Time will tell... but what will it say?

Less than two years ago, actually one year, ten months and eleven days ago to be exact, on June 25, 2015, those of us who had health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, celebrated when the Supreme Court ruled for the second time that the ACA was constitutional.  Many of us would have lost our insurance if the ruling had gone the other way because the subsidies which helped pay for health insurance would no longer be available in States like Florida, where I live, and any other States that had refused the Medicare expansion or refused to set up its own healthcare exchange.

While the Republicans had continually challenged and attempted to repeal the ACA from the moment it passed Congress and was then enacted March 23, 2010, we always knew we had one solid wall of protection:  President Obama would always veto any attempt to repeal his landmark legislation.  Democrats in Congress had been willing to commit what amounted to "political suicide" in order to ensure that every person had affordable healthcare.  Such a pro-life attitude from the political party that has been so demonized for not being pro-life.  Democrats did indeed pay the price for their votes with losses in the mid-term elections which gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election and the Senate in the 2014 election.  Still though, we had President Obama to protect us.

During the 2016 election, there was so much on the line.  Healthcare, equal rights, women's rights, just to name a few.  Every vote would matter and every vote would determine not just the future of the United States, but the future of its citizens.  Those of us who understood all that could be lost and all the would be jeopardized did our best to encourage everyone to elect Hillary Clinton.  She would protect the rights we had gained just as President Obama had.  Rights that included the freedom to marry whomever we love even if the one we love happens to be the same sex as us because on June 26, 2015, a decision handed down by the Supreme Court stated that marriage between same sex couples cannot be denied in any State.  Rights that included women making their own choices regarding their bodies and having access to all types of medical care through Planned Parenthood.  Hillary Clinton also understood that the fight for equal rights for all was far from over and we still had far to go.  But one barrier, the highest glass ceiling, would have been shattered with the election of Hillary Clinton as the first woman President of the United States.

As the election results came in on November 8, 2016, those of us who had voted for Hillary Clinton, who looked forward to celebrating her victory and her leadership were shocked that she had lost.  Mixed in with that shock was some sense of dread.  Those of us who depended on the Affordable Care Act for insurance knew that with Republicans in control of the Presidency and Congress there was no one to protect us from losing our healthcare.  No one to protect the millions of people who would suffer, whether they realized it or not, without affordable healthcare.  No one to ensure that people could afford to go to the doctor, pay for prescriptions and not be bankrupted by illness.

Thursday May, 4, 2017, Republicans in the House of Representatives finally achieved what they had been promising since March of 2010.  They passed their own healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act to replace the ACA.  A bill which will negatively affect millions of Americans regardless of whether they have insurance through the ACA, their employers or even Medicare.  The ones who will benefit most from this new bill are the wealthy who will receive a tax cut and business who will no longer have to provide insurance,  Additionally businesses can "shop around" for the States with the lowest basic requirements for insurance coverage.

There is some hope that the Republican controlled Senate will not vote for the current bill but will write their own bill.  If that happens, then members from the House and Senate will meet to write another bill which must then be passed by the House and Senate before reaching the President's desk for his signature.  The hope is that the new bill will not pass the House because of  whatever changes were made.  There is also some hope that the bill would never pass the Senate because no Democrat will vote for the bill.  However by using reconciliation, which would mean a simple majority of 51 votes rather than the necessary 60 votes, Republicans in the Senate could succeed in passing the bill.

Time will tell whether the Republicans will be successful in passing their own healthcare bill before the 2018 elections.  If they have not passed a bill before the 2018 elections, will everyone who will lose healthcare benefits end Republican control of the House or Senate or both?

Time will tell... and in the mean time... millions of people wait to see what happens, knowing their fate is the hands of people who are trying to take away their health insurance.

So time will tell, but what will it say?

We are women... with a long, long way to go

In 1968, the Phillip Morris Company launched one of its most successful ad campaigns when it introduced a cigarette designed for women and used the slogan "You've Come a Long Way Baby" despite the fact that women still had far to go in the fight for rights and equality.  The 1970s were not a time of "hope and change", they were a time of hope for change.  Glass ceilings were not shattered, but little cracks began appearing.  Cracks that would ultimately lead to shattering glass in some places but not all.

In 1970, the Mary Tyler Moore show aired and was considered ground-breaking because it was depicted a single women with a career making her own decisions with no boyfriend or fiance by her side.  When the Mary Tyler Moore Show ended, "Mary Richards" did not marry the man of her dreams and go off to live happily ever after.  Rather she and most of her co-workers had been fired and faced the prospect of finding new jobs.

