How Low Will We Go?

Well for those that may have missed it, our Commander-in-Chief  once again took to Twitter and called possible presidential candidate, Joe Biden, “Another low IQ individual.”  Bet many think this is cute or funny.  However, this is yet the latest example offered up by our president of the type of cyberbullying that we as parents are trying to extinguish in our kids.

Some may seek to legitimize our President’s Twitter behavior  because they feel that a 73 year old can’t really be considered a cyberbully.  To most, cyber bullying is perceived as only occurring among adolescents.  Consequently they dismiss President Trump’s aberrant behavior and simply laugh at it.

 

However, Parry Aftab, a specialist in cyberbullying, claims that such behavior in adults can exist and categorizes adult cyber bullying as flamers, trolls, or cyber harassers.   He states that, “Flamers use inflammatory language and profanity in hopes of eliciting a reaction. Trolls are a bit more sophisticated, starting full-blown arguments by saying derogatory or offensive things about certain people or groups.  Cyber harassers engage in those same types of behaviors but repeatedly target the same individuals.  Accordingly, Trump has participated, based on my observations, in all three (categories).”

Further evidence that cyberbullying occurs not just among teens, is noted in a recent nationwide poll which found that over 40 percent of adults in the U.S. have been bullied online.  People are maligned in many ways, including name calling, and insults based upon looks, disabilities, race, gender, or sexual orientation.  Unfortunately President Trump loves to focus heavily on three of these types in his tweets.

The societal consequences of President Trump’s cyberbully is clearly evident in the enlightening statements made by Justin Patchin, a criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin.  He stated, “If the president believed that his tweets would cause people not to vote for him, he wouldn’t do it.  It’s not just that he’s not worried about political or social backlash, but, more than that, he must think it’ll benefit him in some way.”

And sadly, therein is the problem with our society today, the blanket acceptance of the President’s behavior.  Are we afraid we might offend Trump if we criticize him for cyberbullying?  He is arguably the most important person in the world, more people listen to him, and his words can have far broader consequences than hurt feelings.    I bet if our president often spoke with profanity every evangelical organization in the U.S. would loudly condemn such behavior.

Obviously we don’t accept such behavior in our kids but we give President Trump a free pass.  It’s up to the community to make it clear to Trump, the bully, that bullying is unacceptable.  It’s on all of us.

Even Melania Trump gives her husband’s behavior a free pass.  Our first lady has made it her mission to help eliminate cyberbullying worldwide and yet when she was asked about her husband’s behavior her spokeswoman’s responded, “When her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.”

So I guess the message for all our children should be, “If someone bullies you, bully them worse?”

How hypocritical our latest president has made us all become.  How much lower will we go before we as a society “draw a line in the sand?”  I keep asking this question and still have no answer.

The Real Fake News

The other day I was speaking with a Trump supporter friend of mine who was celebrating how Trump was finally doing something about what he referred to as “the dead beats on welfare” by implementing a work requirement to receive SNAP benefits.  He lamented the fact that it was long over do.

My friend was referring to the implementation of the welfare assistance requirement that any non-disabled adult, between the ages of 18 and 49, with no dependents, receiving SNAP benefits be required to work a minimum of 20 hours per week, or be enrolled in a job training program or in school. Failure to do any of these would result in termination of benefits after three months.

Once again my friend was so consumed by the FOX News Trump propaganda that he was totally unaware of the fact that such a requirement has been in place since 1996. Of course he didn’t believe me and accused me of espousing “fake news,” but after he Googled it he apologized.

His Google search also found that built into the 1996 SNAP work requirement was an exception that allowed states to forgo the requirement if their unemployment rate was so high that the likely hood of even finding a part time job was remote. 

   

Additionally, my friend being a staunch conservative has regularly professed how our Constitution should be followed to the letter of the law, and that the previous administration always ignored that fact.  I pointed out that the present administration was not much better and used his current misinformed argument about the SNAP work requirement as an example. 

 In 2018 both houses of Congress by overwhelming bipartisan votes (87 vs 13 in the Senate, and 369 vs 47 in the House) renewed the SNAP funding and left in place the waiver that the states can invoke.  Please remember that both houses of Congress at that time were controlled by the Republicans.

However, in typical monarchial fashion President Trump has decided to intentionally disregard the democratic principles stated in our Constitution and ignore the mandate of Congress by directing his Secretary of Agriculture, whose department is charged with implementing SNAP, to disregard the state waiver clause when funding the states.  Staunch constitutionalist? Don't think so

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I laughed when I reminded my friend of the old adage “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” 

Back to Make America Great Again

Once again President Trump and his supporters have denied facing the realities regarding the recent “Build the Wall” debacle.  There are four crystal clear facts that must be acknowledged.

President Trump insisted on numerous occasions in his bid for the presidency that, “Mexico will pay for the wall and not one dime of taxpayer’s money will be used to finance it.”  Didn’t happen.

A second fact has also emerged.   After Trump’s T.V. declaration that he would, “own a government shutdown,” and take “full responsibility for a shutdown,” once the event occurred he tried to shift that ownership and responsibility to the Democrats.

The third fact is that before the implementation of the government shutdown, which lasted for 35 days and denied payment to over 800,000 employees, the deal  presented to our President included $1.6 billion in additional border funding.  He rejected that deal.  The deal President Trump just signed includes only $1.38 billion.  He now plans to use the “declaration of a national emergency” to get the additional funding for the $5.7 billion he initially demanded.   Guess many of those laid-off are wondering why he didn’t do that to begin with and avoid the shutdown entirely.

