This Is It! A Way to Avoid Another President Donald J Trump!

 At last! I found it! I found the answer and way for us all to avoid any second Donald J Trump, President.

Amend the Constitution to Prevent Another Trump

This man, Rohit Aggarwal, wrote this in Bloomberg News, thank goodness! Here's the meat of the article:

A 28th constitutional amendment could keep this from happening again. First, an amendment should work against conflicts of interest by making the disclosure of tax returns well before Election Day an eligibility requirement for federal offices. And it should expand the Constitution's emoluments clause, which bars the president from accepting gifts or favors from foreign states, to explicitly include the president and his or her immediate family, and cover businesses held directly and indirectly.

The amendment should replace the Office of Government Ethics with a new entity that's responsible jointly to the president and both houses of Congress, charged not only with establishing ethics regulations but also with suspending officials who violate them. It should institutionalize the independence of the Justice Department by making the attorney general an officer who serves at the pleasure of both the president and Congress, thereby ensuring that attorneys general would not be able to do active harm for very long.

Finally, the amendment should prevent presidents from pardoning themselves, their families, their staffs and campaign officials, and perhaps even major donors to their campaigns. It should eliminate the ability to grant pardons between Election Day and the beginning of the next presidential term.

Simple. Intelligent. Important. Necessary, as we have seen these last four years.

Let's do this, America. Get the word out to your government representatives.

Cut Medical Information Funding in the Midst of the Worst, Most Killing Pandemic in More Than 100 Years??

I can't even believe what I read and what I see.

Trump administration seeking to block funding for CDC, contact tracing and testing in new relief bill: report

The Trump administration is attempting to block billions of dollars for contact tracing, additional testing and other coronavirus mitigation efforts that would potentially be included in Congress's next coronavirus relief package, officials involved in the negotiations told The Washington Post.

Think about this.

During the worst, most killing international and national pandemic in the last more than 100 years, this Republican Party President Trump actually wants to actually BLOCK FUNDING for the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control on contract tracing and testing in a pending new relief bill.

I'm gobsmacked.

With this excuse for leadership, is it any wonder we, the United States, reputedly the wealthiest nation in the world, has the most cases and deaths, both, of any nation in the world?

Keeping in mind this was, is the knucklehead who took us, the US out of the WHO, the World Heatlh Organization in this same pandemic so it's not a total surprise, especially with all the other absurd, reckless, ignorant, even dangerous things he's done while in office and in this nightmare of a Presidency.

Meanwhile, also just now, today, this.

Colorado governor calls national testing 

'a complete disgrace'

Also this. He's in denial. Still. In denial about all of it.

Trump downplays virus, disputes bad polls in testy interview with Fox's Wallace

And here's the truth, the facts.

Undermining the CDC Puts Lives at Risk

Meanwhile, here's what's happening locally, in Missouri just now.

Missouri reports largest one-day increase 

of COVID cases

And this is what's going on across the nation and world.

U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Top 140,000 As World Sets Daily Record In New Cases

Coronavirus updates: 16 states break records for new cases in one week, one-day global record also reported; ERs becoming flooded in US

Coronavirus updates: 

South Carolina breaks record for new cases

But yeah, cut funding to our national medical community.  Freaking brilliant.

At least if he really were assisted and placed in this position of the Presidency by Vladimir Putin and Russia, at least that would make sense for why he seems to, time and again, set out to destroy us, destroy us all, destroy our nation, to tear it and Democracy down.

Thanks, Mr. President?

Thanks, Republicans?

More of Just How Unprecedented this Presidency and His Administration Are

It's hard to keep up with the news of just how, exactly, as I said in the title above and as I've said here before, how not just unprecedented but completely, totally unprecedented this Trump Presidency and his administration are.

There have been the unprecedented protests of the administration, widespread and nationwide but also worldwide, even before he became President. Then there were, have been, the protests against him, personally, ever since, up to today.

There is the fact that he's known to have paid for the service of at least one female "escort", if not more than one.

