Non-religious saved the religious and America from Trump re-election

Who’d a thunk it? All U.S. religions increased their Trump vote last year over 2016.

White and non-white Evangelicals ticked up 2% for Trump as did white Catholics, Black Protestants and Jews. Non-white Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists all bumped up 4% and Mormons a whopping 15%.

But the religious were more than overwhelmed by us non-theists and not-affiliated which dropped 3%, while agnostics Trump vote declined 5%.

How the religious could stomach 4 years of Trump’s vulgarity, lying, delusional handling of pandemic and pre-election treason to conclude…”That’s for me”, will forever remain a mystery.

But I’m thrilled that we non-believers, skeptics and non-affiliated cut thru the Trump sham, sending him into exile at Mar-a-Lago till his upcoming court appearances begin.

Barrelful of lawsuits threatens May 1 Afghan pullout

You cannot make this up.

The February 29, 2020 peace agreement the U.S. made with the Taliban and Afghan government called for the U.S. to be out of Afghanistan May 1, 2021, just a month away.

But even before the ink was dry on the agreement, the Pentagon began inking agreements with defense contractors to keep supplying America’s Afghan war machine indefinitely.

Government financial officials are now warning of “a barrelful of lawsuits” if the U.S. does pull out May 1, ending need for all that military gear defense contractors are banking on.

One ponders did the Pentagon keep making those agreements out of sheer stupidity, or with the devious intent of tying up Uncle Sam’s arms to prevent him from waving home the boys and girls in that failed, war torn country.

My guess is the latter. When it comes to extending perpetual wars in perpetuity, the Pentagon practices not sheer stupidity…just sheer evil genius.

Schuchardt trivializes long overdue infrastructure initiative

My fellow Glen Ellynite, Dan Schuchardt, follows the GOP playbook to pretend a true society elevating, job creating spending bill is “not what it’s purported to be” (Trib letters, April 5). Referring to President Biden’s 2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill, he even puts infrastructure in quotes to emphasize its dubiousness. To Schuchardt, it’s mainly a tax increase bill dealing with climate change and social issues.

Since he fails to itemize a single infrastructure project let’s mention a few.

It calls for investment in transportation infrastructure including upgrading 10,000 bridges, 20,000 miles of roadway as well as modernizing ports and airports

It calls for replacing 50,000 public utility fossil fuel vehicles with electric power, and charging them from 500,000 charging stations.

The initiative will be used to improve drinking water infrastructure, expand broadband access and upgrade electric grids. All lead-based drinking water pipes are scheduled for the scrap heap.

Investment will go into building and retrofitting affordable housing and schools.

The infrastructure initiative will not kick start the currency printing presses. It will kickstart the resurgence of a no longer world class economy.

It will not tax Joe Sixpack. It will claw back half of the 14% corporate tax cut granted companies by Trump in 2017 and curb scandalous offshore profit sheltering. No one making under $400,000 will pay a penny for these long overdue improvements.

The infrastructure bill is not well served by empty, fact free charges. It requires careful analysis of long overdue, critically needed investment in America’s future.

Regarding infrastructure, it's time for America to go big or go home

Confederate statues need a little ‘truth in packaging’

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPCL), a group I’m proud to support, reports there are about 2,000 statures, building names and other honors to the Confederacy scattered across the Ol’ South. There coming down slowly as Republican state legislators are passing laws protecting them as fast as they’re passing racist laws not protecting the votes of likely Democratic voters.

I’m not a fan of removing offensive memorials as the list could include just about any honored person from the past. As Joey Brown exclaimed at the end of ‘Some Like It Hot’ when he found out his love interest, cross dressing Jack Lemmon, was a man, “Nobody’s perfect”. But we should no more honor traitors seeking succession from the Union than Germany should honor Nazi war criminals.

If they achieve protected status, we should, at a minimum, require truthful and honest descriptions. A huge monument to Confederate soldiers inside the entrance to the Austin, Texas State Capitol, proclaims “Died to protect states rights under the Constitution”. How bout, “Died seeking to destroy the Union to protect slavery”?

Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Gary Rabine following Trump down delusional political rabbithole

Millionaire Chicago suburban entrepreneur Gary Rabine is obviously an intelligent, industrious and successful businessman. Owning his own country club is proof positive.

But Rabine is soon to find out, like his hero and model Donald Trump, that business sense does not translate to extended political success. He opened his campaign for the GOP gubernatorial nomination next year with one of the most tone deaf, preposterous quotes ever, calling Trump’s four years in office “the strongest job creation administration in the history of my lifetime.”

That would only be true if the 57 year old Rabine was born on Inauguration Day 2017 or later. Trump job creation trailed his predecessor Obama even before pandemic hit with 10 months to go. America then lost 22 million jobs in part because of Trump’s disastrous response to pandemic which made it among the worst of all 195 nations. 2020 finished with 10 million of the 22 million jobs shed from pandemic still not back. The U.S. lost 6.7 million jobs for the full year, shrinking GDP by 3.5%, the largest decline since 1946 and the first decline since the Great Recession of 2008-9.

I can just see Rabine’s opening campaign slogan: “If you loved Trump’s economic record…you’ll love Rabine’s”.

Afghan pullout conjures up reverse Domino Theory

May Day, 2021 was supposed to be a great day for peace in America. Under the February 29, 2020 agreement Trump forged with the Afghan Taliban, the U.S. was committed to remove all troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. The agreement required Taliban attacks to the U.S. forces to stop, and they have. Not a single U.S. death has occurred there in the past 14 months. The 2,400 previously killed were not so fortunate.

The agreement also requires the Taliban to cooperate with the U.S. supported Afghan government for power sharing. But that has not occurred and never will. The Taliban control a majority of the land and will never cooperate with a corrupt, incompetent government incapable of surviving without endless U.S. support. In a civil war, the indigenous, insurgent side wins over the foreign puppet government every time, unless the foreign government stays forever. We can drop a hundred thousand bombs on the Taliban and they remain defiant and standing. We can drop a hundred billion dollars on the Afghan government and they can never stand on their own.

Unfortunately, President Biden falsely calls the sensible agreement poorly negotiated and the May 1 deadline to be out, ‘unrealistic’. Instead of accepting the inevitable, he’s pushing for a 6 month extension to November 1. If so, it will likely be extended throughout Biden’s term, to be handed off to his successor.

The Taliban has signaled that any delay will end their truce attacking U.S. invaders, ending 14 months of no U.S. casualties. That delay puts a target on the back of all 3,500 U.S. troops there and is inexcusable.

President Biden has spent his 5 decade career in government supporting U.S. exceptualism and perpetual war around the world. He cemented this worldview by appointing a national security team completely aligned with this vision.

What Biden and the U.S. foreign policy establishment really fear is a reverse Domino Theory. During the Vietnam War era of the 1960’, it was feared that any communist takeover around the world would start a ‘domino effect’ where one country after another would fall to the march of communism. Poppycock.

Now the worry is if the U.S. pulls out of one country we’re defiling with our troops, the others will follow and kick us out too. Iraq told us to leave 15 months ago but we told them ‘No, we aint leaving’. We pulled 5,000 troops from Syria but left 900 to guard Syrian oil wells from being used by their rightful owners, the Syrian government. Leaving Afghanistan shines the spotlight on the senselessness of every U.S. occupation.

The reverse Domino Theory spells doom for the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex. But it spells hope and peace for America and the world.

Take me out to the All Star Game.......

but not in Georgia

You bet we're coming to cancel you, Gov. Kemp

We're going to cancel your restrictive voting bill that threatens the vote of minorities and the poor in your state who desperately need it expanded, not restricted, if it takes every private enterprise fueling your economy to remove their services. That is not governmental overreach. It has nothing to do with government. It is citizen based democracy at its finest.

Unless you embrace full democracy for all Georgians, we're going to cancel your legacy as governor just like we cancelled the governorship of your slave supporting predecessor Joseph E. Brown in 1865.

But if you're thirsty....we'll graciously offer you a drink of water.