Trump Screws the 99%
Mar 29, 2017 14:02:40 #
Should food stamps buy soda?
A major study of the grocery-buying habits of millions of Americans released late last year found that people using food stamps generally make the same unhealthy food choices as everyone else in America. Too many sweets, salty snacks and prepared desserts. Junk food, in other words.
But when it came to soda and its sugary ilk, the results were more surprising, and not in a good way. According to the USDA-funded study , shoppers using food stamps spent a larger share of their budget — 9.25% to be exact — on sugar-sweetened beverages than other shoppers. Even more startling: Food-stamp shoppers bought more soda than any other single grocery item.
The new data revived an old debate about banning soda from the $71-billion food-stamp program . In February, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to gather testimony about the pros and cons of such a restriction. It does seem counterproductive to spend billions of taxpayer dollars in an effort to improve the nutrition of low-income Americans on a product with little or no nutritional value. It is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after all. What’s worse is that soda has been identified by public health experts as one of the prime culprits in soaring U.S. obesity and Type 2 diabetes rates.
The study and committee debate, however, raised some of the same uncomfortable issues that have caused the proposal to languish in the past. On the conservative side, folks have worried that this type of nanny-state regulation will lead to other heavy-handed health-related restrictions (enforced exercise, perhaps). Liberals, meanwhile, have been concerned that it is patronizing and punitive to tell people how to spend their government benefits. Add in the opposition from beverage industry lobby and it’s no surprise this idea hasn’t gotten very far when it’s been proposed in the past. In recent years, a handful of states and cities, including New York City, have tried to impose such a requirement, but were blocked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The difference now is that the attitude toward soda has rapidly soured as more evidence has poured in that beverages with added sugars are making people fat and sick. The USDA has issued dietary guidelines warning people to limit their consumption of food with added sugars, the largest sources of which are sweetened beverages. This belief helped San Francisco, Philadelphia and handful of other cities push through new taxes on soda. A handful more are considering their own soda levies, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see an effort to adopt a statewide soda tax in California before too long.
We know that there are detrimental health effects of drinking lots of soda, but we don’t know if barring SNAP recipients from spending their benefits on soda will really improve their health. It’s worth finding out by undertaking a limited pilot program, regardless of the qualms we may have about imposing restraints on the poor that better-off Americans don’t face. The assumption is that those billions of dollars not going to buy Coke or Red Bull will be spent on healthier food. But that may not be the case. What if consumption of other sugary items, like ice cream and pudding, increases? Or if SNAP recipients simply transferred their sweet drink habit ounce-for-ounce to more expensive and still sugar-laden fruit juice? Or if they spent their non-SNAP money on soda? Before making a permanent change, we need to know if it would improve nutrition or be pointlessly punitive.
But it is a good step to take to gather data. And the argument that it would be too hard on grocers to carve out sugary drinks doesn’t hold water. As the study shows, modern grocery check stand technology is sophisticated enough to easily separate out purchases by UPC code. Indeed, SNAP already comes with restrictions on alcohol, tobacco and hot foods, among other things . Grocers don’t have a problem sorting them out. The Women, Infant and Children food-assistance program is even more prescriptive, permitting only specific items to be purchased: milk, cheese, cereal and formula, for example, but absolutely nothing with added sugar or artificial sweetener. Ideally, a pilot program would also find ways to improve access to safe drinking water. One of the reasons that low-income people may choose sweetened beverages is that their drinking water isn’t reliable.
Denying poor people the ability to use food aid to buy a Coke on a hot day may raise some unsettling questions. Yet the findings in the USDA’s study about excessive soda consumption shouldn’t be ignored.
A major study of the grocery-buying habits of millions of Americans released late last year found that people using food stamps generally make the same unhealthy food choices as everyone else in America. Too many sweets, salty snacks and prepared desserts. Junk food, in other words.
But when it came to soda and its sugary ilk, the results were more surprising, and not in a good way. According to the USDA-funded study , shoppers using food stamps spent a larger share of their budget — 9.25% to be exact — on sugar-sweetened beverages than other shoppers. Even more startling: Food-stamp shoppers bought more soda than any other single grocery item.
The new data revived an old debate about banning soda from the $71-billion food-stamp program . In February, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to gather testimony about the pros and cons of such a restriction. It does seem counterproductive to spend billions of taxpayer dollars in an effort to improve the nutrition of low-income Americans on a product with little or no nutritional value. It is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after all. What’s worse is that soda has been identified by public health experts as one of the prime culprits in soaring U.S. obesity and Type 2 diabetes rates.
The study and committee debate, however, raised some of the same uncomfortable issues that have caused the proposal to languish in the past. On the conservative side, folks have worried that this type of nanny-state regulation will lead to other heavy-handed health-related restrictions (enforced exercise, perhaps). Liberals, meanwhile, have been concerned that it is patronizing and punitive to tell people how to spend their government benefits. Add in the opposition from beverage industry lobby and it’s no surprise this idea hasn’t gotten very far when it’s been proposed in the past. In recent years, a handful of states and cities, including New York City, have tried to impose such a requirement, but were blocked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The difference now is that the attitude toward soda has rapidly soured as more evidence has poured in that beverages with added sugars are making people fat and sick. The USDA has issued dietary guidelines warning people to limit their consumption of food with added sugars, the largest sources of which are sweetened beverages. This belief helped San Francisco, Philadelphia and handful of other cities push through new taxes on soda. A handful more are considering their own soda levies, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see an effort to adopt a statewide soda tax in California before too long.
We know that there are detrimental health effects of drinking lots of soda, but we don’t know if barring SNAP recipients from spending their benefits on soda will really improve their health. It’s worth finding out by undertaking a limited pilot program, regardless of the qualms we may have about imposing restraints on the poor that better-off Americans don’t face. The assumption is that those billions of dollars not going to buy Coke or Red Bull will be spent on healthier food. But that may not be the case. What if consumption of other sugary items, like ice cream and pudding, increases? Or if SNAP recipients simply transferred their sweet drink habit ounce-for-ounce to more expensive and still sugar-laden fruit juice? Or if they spent their non-SNAP money on soda? Before making a permanent change, we need to know if it would improve nutrition or be pointlessly punitive.
But it is a good step to take to gather data. And the argument that it would be too hard on grocers to carve out sugary drinks doesn’t hold water. As the study shows, modern grocery check stand technology is sophisticated enough to easily separate out purchases by UPC code. Indeed, SNAP already comes with restrictions on alcohol, tobacco and hot foods, among other things . Grocers don’t have a problem sorting them out. The Women, Infant and Children food-assistance program is even more prescriptive, permitting only specific items to be purchased: milk, cheese, cereal and formula, for example, but absolutely nothing with added sugar or artificial sweetener. Ideally, a pilot program would also find ways to improve access to safe drinking water. One of the reasons that low-income people may choose sweetened beverages is that their drinking water isn’t reliable.