In 1971, a singer from Australia named Helen Reddy released a song she had co-written entitled "I Am Woman" which would become the anthem of the women's rights movement.  In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the States for ratification.  The premise of the Equal Rights Amendment was quite simple: women and men would be treated equally under the law.  The United Nations declared 1975 International Women's Year and used Reddy's song as the theme.

One of the many issues women struggled with during the 1970s was equal pay for equal work despite the fact that the Equal Pay Act had been passed by Congress and signed into law in 1963  In 1972, the Mary Tyler Moore Show addressed this issue.  “Mary Richards” discovers that she is being paid less money than the man who had previously been in her position at the newsroom. When she asks “Lou Grant” about the disparity in pay, she is told that the reason she is paid less is because the man needed to make more money. She, of course, is dismayed, but cannot really do anything.

Moore's show was not the only show to address the issue of equal pay.  In 1977, Alice, the comedy starring Linda Lavin, also addressed the issue when Mel hired a man and paid him more money.  The waitresses quit, but came back to work.  Mel's solution was not to give the waitresses more money but to give the man less money.

More woman were elected to office on both the State and Federal level making more and more inroads into places that had previously been male only.  In my former home State of Massachusetts, in the district next to mine, Sharon M. Pollard defeated the incumbent in the 1976 election to become the first woman to be elected to the State Senate from that district and one of five female Senators when she was sworn in to office.

Interestingly some of the biggest opponents to changes for women were women themselves. In the 1970s, Erma Bombeck, beloved writer whose newspaper columns were posted on many refrigerator doors, spoke out in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment, she defined it in the most simple terms, “one size fits all”. Yet not only were there women who opposed her for her pro ERA stand, there were some who accused her of being part of the problem because of her writing. Mary Tyler Moore, whose show was considered ground-breaking in its depiction of a single woman who was not dependent on a man, was criticized for not being more “militant”.

But those were the 1970s and things surely changed as a result of of the women's movement.  Well, in 1995, just twenty-two years ago, the words “Someday a woman will be PRESIDENT” were printed on a t-shirt along with a drawing of Margaret, with a happy expression, from the Dennis the Menace comic strip. Those words were enough to get that shirt removed from Walmart because some shoppers found them offensive. I read about the incident in a magazine. I was stunned to think that in the mid 1990s the idea of a woman being President of the United States offended anyone. I immediately went in search of the shirt which I found at another store. I wore that shirt proudly for awhile then put it away and wore other shirts. Ah, but that was the mid 1990s and things are different now, right?

Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Presidential election despite winning the popular vote because she did not receive enough votes in the "swing States" to win the Electoral College vote.  She was the first woman to be nominated by a major political party as its Presidential candidate.  There were women who objected to being told they should vote for her just because she was a woman.  I certainly understand their position.  I would not vote for a woman just because she was a woman.  As Senator John McCain found out when he chose Sarah Palin, women do not vote for a candidate just because she is a women.  Ironically though, some women will vote for for a candidate just because he's a man.

But back to Hillary Clinton and women objecting to being asked and/or told they should vote for her because she was a woman.  Hillary Clinton was not "just a woman" running for political office.  She was the most qualified, most prepared and most ready to lead candidate that this country has seen in our lifetimes.  The fact that a candidate so well suited and prepared for office was a woman should have drawn women to support her cause, not rally women against her because they felt they were being asked to vote for her "just because she was a woman".

Oh they will say that there were other reasons they refused to support her.  That she was flawed.  That she never should have been the candidate in the first place and on and on and on.  But regardless of what they say, she was the first woman who had the best chance to shatter that highest glass ceiling.  She was far more qualified than her male opponent.  While there were many factors which contributed to her loss, the fact that she is a woman placed more obstacles in her way and imposed unbelievably high standards on her which men have never experienced.

On the day after the inauguration of the current President, there was a massive Women's Rights March held throughout the country.  One reason for the march was that with the election of the current President and Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House of Representatives, women's rights were on a fast track to be reversed.  One of the people who attended the Women's Rights march in Los Angeles was Helen Reddy and yes, she sang "I Am Woman".

Ah yes, "I am woman, hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore", the opening lines of that song.  But she did not sing all the verses.  One of the lines from the verse she did not sing was:

"But I'm still an embryo with a long, long way to go until I make my brother understand..."

Forty-six years after Helen Reddy's song was released, women are no longer embryos.  But we still have "a long, long way to go..."

He thought it would be easier....

This is not the post I had planned to write today.  That one will have to wait.  This post is, once again, a response to statements made by the current President.  In an interview with Reuters Thursday April 27, 2017, The President said he thought being President would be easier than being a businessman.  Who would have thought that?  Who might have imagined and/or considered that being the President of a country would be a difficult job?  Well, someone with a background in politics might have had a clue.  Someone with an understanding of how the government works might have had an inkling.  Someone with an understanding of the Constitution, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches and the concept of checks and balances might have had an indication.

