So Trump is “Changed” by a Gas Attack…And It’s “Bombs Away”… Meanwhile….

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

So, the horrific images of a gas attack in Syria has moved Trump, touched his heart…

Pardon the cynic in me…

He’s escalated drone strikes and wants the policy regarding the sparing civilians to be gone…http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39914-amid-spike-in-civilian-deaths-from-us-strikes-trump-requests-lifting-policy-limiting-casualties   ….

The USA has killed 9 children in Yemen during a botched raid in Yemen, that was decided upon during a nice dinner, followed up with 200 civilians in Mosul…

We have thousands of children here in Flint, Michigan under threat of lead poisoning that may ruin their brains for the rest of their lives…

He’s keen on gutting healthcare, especially for the poor on Medicaid, which has a huge number of children on the rolls…

He’s willing to gut the EPA and have dangerous NEW chemicals approved that will affect the population…

Etc, etc. as the abuses pile up….

But SUDDENLY, Trump is so touched by the attack in Syria that he is “changed” ….

I guess dead refugee children washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean after escaping from Syria isn’t bad enough…and those freezing in camps and unable to travel onward are just…well, who cares?

Who thinks we are being played as the media pundits furrow their brows about how Russia will react?

Perhaps the Trump crowd consulted with the Russians…to fire a bunch of missiles on an airfield which was OK with Russia.  The Russians can supply more planes if they want to. No Russians got zapped.   A lot of tarmac got blown up….MAYBE some gas? But what really changes??  OH, WAIT…they DID NOT TEAR UP THE AIRSTRIP!!!  Maybe a few oil tanks, etc. but the airstrip is apparently ship-shape!!!

So Putin’s friend Trump gets a change of story from the Russian ties/interference story, gets a bump in the polls, and T. Rex  Tillerson goes over there as planned and talks oil deals?  Assad stays put and it’s business as usual?

And the GOP, who chickened out when Obama asked them to authorize action after he drew his red line, the same crew who bellowed about the need for ACTION after the 2013 gas attack, well….Little Marco Rubio is out there tonight looking very serious and in need of a shave pontificating about the role of Congress…you never know, McCain wants action, so heck, the GOP may do some authorizing now whereas Obama never got an ounce of cooperation on ANYTHING…

Do you really think Assad is going to go?  Do you really think that Trump is going to really do something to upset Russia over their ally Assad?

Do you????

Oh, he was eating dinner AGAIN tonight when the strike was launched…

And, when Trump reads from a script trying to look serious and Presidential? Frankly, he looks like a FAKE to me…

Update: Hillary is reported to have been in favor of bombing the airstrip…but, I bet she actually WOULD have wrecked the airstrip, not leave it intact for the Russian-Syrian allies to continue to have it available for future use…

“The Gilded Age”: Harry Reid Reminds Us, Ida Tarbell Muckraked It…

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Seeing Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid today on the occasion of Senator Reid’s departure from the Senate was very moving.  In his final address to the Senate, he was pointed in his comments and along the way referred to “The Gilded Age.”

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nation-world/article119671818.html

Harry Reid bids farewell to Senate after 30 years

By ERICA WERNER AP Congressional Correspondent

Sen. Harry Reid bid farewell to the Senate Thursday after 30 years in the chamber and more than a decade as top Democrat, a remarkable run during which he shepherded key Obama administration legislation including the sweeping health care law.

But Reid leaves with his Democrats stuck in the minority despite his best efforts, and Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump making plans to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature law as their first order of business next year.

In an uncharacteristically lengthy and personal farewell speech on the Senate floor, Reid warned of “a new gilded age” ahead and lamented how the Senate has changed. He cautioned colleagues to “temper” use of the filibuster, “otherwise, it will be gone.”

MORE

So, what was the “Gilded Age”?? The term came into use during the 1920’s and 1930’s and according to Wikipedia, was “derived from Mark Twain‘s 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding.” (Reminds me of Trump’s love of gold and his apartment in Trump Tower!)

According to  America’s Library,  the Gilded Age spanned the period from 1878-1889 although other sources will use the years in the late 19th century from the 1870’s to 1900.

