Month: August 2019

The Story

It was twenty-nine years ago.  Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court by Republican President George HW Bush to succeed liberal icon Thurgood Marshall.  Thomas, like Marshall, was African-American,  but that’s where the similarities ended.  He was an “arch-conservative,” a “literalist” when it came to the Constitution.  Thomas saw much of the social progress made by the Supreme Court since the 1950’s as Constitutionally unfounded.

Joe Biden was the Democratic Senator from Delaware, and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.  The Committee held extensive hearings on Thomas, dramatically questioning his libertarian views and particularly his thoughts on abortion rights.   The committee hearings concluded and the nomination was sent to the Senate floor for debate. Then Thomas’s former assistant, Anita Hill, came forward claiming that he sexual harassed her.  Biden reopened Committee hearings.

The entire nation watched, riveted by Hill’s testimony.  It was, for the time, shocking; with discussion of pubic hairs on Coke cans and the “Long Dong Silver.”   After the first day was over, Hill had other witnesses prepared to back her statements.  But Biden did not call them.  Instead, Clarence Thomas presented his supporting witnesses.  The Committee ultimately sent his nomination back to the full Senate without recommendation.

In an era when Presidents were given wide latitude to choose their Justices, Thomas was confirmed by the Democrat controlled Senate, 52 to 48.  Eleven Democrats voted for Thomas, two Republicans voted against him.

Man of the Time

Today we see those hearings in the reflection of the recent the Kavanaugh debacle.  The same tensions and emotions swept the room, and the Senators were faced with a similar “he said/she said” situation.

Joe Biden is running for President of the United States in 2020.  In today’s incredibly partisan atmosphere, it is easy to look back and say that he could and should have stopped the Thomas nomination.  Certainly if Democrats controlled the Senate in 2018, Kavanaugh wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court today.  We are in the era of #METOO; our society has determined that sexual harassment is unacceptable.  It should have been that way in 1990 as well, but it wasn’t. Anita Hill’s actions started to change the world.  Joe Biden was a man of that time.

Evaluating History

When we examine Joe Biden’s fitness for office, what standards do we apply to his actions in the Thomas hearings, or the 1994 Crime Bill, or all of the other votes he took in his forty plus year career?  Do we impose today’s #METOO standards and condemn Biden for not living up to them? Or, do we allow politicians to grow, and change, and learn, just as we have ourselves?

I’m not a committed supporter of Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.  There are many other candidates, and some are more closely aligned to my beliefs.  As Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez is fond of saying, “…find a candidate who wins your heart, then follow the one who wins the nomination with your head.”   I will vote my heart in the primary here in Ohio, then support the nominee.

But I do think the Democratic Party needs to be fair.  It’s easy for some of those with little or no records to attack Vice President Biden for stands he made in different eras.  He’s had a lengthy career, and there’s plenty of “targets” for attack. And certainly Biden is responsible for his positions of the 70’s, 80’s 90’s and 00’s.  But those votes and stands can’t be ripped out of the context of their times and they shouldn’t be judged solely by today’s values. 

Outing the President

Do you remember Joe Biden’s stand on gay marriage?  In 2012 as Vice President, he told David Gregory on Meet the Press  that he was:

 “…absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”

This was before President Obama came out for gay marriage rights and before the Supreme Court decision affirming the right of marriage to gay couples.  This seemed way ahead of the norm.  And it was only seven years ago.

Pitfalls of Purity

One of the “super powers” given to Donald Trump is his ability to use the speed with which our society changed.  Whether it’s LGBTQ equality, or #METOO, or the first black President; our world changed faster than many were ready for.  It’s not that the change was “wrong.”  It’s that many felt left behind, a feeling that Trump has managed to tap into with “Make America Great Again.”  

Democrats need to be wary of “purity.”  If we demand that our candidates be “pure” to the standards of today for their actions decades ago, we create an impossible standard.  We then are limited to picking candidates with little record to discuss, a mistake the Republican Party made in 2016.  This week in particular they must be regretting that decision.

Democrats will limit themselves to Styer and Yang, Buttigieg and Williamson.  And while of those, Buttigieg may have won my political “heart,” Democrats should not destroy those with a past in order to achieve a present purity.  It’s that kind of thinking that will lead to a second term for the worst President in American history.

What Neighbors Do

Last week was incredibly stressful. 