There's the fact that both he and people in his presidential campaign and now, again, in his administration, have worked and do work with our self-sworn enemy, Vladimir Putin and the Russians.

Then there is the fact that this President takes money in, on the side, as it were but literally, in his official, public position, as leader of the nation, from many businesses, hotels, etc., from across the nation and globe. Which, by the way, goes against our very Constitution, given the important-to-a-lot-of-us Emoluments Clause.

Next, additionally, there is the fact that this President has put people in charge of government agencies they were, up to that point and date, vehemently, publicly against.

Senate Panel Approves EPA Critic Scott Pruitt to Head Agency

Oh, yeah, Scott Pruitt is a real beauty, he is.

Scott Pruitt Wined and Dined a Catholic Cardinal Accused of Sexual Abuse to Talk Climate Change

Scott Pruitt Rejects the Scientific Fact of Climate Change

Scott Pruitt is the target of no less than 

10 federal investigations

Trump picks former Eli Lilly exec Alex Azar to head HHS

Here's just some of his head of HHS' handiwork:

Trump’s pick to head HHS drove up insulin prices at Eli Lilly

Then there is the spending of Trump's government picks.

Scott Pruitt's $43000 

soundproof phone booth

Ben Carson's explanation f

or the $31,000 dining set 

He wants to take us, the nation, backward, into the past, and does it two ways, not just one.

Trump pledged to revive coal industry

Trump's Tariffs on Solar Mark Biggest Blow 

to Renewables Yet

There was the big man's famous phone call.

Trump Congratulates Putin, 

but Doesn't Mention Meddling in U.S. Elections

He attacks the press--repeatedly, continually and famously. Or rather, infamously.

Trump launches second day of attacks 

against the media

He attacked his own, our own FBI.

Trump attacks FBI and Mueller investigation 

in morning tweets

He attacked his own, our own Justice Department. And more than once.

Hear Trump attack the Justice Department again

Heck, he attacks businesses and businessmen.

Trump Attacks Amazon, Saying 

It Does Not Pay Enough Taxes

Trump continues attacks on Amazon

Trump attacks Amazon, again, 

over U.S. postal rates

Trump attacks Jerry Brown, Jeff Bezos, 

then hits the links

Heck, this President Trump has even verbally, publicly attacked American Veterans.

All those times President Trump dishonored 

U.S. veterans and military

Tester touts support for vets 

after Trump attacks

Then there's all his vacations.

Trump's travel costs during his first year 

exceed 13 million dollars

Trump visited his properties over 100 times 

this year

Heck, this President and his administration are so bad, even Right Wing, Republican Party-owned Fox goes against them at times.

Watch ‘Fox & Friends’ anchors take apart White House over McCain insult

Now, today, there is this.

Trump pledges to help Chinese phonemaker ZTE ‘get back into business’

Just who, exactly, is this guy working for?

Well, I mean, who is he working for besides the already-wealthy and corporations, anyway.  That we much know. Here's what his and his Republican Party's very recent tax plan, tax cuts for the already-wealthy and corporations are doing to us all.

How the Republican tax bill benefits the rich

How the Republican tax law hurts the poor 

and helps the rich

Why the GOP Tax Bill Will Make 

Wealth Inequality Worse

Here's how they did it.

Senate Passes Massive Tax Cuts For The Rich 

In Middle Of The Night

And here's the effects their tax cut plan has had so far.

Under Trump's watch, national debt 

tops $21 trillion for first time ever

One thing is for sure. Warren Harding and Richard Nixon, both, together and separately, have nothing, nothing on this guy. He outdoes them both, hands down.

And it's only the first year and a half of this Presidency.

God help us. God help us all.

How Pathetic and Desperate--and Wasteful--This Republican Congress is Presently

The Republicans in Congress are so desperate to take the nation's attention off their/our bumbling President, they're resorting to old tricks. Nearly unbelievable. Check this out.



House Republicans launch new probes into Obama-era Uranium One deal, FBI handling of Clinton case


They investigated Hillary Clinton over and over in Congress, each time coming up with absolutely nothing, nothing illegal, wasting thousands of manhours and millions of dollars and still they want to do this all, one more time. Again.

