They don’t represent the public because their ideas are not good enough to compete politically on the public’s behalf.

The Democrats represent their own organizational and special interest relationships, just like the Republicans. That’s why the polls indicate the country is always heading the wrong direction, regardless of the party in power.

If the Democrats care about representing the pubic they should promote better ideas. They need ideas that democratic candidates and the public can support with enthusiasm.

Democrats should focus on the democratic reforms that can achieve electoral results that matter. Legislation like tax-bracket apportionment and income-based representation can achieve a more representative government and a better democratic process.

The Democrats should think about how to compete, not who to compete. They need better ideas, not better candidates.

Happy New Year!

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President JFK was assassinated 53 years ago today. This morning I heard someone on the radio speculate that maybe Trump might be like him, once he becomes president.

I couldn’t help but find the comment amusing because Trump’s transition team is well under way, floating the usual suspects from the guilty wing of the republican party for cabinet positions.

It’s such a who’s-who list of characters from previous administrations that it’s clear, Trump was a mask for the GOP all along – pretending to be an outsider, a populist for the forgotten man.

The republican brand was so tainted in failure, they had no other choice but to run an outsider to beat Hillary, champion of the status quo, and it worked.

Even though Trump just spent a year criticizing republicans, and being criticized by them, he’s now hiring them.

It’s the fastest flip-flop of revolving-door collusion in white house history.

President elect Trump is not an “outsider” and he never was. He’s an unmasked strategy to regain the white house, by the same old institutional relationships that had it before.

Already it’s easy to see this will be a reorganization of the same cast of characters, with the same motivations.

Trump is just the continuation of previous republican agendas.

Trump won, in large part, because the democrats deprived the ticket of the credible populist alternative, Bernie Sanders.

Bernie had the big crowds ready for “political revolution”. But despite being cheated and defeated by the democratic national committee, and Hillary, he now graciously supports them as the lesser of two evils.

The failure of the democrats to win this election is so much more than their own failure. Those who need the assistance that good representation provides, will be the ones who will feel the failure of the democrats. The democrats will be sad, but the suffering will be done by others.

The millions of people who donated to Bernie in small but heartfelt amounts, and millions of others who couldn’t afford to give, will physically feel the failure of the democrats to maintain a majority in government.

So in reality, while this last election, which was promoted as the year of the outsiders, with Trump and Sanders drawing record crowds hungry for change, it was not that at all.

It was a trick. It was a contest of deceptions for the vote of the common man, and the republicans did it better. That’s how the current electoral system works.

Politicians pander to their voters and then legislate for their donors.

If you believe Trump and Sanders were outsiders, then you will need to consider the system has changed them. They did not change the system. Even if they were outsiders, they are now insiders.

Either way, The election is over and the public loses, because the duopoly rule will continue to strengthen at the expense of our democratic processes.

You might think, wait a minute, Trump hasn’t even gotten started. Well, yes he has. His cabinet nominee choices make that clear.

It’s an old agenda by the hacks he criticized for over a year during his campaign. Now the band is getting back together, in the white house.

The contradictions between Trump’s campaign promises and the policies he advocates as president on behalf of “the forgotten man”, will be plentiful. I look forward to parsing the rhetoric.

Now that the 2016 election is over I’d like to congratulate the elected officials for their victories and all of the candidates for their participation. It was a very emotional process for many people. I am thankful for being able to participate in my limited way. I didn’t campaign much but still got a lot of votes. Which tells me people read my statement for candidacy in the voters guide and agreed with it, then voted for me. I would like to extend a special thanks to all of them.

I would especially like to congratulate Pramila Jayapal. She will be my next congressional representative. She will represent hundreds of thousands of people in the 7th district. She is very intelligent and articulate and I expect she will vote the same as I would have on virtually every issue that comes before congress. I wish her well.

There are a lot of measures on the local ballot here that I would like to comment on, time allowing. But, next up in the Log, a few words about the presidential election.

The unexpected victory of Trump is historically without precedent, as far as I know. Five days later the protests in the streets against him continue to build. The heartbreak of defeat felt by Hillary and the democrats, will hurt for sometime to come.

All of that turmoil from this election was due to the antiquated political system that we use. Both candidates had higher negative approval ratings than positive, meaning that more people disliked the presidential candidates than liked them. The non-voters were in the majority again, as usual, outnumbering all of the voters combined.

The lesson of this election is how inadequate our democracy is. Our antiquated democracy was outlined before the advent of electricity. Yet, it is still praised as the greatest political system ever, by the private parties that control it, and benefit from it, despite its blatant failure. Failures Trump articulated over and over during his campaign.

The election of Trump is a repudiation of both parties and their policies. The establishment will see Trump’s victory as successful consensus of the people, rather than a rejection of themselves and their institutions that have failed the public.

The winning campaign mantra was we have been cheated by a rigged system run by political hacks. The irony is that Trump will almost certainly proceed with the same failed policies that is cheating the public, and rig the system further. The republicans were looking for an excuse to be less compassionate and now they have one. Trump will fill his government with lobbyists and political hacks, like republicans always do.

The democrats will continue with their futile resistance and the country will sink further into what ails it. I will share what I view as the obvious solutions as I get time. The most obvious remedy now is to create a democratic party that represents the public, or abandon it for a new political coalition that can challenge the failed policy makers from both sides of the aisle.