Denying poor people the ability to use food aid to buy a Coke on a hot day may raise some unsettling questions. Yet the findings in the USDA’s study about excessive soda consumption shouldn’t be ignored.
Mar 29, 2017 14:04:44 #
The big disconnect
By Jennifer Ferro
P resident Trump’s preliminary budget, released in mid-March, slashes a number of domestic programs. The one that hits closest to home for me is the total defunding of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, a private non-profit corporation created by Congress to distribute funds to the nation’s public television and radio stations. The elimination of federal funding would silence a large segment of independent and free media at a time when we need trustworthy information more than ever.
Here at KCRW, the loss would mean a $1.2-million hole in our budget each year. That translates into 12 to 15 positions and a cut to the news and public-service programming we provide on a daily basis; it represents about 5% of the station’s budget. But at a much smaller station, say the one in Marfa, Texas — a station that provided the only live, local information during recent wildfires — the loss translates into more than 30% of that budget.
CPB dollars go directly to individual stations, to local operations that cover local issues with local employees, not to the national programming or administration efforts of the umbrella organizations, NPR and PBS. At KCRW, we’ve used CPB funds to dig into Los Angeles’ homelessness boom and housing crisis, to explain complicated ballot measures facing the county and state, and to present civil debates from the left, the right and the center about politics.
Washington’s total public broadcasting appropriation represents just 0.16% of the overall federal budget. For a $1.35 annual investment per American, public broadcasting provides a robust, independent national news network that stretches from America’s urban centers to native villages in Alaska. It makes no sense to dismantle such an important institution for such a small budgetary gain.
Public radio and television proved their independence during the 2016 presidential election by presenting every political point of view. These stations aren’t beholden to corporate constraints or shareholders. Like public libraries that provide unbiased information for all, public broadcasting is free and available to everyone.
Public radio in particular is a critical part of the nation’s communications infrastructure. While commercial radio has cut costs by consolidating its operations into one or two main hubs, public radio stations are staffed and operated live. In rural areas, public radio stations often are the only live broadcast outlet. As in Marfa during the wildfires, those stations provide vital information to their broadcast areas, and without federal funding, this crucial community function would surely disappear.
Support for public broadcasting isn’t a partisan issue. A recent national study shows that 69% of all voters oppose the elimination of government funding for public media.
We’ve been through this fight before; public broadcasting’s funding has been singled out in political battles in the past. But the Trump administration budget, which zeroes out the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, is the most serious threat to free and open public media that we have faced to date.
I hope the American people will again rally to support their public radio and television stations, reaching out to their members of Congress from all corners of the country and urging them to reject the potentially catastrophic elimination of funding.
As the budget debate unfolds, our listeners can depend on KCRW to do its part to keep them well-informed.
Jennifer Ferro is the president of KCRW.
By Jennifer Ferro
P resident Trump’s preliminary budget, released in mid-March, slashes a number of domestic programs. The one that hits closest to home for me is the total defunding of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, a private non-profit corporation created by Congress to distribute funds to the nation’s public television and radio stations. The elimination of federal funding would silence a large segment of independent and free media at a time when we need trustworthy information more than ever.
Here at KCRW, the loss would mean a $1.2-million hole in our budget each year. That translates into 12 to 15 positions and a cut to the news and public-service programming we provide on a daily basis; it represents about 5% of the station’s budget. But at a much smaller station, say the one in Marfa, Texas — a station that provided the only live, local information during recent wildfires — the loss translates into more than 30% of that budget.
CPB dollars go directly to individual stations, to local operations that cover local issues with local employees, not to the national programming or administration efforts of the umbrella organizations, NPR and PBS. At KCRW, we’ve used CPB funds to dig into Los Angeles’ homelessness boom and housing crisis, to explain complicated ballot measures facing the county and state, and to present civil debates from the left, the right and the center about politics.
Washington’s total public broadcasting appropriation represents just 0.16% of the overall federal budget. For a $1.35 annual investment per American, public broadcasting provides a robust, independent national news network that stretches from America’s urban centers to native villages in Alaska. It makes no sense to dismantle such an important institution for such a small budgetary gain.
Public radio and television proved their independence during the 2016 presidential election by presenting every political point of view. These stations aren’t beholden to corporate constraints or shareholders. Like public libraries that provide unbiased information for all, public broadcasting is free and available to everyone.
Public radio in particular is a critical part of the nation’s communications infrastructure. While commercial radio has cut costs by consolidating its operations into one or two main hubs, public radio stations are staffed and operated live. In rural areas, public radio stations often are the only live broadcast outlet. As in Marfa during the wildfires, those stations provide vital information to their broadcast areas, and without federal funding, this crucial community function would surely disappear.
Support for public broadcasting isn’t a partisan issue. A recent national study shows that 69% of all voters oppose the elimination of government funding for public media.
We’ve been through this fight before; public broadcasting’s funding has been singled out in political battles in the past. But the Trump administration budget, which zeroes out the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, is the most serious threat to free and open public media that we have faced to date.
I hope the American people will again rally to support their public radio and television stations, reaching out to their members of Congress from all corners of the country and urging them to reject the potentially catastrophic elimination of funding.
As the budget debate unfolds, our listeners can depend on KCRW to do its part to keep them well-informed.
Jennifer Ferro is the president of KCRW.
Mar 29, 2017 14:10:53 #
House passes bill to kill privacy rules
Trump poised to sign measure that repeals Internet protections.
By Jim Puzzanghera
The House voted Tuesday to kill landmark privacy restrictions for Internet service providers and sent the bill to the White House, which indicated that President Trump would sign it and invalidate the rules before they go into effect.
The measure, approved largely along party lines, repeals tough new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would require broadband companies to get explicit customer permission before using or sharing most of their personal information.
The data include health information, website browsing history, app usage and the geographic information from mobile devices. The rules also tighten data security requirements.
Republicans, along with AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and other providers of high-speed Internet service, strongly opposed the rules. They argued that the restrictions are tougher than those for websites and social networks that also collect and use the highly valuable consumer data, which companies use to target advertising.
“These broadband privacy rules are unnecessary and are just another example of big government overreach,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who sponsored the repeal bill.
But supporters of the new regulations, including Democrats, consumer groups and privacy advocates, fear that Internet service providers are assembling detailed files on their customers without their consent.
Broadband companies serve as gatekeepers for Internet access and the data they collect should receive greater protections, backers of the rules said.
“Broadband providers are in the unique position of seeing everything we do on the Internet,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), noting that Americans pay for online access and often face early termination fees to make a change.
“Consumers don’t pay to use search engines or social media applications…. If they don’t like Google’s privacy policy they can switch over to Bing without paying any fees,” she said. “But consumers can’t do that with Internet service providers.”
Trump’s election, along with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, made it possible for opponents to use a rare procedure to repeal regulations enacted by a federal agency.
House approval, by a 215-205 vote, came after the Republican-controlled Senate narrowly voted last week for the repeal measure.
The White House said Tuesday that the Trump administration “strongly supports” the repeal. The president’s advisors would recommend that he sign the bill, the White House said in a formal statement of administration policy .