The last reality fact surrounding this issue, and  the one his “build the wall“ supporters consistently try to bury is, that during the two years which Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, none of the Republican leaders allowed a bill to be passed giving President Trump funds to build his wall.  They had the majority in both houses to do that.  My only guess is they didn’t want the wall.

It is interesting to note that President Trump continually brags about what a great negotiator he is and even co-authored a best seller book entitled “The Art of the Deal”.  Maybe he just ought to stick with matters pertaining to real estate because I see no “art of the deal” regarding this entire matter. 

However, the economy is booming even though our national debt, $21 trillion, the highest in U.S. history, the stock market’s failure to regain the losses it suffered at the end of 2018 wiping out the entire year’s gain, and the tax breaks for corporations that haven’t resulted in the numerous employee raises that it promised, but instead in stock buy backs by most companies favoring only stock holders, are all signs that things are starting to unravel.

Perhaps President Trump needs to focus more on how to “Make America Great Again” and less on self-promotion.   However, with this latest setback, I fear that he will spent most of his energy on “Making Trump Great Again.”

Convenient memory lapses

It never ceases to amaze me how some American voters are completely lacking in long term memory.  But then again maybe it’s not a memory deficiency but simply a case of “reality denial.”

This condition is best emphasized by the recent government shutdown.  No matter whether you support or not support the building of a wall/barrier, one reality fact clearly stands out.  The recent government shutdown would have never occurred if the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress for two years, had voted to allocate monies for President Trump’s project  for “the security of our nation,” as they now profess.   This fact seems to be conveniently forgotten by most of the present day “build the wall” supporters.

As early as November, 2016, it was noted by Texas representative, Louie Gohmert , “that Congress should have no problem finding the money to pay for Trump’s wall between Mexico and the United States.”    He made the case that Capitol Hill had already appropriated money in the past for similar projects, only to have them sidelined by an uncooperative executive branch (Democratic President).

However, Mr. Gohmert’s dream never came to past, for even with a Congress totally controlled by Republicans for two years, they never saw fit to allocate the funds to accomplish it; even during a vote to continue funding the government during those years.  Now Republicans claim they are all for the wall/barrier because it is a matter of national security.

It would seem that perhaps they are all for it simply because the Democrats now claim they are against it.  Even the Democrats’ sudden total rejection of the wall/barrier appears at odds with some of their previous voting records.

I suspect that if one really thought about what was going on here, and based it upon the Republicans’ past actions when they had the majority votes in both houses of Congress, one could conclude that most of those illustrious representatives are quite happy that the Democrats are continuing their initial two year denial of funding for the wall/barrier construction.  Reality sometimes hurts doesn’t it?

So let the blame games continue, but also let’s all try to remember how we got into this mess in the first place.   It all could have been settled two years ago by the Republican-led Congress simply funding the project for their party’s President.

The cost reality for latest government project

If you watch Fox News or CNN you can’t help but wonder why both media outlets are not exactly reporting the “realities” of the construction of “The Wall” on the Mexico/US border.  They both give the impression that the wall will be competed in a timely manner similar to constructing a house.

Whether you are for or against the construction of a steel/concrete, wall/barrier, you need to realize that it is doubtful that it will be completed during President Trump’s reign and certainly not at the cost his administration is proposing.  The fact missing from the entire equation is that most land owners whose property the barrier will traverse don’t want it on their property and are already organizing a cadre of lawyers to fight the government’s desire to invoke the right of eminent  domain to take their land.  Eminent domain is a legal strategy that allows a federal or local government to seize private property for public use. The seizing authority must pay fair market value for the property seized.

The  barrier reality is, the land owners are digging in, vowing to reject buyout offers, and preparing to fight the administration in court.

“You could give me a trillion dollars and I wouldn’t take it,” said several property owners, whose land sits along the Rio Grande, the river separating the U.S. and Mexico in Texas. “It’s not about money.”
Obviously, some may conclude that eventually the Feds will win and take the land, which may or may not be true.  It’s quite possible this entire “land grab” will eventually play out in the Supreme Court.

However, some of these court cases could languish in the legal system for years during which time project over runs will kick in; something for which the U.S. government is famous.  Bet you can’t name a single major U.S. government project that hasn’t resulted in cost overruns three times what its initial estimate was.  Several reach the 200% or more mark.

One recent stellar example of our government’s ineptness with projects was a proposal to build an integrated electronic health records system so that the Pentagon and VA could share health data.  Simple enough project, right?  The project was on track to cost a total of $28 million-seven times the original estimate.  It was recently curtailed due to the absorbent cost overrun.  How about the D.C. parking garage estimated to cost $40 million?  After 16 years it is still not completed and its cost has risen to $120 million.  Need I continue?

Hopefully, the realities of the construction of the Mexico border barrier will move past political posturing and gamesmanship to analyzing the practical realities of the project.  Fooled you,  just a joke; the factual realities of this project will never prevail.  It’s just not the U.S. government’s mode of operation.

However, you can be assured of two things regarding this project.  One, you ain’t going to see it completed anytime soon and, two, it’s going to cost way more than $5.7 million.  Simply put, “The Wall” is yet another ill-conceived government project whose chief advocate wants it to serve as a monument he can point to as glorifying his presidential tenure.  So pathetic!