Our neighborhood shares in the care of an elderly widow across the street.  For the past six months she hasn’t left the house, except for an occasional venture to the front yard to pick up sticks.  And since May she’s gotten worse. She wouldn’t let us help pay her bills, or accept the groceries we brought.  She looked starved and ill, phone calls were answered with “I’m in bed, I don’t feel well” and a hang up.  The County Adult Services weren’t much help, saying “…if she wants to starve to death, we don’t like it but it’s her choice.”

We’ve been reaching out to her family for months.  They also said there’s nothing they were willing to do.  Monday the neighbors got together: a “team meeting” as we struggled to determine our next move.  We were afraid that the only course was utility shutoffs and back to the County authorities. 

But, at the last moment, a niece stepped up.  The family kept her in the dark about what was going on;  but we were able to find her and reach out.  On Thursday our widow friend let  the niece call the ambulance, and she went to the hospital.  She was very frail, but still proud and tough. She wouldn’t be carried to the squad, she walked out on her own.

They’re working on getting her better, and though she looks tiny in a hospital bed, she’s smiling.

Our America

Last week was another week of turmoil and hate in American politics.  We are very tuned into what’s going on, sometimes too much so.  A steady diet of our current American disaster creates a constant surge of adrenalin.  After a while, it’s hard to stay angry.  It’s exhausting.

And then came the shooting in El Paso; and then Dayton.

Out of Dodge 

In my family the phrase is “get out of Dodge.”  It comes from the old Western movies; when the shooting starts it’s “time to get out of Dodge City.”  It was time to go, get away from the stress, change the scene, and simplify life.  

So we packed up the camper, the truck and the dogs, and headed to Burr Oak State Park.  It’s located in southeastern Ohio, the foothills of the Appalachians.  As retired folks, we’ve discovered that even in the summer you can have park campgrounds pretty much to yourselves if you go during the week. 

It’s not all leisure, but it’s different.  It’s an early morning hike with the dogs, and a campfire to cook dinner. We tried frozen fish patties for the first time last night – and maybe the last!! Brats tonight; can’t go wrong with them.

Disconnecting

But we aren’t fully disconnected.  I’m writing this essay sitting at a picnic table as the sun comes over the trees, my young dog Atticus (yellow lab) trying to bite the flies that try to bite him.

We have all of the electronic devices and MSNBC streamed, and we can keep track of the neighborhood by text and email.  But it’s still different, it’s more fundamental.  It’s a walk down to the shower house; better to go early, or the walk back up the hill will make you need another shower. 

It’s Trump country here and certainly our experience in other campgrounds has been the same.  But people are courteous, and they are aware that while campers may be close to each other, everyone is here for a little peace, a little nature, and a little relaxation.  And there’s beer on ice in the cooler.

Yesterday it was tough to even try to disconnect.  The debates were raging on Facebook and Twitter about guns, mental health, racism, and whether our Nation can ever find the will to prevent these horrific events. Try as we might to concentrate on the cicadas and the blue sky, the battles raged back and forth, and the signal reached all the way into the foothills and the woods.  We had lots to say, and put in more than our “two cents.”  

Today we’ll try to disconnect a little more.  There are books to read, and a lake to visit, and the dogs will absolutely demand another long walk.   Our camper is “out of Dodge.”  Now we’re working on getting our minds to follow.

I have a post all lined up, talking about how Democrats are trying to determine their Presidential candidate.  It’s good, and I’ll use it later.  But after the events of the last two days, it feels too soon to move on.  The news cycle is fast, and I know that we won’t be talking about El Paso and Dayton by the end of the week.  But it isn’t appropriate to let them go, yet.

El Paso

With the little information we know, we have a contrast in killers between El Paso and Dayton.  The El Paso shooter was driven by white nationalism, wanting to stop the “brown invasion” by driving eight hours from his home and opening fire.  He is, frankly, all that many of us have been fearing:  a young white man out on the edge of sanity, pushed off by the damaging rhetoric of the President, Fox News, and others.  

Are they to blame for the dead and wounded in El Paso?  No, not directly.  But we all saw this coming, the inflaming language, from “send them back” to the “infestation” of migrants.  To partisan Americans who could process the emotions, it was either disgusting or appreciated.  To Republicans forced to rationalize what the President was saying, it was probably humbling. From the number of resignations in the House of Representatives, most notably Congressman Will Hurd from the Texas border, it was far too much for some to swallow.