The rules had been approved in October by the Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 party line vote when it was controlled by Democrats under the Obama administration.
Under the regulations, cable and wireless companies that offer broadband service would need customer approval to share all but nonsensitive data. Consumers would have to opt out of the sharing of that information.
Nonsensitive information is defined narrowly — most customer data would be considered sensitive under the FCC’s definitions.
Before the FCC gained privacy authority over broadband providers last year as part of its net neutrality rules, those companies did not have to get permission to use or share any data.
The FCC’s definition of sensitive data is broader than that of the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees privacy for search engines and social networks. The FTC said companies don’t need consent before using or sharing nonsensitive data, although customers can opt out.
Republicans and broadband companies prefer that the FTC oversee online privacy. The agency generally has less authority than the FCC.
Broadband providers said regulators should provide a level playing field with equal treatment for all companies that have access to consumers’ online data.
“I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there that somehow [Internet service providers] use online information differently from other companies in the Internet ecosystem or even have the ability to see information that others do not,” said Howard Waltzman, general counsel for the 21st Century Privacy Coalition. The group represents large telecommunications companies.
After Republicans took over the FCC’s majority with Trump’s inauguration, the agency voted 2 to 1 along party lines this month to halt the first of the new privacy regulations scheduled to go into effect the next day. That provision dealt with new data security requirements.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who voted against the rules in October, said the delay would give the agency time to consider formal requests from trade groups representing Internet service providers to reconsider the regulations.
The FCC probably would overturn the rules after such a reconsideration. But the congressional measure would invalidate the rules immediately while also preventing the FCC from issuing privacy regulations in the future that are “substantially the same.”
jim.puzzanghera
@latimes.com
Trump poised to sign measure that repeals Internet protections.
By Jim Puzzanghera
The House voted Tuesday to kill landmark privacy restrictions for Internet service providers and sent the bill to the White House, which indicated that President Trump would sign it and invalidate the rules before they go into effect.
The measure, approved largely along party lines, repeals tough new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would require broadband companies to get explicit customer permission before using or sharing most of their personal information.
The data include health information, website browsing history, app usage and the geographic information from mobile devices. The rules also tighten data security requirements.
Republicans, along with AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and other providers of high-speed Internet service, strongly opposed the rules. They argued that the restrictions are tougher than those for websites and social networks that also collect and use the highly valuable consumer data, which companies use to target advertising.
“These broadband privacy rules are unnecessary and are just another example of big government overreach,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who sponsored the repeal bill.
But supporters of the new regulations, including Democrats, consumer groups and privacy advocates, fear that Internet service providers are assembling detailed files on their customers without their consent.
Broadband companies serve as gatekeepers for Internet access and the data they collect should receive greater protections, backers of the rules said.
“Broadband providers are in the unique position of seeing everything we do on the Internet,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), noting that Americans pay for online access and often face early termination fees to make a change.
“Consumers don’t pay to use search engines or social media applications…. If they don’t like Google’s privacy policy they can switch over to Bing without paying any fees,” she said. “But consumers can’t do that with Internet service providers.”
Trump’s election, along with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, made it possible for opponents to use a rare procedure to repeal regulations enacted by a federal agency.
House approval, by a 215-205 vote, came after the Republican-controlled Senate narrowly voted last week for the repeal measure.
The White House said Tuesday that the Trump administration “strongly supports” the repeal. The president’s advisors would recommend that he sign the bill, the White House said in a formal statement of administration policy .
The rules had been approved in October by the Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 party line vote when it was controlled by Democrats under the Obama administration.
Under the regulations, cable and wireless companies that offer broadband service would need customer approval to share all but nonsensitive data. Consumers would have to opt out of the sharing of that information.
Nonsensitive information is defined narrowly — most customer data would be considered sensitive under the FCC’s definitions.
Before the FCC gained privacy authority over broadband providers last year as part of its net neutrality rules, those companies did not have to get permission to use or share any data.
The FCC’s definition of sensitive data is broader than that of the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees privacy for search engines and social networks. The FTC said companies don’t need consent before using or sharing nonsensitive data, although customers can opt out.
Republicans and broadband companies prefer that the FTC oversee online privacy. The agency generally has less authority than the FCC.
Broadband providers said regulators should provide a level playing field with equal treatment for all companies that have access to consumers’ online data.
“I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there that somehow [Internet service providers] use online information differently from other companies in the Internet ecosystem or even have the ability to see information that others do not,” said Howard Waltzman, general counsel for the 21st Century Privacy Coalition. The group represents large telecommunications companies.
After Republicans took over the FCC’s majority with Trump’s inauguration, the agency voted 2 to 1 along party lines this month to halt the first of the new privacy regulations scheduled to go into effect the next day. That provision dealt with new data security requirements.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who voted against the rules in October, said the delay would give the agency time to consider formal requests from trade groups representing Internet service providers to reconsider the regulations.
The FCC probably would overturn the rules after such a reconsideration. But the congressional measure would invalidate the rules immediately while also preventing the FCC from issuing privacy regulations in the future that are “substantially the same.”
jim.puzzanghera
@latimes.com
Mar 29, 2017 14:14:30 #
The return of ‘1984’ aims to send message
U.S. theaters plan to screen the film Tuesday in protest of Trump leadership.
By Sonaiya Kelley
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
So begins George Orwell’s dystopian drama “1984,” his 1949 novel whose popularity has surged since President Trump took office earlier this year. The book climbed to the top spot of Amazon’s bestseller list in January after Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway defended false claims about the inauguration crowd as merely “alternative facts.”
“1984” has been made into a film on two occasions, first in 1956 and later in — you guessed it — 1984. The latter version is now heading back into theaters, this time as a pointed commentary on our modern times.
On Tuesday, April 4, more than 180 art-house theaters around the country — along with five locations in Canada, one in England and one in Sweden — will screen the film in protest of Trump’s administration. Theaters in 165 cities and 43 states will host the screenings as part of a joint effort by the Art House Convergence and United State of Cinema organizations.
“A lot of us have felt that [with] the current administration, a lot of our most essential values are sort of under assault,” said Dylan Skolnick, co-director of Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, N.Y., and one of the organizers of the national screening. “In particular, things like the existence of actual facts. And ‘1984’ has had this sudden uptick in popularity because it really explores a lot of those issues.”
Originally released in its namesake year, the more recent film version of the book stars the late John Hurt as Winston Smith, a propagandist tasked with rewriting history to align with the dictates of the Party and its omniscient figurehead known as Big Brother. (The timing of the screenings is not random: April 4 is the date of the first entry in Smith’s resistance diary.)
“Orwell’s portrait of a government that manufactures [its] own facts, demands total obedience and demonizes foreign enemies has never been timelier,” a press release for the event stated, adding that the screenings encourage theaters “to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts.’ ”
“1984” will screen locally at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum and the Cinefamily, both in L.A., and the Santa Monica Public Library.