Electing someone from the business sector with zero political experience was clearly not the wisest choice because the United States Government does not run like a business.  There is no Chief Executive Officer.  There are no Board of Directors and absolute power resides with no one person and no one branch of government.  Nor does it run like a dictatorship.  It runs like a government struggling with and at times paralyzed by partisan politics due to the loss of centrists and moderates.

Electing someone from the business sector with zero political experience who then chooses advisers who have limited to no political experience makes the job even more difficult.  While it is not impossible for someone to make the transition from the corporate world to the political world, it is extremely difficult to make that transition competently without taking the time to at least become familiar with the basics of how the government runs prior to announcing the intention to run for office.  Politics is never something to be done on a whim.  Campaign promises and rhetoric should never be spewed from the mouth like lava from an uncontrollable erupting volcano just for the sake of applause and popularity.

Along with not realizing how difficult being President would be, the current President also admitted that he knew nothing about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, more commonly known as NATO, when he repeatedly called NATO obsolete.  A simple web search would have enabled him to connect to the NATO web site and find out even some basic information.  Now that he knows what NATO is and what it does, he has decided it is no longer obsolete and is actually a good organization.

Throughout his campaign he vowed to "repeal and replace failing Obamacare" on day one of his Presidency.  With his Republican Party in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act might not have happened on day one, but certainly there was the expectation that it would happen.  But "repeal and replace" has not happened.  The first attempt was met with widespread resistance from the Republican members of the House of Representatives for a variety of reasons including the bill being too harsh for some and not harsh enough for others.  "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated" was the current President's response for the Republicans in the House of Representatives being unable to secure the votes to pass the bill.

The negative responses to the President's statement were swift, many and well-deserved.  Anyone who had been paying any attention at all to the previous fight to pass health care knew how hard getting the Affordable Care Act was.  As a businessman with companies and employees who would be affected by the passage and enactment of the Affordable Care Act, one would think the current President would have had some knowledge about the difficulties of getting health care legislation passed and enacted.  But like so many other issues and topics that he spoke about during the campaign, this was yet another one about which he was woefully uninformed.

His ignorance regarding trade and global politics and dealing with foreign countries, whether allies or adversaries, is not just something that can be excused or overlooked due to his lack of political experience.  He has made statements which have caused tensions with our allies and not just Mexico over payment for a wall.  His statements and tweets are both reckless and dangerous not just for the citizens of United States but for the citizens other countries, including our allies.  In that same Thursday night interview, he also said that there could be "major, major conflict with North Korea."

That is the kind of statement responsible, thoughtful Presidents simply do not make to the Press or in any public forum unless there is grave danger and action must be taken.  Those words will not be taken by the North Koreans as some sort of warning that they should behave.  Those words will be perceived as a threat and North Korea's justification for accelerating their nuclear arms program.  Additionally and just as important, those words have placed our allies who are geographically close to North Korea in more danger.  The missiles North Korea has already developed can easily hit targets in South Korea and Japan.

Of course we could have chosen a President who was knowledgeable and well-informed with diplomatic experience.  A President who knew our allies and adversaries as well as all the risks involved in attempting to negotiate with both friendly and hostile leaders.  A President who understood that making compromises may be the only way to move forward and that making idle threats, reckless statements and attempting to bully people can have dangerous consequences.  But that candidate did not get elected despite receiving more popular votes.

There were emails and an FBI investigation that proved there was no wrongdoing yet was mysteriously reopened in days before the election only to once again result in no wrongdoing. There was that "pay for play" scandal that never happened but drew widespread media attention and coverage and that money from GoldMan Sachs for speeches.  There was Russian interference with an avalanche of fake news and thirty years of hate perpetuated by the Right and accepted by some on the Left.  There was the certainty that the candidate would lead us into war.  There was also one other fact: the candidate was a woman.

So the woman who was prepared, competent and qualified lost to the man who was unprepared, incompetent and unqualified.

There are no words to describe how tragic this is.  Whatever happens as a result of the actions of the current President, his administration and this Congress to our country and our citizens, to other countries and their citizens, to our planet and to our environment will not only rest heavily on the shoulders of the current President, his administration and Congress, but on all those who voted for him and his party as well as those who voted third party and those who did not vote.

The hate goes on... but love still trumps hate!

The hate goes on,

the hate goes on.

From the Right and the Left

the hate rolls on.