Gilded Age (1878-1889)

The growth of industry and a wave of immigrants marked this period in American history. The production of iron and steel rose dramatically and western resources like lumber, gold, and silver increased the demand for improved transportation. Railroad development boomed as trains moved goods from the resource-rich West to the East. Steel and oil were in great demand. All this industry produced a lot of wealth for a number of businessmen like John D. Rockefeller (in oil) and Andrew Carnegie (in steel), known as robber barons (people who got rich through ruthless business deals). The Gilded Age gets its name from the many great fortunes created during this period and the way of life this wealth supported.

Years ago, PBS ran a segment of its “American Experience” series focusing on Andrew Carnegie and describes the Gilded Age as follows:

American Experience: Andrew Carnegie

“What is the chief end of man?–to get rich. In what way?–dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.”
— Mark Twain-1871

During the “Gilded Age,” every man was a potential Andrew Carnegie, and Americans who achieved wealth celebrated it as never before.  (snip)

While the rich wore diamonds, many wore rags. In 1890, 11 million of the nation’s 12 million families earned less than $1200 per year; of this group, the average annual income was $380, well below the poverty line. Rural Americans and new immigrants crowded into urban areas. Tenements spread across city landscapes, teeming with crime and filth. Americans had sewing machines, phonographs, skyscrapers, and even electric lights, yet most people labored in the shadow of poverty.

To those who worked in Carnegie’s mills and in the nation’s factories and sweatshops, the lives of the millionaires seemed immodest indeed. An economist in 1879 noted “a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution.” Violent strikes and riots wracked the nation through the turn of the century. The middle class whispered fearfully of “carnivals of revenge.”

(snip) Corruption extended to the highest levels of government. During Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, the president and his cabinet were implicated in the Credit Mobilier, the Gold Conspiracy, the Whiskey Ring, and the notorious Salary Grab.

Europeans were aghast. America may have had money and factories, they felt, but it lacked sophistication. When French prime minister Georges Clemenceau visited, he said the nation had gone from a stage of barbarism to one of decadence — without achieving any civilization between the two.

Does much of this sound familiar?

Many years ago, as I dreamed of becoming a journalist, I read about muckrakers, devouring The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens and a biography of Ida Tarbell.

Who was Ida Tarbell?

ConnecticutHistory.org has a good summary of what she did…here’s an excerpt of a piece written by Andy Piascik: …

(snip)

Tarbell Exposes The Standard Oil Company

Tarbell never wrote the biography of Roland but she did write biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln—published shortly after her return to the United States in 1894. She also accepted an offer from McClure to work for his new venture, McClure’s Magazine, where she undertook her most famous work, her expose of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Her study of Rockefeller’s practices as he built Standard Oil into one of the world’s largest business monopolies took many years to complete. McClure’s Magazine published it in 19 installments.

Her work was a sensation and the installments became a two-volume book entitled, The History of the Standard Oil Company, published in 1904. Tarbell meticulously documented the aggressive techniques Standard Oil employed to outmaneuver and, where necessary, roll over whoever got in its way. A short while later, President Theodore Roosevelt used the phrase “muckraker” (from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress) in a speech in reference to Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and other journalists writing critically about the tremendous power of big business. Tarbell actually objected to the term, for she felt it belittled work she believed to be of historical importance.

As a result of her work, the Supreme Court decided in 1911 that Standard Oil violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, ruling that it was an illegal monopoly.  Standard Oil was ordered to break up into 34 separate companies, but in the long run, Rockefeller had huge holdings in the companies and the breakup actually resulted in huge profits. He didn’t suffer one bit…

The Smithsonian’s piece on Tarbell, “The Woman Who Took on the Tycoon “, notes that her efforts helped in the Progressive Era and that “New York University placed her book, The History of the Standard Oil Company, at No. 5 on a list of the top 100 works of 20th^–century American journalism.”

So, the question is now, who are the journalists that will “muckrake” during Trump’s time in office?  They are out there, we see them tweeting and many websites are trying to do the job but you won’t see them in great numbers on TV. And, how many Americans actually care?   New polling shows that Trump supporters are completely ignorant of facts and he will play to them, rather than to the majority of Americans who have no faith in him.

Look at his picks for his cabinet. In almost every case, they represent the complete opposite of ideas he campaigned on. Example: he promised to raise the minimum wage, but appoints a CEO who is adamantly opposed to the concept!