“Obviously ‘1984’ is a nightmare, but it’s also a warning,” said Hadrian Belove, co-founder of Cinefamily. “We felt that thinking about what all this means is a good thing right now.”
The screenings are free, though theaters such as Cinefamily are asking guests to donate to the ACLU. (United State of Cinema’s website, www.unitedstate ofcinema.com , has a full list of participating theaters.)
sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com
U.S. theaters plan to screen the film Tuesday in protest of Trump leadership.
By Sonaiya Kelley
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
So begins George Orwell’s dystopian drama “1984,” his 1949 novel whose popularity has surged since President Trump took office earlier this year. The book climbed to the top spot of Amazon’s bestseller list in January after Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway defended false claims about the inauguration crowd as merely “alternative facts.”
“1984” has been made into a film on two occasions, first in 1956 and later in — you guessed it — 1984. The latter version is now heading back into theaters, this time as a pointed commentary on our modern times.
On Tuesday, April 4, more than 180 art-house theaters around the country — along with five locations in Canada, one in England and one in Sweden — will screen the film in protest of Trump’s administration. Theaters in 165 cities and 43 states will host the screenings as part of a joint effort by the Art House Convergence and United State of Cinema organizations.
“A lot of us have felt that [with] the current administration, a lot of our most essential values are sort of under assault,” said Dylan Skolnick, co-director of Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, N.Y., and one of the organizers of the national screening. “In particular, things like the existence of actual facts. And ‘1984’ has had this sudden uptick in popularity because it really explores a lot of those issues.”
Originally released in its namesake year, the more recent film version of the book stars the late John Hurt as Winston Smith, a propagandist tasked with rewriting history to align with the dictates of the Party and its omniscient figurehead known as Big Brother. (The timing of the screenings is not random: April 4 is the date of the first entry in Smith’s resistance diary.)
“Orwell’s portrait of a government that manufactures [its] own facts, demands total obedience and demonizes foreign enemies has never been timelier,” a press release for the event stated, adding that the screenings encourage theaters “to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts.’ ”
“1984” will screen locally at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum and the Cinefamily, both in L.A., and the Santa Monica Public Library.
“Obviously ‘1984’ is a nightmare, but it’s also a warning,” said Hadrian Belove, co-founder of Cinefamily. “We felt that thinking about what all this means is a good thing right now.”
The screenings are free, though theaters such as Cinefamily are asking guests to donate to the ACLU. (United State of Cinema’s website, www.unitedstate ofcinema.com , has a full list of participating theaters.)
sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com
Mar 29, 2017 15:15:41 #
The Beatles-Blackbird w/Lyrics!
https://youtu.be/qokMu7BMv_8
To see the hypocrite and phony, "the Progressive One" is; these quotes and questions have been presented;
"You can tell that this is the wakeup call to action many needed.....you can see the new level of mobilization, awareness and consciousness. the freeways have been blocked with thousands out here in LA.....Trump has his work cut out for him and his racist supporters in the sticks got him there.....will not be of any help to him…" - "Progressive?" One
So it is anarchy that Progressive One is behind!
At least he is out in the open.
The "professor" is a Marxist.
https://youtu.be/qokMu7BMv_8
To see the hypocrite and phony, "the Progressive One" is; these quotes and questions have been presented;
"You can tell that this is the wakeup call to action many needed.....you can see the new level of mobilization, awareness and consciousness. the freeways have been blocked with thousands out here in LA.....Trump has his work cut out for him and his racist supporters in the sticks got him there.....will not be of any help to him…" - "Progressive?" One
So it is anarchy that Progressive One is behind!
At least he is out in the open.
The "professor" is a Marxist.
Mar 30, 2017 18:28:11 #
Floyd Brown
Loc: Milwaukee WI
Bevos wrote:
I read your first paragraph, and the next one, and... (show quote)
You show just what was wrong with the Right for the last 8 years. There was no willingness to do any thing the left wanted. & now it is all of what you have made it out to be.
SHUT UP & FIX IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE. Sorry but since you feel it was broken & know how to fix it. Just do it.
The Right has had their say & now they have on real answer.
Mar 31, 2017 00:59:13 #
eagleye13 wrote:
The Beatles-Blackbird w/Lyrics! br https://youtu.b... (show quote)
Why? Because he pointed out the fact that people are rising up to resist Trump? You equate that to anarchy? You sound like those Puritans that accuse anyone that disagrees with them of being a witch. What about the judges that are overruling him? Are they anarchists too? What about all those Republican governors that are turning their backs on him for the sake of the states they are responsible for? What about the Republicans in Congress that are refusing to rally behind him? Trump has only been in office for two months and is already breaking the record for being the most unpopular president.
Progressive One isn't talking about some backward group of anarchists eagle... He's referring an ever increasing distaste among Americans for a president that is proving to be everything his opponents feared and far less than what his supporters were hoping for.
Mar 31, 2017 08:12:00 #
Floyd Brown wrote:
You show just what was wrong with the Right for the last 8 years. There was no willingness to do any thing the left wanted. & now it is all of what you have made it out to be.
SHUT UP & FIX IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE. Sorry but since you feel it was broken & know how to fix it. Just do it.
The Right has had their say & now they have on real answer.
SHUT UP & FIX IT OR LEAVE IT ALONE. Sorry but since you feel it was broken & know how to fix it. Just do it.
The Right has had their say & now they have on real answer.
You Libs set the Policies for the last 8 years, So either GET ON BOARD WITH FIXING THEM, or GET OUT OF POLITICS!!! It should not always BE OUR JOB to FIX your SCREWUPS!!! We TRIED to tell you BEFORE you SCREWED UP, but AS USUAL you would NOT LISTEN!!!
We VETTED ALL of your Administration picks, although we did not trust some of them, but now you are paying us back by HOLDING UP ALMOST ALL OF OUR PEOPLE!!! GET ON BOARD OR GET OUT!!!
Mar 31, 2017 08:34:35 #
straightUp wrote:
Why? Because he pointed out the fact that people a... (show quote)
"Why? Because he pointed out the fact that people are rising up to resist Trump? You equate that to anarchy? You sound like those Puritans that accuse anyone that disagrees with them of being a witch." - Straight
PO's own words. Burning down buildings is Okay for you two??
Do you approve of what George Soros funds?
Are you a "teacher" also?
To see the hypocrite and phony, "the Progressive One" is; these quotes and questions have been presented;
"You can tell that this is the wakeup call to action many needed.....you can see the new level of mobilization, awareness and consciousness. the freeways have been blocked with thousands out here in LA.....Trump has his work cut out for him and his racist supporters in the sticks got him there.....will not be of any help to him…" - "Progressive?" One
So it is anarchy that Progressive One is behind!
At least he is out in the open.
The "professor" is a Marxist.
No wonder the professor avoids responding to these questions!
Why do liberals side with a Bilderberger Billionaire elitists like George "Giorgi" Soros?
PO; do you believe this should be what guides America?