La-de-da-de-de

La-de-da-de-di

The title for this post as well as the words above were inspired by Sonny and Cher's song "The Beat Goes On".  The impetus for writing this post came from a video which was shared on Twitter and Facebook.  The video was Secretary Hillary Clinton's speech Thursday April 20, 2017 at a luncheon The Center, which is a LGBT community center.  Secretary Clinton was being honored with the TrailBlazer award.

In her speech, Secretary Clinton called for vigilance in protecting and continuing the fight for equal rights in the LGBT community.  She doubted that the current President and his administration would continue to push for or defend those rights.  She called on those attending the luncheon, as well as the wider audience who would watch the video of her speech to never quit. “I know that the election hit a lot of us hard. But I can tell you this: Even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your head, please keep going.”

That speech would certainly rile up the Hillary Clinton haters on the Right because anything Secretary Clinton says angers them.  But how could such a speech possibly cause anger and consternation on the Left?  That just does not seem possible, does it?  Yet that is exactly what happened.  Comments on Facebook and Twitter were not just from those who applauded her words and thanked her for once again speaking up and speaking out for those causes about which she cares so deeply.  Comments were also authored by those who disdained her words with traces of the never actually expressed but still heard sound of boos.

Once again there were those calls for Secretary Clinton to go away and be quiet.  Once again, the anti-Clinton block on the Left expressed their dismay that she was giving another speech, despite the fact that she was addressing a critical concern for not only the LGBT community, but for everyone who believes in equal rights.  Once again she was criticized for not supporting LGBT rights soon enough and accused of only "jumping on the bandwagon" when it was politically expedient.  Evolving on issues is apparently not acceptable to some people.

Perhaps they were born with every political, philosophical, social and economic position etched in stone in their minds.  But just as we all age and grow and our bodies change, so too, for some of us, do our political, philosophical, social and economic positions grow and evolve over time.  For some of us, the idea of changing political, philosophical, social and economic positions as we move through life experiences demonstrates an evolving and positive view.  For others, perhaps, a narrowing and negative view.  The former is typically lauded while the other typically causes concern.

For some on the Left that is not the case with Secretary Hillary Clinton.  She is not given credit for changing her mind and broadening her views or lending her powerful voice to crucial causes.  Rather she is vilified yet again and accused of political posturing.  Ah yes, the hate rolls on...

Yet still, after all the vitriol, after election results which shocked Secretary Clinton's supporters, after continued Hillary-bashing in the media, on Facebook, on Twitter, in a newly-released book and from some on the left, a poll indicates that eighty-five percent of people who voted for Secretary Clinton would vote for her again.  The reason for this is quite simple actually.  As Secretary Clinton said over and over again:

Love trumps hate!

And yes Hillary Clinton's supporters still love her!

She will continue to speak!  She will continue to be a leader and role model!  Her supporters will continue to follow her, not like mindless beings incapable of having an original thought or unable to discern truth from lies, but as strong people standing behind one fierce woman.

Being anti-immigrant was not always a Republican Party virtue

The reports of families being torn apart as ICE agents take mothers and/or fathers away from their children tear at the hearts of anyone who has compassion to understand that what is happening is an outrage.  People whose only crime is the desire to find a better life, to embrace the hope offered by a woman in a harbor holding a torch and with these words from Emma Lazarus in the base,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

are being removed as are those who have committed what is at best insignificant misdemeanors, while DREAMers face deportation for foolish youthful mistakes.  The deportation program that was supposed to remove "bad hombres" has quickly become the "round them up and get them out whether they could be considered "bad hombres" or not.  While various voices have risen up and spoken out against these outrageous and unfair deportation policies, other voices have remained silent, most notably those voices in the Republican Party.

Perhaps that is not surprising.  Perhaps that is to be expected from a political party whose Presidential candidate stirred up the voting base with anti-immigrant speeches.  Perhaps that is to be expected now that the candidate is President.  But anti-immigration was not always a Republican Party virtue.

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln, who would become the first Republican Party President, wrote in a letter to Joshua Speed:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

The Know-Nothing Party were anti-immigrant and gained political power in some States.    In their party platform of 1856, they stated that Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all State, Federal and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others. They also called for "A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers,and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners."

Abraham Lincoln could have decided that he not only wanted to change his own views on restricting immigration and naturalization but also try to influence the Republicans Party in Congress to enact legislation to restrict immigration and naturalization.  Irish immigrants not only joined the Democratic Party and voted against Republicans but also were pro-slavery.  But Abraham Lincoln held fast to his belief that immigration must continue, that immigrants must be welcomed and nothing must stand in the way of naturalization.

The Republican Party platform of 1860 stated "That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws or any state legislation by which the rights of citizens hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad."