But to the shooter in El Paso, already on the edge of madness, it was enough to load his assault rifle in the car, and head to Wal-Mart to stop the “invasion.”  It was a white nationalist terrorist attack on those folks, and on our nation.

Dayton

The even younger white man is Dayton fits the “normal” mass shooter profile.  He was a disaffected white kid from an affluent Dayton suburb.  He may have been bullied in school, and from his postings we can tell he was struggling. There were rumors of “hit lists” and “rape lists.” He wanted to do just enough to “get by.”  He was two years into community college when he stopped attending. 

He is a lot like a school shooter; like Parkland and Chardon and dozens more we read about.  The other kids knew who it was before the authorities released the name.  Just the fact  that the shooter was a young man from Bellbrook was enough.  

The Causes

So what do El Paso and Dayton shooters have in common?  They are both young white men, disaffected from the “norm,” looking for their moment in a literal hail of bullets.  One was subsumed into a white nationalist fantasy, one felt so powerless over his own life that he decided to take many others.  We have an issue in our society, past assault rifles and high capacity magazines.  We have an odd epidemic of these messed up young white boys.  

Here’s a macabre trivia question:  name a black, or female; mass shooter.  While I’m sure there must be some, right off hand I can’t think of any.  The “odd one” is the Las Vegas killer, an older white man with a lot of money.  But most are these young white boys.  Whatever is happening to them, we need to start figuring it out.  We know that shootings breed more shootings and that the Columbine killers of twenty years ago are still “admired legends” to a certain sub-class on the internet.

The Guns

But it seems that all of these young white men start measuring their manhood by the length of their rifles.  We know the El Paso shooter got his assault rifle over the internet, online, delivered, and perfectly legal.  While we don’t know how the Dayton shooter got his yet, it’s a common feature in many of these shootings.  So I don’t blame many Americans for blaming the guns.

And they are right. We are the ONLY modern country that allows unlimited access to weapons designed for war to the general populace. And we are by far the nation most plagued with these grotesque mass shootings.  Norway had one, United Kingdom had one, Australia had one, and New Zealand had one.  We here in the United States, home of the free and brave, had our 250^th for just this year.

Just like the political rhetoric, we know that most Americans can handle these weapons.  We know that most owners of assault rifles have them because they enjoy shooting them, or because they feel they need protection, or maybe as a last safeguard against a wayward government.  

The Constitution

Most of those folks aren’t on the edge of sanity. But we don’t have a reasonable way of defining who is, and who isn’t.  So, yes it’s about the mental health issues.  The sane don’t do what those white boys did.  But it also is about the guns, the access to weapons that are specifically designed to fire fast and create devastating wounds.  We can’t turn our backs on that part of the problem, or hide behind the Second Amendment.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson stated that, “…the Constitution is not a suicide pact.”  The Second Amendment isn’t either; we already accept many restrictions on what kind of weapons can be purchased.  A Federal license is required to have a fully automatic weapon, for example; it’s been that way since 1934.  So it isn’t that we can’t change, it’s finding the will to do it.

The Pain Becomes too Great

We will accept these mass shootings until the pain becomes too great.  We will allow our political gridlock to hand these broken individuals the weapon of their choice, until we decide not to.  Most of the solutions aren’t hard to do, and they aren’t hard to agree on.  Background checks, mental health evaluations, and “red flag” laws:  almost everyone agrees to those.  Most can even agree to ban high capacity magazines.  

So let’s get on that, knowing that there is a looming fight over how much pain we are willing to take for the “right” to assault rifles.  We can at least start to solve the problem.

President Trump

Donald Trump:  you are the President of a nation where white supremacists walk into Wal-Mart and community festivals and murder innocents.  If you think Elijah Cummings is somehow responsible for Baltimore’s poverty, than you are most certainly responsible for this.

Donald Trump:  What have you done to protect our nation from mass shooters?  You haven’t improved background checks, you haven’t banned assault weapons, you haven’t supported “red flag” laws, you haven’t done anything more than send your “thoughts and prayers” to El Paso.  Soon you will add Dayton to that list.