“This system to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.” - Insider, Professor Carroll Quigley – ‘Tragedy and Hope’,( p. 324)
10 Things liberals ignore About "Giorgi" George Soros
https://youtu.be/tfBHYxEojZk
SOROS ROTHSCHILD RACE WAR PROPAGANDA EXPOSED
https://youtu.be/lhqqz3QFQKE
George Soros: Evil Puppet Master Exposed
https://youtu.be/1eRFTHD2CTg
Mar 31, 2017 08:37:43 #
Bevos wrote:
You Libs set the Policies for the last 8 years, So either GET ON BOARD WITH FIXING THEM, or GET OUT OF POLITICS!!! It should not always BE OUR JOB to FIX your SCREWUPS!!! We TRIED to tell you BEFORE you SCREWED UP, but AS USUAL you would NOT LISTEN!!!
We VETTED ALL of your Administration picks, although we did not trust some of them, but now you are paying us back by HOLDING UP ALMOST ALL OF OUR PEOPLE!!! GET ON BOARD OR GET OUT!!!
We VETTED ALL of your Administration picks, although we did not trust some of them, but now you are paying us back by HOLDING UP ALMOST ALL OF OUR PEOPLE!!! GET ON BOARD OR GET OUT!!!
Yep; The Swamp may get cleaned; at least there is a legitimate attempt by real Republicans:
This is the short version of "Party Politics - The FiX is in".
Written in 1992, reflecting on the previous 5 elections. Updated 2012, and now.
This is what Trump has to overcome, or be part of. Time will tell:
Party Politics, 2016, “THE FIX”:
Are we going to be served more of the same from these "two" parties? The RNC DNC Partnership?
The MSM had been touting Bush III and Clinton II from the beginning. Bush III got soundly rejected.
The DNC kept Bernie Sanders down with their “Super Delegates”. Quite the Fix.
Now the RNC and NeoCONS were getting desperate to stop Trump at all costs. Even funding Hillary to stop Trump.
The majority of Americans in both major parties have been disgusted with our government “representatives”, and what is happening in America. But they keep falling for "THE FIX" every four years.
Frustration has been spreading, and yet, will Americans fall for “The Fix” again. It is obvious something has to change; but what? To solve any problem, “the root cause” must be discovered, understood, exposed, and eliminated. In the realm of politics; exposing “the root cause” of America’s decline on any significant scale, has been unattainable. Almost all major media is directed and controlled by “the root cause” which sets “The Fix”.
Decade after decade, and election after election; the voters fall for “The Fix”. They either don’t vote out of disgust; or they vote for “the lesser of two evils”. These actions and non- actions have put America where it is today.
America continues on its downfall because the “voters” have not figured this out.
Give thought to “The Fix”:
The Democratic Party promotes a variety of liberals/socialists, “progressives”, and the Republican Party promotes a variety of “Conservatives”; many are covert global socialists/NeoCONS - Bush Sr. and his “New World Order” was one example.
Under both parties, our Constitutional Republic (not democracy), has been decimated. The Constitution and the principles that made our country the most prosperous, and the envy of the world, has been replaced with a semi-covert agenda for global socialism. The internationalist NWO is being put in place by both political parties. They have become a partnership with the ruling elite/Big Money.
Few Americans understand the purpose of the globalist agenda; but most politicians believe in it, or have sold out to it. That is why their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution have been meaningless to most of them.
“The Root Cause” of our country’s decline; is the privately owned Federal Reserve System (banks), and their control of our money and economy. The perpetrators are the internationalist bankers, whose policy it is, to create a global socialist “New World Order”. With their vast wealth, main stream media control (ownership), control of “public” education, and control of the party apparatus; they are able to ensure that both parties will nominate candidates that will carry out their agenda. With this control, the people fall for “The Fix”; out of disgust they either don’t vote, or they feel compelled to vote for “the lesser of two evils”, – banker backed “A” or “B”. The voters are told; “no one else can win”, “don’t Waste your vote”. The past and current scam used on Republicans by the “ Republican” RNC/PTB, is to convince the voters of “who is the most electable against Obama”. Will it work again? It didn’t this time.
Trump overcame that strategy. How refreshing for those that figured that out . It had to be someone the Bankers know is in their camp (Goldman Sach's Romney was the last selection), to ensure that their agenda is carried out by either party.
That agenda is a One World totalitarian socialist government (A New World Order); to be administered by their Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Trilateral Commission (TC) front men.
They have given us warnings in the past:
A couple Council on foreign Relations CFR & Trilateral Commission TC Quotes* *
** “An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal attack" – Richard Gardner , Ambassador to Italy - (CFR) Foreign Affairs, April, 1974
** “Actions at the multinational level will be needed, if the process of international relocation of industries is to be accelerated in an organized fashion.” - TC Report #23, 1982
Mar 31, 2017 09:14:12 #
I don't understand WHY they think it is UP TO US to FIX THEIR SCREW-UPS?? Is it because they KNOW they are not intelligent enough to do it? or because we have just always had to do it so they THINK that is just our job??
Mar 31, 2017 13:21:40 #
Bevos wrote:
I don't understand WHY they think it is UP TO US to FIX THEIR SCREW-UPS?? Is it because they KNOW they are not intelligent enough to do it? or because we have just always had to do it so they THINK that is just our job??
Do you mean the same way the last two Dems had to fix the economy after W's 1 & 2 fked it up?
Mar 31, 2017 13:44:46 #
Sabotaging Obamacare again
R epublicans often suggest that Obamacare is “collapsing” without ever acknowledging the role they’ve played in undermining the law and the state insurance exchanges it created. They have an opportunity now to do even more damage to those exchanges — and to their constituents — by reneging on Obamacare’s commitment to help low-income Americans afford care.
Congressional Republicans set up this situation by trying to evade an obligation Congress created in the 2010 law (also known as the Affordable Care Act). The law makes low-income Americans who are not covered by an employer’s group plan eligible both for tax credits to lower their premiums and for subsidies to reduce their out-of-pocket costs. Without that assistance, poor families may not be able to afford to see a doctor even if they have insurance.
The ACA requires insurers who sell on the exchanges to provide the “cost-sharing” subsidies to eligible policyholders. It also requires insurers to be reimbursed by the federal Treasury, but Congress failed to appropriate money for that purpose. When the Obama administration paid the insurers anyway as required by law, the House of Representatives sued to block the payments, arguing that the administration had usurped Congress’ power of the purse. The House won in District Court, but the ruling was put on hold pending an appeal.
Trump could end the subsidies instantly by abandoning that appeal and cutting off the payments; his administration has not committed one way or the other. And if Trump cuts them off, there seems little chance that congressional Republicans who’ve been trying for years to “defund Obamacare” will agree to revive them.