But his crowd continues to cheer, even though many are going to be hurt by his actions.

Trump ran on economic populism and stirring up hate.  During the Gilded Age, the excesses of  wealthy businessmen stirred up “a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution.” Trump has conned his devotees to revolt against the status quo…but the question now becomes this:  Do they ever realized they’ve been conned, and if they do, when do they revolt against Donald Trump, who is himself a robber baron? Or do they simply wallow in their hate and never understand what he is doing?

Unfortunately, there is a good chance that no amount of muckraking will affect Trump unless his faithful suddenly feel pain in their wallets. One has to wonder if even Ida Tarbell could even deal with the swamp that Trump calls home as the Tweets roll out thick and fast.

Nor is there indication that any sudden awakening will propel us into a new Progressive Era.  We should be so lucky.  But much of the effort needed will have to focus just on RESTORING everything that is lost.   Just keeping our heads above the muck to prevent us from sinking completely will be exhausting.   The old battles will have to be fought again.

To borrow from Trump….SAD!

REPOST 8/15/17: As President, Which Type of Rally Will Trump Go For on His “Thank You” Tour? “No Frills” or Nuremberg?

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

August 15, 2017   I am pinning this in light of Trump’s comments regarding the terror in Charlottesville, VA.

UPDATE:  November 30, 2016…I have changed the title of this post to reflect the new name for Trump’s current tour, formerly called the “Victory Tour,” now called the “Thank You” tour.

The New York Times is reporting that Trump is just aching to stay in touch with his peeps even though he is a “homebody.”  (Note: This is another of those stories we’re hearing that are aimed at “normalizing” Trump.)

Yes, while he needs adulation as his drug of choice,  the really important thing is to get out and meet his followers…yes, it is sweetly “old-fashioned.”  Normal Rockwell would be proud!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/politics/trump-president.html

Donald Trump Prepares for White House Move, but His Tower May Still Beckon

By MAGGIE HABERMAN and ASHLEY PARKER

November 11, 2016

President-elect Donald J. Trump won the White House with an outsider’s populist promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington.

Now, as he prepares to assume the presidency, an open question remains about the capital he repeatedly spurned: Just how much is he willing to become a part of it?

Mr. Trump, a homebody who often flew several hours late at night during the campaign so he could wake up in his own bed in Trump Tower, is talking with his advisers about how many nights a week he will spend in the White House. He has told them he would like to do what he is used to, which is spending time in New York when he can.

SNIP

Returning home to Trump Tower from the White House may not be Mr. Trump’s only embrace of the familiar. His aides say he has also expressed interest in continuing to hold the large rallies that were a staple of his candidacy. He likes the instant gratification and adulation that the cheering crowds provide, and his aides are discussing how they might accommodate his demand.

“I think Trump has discovered that these rallies are tremendous opportunities for him to get his message out,” said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, a conservative website. “It’s actually sort of old-fashioned, that you want to actually meet people and press the flesh with him.”

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Now, apart from wondering if Trump is actually going to do any work himself or just past it all to his staff while he gets his “rally rush,” one has to wonder what these rallies will be like.

Will he go for the straight “Rant Rally,” in the classic style of Benito Mussolini?  After all, way back in February 2016, the BBC reported that Trump had re-tweeted a quote from Mussolini...http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35682844

The glue that held the Fascist regime together was Mussolini’s cult of personality. Fascism never developed into a coherent doctrine, recognizing itself best by what it was against: Fascism meant antiliberalism, antisocialism, antifeminism, and, after 1938, anti-Semitism. For the general public, Fascism acquired real meaning in the larger-than-life figure of Il Duce. A vast propaganda machine directed by the Ministry of Popular Culture churned out newsreels, radio broadcasts, and newspaper stories glorifying Mussolini. The Fascist Party choreographed huge rallies at Mussolini’s Roman headquarters at Piazza Venezia, where Mussolini harangued the crowds with rousing speeches. A common propaganda axiom held that “Il Duce is always right,” and that youth should learn to “Believe, obey, fight.” Mussolini’s posturing lent itself to a kaleidoscope of propagandist images: Il Duce as family man, photographed with his five children; Renaissance talent playing the violin; hero of the peasants, harvesting grain bare-chested; brave commander in chief flying a fighter plane. Mussolini reached the peak of his personal popularity when he led Italy to victory over the Ethiopian empire in May 1936.