Donald Trump:  the Bible says “as you sow, so shall you reap.” You have sown hate in our country. While you may not be directly responsible for these killings, you have created an environment where those on the fringes feel enabled to act.  This is an outgrowth of the hate and fear you have engendered for migrants, and for those who are not white, or otherwise “different.”  

Donald Trump:  like it or not, and I don’t; you are the President of the United States.  You were chosen by a minority of voters to lead us.  None-the-less, it is your task. This is the real test of your Presidency.  You have so far failed.

The Republican Choice

Governor Abbott of Texas: you so forcefully pushed away all questions about controlling gun violence.  “Bodies haven’t even been recovered,” you said, “it’s not time for politics.”  Governor, you already have dozens killed in the past couple of years in  mass shootings.  You spoke of the courageous the actions of the heroes who saved lives under fire.  Where is your courage to make the changes required to protect your citizens?

Former Republican Congressman David Jolly said:

“For my Second Amendment Friends, “well regulated” were the first words written by the same guys who wrote the rest of the sentence. It all goes together.”

Jolly has the luxury of not running for office as a Republican anymore.  The Party has abandoned all pretense of protecting citizens from the threat of mass shootings.  They have fallen back to the National Rifle Association slogan:  “A bad man with a gun can only be stopped by a good man with a gun.”   

But the reality is that the “bad man” can really only be stopped by McConnell and Trump.  They have multiple options to try to change the equation of mass shootings.  It can start with background checks for every weapons purchased, even those at gun shows. It can continue with Red Flag laws and mental health checks.  And it can culminate with banning weapons designed for modern war from the United States. 

Good Men with Guns

We already depend on “good men” with guns.  Some are my friends, and I know they would lay down their lives to protect others. Those police officers will do what needs to be done if the time comes.  They are trained, they are armed, and they are prepared.

But they can only act when there is action.  In Dayton, nine died before the police could put the shooter “down.”  In California, three died before they stopped him.  They are doing all they can to keep people safe. But they need help.

Last week, friends of mine who coach high school went to a normal “start of the year” meeting.   The first hour was forms, procedures and goals. The second hour:  training from a former Afghanistan veteran turned athletic trainer on how to treat traumatic injuries caused by gunshots; how to pack wounds and place tourniquets.  For the coaches, it was a scary, but seemed like something they might have to use someday.

America’s Choice

In 2012 a gunman went into an elementary school and killed 20 little children and six adults at Sandy Hook.  Then President Obama proposed legislation, but Congress was unable to act.  It was said at the time, if we couldn’t begin to contain our national addiction to weapons of war after Sandy Hook, nothing would ever change.  Now, seven years later, that’s true:  nothing has changed.

We are at war.  Here are the statistics since Sandy Hook (Vox):

• 2189 mass shootings 
• 2475  killed
• 9137 wounded.

I have been writing “Trump World” essays for two and a half years, 540 so far.  I’ve written dozens about mass shootings, guns, and our choice to accept this violence.  There is little new to say, but it must be shouted loudly, over and over again. This is our America today and Americans are choosing to let this happen.  We could choose differently. We look to our leaders to make changes, to lead us to a safer place. Their answer has got to be better than just sending “thoughts and prayers.”  

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book”. It outlines the issues for the candidate, and his/her arguments and positions.  It puts everyone literally on “the same page” when it comes to any issue.  I’m not running for office, but I am presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

History

There is a great advantage in doing something for the first time, rather than a “do over.”  You can solve “the problem” before there are winners and losers.  Everyone has something to gain, no one is giving up something they already have.

Health insurance became an important job benefit during World War II.   As part of the War effort, the Federal Government froze wages.   Employers needed incentives to keep their limited labor supply, they found a new way to compensate employees:paid health insurance.  After the War its popularity grew and became a common part of rewarding employees.  Insurance costs were low for the companies and most employees were fully covered without paying additional fees.

As late as the 1980’s it was common for workers to be fully covered.  At that time, I remember an insurance conflict in my teacher’s union. Teachers with families at the same pay step were getting more compensation over single teachers.  Today it seems like a foolish argument, but back then; everyone was getting insurance for free and salaries in education were low; so being “fair” was a big deal.

Of course if you didn’t have a job, your insurance wasn’t covered.  If your income level was low enough, you were eligible for Medicaid.  If you were old enough, you were eligible for Medicare.  And if you were in between jobs, you could get expensive COBRA insurance.  Otherwise, if you were sick and ended up in the hospital, you were paying out of pocket,  or you were simply a “charity case.”