The stakes are enormous. The possibility of the government reneging on $7 billion or more in annual cost-sharing subsidies leaves insurers with two bad options: They can abandon the exchanges to avoid providing the subsidies, potentially leaving millions of people uninsured, or they can build the cost of the subsidies into their premiums. Doing the latter would raise premiums for everyone buying an individual policy in a state — one insurer, Molina Healthcare, estimated that 12% of its revenue last year came from these payments. It would also drive up the cost for U.S. taxpayers of the premium tax credits, which increase in size as premiums rise. In California, where roughly half of the people buying insurance through the exchange receive cost-sharing subsidies, premiums would have to go up by about $800 million.
If Republicans in Washington really do want to protect their constituents from higher premiums and reduced competition among insurers, killing the cost-sharing subsidies would be exactly the wrong thing to do. With insurers now deciding what to charge for their policies in 2018 — or whether to offer them at all — Trump and congressional leaders need to make clear that they will, in fact, do what the law requires.
R epublicans often suggest that Obamacare is “collapsing” without ever acknowledging the role they’ve played in undermining the law and the state insurance exchanges it created. They have an opportunity now to do even more damage to those exchanges — and to their constituents — by reneging on Obamacare’s commitment to help low-income Americans afford care.
Congressional Republicans set up this situation by trying to evade an obligation Congress created in the 2010 law (also known as the Affordable Care Act). The law makes low-income Americans who are not covered by an employer’s group plan eligible both for tax credits to lower their premiums and for subsidies to reduce their out-of-pocket costs. Without that assistance, poor families may not be able to afford to see a doctor even if they have insurance.
The ACA requires insurers who sell on the exchanges to provide the “cost-sharing” subsidies to eligible policyholders. It also requires insurers to be reimbursed by the federal Treasury, but Congress failed to appropriate money for that purpose. When the Obama administration paid the insurers anyway as required by law, the House of Representatives sued to block the payments, arguing that the administration had usurped Congress’ power of the purse. The House won in District Court, but the ruling was put on hold pending an appeal.
Trump could end the subsidies instantly by abandoning that appeal and cutting off the payments; his administration has not committed one way or the other. And if Trump cuts them off, there seems little chance that congressional Republicans who’ve been trying for years to “defund Obamacare” will agree to revive them.
The stakes are enormous. The possibility of the government reneging on $7 billion or more in annual cost-sharing subsidies leaves insurers with two bad options: They can abandon the exchanges to avoid providing the subsidies, potentially leaving millions of people uninsured, or they can build the cost of the subsidies into their premiums. Doing the latter would raise premiums for everyone buying an individual policy in a state — one insurer, Molina Healthcare, estimated that 12% of its revenue last year came from these payments. It would also drive up the cost for U.S. taxpayers of the premium tax credits, which increase in size as premiums rise. In California, where roughly half of the people buying insurance through the exchange receive cost-sharing subsidies, premiums would have to go up by about $800 million.
If Republicans in Washington really do want to protect their constituents from higher premiums and reduced competition among insurers, killing the cost-sharing subsidies would be exactly the wrong thing to do. With insurers now deciding what to charge for their policies in 2018 — or whether to offer them at all — Trump and congressional leaders need to make clear that they will, in fact, do what the law requires.
Mar 31, 2017 13:48:32 #
Untangling Trump’s foreign dealings
By Richard W. Painter
T he House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on government transparency last week. On the agenda: bills that put government data into more accessible, readable formats; that subject mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Freedom of Information Act requests; and that require an audit of the Federal Reserve.
These are fine ideas, but none comes close to dealing with the lack of transparency at the top of our democracy.
Although we know that Russia tried to help put President Trump in power through a sophisticated computer hacking operation, and that the FBI has information suggesting some of Trump’s campaign operatives may have collaborated with the Russians, we still do not have even the most basic information about the president’s or the Trump Organization’s financial dealings with the Russians or with any other foreign power.
The reason for this is simple — the president has not released his tax returns. He doesn’t have to; there’s no law forcing his hand, although every other president since the 1970s has done so. As a candidate, Trump filled out Form 278, which is a financial disclosure statement that presidents, candidates for president and other senior executive branch officials must file annually. But Form 278 alone, without Trump’s tax returns and given his refusal to truly divest from his businesses, is not sufficient.
Many of the Trump Organization entities are set up so as not to pay their own corporate income tax but to pass through profits and losses to their owners, principally President Trump. Information about the profits and losses, including debt payments, of Trump corporations and limited liability companies is included on his personal tax returns. If there were, say, several million dollars a year in interest paid each year on a loan from an opaque Russian entity financing Trump Organization businesses, that information would have to be disclosed on his tax return in order for him to deduct the interest.
Very little of such Trump Organization information is captured by Form 278. This is because it has nothing to do with taxes. It reports only the personal assets, income and liabilities of whoever must fill it out, not of the entities that he or she controls.
In the president’s case, even if he could take a tax deduction for interest payments by a Trump-controlled corporation or LLC to a foreign lender, he would not have to disclose this on his Form 278 because it is not “his” loan. Unless the loan is set up so that he is personally liable — and we know from past reporting on his business dealings that he does not like to do that — it does not have to be disclosed. (The interest paid may reduce the overall earnings reported, but the amount of the loan and the identity of the lender would remain concealed.)
Form 278 also does not require disclosure of the identities of other business partners in Trump’s corporations and LLCs. If there is capital infusion in a Trump business from a foreign sovereign wealth fund, for instance, you won’t find that on Form 278 because technically it is not a direct payment to Trump but rather to a corporate entity controlled by Trump.
Congress should amend the statute governing Form 278 to require more disclosure of debts, capital infusions and revenues of corporations, LLCs and other entities controlled by high-ranking office holders.
We are entitled to know, for example, about any foreign payments that have been flowing to or from senior officials, including the president, who are responsible for our intelligence operations and national defense. We are similarly entitled to information about foreign money going to or from officials who negotiate trade agreements, whether the president or the U.S. Trade Representative.
It may not seem necessary to extend the collection of this information beyond the president, since all other high-ranking officials are subject to criminal conflict of interest prosecution. Those laws mean that such officials tend to sell any controlling corporate interests that might relate to their duties when they enter public service. Nonetheless, it would be better if Form 278 expressly asked them as well as the president to disclose such interests.
With regard to President Trump, Russian money is what we are most concerned about now, but we also want to know more about his financial connections in the Middle East and China as well.
In addition to amending Form 278, Congress should use its subpoena powers to get the president’s tax returns and to demand other relevant information from the Trump Organization. This cannot wait. If anyone helped the Russians conduct hostile spying activities in the United States to disrupt the 2016 election, that person probably committed treason. Although we should assume that the president had nothing to do with such a conspiracy unless proven otherwise, we do have a right to know about his business dealings abroad, including his possible dealings in the very same country that took such extraordinary measures to harm us.
Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, was chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.
By Richard W. Painter
T he House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on government transparency last week. On the agenda: bills that put government data into more accessible, readable formats; that subject mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Freedom of Information Act requests; and that require an audit of the Federal Reserve.
These are fine ideas, but none comes close to dealing with the lack of transparency at the top of our democracy.