But just yesterday, they did this.

Senate Overturns Rule That 

Helped Customers to Sue Banks

So they're legislating more and yet more for business, in this case, the banks, the big banks, and so, against the people, against you and me, "Mr. and Mrs. America", so to speak. They're also setting in motion yet more wasteful investigations. Then, trying to deflect our attention from the boob that is the defacto head of their political party, our President at the moment.

This is no way to run a nation.

What little they're doing, folks, is patently not for you and me and the nation overall.

Link:

The GOP Just Blocked Americans from Filing Class Action Suits Against Predatory Banks

It Looks Very Bad This Weekend For the Trump White House

There have been a few articles that came out this weekend about Trump's White House and Robert Mueller's investigation of any illegality and possible collusion with the Russians to win the presidency.

Here's the first and it's pretty huge:

Mueller just obtained a warrant that could change the entire nature of the Russia investigation

Here's just a part of it. It seems to implicate Trump's son-in-law, too, on influencing the election, first, but with and through Facebook and the Russians as well as the Republican Party:

"'This is big news — and potentially bad news for the Russian election interference 'deniers,' said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI counterintelligence agent.

Rangappa, now an associate dean at Yale Law School, explained that to obtain a search warrant a prosecutor needs to prove to a judge that there is reason to believe a crime has been committed. The prosecutor then has to show that the information being sought will provide evidence of that crime."

It goes on:

"The Facebook warrant "means that Mueller has concluded that specific foreign individuals committed a crime by making a 'contribution' in connection with an election..."

Here's another.

New details about major Russian money laundering probe raise the stakes of Trump Tower meeting

The Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager in June 2016 was representing a client under scrutiny in an ongoing criminal investigation related to a money-laundering case opened in 2013 by former US Attorney Preet Bharara.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian prosecutor with ties to the Kremlin, was representing the real-estate company Prevezon Holdings in a civil suit filed by the US government in the Southern District of New York when she visited Trump Tower on June 9, 2016.

Prevezon, which is owned by the son of a powerful Russian government official, was part of a parallel criminal investigation, according to court documents filed late last year. A person familiar with the matter told Business Insider that the criminal case was ongoing, corroborating a Bloomberg report published earlier Friday.

The criminal investigation had not yet been disclosed when Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Bharara in March, and there was no mention of it when the civil case was settled in May for $5.9 million.

The Bloomberg report mentioned broke Friday.

Russia Laundering Probe Puts 

Trump Tower Meeting in New Light

Not stopping there, hopefully there will be an examination of the end of a money-laundering case by someone in this administration--Trump's own Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

House Democrats want to know why a major Russian money-laundering case was abruptly settled

And let's not forget this, from just back in July:

Trump dictated son's misleading statement 

on Russian meeting

It looks for all the world as though we may very well be starting to see the end of this presidency, fellow Americans.

Another Way Raising the Minimum Wage Only Makes Sense

It's been pointed out that raising the minimum wage would, besides helping the worker, also increase demand for goods and services in the nation, thereby helping and improving the economy. That would help companies' incomes, their profits and so, their bottom line.

Underpaying Employees Can Hurt 

a Company's Bottom Line

McDonald's Wage-Hike Experiment 

Pays Off For All

And this is why the minimum wage needs to be raised:

For most workers, real wages have 

barely budged for decades

But it has been shown that, because of an increased demand for goods and services, a higher minimum wage actually increases jobs and reduces unemployment.

2014 Job Creation Faster in States that 

Raised the Minimum Wage

This Is What Raising the Minimum Wage 

Did to Jobs in 11 States

Raising the Minimum Wage Can 

Reduce Unemployment

The evidence is clear: increasing the 

minimum wage doesn't cost jobs

You'd think that would be enough but as they used to say on "Saturday Night Live", but wait, there's more.  There's now this, too:

Raising the minimum wage could improve 

public health

It only makes sense.

Burgeoning research in economics and epidemiology suggests that raising the minimum wage will improve the health of many Americans, especially low-income Americans, and this improvement should help bend the cost curve for medical care.