Costs Escalate

Health care costs increased. Part of this was because of the sophistication of modern medicine; an X-Ray, penicillin and an aspirin were no longer the medical answers for most problems.  With the amazing amount of tests, devices, medications, and treatments; someone had to pay for development, availability, and use.  And, of course, insurance companies were publicly owned, and wanted profits for their shareholders.

And as medicine got better, and people lived longer, they got more diseases.  End of life care became extremely expensive, and that cost was shared across the insurance buyers.

Employers found that the increasing costs of insurance were prohibitive.  They passed on the costs to employees, who had little choice but to pay. It was either that, or “go bare” and risk personal bankruptcy for even non-life threatening medical situations.

The Answers Today

Which brings us to the present.   Many Democrats look to some form of universal health care as the answer, paid through taxes to the government.  This has the advantage of having the biggest pool of insured members; everyone.  The young adult just beginning a career, the healthy thirty-something’s, the lucky fifty year olds who never get sick:  all would pay into the health care system and help cover the costs of the sick.  “Opt-out” is not an option, nor is “tailoring” a plan.  Just like those single teachers who got less than the married ones, everyone pays in, and people that need benefits, get them.

This is little different than public education, or fire departments, or the armed services.  To call government run health insurance “socialism” is to deny all of the other public services that our governments provide; local, state and national.

  Just a note: Fire Departments used to be privately run businesses too – either you paid the company or they didn’t put out the fire.  Different companies would fight over who got what fire.  It wasn’t a good system for our cities, the town could burn down while the firemen brawled.  What’s burning down now??

So the easy answer is to switch over to government run health care.  But there’s a problem.

Americans Who Got It, Like It

First is the practical issue:  many Americans are quite comfortable with their current, private insurance. Moreover, many of those same folks are suspicious of government run plans.  While the Affordable Care Act helped millions of Americans get coverage, the botched roll out with overwhelmed online servers affirmed what many already believed, that the government would “screw it up.” And President Obama made the promise: if you like your doctor you can keep him.  That was true for those who remained on private insurance, but if they switched to the Affordable Care Act policies, if wasn’t necessarily so.   

But, almost everyone liked having insurance covering pre-existing conditions, and letting children stay on their parents’ insurance until they were twenty-six.  Most liked the increased “wellness benefits” required under the ACA, and many of the other requirements all insurers were mandated to offer.

The thought of additional government insurance intervention worries workers who gave up salary for health benefits. It also concerns those who can afford to buy “luxury” health insurance; they are afraid they are going to lose out on a government run program.   And insurance companies who will lose their profits are spending millions to lobby politicians and the general public of the “dangers of socialized medicine.”   

The Costs Grow

But what those opposed to more government involvement in health care ignore is that the costs are growing out of control.  Health insurance cost is rising at ten percent a year for many small businesses. They can’t pay it, and they can’t afford to pay their employees enough to buy it somewhere else.  Middle-income workers aren’t prepared to pay $20,000 or more for insurance a year, but if they are thrust into an individual market now, that’s the lowest likely cost.  The problem will only get worse if nothing is done; as more of the young and healthy “go bare” it makes the “insured pool” sicker, and therefore more expensive.

Solutions

The Republican Party has not offered a solution to the growing problem of health care costs.  They have promised to figure one out, somewhere, somehow.   Their advantage: with nothing on the table there is nothing to criticize.

Republicans and Democrats both agree that it’s past time to get control of the cost of prescription drugs. The “poster child” is insulin, with the cost going up 4000% in the past few years. The US Government gave away the ability to negotiate drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid, but they could legislate that power back.

Democrats are offering all kinds of health coverages.  The “moderates” like Biden, Bennett, and Delaney are all offer a “public option” in addition to the existing Affordable Care Act.  “Public Option” is a government run plan that those in the insurance market could choose to buy.  It wouldn’t impact those with private insurance.

Of course that means that the public option insured pool is likely to be sicker, and therefore more expensive to insure, than the “private pool.”   The cost of that expense would be shared across the government, taxpayers, rather than fully thrust on those insured.