Election loss was all Hillary Clinton's fault according to new book.

There is a new book out about why Hillary Clinton lost the Presidential campaign.  Although I have not read the book, I have seen some excerpts and descriptions. The book is entitled Shattered and was written by two journalists.  The new book provides details about problems within the Clinton Presidential campaign including in-fighting.  The blame is placed squarely on Hilary Clinton's shoulders.  She lost the election that was hers to win.  She alone is responsible "period" according to a tweet from Chris Cillizza.

Those who dislike Hillary Clinton must be thrilled at knowing they were right and she was not.  She did not run her campaign the right way.  She did not find the right message.  She did not communicate the right way.  She did not focus on what was really important.  She did not connect with the right voters. So many things she could have done differently and just did not.  Then there was the emails on the private server fiasco.  She never should have used a private server.  She should have known better.  She handled the revelations about the emails on the private server wrong.  If that wasn't bad enough, there was that whole Clinton Foundation pay for play scandal.  Yes, indeed, everything was her fault.

How wonderful that those two journalists are able to provide full and complete absolution to the Republicans who have vilified Hillary Clinton for more than two decades.  Those Republicans and their constant barrage of lies were never the problem, Hillary was.  How wonderful that those two journalists are also provide full and complete absolution to some Democrats who also vilified Hillary Clinton during the primary elections.  Those Democrats riling up voters to oppose Hillary Clinton to then have to try to convince those same voters to support Hillary Clinton were never the problem, Hillary was.  How wonderful that those two journalists are also able to provide full and complete absolution to the media who devoted more time to chasing a phantom email scandal and a phantom "pay for play" scandal rather than searching for the truth about what certainly looks to be a very real Russian interference and possible collusion scandal.  The media played no role in influencing voters' opinions of Hillary Clinton. It was Hillary.  How wonderful that those two journalists are able to provide total and complete absolution to the Russians who, at the very least, targeted voters on both ends of the political spectrum with fake news about Hillary Clinton.  That had nothing to do with the results of the election, nor did F.B.I. Director Comey's last minute reveal about the possibility of problems with newly found emails on another computer.  None of those events were the problem.  It was Hillary.  Hillary was also the one to blame for the misogyny that permeated the election.  After all she was born a female and not a male.

Must be a special feeling to be able to take the responsibility of an election loss and place the blame squarely on the shoulders of one person: Hillary Clinton.

Fortunately Hillary Clinton has strong shoulders.  She also has supporters who will stand by her side and speak the truth all day day, every day!

President Abraham Lincoln died April 15, 1865

One hundred fifty-two years ago today, on April 15, 1865, President Lincoln died shortly after 7:00 in the morning.  The President had been shot in the back of the head the night before while he attended a play at Ford's theater.  Then, as now, Christians around the world and in the United States were observing Holy Saturday.  President Lincoln had been shot on Good Friday.  With the shooting happening on Good Friday, there were some comparisons between Christ's death and President Lincoln's death.  Christ died to atone for the sins of the world and President Lincoln died to atone for the sins of his country.

The United States does not commemorate and/or remember either the day President Lincoln was shot nor the day he died in any special way.  There is no mention of either day on the calendar.   Perhaps those two days have faded from the collective memory of the country as those who had been alive at the time passed away.  Now only those groups dedicated to preserving the memory of the sixteenth President commemorate April 14 and April 15.  Perhaps the same will be said in the future of November 22, 1963, and the assassination of President Kennedy.  As those of us who were alive at the time of President Kennedy's death pass on, so too may the yearly recollections of that fateful day in Dallas.

Should the citizens of the United States still remember and/or commemorate either the day the President Lincoln was shot or died or both days?  Is there a reason to do so?  President Lincoln's election resulted in the secession of eleven southern States.  The United States had been torn apart and the President was faced with a choice: let the southern States go or accept a war to try to hold the country together.  The President chose to accept a war even though he knew the end result could be two separate countries.  Why did he choose war?  Why did he continue the war despite being deeply troubled and moved by the deaths and injuries sustained by the soldiers?

The answer is quite simple actually.  President Abraham Lincoln believed that the United States was just that, a united country.  He also believed that if the country could not remain whole and united, then democracy could not survive.  For the President, that was not an acceptable option.  The hopes enshrined in the Declaration of Independence must be preserved.  The government created by the Constitution must continue, bruised and battle tested and flawed though it might be, still the President believed it was the "last best hope of earth."

At Gettysburg he had called on his fellow Americans to join with him to ensure "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth."  He died for those beliefs and for that dedication to this country, its democracy and its promises of hope and equality.

Isn't that worth remembering?