http://www.ineedchops.com/School/GOV/GOVUnit109Sem1/Benito_Mussolini.htm

Then there is the rally based not only on oratory, but also on true spectacle and staging, rallies not just composed of run-of-the-mill large crowds.  This type of rally would really ramp up Trump’s mainlining of adoration and  leave his supporters in awe.  Scrolling through pictures of the Nazi Party Congresses, it’s really very hard to choose which one would be most appropriate.

The Terrifying Spectacle of the Nuremberg Rallies in Germany

By Mark Evitt

 

The Nazi Party relied on spectacle to impress German citizens and wow true believers. Beginning in 1933, once Adolf Hitler ruled the country, the annual rally in Nuremberg became a shining example of the power of German propaganda. Each year, the rallies grew larger and more impressive, and Hitler’s speeches became progressively more sinister. The rally in 1939, scheduled to begin on September 2, was cancelled at the last moment—Hitler and Germany had invaded Poland the day before.

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The ever-popular “Cathedral of Light” (introduced in 1934)  would certainly inspire all Trump fans, even those evangelicals who love Trump’s sincere religious beliefs…

But the 1937 “Rally for Labor” style would really appeal to all his working-class followers because it celebration of the  “reduction of unemployment in Germany after the Nazi rise to power. It had fallen from 6 million at its peak to 1 million. Hitler did this by emphasizing manual labor, restricting companies from using labor-saving machinery, and keeping wages low.”  Yeah, that “keeping wages low” bit is right in keeping with Trump at one point telling his followers that Americans were getting paid too much.

But who could forget the 1935 Nuremberg Rally? This was the rally at which  “Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which prohibited Jews from marrying Germans, and declared that only people with German blood (not Jewish) could be German citizens.”  Thousands of soldiers stood at attention during this homage to purity…and the racial “purists” these days are out in full force post-election going after black people, Muslims, and…oh, but we haven’t seen them pushing around any more cerebral palsy victims… yet…

So, on Inauguration Day, what will happen? Why settle for this…

When we can have this?

San Diego, May 28 2016– Trump supporters pepper spray protesters

OR THIS??

Virginia Beach, Va.  October 22, 2016

Hillary Clinton: Not “Progressive” Enough?… History Shows How She Nailed China on Abuse of Women, Worked on Microcredit for the Poor

by Insightanalytical

No candidate is perfect. Grownups realize this. So, to those who are not going to vote for Hillary because she isn’t “pure enough” in their progressive eyes….she’s been around this fight from the beginning!  Here are a couple of examples of her “progressive pedigree.”

Who went to China as First Lady and detailed the abuse of women?? What politician today would have the guts to do that?
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/world/hillary-clinton-in-china-details-abuse-of-women.html

HILLARY CLINTON, IN CHINA, DETAILS ABUSE OF WOMEN

By PATRICK E. TYLER

Published: September 6, 1995

BEIJING, Sept. 5— Speaking more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has on Chinese soil, Hillary Rodham Clinton catalogued a devastating litany of abuse that has afflicted women around the world today and criticized China for seeking to limit free and open discussion of women’s issues here.

“It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights,” Mrs. Clinton told the Fourth World Conference on Women assembled here.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls,” Mrs. Clinton said, or “when women and girls are sold into slavery or prostitution for human greed.

SNIP

Mrs. Clinton’s gravity and directness seemed to please both Democratic and Republican members of the United States delegation here, and thus the speech may trump the political disputes that have plagued both Mrs. Clinton’s decision to travel here and the Administration’s approach to China.

SNIP

Continuing with references to domestic violence, genital mutilation, coercive abortions and sterilizations, Mrs. Clinton told the delegates from more than 180 countries, “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

SNIP

In the section of her speech aimed most directly at China, Mrs. Clinton seemed to betray frustration over China’s intolerance for dissenting views.

MORE , MUCH  MORE

Back in the day, when the GOP was not insane, even arch right-winger Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), praised the speech (although he thought she could be more “specific.”…can’t ever win with these jerks!)