In a paper published by the University of Chicago Press, David Meltzer and Zhou Chen analyzed the relationship between obesity rates and the minimum wage, using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from 1984-2006. The BRFSS interviews more than 350,000 adults each year, making it the largest health survey in the world. Meltzer and Chen test whether changes in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage are associated with changes in body mass indexes of adults. They find that gradual erosion in the inflation-adjusted value of minimum wages across states explains about 10 percent of the increase in average body mass since 1970. DaeHwan Kim and I found additional evidence that low wages predict increases in obesity in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID is a nationally representative sample of 5000 American families, who have been followed since 1968 by the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center.Obesity is estimated to cost $190 billion in medical bills each year. A 10 percent decrease in obesity would result in a $19 billion of savings every year.

But it is not just obesity that may be affected by increasing the minimum wage; mental health can be affected, as well. The British government increased the national minimum wage in 1999. To measure its effects on public health, Reeves et al analyzed data on 279 workers in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Their “experimental group” consists of 63 workers directly affected by the new wage and two “control groups”: 107 workers with incomes 10 percent above the minimum who were not directly affected by the increase, and another group of 109 workers employed in firms that did not comply with the new law. All 279 persons completed short mental health questionnaires as part of the BHPS. The “experimental group” (those who received the mandated minimum wage increases) reported improvements in anxiety and depression, but neither control group experienced improvements.

And there are more, other ways, too, the article shows that the health of individuals are improved. The clear results from that for a nation, possibly for us here in the US could be both improved productivity AND reduced health costs. Each, in their own right, are huge benefits to the nation to our economy and to the lives of the individuals, the Americans that get these benefits.

With all this, it seems clear raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do and for all the right reasons. Even businesses themselves get it.

Businesses Agree—It's Time To Raise 

the Minimum Wage

3 Out of 4 Americans Agree: It's Time to 

Raise the Wage

Religious organizations recognize it, too. This from U.S. Catholic:

Pay up: It's time to raise the minimum wage

So it's time, America. It's long past time. We need to raise the minimum wage. Let's get to it.

On This Labor Day...

On this Labor Day, let’s ensure large corporations pay the taxes they owe us. When they do, we’ll be able to grow our economy and invest in workers and our communities.

Americans for Tax Fairness

When the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share, we’ll create millions of good paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and water systems, investing in a clean energy future, supporting our children and their education, and researching new medical cures.

Together we are fighting for a tax system that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.

Thank you and happy Labor Day weekend.

Frank Clemente
Executive Director

Links:

27 giant profitable companies paid no taxes

15 Fortune 500 Companies Paid No Federal Income 

Taxes in 2014

20% of big companies pay zero corporate taxes - Apr. 13, 2016

1 in 5 big U.S. companies pay no federal income tax

More Than 90% Of US Businesses Don't Pay The 

Corporate Income Tax

Apple Avoiding Taxes In Ireland

Google Joins Apple Avoiding Taxes With Stateless Income

How Google-Apple-Facebook Avoid Paying Taxes

Google Moved Billions Of Dollars To Bermuda To Avoid Taxes... Again

Two Huge Sources and Reasons for Hope

I saw two media releases yesterday that gave me hope for the future of electricity and reducing pollution and carbon emissions. And then there's the hope for humankind.

First this from Bill McKibben and his 350.org group and The New Yorker:

Power to the People

Why the rise of green energy makes utility companies nervous.

A little bit from the article.

Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.

The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

Oh, yeah.

Hope.

Secondly, this. I wrote about this a year or two ago, the hope it can and would and should mean for us. This is from Bloomberg Business News.

Invisible Solar Cells That Could Power 

Skyscrapers

Can you imagine skyscrapers, creating their own energy, their own electricity?

Can you imagine how the owners and/or developers of these things would virtually line up to have their huge, towering buildings create their own electricity?

The saved, unused, uncovered Earth since we wouldn't need as many "solar farms," covered in panels?

Can you imagine the savings?

