Politics Plus

Arrggghhh!!!!!  The foot is still swollen and the redness is turning to bruising.  I RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) it as much as possible and I use ultrasound on it while at physio.  But I still need to get around.  One thing is for certain, the manipulation that my physiotherapist has done really helps.Tomorrow is laundry day and I have a few loads to do.  I'll also be starting the monthly report tomorrow so I'll be busy.  To answer your question Lona about Lucia taking a class while her kids are not about, we did discuss it and I encouraged her to pursue it.  I want her to do the work so I encouraged her but she actually found a class that met her needs.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — John Oliver is finally taking on Donald Trump — and the “Last Week Tonight” host is not mincing words.

“At this point, Donald Trump is America’s back mole,” Oliver said on Sunday’s episode. “It may have seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it’s become frighteningly bigger, it’s no longer wise to ignore it.”

Oliver, who has largely avoided discussing Trump on his show, was unequivocal in his criticism of the Republican frontrunner.

I haven't laughed this hard and long in a long time!  John Oliver has out done himself!  I'll say nothing more except ENJOY!  

Robert Reich — An Open Letter to the Republican Establishment

You are the captains of American industry, the titans of Wall Street, and the billionaires who for decades have been the backbone of the Republican Party.

You’ve invested your millions in the GOP in order to get lower taxes, wider tax loopholes, bigger subsidies, more generous bailouts, less regulation, lengthier patents and copyrights and stronger market power allowing you to raise prices, weaker unions and bigger trade deals allowing you outsource abroad to reduce wages, easier bankruptcy for you but harder bankruptcy for homeowners and student debtors, and judges who will let you to engage in insider trading and who won’t prosecute you for white-collar crimes.  

All of which have made you enormously wealthy. Congratulations.

Click through for the rest of this open letter.  There are some billionaires, like Nick Hanauer, who agree with Reich.  But they are precious few.  The rest are too myopic to see what is happening.  As usual, the Reich on the left is right.

Mother Jones — Earlier this month, Esther Calhoun stood before the US Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, DC, describing some of the unlikely ailments that have been plaguing her and her neighbors these past few years. "I am only 51 years old and I have neuropathy," she said. "The neurologist said that it may be caused by lead, and it is not going to get better."

This is not a story about contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. Calhoun, who lives in Uniontown, Alabama, was talking about coal ash—a toxic byproduct of burning coal that has quietly become one of America's worst environmental justice problems. The ashes are typically laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins, and multiple studies have found that the waste tends to be stored in low-income, minority communities. In Uniontown, where 90 percent of residents are black and about half live below the poverty line, an uncovered coal ash landfill sits "directly across the street from peoples' homes, and from yards in which their kids play," says Marianne Engelman-Lado, an attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.

Environmental justice indeed!  I would love to see the reactions of the wealthy who make their homes around golf courses, to the water hasards being coal ash slurry ponds.  The poisoning of the poor and working class people is inexcusable.  Spend the money to dispose of the ash properly.  Or better still, don't burn coal . . . leave it in the ground.

My Universe — 

I have stayed low for the weekend hoping my foot would do some healing.  And it has!  Tomorrow is physio and teaching.  My physiotherapist will be taking another shot at my foot.  Starting 07/03/2016 Lucia will be taking an ESL class with other students and she won't have her 2 youngest to worry about.  I am going to see if I can sit in on a class or two so that I can tailor our Friday 1-on-1 to her classroom needs.  I am really excited for her as she will have a much better time learning without her 2 youngest children interrupting.

Short Takes

Huffington Post — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a strong vote of confidence and reformist partners secured surprise gains in parliament in early results from elections that could speed up the Islamic Republic's emergence from years of isolation.

Foad Izadi, an assistant professor at the Faculty of World Studies in Tehran University said the reformists' strong showing was prompted by Rouhani's success in reaching a nuclear agreement between Iran and international powers, the removal of most of the sanctions that had strangled the country's economy over the past decade and restoration of relations with the West.

"It is a sweeping victory for Tehran but for other cities it is not yet clear cut. It is beyond expectations," he added.

Etemad, a reformist newspaper whose managing-editor Elias Hazrati won a seat in Tehran, chose the headline of "clean up in the parliament."

Along with hope of a parliamentary clean up comes hope for better economic times.  As noted in a Foreign Policy article,

Hassan Rouhani had been president for almost a year, and Iran and the group of six world powers — the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany — had inked an interim nuclear agreement in Geneva. For the first time in years, Kaveh no longer felt hopeless about the future of his country. Members of the business community, like him, believed Rouhani had the political grit necessary to fight corruption and bring economic change. The prospects of a nuclear deal had them revitalized, he told me. Kaveh had become a senior executive at a private aviation firm and was especially excited because sanctions for aviation had been relaxed; his company had launched talks with a European firm to buy new airplanes. International delegations were trickling in for business talks, and there was even talk of trade with America, Kaveh said excitedly.  …

… in 2016, Kaveh’s attitude has again shifted. Although there are glimmers of hope on the horizon of the Iranian economy, he tells me true change will take longer than he once thought.

There is change, but it will take time to reconnect economically.  When there are 2 intractable players like the US and the Iranian hardliners, it will take that much longer to repair the economic damage.  Click through for the remainder of these two related articles.

Right Wing Watch — After vowing to go after journalists who write critical stories about him at a rally in Texas today, Donald Trump bragged about the support his presidential campaign has received from conservative evangelical voters, touting endorsements from televangelist Paula White, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Sarah Palin.

Trump even brought Robert Jeffress, the conservative televangelist notorious for his anti-gay, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon preaching, onto the stage to sing his praises. Jeffress called Trump a patriot “who is truly pro-life,” unlike Hillary Clinton, whom he warned would be “the most pro-abortion president in history.”

“God bless Donald Trump,” Jeffress declared. Trump had a much bleaker message: “Christianity is under siege. Every year it gets weaker and weaker and weaker.”

He said he would restore Christianity to greatness by scrapping IRS regulations pertaining to church engagement in partisan political activity on behalf of candidates or campaigns.

Listening to this ass is frightening.  He panders . . . panders to the evangelicals and the haters.  He panders to their fears without true regard to the consequences.  In an Alternet article, "…McConnell reportedly told colleagues that the party will drop Trump “like a hot rock” if he is the nominee."  I guess we wait a little longer.

Truthdig — “There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much,” she [U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii] wrote. “This is not just another ‘issue.’ This is THE issue, and it’s deeply personal to me. This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race.”

From the beginning, it seems that the deck has been stacked against Bernie.  Not only has the press virtually ignored him, but the DNC has as well.  I question whether the chairperson of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has been equally concerned about neutrality since she was a Clinton 2008 national campaign co-chair.

My Universe —

I hate that animals are brutalised like Duffy was, but I love the transformations!

Now if people could only get the message that animals and people should not be brualised, not abused but LOVED!