Although we know that Russia tried to help put President Trump in power through a sophisticated computer hacking operation, and that the FBI has information suggesting some of Trump’s campaign operatives may have collaborated with the Russians, we still do not have even the most basic information about the president’s or the Trump Organization’s financial dealings with the Russians or with any other foreign power.
The reason for this is simple — the president has not released his tax returns. He doesn’t have to; there’s no law forcing his hand, although every other president since the 1970s has done so. As a candidate, Trump filled out Form 278, which is a financial disclosure statement that presidents, candidates for president and other senior executive branch officials must file annually. But Form 278 alone, without Trump’s tax returns and given his refusal to truly divest from his businesses, is not sufficient.
Many of the Trump Organization entities are set up so as not to pay their own corporate income tax but to pass through profits and losses to their owners, principally President Trump. Information about the profits and losses, including debt payments, of Trump corporations and limited liability companies is included on his personal tax returns. If there were, say, several million dollars a year in interest paid each year on a loan from an opaque Russian entity financing Trump Organization businesses, that information would have to be disclosed on his tax return in order for him to deduct the interest.
Very little of such Trump Organization information is captured by Form 278. This is because it has nothing to do with taxes. It reports only the personal assets, income and liabilities of whoever must fill it out, not of the entities that he or she controls.
In the president’s case, even if he could take a tax deduction for interest payments by a Trump-controlled corporation or LLC to a foreign lender, he would not have to disclose this on his Form 278 because it is not “his” loan. Unless the loan is set up so that he is personally liable — and we know from past reporting on his business dealings that he does not like to do that — it does not have to be disclosed. (The interest paid may reduce the overall earnings reported, but the amount of the loan and the identity of the lender would remain concealed.)
Form 278 also does not require disclosure of the identities of other business partners in Trump’s corporations and LLCs. If there is capital infusion in a Trump business from a foreign sovereign wealth fund, for instance, you won’t find that on Form 278 because technically it is not a direct payment to Trump but rather to a corporate entity controlled by Trump.
Congress should amend the statute governing Form 278 to require more disclosure of debts, capital infusions and revenues of corporations, LLCs and other entities controlled by high-ranking office holders.
We are entitled to know, for example, about any foreign payments that have been flowing to or from senior officials, including the president, who are responsible for our intelligence operations and national defense. We are similarly entitled to information about foreign money going to or from officials who negotiate trade agreements, whether the president or the U.S. Trade Representative.
It may not seem necessary to extend the collection of this information beyond the president, since all other high-ranking officials are subject to criminal conflict of interest prosecution. Those laws mean that such officials tend to sell any controlling corporate interests that might relate to their duties when they enter public service. Nonetheless, it would be better if Form 278 expressly asked them as well as the president to disclose such interests.
With regard to President Trump, Russian money is what we are most concerned about now, but we also want to know more about his financial connections in the Middle East and China as well.
In addition to amending Form 278, Congress should use its subpoena powers to get the president’s tax returns and to demand other relevant information from the Trump Organization. This cannot wait. If anyone helped the Russians conduct hostile spying activities in the United States to disrupt the 2016 election, that person probably committed treason. Although we should assume that the president had nothing to do with such a conspiracy unless proven otherwise, we do have a right to know about his business dealings abroad, including his possible dealings in the very same country that took such extraordinary measures to harm us.
Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, was chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.
Mar 31, 2017 13:49:42 #
‘You kind of keep your head down’
Trump backers share survival skills in a blue state
DONALD TRUMP, then a candidate, greets supporters at a rally at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa in April 2016. “You can’t be very loud about it,” one man said about being a Trump voter. (Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times) ED RING and his wife, Maggie, used to get together once a month with two longtime friends. After Trump’s win, the relationship ended. (Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times)
By Mark Z. Barabak
SAN FRANCISCO — For nearly 20 years, Ed Ring and his wife, Maggie, got together once a month or so for dinner and conversation with two longtime friends.
But something happened last summer: Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination.
Soon after, Ring recalls, their dinner conversation grew tense. How, the couple demanded, could he possibly support Trump? Then a few weeks later, to Ring’s surprise, his old friends made it known their relationship — and dinner dates — were over.
“‘I don’t want you around my children,’ ” Ring, who calls himself a moderate Republican, remembered the wife telling him as she broke off the friendship in a message on Facebook.
“That really hurt,” said the 59-year-old Sacramento writer and policy analyst, still smarting months after the election. (The couple, contacted through Ring, declined to be interviewed.)
It’s not easy being a Republican in California, where the Grand Old Party could soon join the Yosemite toad and Mohave ground squirrel on the list of threatened species. It’s harder still being a Republican in left-leaning strongholds such as Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
But it’s hardest of all living in those blue bulwarks and supporting President Trump.
Living behind the Blue Curtain requires certain survival skills, backers of the president say. No bumper stickers, lest someone key your car. No signs, in the window or planted on your front lawn, to prevent vandalism. Steer clear of Facebook and other online forums, and don’t discuss politics in the real world if you can help it.
“You kind of keep your head down,” said Danny Turner, 29, a Trump supporter in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco who waits tables as he prepares to launch a stock-picking newsletter. “You can’t be very loud about it.”
He learned that when someone in Turner’s Livermore neighborhood put up a Trump lawn sign last fall and had their car and home plastered with blue spray paint. The word “fascist” — misspelled, Turner said — was left as a calling card on the sidewalk out front.
Trump received just under 600,000 votes in the nine-county Bay Area and nearly 200,000 more in nearby Sacramento County. That’s more than his totals in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
Still, he was swamped by Democrat Hillary Clinton, who carried California in the biggest landslide since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Here in San Francisco, Trump won a blink-and-you-missed-it 9% of the vote. Across the bay, where Turner lives in Alameda County, he mustered just 15% support.
In those liberal bastions of California, supporters of the president stand out like red pinpoints on a vast blue canvass — if, that is, they’re willing to reveal themselves publicly.
“Someone gave me a Donald Trump T-shirt with Tupac on it,” Turner said, referring to an improbable pairing of the president with the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who attended high school in the Bay Area and claimed Oakland as his home. “It’s pretty funny.”
He has yet to wear it outside, however.
Living as a political pariah has dampened what might otherwise be a time of celebration — the end, as some Trump supporters see it, of a dark eight-year period in the country’s history.
Dee Dee, 66, a part-time substitute teacher in Contra Costa County, where Trump scratched out 25% of the vote, said for years she put up with grating talk about the virtues of President Obama and, more recently, Democratic presidential nominee Clinton. (She asked that her last name not be published, to avoid harassment.)
When Trump won, she said, the lunchroom conversation turned to shock and horror, and pretty soon that grew tiresome as well. “I finally said, ‘Excuse me, I’d like to have a safe zone where I can come and eat peacefully and not listen to all this moaning and groaning.’ ”
Gloating, of course, would be out of the question. “You don’t bring up the subject,” she said.
