My Disappointments with President Trump and the Republican Congress
I have been avoiding commenting on daily Trump mayhem, but to the extent this blog has any historical value, I want to record briefly some of the ways that Trump or the Republican Congress has been disappointing me on standards of government integrity. They are not in any great order. I will not delve heavily on the Russian influence, because it is so vast, and new contacts and influence emerge even daily that were sworn not to exist.
Just one thing about Russian contacts. Trump won by three states with less than a 1% lead, being Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. In the recounts, Trump’s lawyers fought to keep the voting machines from being examined, including the software, and they won. Now that we see how Russia influenced all social media, and easily hacked computers, it would have been nice to examine the voting machines.
I am really disappointed that Trump is giving away lifetime federal judgeships to four young conservatives who were essentially given F’s by the American Bar Association as to any qualifications to be a federal judge.
I am upset that one of the unqualified judges did not list a conflict when his wife turned out to be the chief of staff to the White House member in charge of choosing judges.
I am upset that the Republicans in Congress, many of whom have been educated in the best law schools, and by the best professors in the country, have slavishly followed Trump in his continued denigration of the judiciary, to a person.
I am upset that in the one year after Trump won the presidency, he has logged 1,300 lies, about four a day.
I am upset with aspects of the tax bills that pick on blue states to fund tax cuts mostly for rich people.
I am upset that while coastal Republican states can deduct losses from floods, Western coastal Democratic states cannot deduct damages from earthquakes and wildfires, which we are most subject to.
I am upset that taxes are leveled against graduate students’ tuition grants. We need their valuable teaching and research, at lower pay than they could earn in industry.
I am upset at Trump’s repetitive statements that he will get nothing out of it (except his family’s billion dollar tax cut).
I am upset that all Republicans are lying about the dominance of tax relief to the rich.
I am upset that Trump threw in a cut on health care, which will force 13 million out of the ACA.
I am upset that Trump has not moved to remove bump stocks after the Las Vegas massacre.
I am upset that Trump has not moved on closing the gun show loophole and Internet sales.
I am upset that Trump has moved to allow Elephant trophies of Babar’s mother to be imported to the US.
I am upset that Trump gets away with calling the reputable media as “fake news”, and that his followers follow him on this belief.
I am upset that Trump continued his grade-school mocking by calling Kim Jong Un FAT and short. Trump is just lucky to be tall, but should not disparage all others who are shorter, include many of his voters. Trump is also fat, but can hide it by being tall. Many of his voters may also be overweight.
I am still upset because Trump tries to lower overhead on research contracts from the standard 30% to lower values like 10%. This is just another attack by Trump on experts, knowledge, research, and science. America grows on new research and well trained Ph.Ds.
I am leaving out his slavishness to the fossil fuel oligarchs in killing our clean energy programs, but I complain about this in most of my articles.
I am upset that the House tax bill allows churches to back and fund politicians, apparently because Trump wanted more public backing by evangelicals. The separation of church and state is the first statement in our first amendment. We were taught that the founders of America were fleeing countries which adopted a state religion which was not theirs. Trump and Spence have even continued their Evangelical Council in the White House.
And these complaints are just the recent ones.