OK, and then there’s this:    Who was deeply involved micro-banks in underdeveloped countries?

http://www.shareintl.org/archives/economics/ec_mlmicrocredit.htm

Microcredit Summit seeks to help world’s poorest  (1997)
by Monte Leach

Excerpt:

The impressive roster of participants at the Microcredit Summit, and their enthusiasm for microcredit programs, was a tribute not only to Yunus, but also to the power of his idea that the poor can help themselves out of poverty if given half a chance.

Among the more than 2,000 participants from 100 countries were three presidents and two prime ministers; Queen Sofia of Spain; the President of the World Bank, and the presidents of major regional development banks; the heads of UN agencies; members of parliament; heads of commercial banks and private corporations; heads of major foundations and philanthropists from around the world; representatives of nongovernmental organizations; practitioners — those who implement microcredit programs across the globe; as well as borrowers like Francisca Rojas who have received the benefits of microcredit.

The presence of the world’s movers and shakers, from every part of the political spectrum, appeared to mean more than simply efforts at photo opportunities with the gathered media. US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a co-chair of the summit, who, along with the US Secretary of the Treasury, spoke at the conference, said that she and the President, Bill Clinton, first met Mohammed Yunus in 1986, and have been deeply committed to microcredit since then.

Hillary Clinton showed photos of her visits to microcredit programs in Bangladesh, Chile, India, Nicaragua, and the US itself. The First Lady talked about a woman she met in Chile who had received a loan for a new sewing machine. “She said that when she got that new sewing machine she felt like a caged bird set free. And that is a good way to describe how many of the people I have met seem to feel when given the opportunity.”

Mrs. Clinton went on to describe the opportunity presented at this moment in history: “As we move toward this 21st century, we have an opportunity that has seldom come, if ever, in the history of humankind. We have a world that can, with technology, democracy, and free enterprise extend the benefits of prosperity and peace to countless millions whose lives can be lifted up.”

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Yeah, Hillary is an elitist who doesn’t understand those “below” her…

I consider myself a progressive. And that means not having another Republican get into that White House and crucify blacks, women, and gays.
Having marched on D.C. for women’s rights and to seem them crippled is really pissing me off…we are in dire need of a woman to restore the dialogue about issues that affect women and their families…and that includes men, too!

Hillary has been a crapped-on wife, a mother, a brilliant lawyer, an activist, First Lady, a Senator, and Sec. of State. She has seen the world, the villages, not just the presidential palaces. WHO CAN MATCH THAT EXPERIENCE???   She has a daughter and now a grand-daughter. Don’t you think she wants a better world for them and for all children??

People better grow up and realize that to put a Republican in the WH and with a GOP Congress will screw us for decades, esp. with regard to the Supreme FART!

Wake up people…I donated without hesitation last night and will be working on the campaign…at 64, this is a bookend in my life…I started
seeing progress in the 60-70’s, have seen it snatched away…and it’s time to take progress back!

I thought I wasn’t going to be energized, but…I AM!

Remember Mark Penn, of the Hillary ’08 Campaign?? (Guess Who Got Stimulus Money…)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Here’s a nugget from The Hill.com:

Mark Penn’s two firms awarded millions from stimulus for public relations work

According to the story,

A contract worth nearly $6 million in stimulus funds was awarded by the Obama adminstration to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.

Federal records show that a contract worth $5.97 million, part of the $787 billion stimulus Congress passed this year, helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.

Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was awarded through a subcontract to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland, according to federal records.

Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.

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Specifically, the Obama adviser worked on the ad messaging aimed at Hispanics, only 39 days before the digital transition on June 10.

Just this past Tuesday, Republicans John McCain and Tom Coburn held a news conference to complain that the advertising campaign was a waste of taxpayer dollars.

However,

McCain and Coburn did not show any indication that they knew two Democratic political strategists received funding through the grant.

Hey, I guess that means that Republicans don’t really read large stimulus bills, either!!

…And, of course, Republicans NEVER waste taxpayer dollars, either!

Sigh. This game is getting so old…

But, the question that lingers about Hillary Clinton and whether we assume that this is part of a deal Hillary Clinton cut with Obama after the 2008 primaries were over. I guess I would lean toward that assumption!