Clinton’s landslide margins in California are part of a broader social and political trend, as Americans continue to sort themselves into like-minded enclaves.
Across the country, more than 6 in 10 voters cast ballots in counties that backed Clinton or Trump with at least 60% support. About half the voters lived in such landslide counties in 2012, compared with fewer than 40% in 1992.
Of the nation’s 3,113 counties or their equivalent, less than 1 in 10 — just 303 — were decided by single digits, said David Wasserman, an elections analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Even in bluest California, where they make up a distinct minority, not every Trump supporter feels oppressed or intimidated.
Katy Grimes, 54, a reporter and Sacramento columnist for the Flash Report, a conservative blog, proudly wears a pink camo baseball cap and a tank top emblazoned with “Make America Great Again” on runs through her Land Park neighborhood.
“I don’t make it a secret at all,” she said of her fervent Trump support, though she has a hard time understanding the hostility that abounds in the leafy, upscale community near the Capitol. “People here — neighbors, friends — they’re just seething.” (Trump won 34% of the vote in Sacramento County.)
She’s heard some gasps and endured some hisses as she sports her pro-Trump regalia, Grimes said, but no one has tried to mess with her. “I do have a big German shepherd,” she said.
As for Ring, the Sacramento policy analyst, he managed to salvage at least one long-standing relationship. For a time, he said, he feared his pro-Trump stance had gotten him banned from the home of another close friend, who’d been the best man at his wedding. “I was pretty upset,” Ring said, but after he posted a lament on Facebook his chum’s wife called to say it was all just a misunderstanding and he was welcome to visit.
Still, he’s proceeding with caution.
“We probably won’t talk about politics,” Ring said, “and if we do it will be because she wants to. I will not bring the subject up.”
mark.barabak@latimes.com
Trump backers share survival skills in a blue state
DONALD TRUMP, then a candidate, greets supporters at a rally at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa in April 2016. “You can’t be very loud about it,” one man said about being a Trump voter. (Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times) ED RING and his wife, Maggie, used to get together once a month with two longtime friends. After Trump’s win, the relationship ended. (Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times)
By Mark Z. Barabak
SAN FRANCISCO — For nearly 20 years, Ed Ring and his wife, Maggie, got together once a month or so for dinner and conversation with two longtime friends.
But something happened last summer: Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination.
Soon after, Ring recalls, their dinner conversation grew tense. How, the couple demanded, could he possibly support Trump? Then a few weeks later, to Ring’s surprise, his old friends made it known their relationship — and dinner dates — were over.
“‘I don’t want you around my children,’ ” Ring, who calls himself a moderate Republican, remembered the wife telling him as she broke off the friendship in a message on Facebook.
“That really hurt,” said the 59-year-old Sacramento writer and policy analyst, still smarting months after the election. (The couple, contacted through Ring, declined to be interviewed.)
It’s not easy being a Republican in California, where the Grand Old Party could soon join the Yosemite toad and Mohave ground squirrel on the list of threatened species. It’s harder still being a Republican in left-leaning strongholds such as Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
But it’s hardest of all living in those blue bulwarks and supporting President Trump.
Living behind the Blue Curtain requires certain survival skills, backers of the president say. No bumper stickers, lest someone key your car. No signs, in the window or planted on your front lawn, to prevent vandalism. Steer clear of Facebook and other online forums, and don’t discuss politics in the real world if you can help it.
“You kind of keep your head down,” said Danny Turner, 29, a Trump supporter in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco who waits tables as he prepares to launch a stock-picking newsletter. “You can’t be very loud about it.”
He learned that when someone in Turner’s Livermore neighborhood put up a Trump lawn sign last fall and had their car and home plastered with blue spray paint. The word “fascist” — misspelled, Turner said — was left as a calling card on the sidewalk out front.
Trump received just under 600,000 votes in the nine-county Bay Area and nearly 200,000 more in nearby Sacramento County. That’s more than his totals in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
Still, he was swamped by Democrat Hillary Clinton, who carried California in the biggest landslide since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Here in San Francisco, Trump won a blink-and-you-missed-it 9% of the vote. Across the bay, where Turner lives in Alameda County, he mustered just 15% support.
In those liberal bastions of California, supporters of the president stand out like red pinpoints on a vast blue canvass — if, that is, they’re willing to reveal themselves publicly.
“Someone gave me a Donald Trump T-shirt with Tupac on it,” Turner said, referring to an improbable pairing of the president with the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who attended high school in the Bay Area and claimed Oakland as his home. “It’s pretty funny.”
He has yet to wear it outside, however.
Living as a political pariah has dampened what might otherwise be a time of celebration — the end, as some Trump supporters see it, of a dark eight-year period in the country’s history.
Dee Dee, 66, a part-time substitute teacher in Contra Costa County, where Trump scratched out 25% of the vote, said for years she put up with grating talk about the virtues of President Obama and, more recently, Democratic presidential nominee Clinton. (She asked that her last name not be published, to avoid harassment.)
When Trump won, she said, the lunchroom conversation turned to shock and horror, and pretty soon that grew tiresome as well. “I finally said, ‘Excuse me, I’d like to have a safe zone where I can come and eat peacefully and not listen to all this moaning and groaning.’ ”
Gloating, of course, would be out of the question. “You don’t bring up the subject,” she said.
Clinton’s landslide margins in California are part of a broader social and political trend, as Americans continue to sort themselves into like-minded enclaves.
Across the country, more than 6 in 10 voters cast ballots in counties that backed Clinton or Trump with at least 60% support. About half the voters lived in such landslide counties in 2012, compared with fewer than 40% in 1992.
Of the nation’s 3,113 counties or their equivalent, less than 1 in 10 — just 303 — were decided by single digits, said David Wasserman, an elections analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Even in bluest California, where they make up a distinct minority, not every Trump supporter feels oppressed or intimidated.
Katy Grimes, 54, a reporter and Sacramento columnist for the Flash Report, a conservative blog, proudly wears a pink camo baseball cap and a tank top emblazoned with “Make America Great Again” on runs through her Land Park neighborhood.
“I don’t make it a secret at all,” she said of her fervent Trump support, though she has a hard time understanding the hostility that abounds in the leafy, upscale community near the Capitol. “People here — neighbors, friends — they’re just seething.” (Trump won 34% of the vote in Sacramento County.)
She’s heard some gasps and endured some hisses as she sports her pro-Trump regalia, Grimes said, but no one has tried to mess with her. “I do have a big German shepherd,” she said.
As for Ring, the Sacramento policy analyst, he managed to salvage at least one long-standing relationship. For a time, he said, he feared his pro-Trump stance had gotten him banned from the home of another close friend, who’d been the best man at his wedding. “I was pretty upset,” Ring said, but after he posted a lament on Facebook his chum’s wife called to say it was all just a misunderstanding and he was welcome to visit.
Still, he’s proceeding with caution.
“We probably won’t talk about politics,” Ring said, “and if we do it will be because she wants to. I will not bring the subject up.”
mark.barabak@latimes.com
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