While Trump is Stealing the Show his Cronies are Stealing us Blind

I'm sick of hearing Trump, seeing Trump, laughing at Trump, agonizing over Trump. I'm sick of Donald J. Trump, the squatter in the White House, making a mockery of our presidency.

He's a president like a third rate comic spoofing the highest job in the land would be president. His stake is only in drawing an audience; he has no feeling for what the real job would be like. It's  beyond his capacity to get that deep into the role, and nothing says he has to. He revels in his "free to be me" rhetoric and the crowds keep on coming.

A president, no matter his politics or biases, has to, at some point, recognize he's the leader of a country and not just the spokesman for his base. Donald can't do that. He snuggles into his base, comfy and worry-free, and if there are people screaming for his head on the outside, they're really, really bad, aren't they?  (Chorus: We love you, Donald! Donald: Thank you! Thank you very much! Me, too!)

Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

He came into politics as a reality star and he'll go out as a reality star. One quick read of his off-the-wall, stream-of-consciousness, look-at-me, CPAC speech the other day cements any claim that his main concern is, always has been, and always will be how people react to Donald Trump. (The transcript is here.)

  He's not speaking to his country. He's not even speaking to all Republicans. He's rallying his fans.

This one small section, distilled in a couple of paragraphs, is the essence of Donald:

"So, thank you, everybody. You’ve been amazing. You’ve been amazing. What Matt [Schlapp] didn’t say, when I was here 2011, I made a speech. And I was received with such warmth and they give, you know, they used to give, I don’t know if Matt does that, he may not want to be controversial, but they used to give the best speech of CPAC. Do they still do that? You better pick me, or I’m not coming back.

But — and I got these — everybody, they loved that speech. That was, I think, Matt, I would say that might have been the first real political speech I made. It was a love fest, 2011, I believe the time was. And a lot of people remembered and they said, we want Trump, we want Trump. And after a few years, they go by, and I say, 'Here we are. Let's see what we can do.'"

Trump runs his 24-hour-a-day clown act as a distraction, and the GOP loves him for it. While he's on stage they're free to go about their business--which has nothing to do with our business. They're putting in place right wing judges who hold life-time positions, cozying up and giving unprecedented power to gun lobbyists like the NRA, dissolving long-standing protections for women, children, minorities, the sick, the poor, and the working class. We barely recognize ourselves anymore.

We have real problems that need grown-up intervention. Trump is not going to be that grown-up. They can slap any label they want on him, including POTUS, but he'll never be anything but a callous showman doing a bad imitation of a real president.

November is coming. We need to work on getting our people elected and throw those bums out.

We need to work at ending the obscene profits currently the deciding factor in every aspect of our lives, including health care.

We need to repair our crumbling structures, our roads and bridges.

We need to convince our allies we're capable of more than saber-rattling and meaningless flag waving.

We need to work at keeping our children safe from killers with assault weapons.

We need to have some pride.

We don't have time for the kind of mind-numbing side show Trump, the GOP, and yes--the Russians--have been forcing on us. The media's fascination with Trump's silly shtick has to stop. I don't care what he says, I care what he does. When he's not trying to destroy programs and departments we've held sacrosanct for half a century or more, he's busy filling every top cabinet job with agenda-laden, know-nothings famous for their cruel streaks. His administration holds the record for the most scandals ever to come out of the White House, and barely a year has gone by.

We have to stop treating Trump like the best copy ever and get back to reporting on the things that matter to Americans with the most to lose. He's a distraction we can't afford. He's a joke gone on too long.

(Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars)

Labor Day, Brought to You By Unions Everywhere

This year I joined the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO (NWU).  I advocate for unions all the time, and this just puts the icing on the cake for me, but more than that, more than how it makes me feel, union membership joins us, arms linked, as we struggle to give our labor force the respect it deserves.  (Yes, even those workers who rail against unions.  We fight for them, too.  Because who else will?)

As I do every Labor Day, I went looking for Labor Day mentions, and the first thing I found was a list of Labor Day quotes to use on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.  Hey!  Great!  But after reading a few of them I noticed a pattern:  They were all about the rewards of hard work, the joys of labor, the shame of idleness.  Nothing about unions AT ALL.  On Labor Day.

It came from the International Business Times, and their lead paragraph is a study in how to say so little about organized labor you would think it never existed:

Labor Day is more than just a pseudo end to summer.  Most Americans throughout the nation are off work on Monday, and that's because more than 100 years ago laborers were forced to work 12-hour days, seven days a week.  While you kick back and relax with some delicious food and cold drinks, here are some interesting quotes social media users can share with family and friends, (etc., etc., etc.)

Enough said, apparently.  What follows are 25 quotes from people  like Maya Angelou, MLK, and Ginger Rogers.  Work is good!  Everybody should work!

And a little shame can't hurt, says Henry Ford in Quote #24:  "Nobody can think straight who does not work.  Idleness warps the mind." 

But the last thought is the kicker--I think:

Bonus for the fashionistas:  "Rules like 'don't wear white after Labor Day' or 'shoes matching the handbag' are antiquated.  Modern women should feel free to experiment."

(Look, I just report these things, I shouldn't be expected to explain them, too.)

But Labor Day is traditionally a celebration of organized labor and a reminder of the sacrifices that came before.  It's a union-invented holiday, celebrated by all workers everywhere, union or not.

As I write this, Joe Biden is giving his annual Labor Day speech in Pittsburgh, talking about how productivity went up about 73% while wages went up only 9%, and. . .

