America - The Battle Begins

Last night, Donald Trump gave a fine speech to Congress, laying out a clear plan. Now, he has to get it past Congress. The Democrats will vote against anything he proposes. Well, you say, the Republicans control Congress.

True, but many don't like what he proposes. Let's look at a few items. He wants to increase defense spending and lower taxes. How? By cutting certain social programs. The GOP leaders want to attack Social Security and Medicare, Trump ha vowed not to do that. Instead he wants sharp reductions in EPA funding, IRS funding, student loan programs, and medical research funding. The EPA and IRS are beaurocratic nightmares. He might get those reductions through. Student loans make parents, otherwise known as voters, happy, so that will be tough. In fact, any parent who is remotely sane and cannot afford the ridiculous prices of many colleges, will insist that the kids go to a Community College. Then, if they do well, they can transfer to a relatively low cost State school and, thus enter their adult life without a mountain of debt.

Medical research is a huge, fat cow. Of course we want to cure diseases and big Pharmaceutical companies lead the research. The folks make unthinkable amounts of money and have no need for research subsidies. They do not need this. In addition, there are a plethora of private charities supportin research on various diseases. We do not need tax money given to these projects,  but, as I will explain soon, Congress needs the money kicjed back by big drugs to keep their seats.

Trump also wants to cut foreign aid and that ha startled many neo-cons, such as McConnell and Rubio. Well, we now have President who dies not want to play Risk, the game of Global Conquest that Republicans have been at for years. If you stop the game, why do we need the foreign aid? If we have to buy friends, they are not friends. To help the poor in those lands? No. Most aid money goes immediately in the pockets of the leaders, enabling them  to live lives of luxury and to build massive armies. We do not want impoverished, backward nations to have big militaries. We did that in Afghanistan with the Taliban when they fought Russia and, in the long run, that has been a disaster.

The truth is, the programs Trump wants to cit bring money back to our elected representatives, in the form of campaign contributions, They cannot keep their seats without it and Lord knows they are loathe to give up their power. That is sick and one reason why we need term limits.

America - Merry Christmas

We have truck terrorism in Germany, a plane hijacking in Malta. a shooting in Switzerland, an assassination in Turkey. Russia is modernizing its nukes and Trump is insisting we do the same. Clinton supporters are still whining and a few are trying to impeach Trump before he takes office.

China is kvetching about The Donald. Obama is blaming the news media for his woes. Syria has basically been demolished, and Iraq is still fighting. ISIS  is calling for the Holiday bombings of Churches. Indonesia, Germany and Australia have just arrested several suspected terrorists and the Tampa, Fl. police have busted a guy in the process of building a bunch of bombs.

Heroin is rampant and the NY cops just busted some folks with 250 pounds of psychedelic mushrooms.  No one has a clue what we are going to do economically and Congress is ready to go after most of the Cabinet appointees, when they're not busy investigating the ubiquitous Clinton emails.

My solution? For the next few days, forget the whole mess. There is not one thing you can do about any of it. Sit back and enjoy the Holidays.

Merry Christmas to one and all, and have a Happy, prosperous New Year.