Can you imagine the reduced pollution and carbon emissions?

Then imagine lowered--possibly drastically lowered--energy bills?

One day, getting away from hydroelectric dams, jamming up our rivers?

Imagine.

The Right Wing, Republican Stupidity in Two Neighboring Midwest, "Red" States

More and more, it gets additionally embarrassing seeing and reporting on what takes place in Missouri and Kansas state capitols. First, it was what was happening financially, fiscally, in Kansas, what with their Governor Sam Brownback and all the Republican legislators there giving tax breaks to the wealthy (think Koch brothers) and corporations and putting the tax burden on the backs of the middle-, lower- and working classes, instead.

And we've all seen how that played out:

Brownback’s Tax Cuts Prompt S&P to Reduce Kansas’s Rating

And this:

Kansas Moves to Close Budget Shortfall Following Tax Cuts

So the Right Wingers slashed tax revenues for the wealthy and corporations, ruined the budget, created budget shortfalls and where do we find they're going after budget cuts?

Education Is Newest Target of Kansas Budget Cuts

So there was all that stupid and then they went and did this, helping guns and gun owners recently:

Open carry now legal all across Kansas

There apparently weren't enough guns already in Kansas so their legislators thought it an excellent idea to make it legal to allow everyone--EVERYONE--to "open carry weapons, including those with no weapons training. From the article;

On Tuesday, the state's new open carry law allowed anyone who wants to carry a gun on their holster to do so.

People in the state of Kansas have always been allowed to openly carry weapons, but over time, cities like Prairie Village made it illegal.

On Tuesday, lawmakers made open carry laws equal with concealed carry laws: it is uniformly legal now in every city across the state.

Private businesses can still forbid it, but public spaces like parks and municipal buildings must allow it.

Cities have four years to prepare their city halls for open carry laws.

Isn't that just a little ball of brilliance? As though there weren't, as I said, already enough weapons in our society. This has the capability of making Kansas far more like the old stereotype of the "wild, wild West." Guns everywhere, guns on every hip. Yeehaw.

Not to be outdone, Missouri has just gone on their own gun tirade. From The Kansas City Star yesterday:

Reckless gun measures threaten public safety in Missouri and Kansas

A circuit court judge in St. Louis last week ruled that a convicted felon had the right to keep a loaded pistol in his vehicle, thanks to a constitutional amendment that Missouri lawmakers proposed and voters approved in 2014. If other courts reach the same interpretation, the state will lose a crucial law enforcement tool.

The amendment was drafted by lawmakers as yet another gesture to affirm to voters — and gun manufacturers — that they will tolerate no restrictions on the right of citizens to bear arms.

The amendment makes two exceptions: The state can limit the rights of convicted “violent” felons or those decreed by a court to be a danger because of a mental illness.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article12721739.html#storylink=cpy

So now, Missouri's legislators are deciding it's somehow a good to great idea to have felons still be able to own and carry--openly carry--weapons and hand guns. Because liberty, I guess. Liberty and 'Merica!, right?  

It's difficult to not satirize and lampoon ideas like these--and the people who create them and carry them out or try to.

To whom does this make sense?  To whom is this remotely a good idea?

The tax and financial ideas and legislation in Kansas was given warnings for how reckless, if not foolish it was and would be and what the consequences would be. We've seen, for the last 30 years, how "trickle down economics" not only doesn't work but ends up creating deficits and budget shortfalls and debt.

And now, with guns and weapons. 

If you do a Google search on "Harvard study on guns", you can and will find a long, long list of studies that show more guns equals more shootings and more killings, more death.

It only makes sense.

The studies document it across states, across the nation and across the planet, worldwide. It only stands to reason. Yet here, in Kansas and yes, in Missouri, too, there are legislative pushes for more and more weapons because darn it, we have our Second Amendment, all those rights and they shouldn't be encumbered in any way.

We should be smarter than this. 

We should be smarter than all of this, guns, budget and all.

Talk about a race to the bottom.  And it's an ugly race. And there are no winners.

Well, no winners except the already-wealthy and the gun nuts, anyway.