(What the hell? MSNBC just broke into his speech, saying they'll come back to it if he says something important.  They're waiting for him to talk about a run for the presidency.  Nothing else is important on this LABOR DAY.)

So guess what C-Span 2 put into their programming this morning--on LABOR DAY?  "Gretchen Carlson on 'Getting Real.  Fox New anchor Gretchen Carlson shares her life and career in 'broadcasting'."   (Oh, honey, I wish I was kidding.)

News flash:  MSNBC just cut off the president's LABOR DAY speech, too.  CNN didn't cover it at all.  As far as I know, the LABOR DAY speeches by POTUS and the Veep were not broadcast in their totality anywhere on television.  If I'm wrong, please tell me.  Unbelievable.  (If it's not Trump, it's not news.)

But on to the better stuff.  A round-up of Labor Day observances on this, our day:

The Nation:  Top Ten Labor Day Songs

Bernie Sanders:  Stand Together and Fight Back.

L.A Times:  Uncertain Times for American Labor.

Dylan Petrohilos (ThinkProgress):  Seven Union Heroes to Remember.

The Atlantic:  A Labor Day 2015 Reading List.  (A list within a list.  It's all good.)

Ben Railton (TPM):  The Forgotten Radical History of Labor Day.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:  This labor Day.

Ramona (That's me):  Friday Follies Labor Day Edition, 2011


This is our day to enjoy.  To celebrate our successes.  We've earned it.

And--I don't like to brag--but isn't it just like us to want to share it?  (Insert Smiley Face here.)

Attention: The job opening is for POTUS. Dilettantes need not apply.

When I was a little girl during FDR's time, I remember people in my family talking in hushed, reverent tones about the President of the United States --  as if he were someone so special you mustn't use your normal, everyday voice.  I grew up thinking there was no one in our beloved country who could top the President when it came to being all-wise and all-caring.  I believed that there was something other-worldly, even God-like about Presidents, and I felt safe.

I came of age in the 1950s, in the midst of the McCarthy witch hunts, and all childish notions about the government as citizen protector flew right off the newborn TV screen and into the wild blue yonder.  The Army-McCarthy hearings were televised live, and for the first time in my life I knew real, hair-raising fear.  I understood then the latent, potentially evil power of the government and it terrified me.  Eisenhower was president, and, while my concern over his seeming disengagement from the whole vile circus nearly got the best of me, it didn't deter me from my original thoughts about the presidency in general.

There is the president and then there is the presidency.  One is fleeting, the other is our most cherished institution.

I've worked my way through many presidents since then and even the worst of them haven't been able to move me away from that belief.  We have certain built-in expectations of our presidents, tempered always with the recognition that they're only human.  They will not always do our bidding.  They will often make mistakes.  They will sometimes fail in the most spectacular fashion.  But the underlying hope is that when they wake up every morning in the White House -- the house on loan to them by the people -- they'll remember who they're supposed to be and resolve at the very least to do no lasting harm.

But what I'm seeing now is that venerable institution moving further and further away from any kind of special honor and more and more into celebrity/CEO status.  It is no longer cherished, no longer looked on as both a rare privilege and a breathtaking responsibility.  For proof, take a hard look at the Republican Party's current lineup of  potential presidential nominees.  Unless something major happens, the president's opponent will be one of these frontrunners:  Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, or Michelle Bachmann.  

Look deeper: There is not a serious candidate among them.  They make it understood that they want to be known as presidential without the annoying duties historically relegated to the presidency.  "Duties" is the one word in the job description that gives them the most grief, and the one they're each aiming to adjust once they're in office.  What I'm getting from their debate discussions is that they're falling all over themselves to see who can diminish the office of the presidency the fastest. (The possible exception might be Mitt Romney, but he's keeping mum, waiting to see which way the wind will blow.)

 I don't know.  If one cared, one might want to pass along to them that this is not your ordinary CEO gig.  Yes, there may be some question about whether the President of the United States is still looked on as the leader of the free world, but there's no argument that he (and someday, she) is the sole keeper of the Executive branch of our government.  When you have a country the size of ours (over 300 million people spread out over almost four million square miles) mired in unnatural disasters of epic proportions,  the last thing any serious candidate for the highest government office in the land should be advocating is an end to government interference.  Yet in the course of some 16 debates so far, that seems to be the recurrent theme.  It's as if, in all the grand hoopla, they've forgotten just which job they've applied for.

If they talk at all about joblessness, homelessness, uncovered illnesses, or any other deliberate misery cast upon certain segments of the 99%, it's to place the blame for such predicaments squarely on either the existing governmental busybodies or on the millions of affected people who have the gall to think they're the victims here.  Their fix is to turn the country over to God and the private sector -- neither of which, it should be pointed out, the president will have any control over if their dearest wishes come true.

Their goal, the destruction of a central government, is one that no president before them would have considered, even in the wildest wanderings of their most vivid imaginations.  It's not the kind of remedy past seekers of the office were inclined to entertain.

On the other hand, it's exactly the kind of thing we came to expect from someone like Herman Cain, a guy with way too much money and ego,  a guy who only just wanted to sell his book and thought the way to do it would be to run for, Holy Pokemon!  President!  Of the United States!

But okay, this did not get past me:  Through no great feat of his own, and despite gaffes that might suggest "astonishingly bad comedian" rather than "honorable POTUS",  Cain rose to the top of the GOP nominees list and stayed there for a frightfully long time before toppling.  That means there are a whole lot of people out there who just aren't getting what I'm saying here.

That is just painful.