And the more “progressive” Democrats want a total overhaul of the health care system.  They say it will create a lot more winners than losers, and that the winners will more likely be Democrats than Republicans (well, they don’t say the second part, but it’s probably true.)  What the total overhaul would do is make a serious effort to control medical costs, by removing the insurance company profits, controlling drug prices, and reducing the enormous paperwork required by everyone in the industry.

Right or Likely

That’s probably the “right” answer, but not the likely answer.  We are an America of moderation and incrementalism.  It is more likely that the moderate plans with public options will be the next step in government involvement.  Ultimately the controlled costs of government programs will overwhelm the private market, and America will make a de facto decision to use a government run health system.  But it will take time, not the “Revolution” called for by the far left of the Democratic Party.

Before the Nightmare

In October of 2016 I went to hear President Obama at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.   We were all still confident that Hillary would win, even though the blows of the leaked emails and the Comey letter to Congress raised concerns.  But when President Obama walked into the room (I was in the “overflow” room, he came and spoke to us first) a world of hope lit up.  The theme of his speech was Donald Trump, and it should have been titled “Come On, Man.”  Obama laid out the case for not believing Trump to an accepting audience:  truer words were never spoken.

“Come on, man,”  you can’t fool us.  “Come on, man,” don’t buy his brand of BS.  

Second Debate, Part Two

I missed the second night of debates last night (I went to see the 80’s Rock group REO Speedwagon.)  It’s still sitting on the DVR,  waiting for three hours.  I’ll get to them soon enough.  

But I’ve now heard a couple of hours of analysis.  Vice President Biden is running for President, in large part standing on his eight years in the Obama Administration.  He is the frontrunner; for others to move up in the standings, they have to somehow raise their visibility.  A proven way to do so is to attack the leader; it worked for Kamala Harris in the first debate.

Biden has done an effective job in defending the Obama legacy.  He has wrapped himself in Obama, effectively locking in his leading status. Other candidates are finding that the only way to attack Biden is to do the unthinkable:  attack the Presidency of Barack Obama.

President Obama has a +90% approval rating in the Democratic Party.  He changed America as the first African-American President (an America that Trump is trying to change back.)   He was a President with compassion, brilliance, and class; quite a contrast to our current leader.  Can attacking his Presidency be a reasonable Democratic strategy?

Come on, man!

How the Sausage is Made

A key issue for all Democrats is health care.  Every Democratic candidate has a plan to improve health care in America, from Biden expanding the Affordable Care Act with a public option, to Sander’s Medicare for all.  Last night, the attacks came against the flaws and failures of the ACA, Obamacare, because that was how the candidates could get to Biden.

Come on, man!  

Senator Klobuchar said it best the night before.  It’s all-good to have great plans, or to claim you need a “revolution” to get your ideas put into law.  But, as she noted, it takes sixty votes to pass something in the Senate.  In our currently divided government, there seems little chance that a “Medicare for All” kind of program could get through Congress and it certainly wasn’t an option in 2010 when the ACA became law.  

The Obama Administration took the problem, millions of Americans without health insurance, and made the best deal they could to win over their own Democratic Congress, and those few Republicans in the Senate.  “How the sausage got made” was ugly, including Speaker Pelosi statement you’d find out what was in the law after you vote for it, but in the end the Affordable Care Act was a strong attempt to expand coverage to most Americans.  How strong was it?  It’s survived nine years of Republican attempts to destroy it.  

Who Should be the Target

It’s not good enough, it needs to be fixed, and it was a Republican plan in the first place.  But it was the best that President Obama could get, and attacking him to get to Biden is a mistake.  Democrats who attack their own to raise their electoral chances aren’t helping themselves become President.  They are giving away the championship win today’s game.

Come on, man.

It isn’t that Barack Obama should go without criticism.  His administration failed to resolve the problems of undocumented migrants in the United States, finally resorting to an Executive Order Band-Aid to protect the Dreamers.  But it wasn’t for lack of trying; it was from the absolute intransigence of Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate.  Their goal was not the “good” of America, but to defeat a Democratic Presidency.  From their position, they were successful.  

And that’s what Democrats need to be talking about on the debate stage.  The motivating factor for the Democratic voters is Trump and McConnell and Tax Cuts.  It’s not attacks on the most popular President alive, nor is it on starting a “revolution.”  We’ve got a bigger challenge:  how to stop the “regression” into a racist, misogynist, and cruel new era.

Come on, man.  Get with it.