Opinion and commentary on national and international politics and government affairs.
As some readers may remember, I covered the El Paso Children’s Hospital bankruptcy extensively. The children’s hospital is back in the news. Over the last few weeks I have reviewed documents and interviewed several individuals. What I found is troubling. It shows a hospital more intent in the profits it can generate than in patient… Read More El Paso Children’s Hospital Exposé
If the debacle of Tuesday’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump isn’t enough to convince you that America is severely politically divided, then there is nothing that will get you to go vote. But if you are now convinced that you need to cast a vote on November 3, then next week has… Read More Register To Vote
Disney employees in California and Florida got the bad news yesterday that they are losing their jobs. Disney has blamed the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting closures and limits on their operations as the reason for the layoffs. According to various news sources, the company is terminating 28,000 employees. Almost 7,000 in Florida are on… Read More Disney Layoffs Signal Economic Recovery Still Not Here
Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, lifted all Covid-19 restrictions on Friday. All businesses, including bars and restaurants no longer have state mandated restrictions. DeSantis allowed local governments to impose some restrictions, if the restaurant isn’t faced with a restriction limiting their seating capacity to more than 50%. Yesterday, while talking to the manager of an Orlando… Read More Florida Covid-19 Reopening Order Exposes Another Economic Hurdle
I am an immigrant from México. Since I immigrated, I have paid my taxes. I am not even a U.S. citizen, but I pay my taxes. Donald Trump apparently hasn’t paid federal income taxes in years. The two times he made a payment in the last fifteen years he paid $750 a year, for two… Read More I Am An Immigrant. I Pay My Taxes.
There are growing protests across America demanding that police departments be defunded. Other protestors are demanding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be abolished. Protestors in Portland protested outside the ICE building recently. ICE has drawn attention in recent years as the Trump Administration has intensified efforts to close the borders to immigrants. U.S.… Read More The Culture of Racism At El Paso Based Border Patrol & BORTAC
It showed up on my Apple news feed innocently enough and I almost skipped the article. I almost skipped it because it was from The Kansas City Star, a newspaper I wasn’t familiar with and I was afraid it was just clickbait. But the headline, As a Black US diplomat in Mexico, I was constantly… Read More U.S. Diplomat Describes What I Felt Crossing The U.S.-Mexico Border In El Paso For Years
The post for today is very simple. It is a reminder to all those who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump on November 3rd that they are voting for the destruction of America. Trump, and many of his supporters, believe that Donald Trump is for America First. But the reality is nothing more than… Read More The Trump Legacy – 250 Thousand Plus Dead
There is this idea pushed forth by political observers that Latinos are a growing voter base and that they are on the verge of substantially changing the face of the American electorate. Each election cycle it is the Latino vote that will make the difference and each time it fizzles into nothing. The 2020 elections… Read More The Illusive Latino Vote Even More Illusive in 2020
Readers are likely aware that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this weekend. RGB, as she is colloquially referred to has been a factor for the upcoming November elections. However, on her passing, RBG will likely play a larger role in the election. Political pundits and legal scholars are discussing the how and the… Read More The RBG Voter Factor
One of the most hypocritical things I see is the hypocrisy by both police officers and their supporters who have no problem violating the Flag Code while arguing that individuals should follow the law to avoid problems. Some even argue that those that the police violate likely had it coming because they broke the law… Read More Support Police And Violate The Flag Code
The Thin Blue Line was a 1952 television show about the Los Angeles Police Department. It was conceived and produced by William H. Parker, the then Los Angeles police chief. The show, which lasted for a short time, was a question and answer show about policing. From the show, The Thin Blue Line emerged as… Read More The Racist History Of The Thin Blue Line
Donald Trump ordered a payroll tax holiday for all workers through the end of the year. But like all Trump directives not all is what it seems. On September 1, workers were supposed to start seeing a 7.65% bump in their paychecks. Trump had ordered that the Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%) payroll taxes… Read More Trump Payroll Tax Is Not Trickling Down To Workers
Does Donald Trump have a chance to win on Election Day? The economy is in shambles, notwithstanding the booming markets. Most voters do not benefit directly from a stock market rally. For most voters, the stock market is just numbers scrolled across screens. The real metric for voters is their jobs. Do they have jobs… Read More Will There Be a Vaccine for Election?
The 2020 presidential election will come down to one poignant thing – the facemask. The country is divided by different social and economic problems. The two sides are hoping their candidate, either Joe Biden or Donald Trump comes out victorious in November. The ideology driving both sides is a complex mismatch of several political issues… Read More The Mask Election
Some 9/11 cartoons courtesy of Cagle Cartoons.
Campaign disinformation troll houses have become synonymous with Russia. There is no doubt that Russia is interfering in the 2020 elections. But there are other players playing in the social media arena who are also trying to manipulate elections in other countries. Some of them are American. Social media platforms have become voter outreach centers… Read More Russia Is Not The Only Campaign Disinformation Purveyor
The Russians interfered in the 2016 elections. They are also interfering in the 2020 elections. Their preferred platforms are Facebook and Twitter. For their part, Facebook and Twitter are addressing foreign interference in the political process through ever more complex and evolving schemes that have not stopped the political interference via their platforms. What Facebook… Read More How Facebook and Twitter Can End Political Interference Easily
The United States is a divided country. On one side you have Donald Trump supporters and on the other you have those who opposed him. Politics always divide people. But in this case, the division is so great that it has evolved into violence. There are many reasons why people support Donald Trump. Among them… Read More The Great Replacement Explains America Today
In response to the Covid-19 emergency and because Congress has been unable to pass new legislation to help the economy, Donald Trump issued several executive orders on August 8. One of them was the Payroll Tax Deferral Memorandum. The so-called payroll tax holiday reduces that taxes withheld on employee paychecks from September 1 through the… Read More Payroll Tax Holiday – What It Means To You And Your Company
I hope you enjoy RumpToons No: 200.
Can America afford another four years of Donald Trump? Rather than bore you with words, I thought I would make a video instead. Enjoy!
One thing that Americans generally hate are cheaters. That is what many want you to believe. Cheaters not only diminish the hard work of others, but cheaters also take opportunities away from others. The IRS Oversight Board 2014 Taxpayer Attitude survey showed that of the thousand individuals the survey surveyed, 94% frowned on taxpayers who… Read More Americans Love To Cheat
Close the borders! Build a wall! Americans want to isolate themselves in a walled in country was what Donald Trump and cohorts shouted. But last week’s arrest of Steve Bannon and others who raised $25 million from American “patriots” has proven that real Americans want an open America where diversification is the face of the… Read More Bannon Proves Americans Don’t Care About Nationalism
Donald Trump has spent his presidency arguing that Russian collusion was a hoax. On August 18, 2020, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its final 966-page report on Russian active measures in the 2016 election. It did not exonerate Donald Trump. Instead, the bipartisan report added more details to Russia’s interference of the 2016 elections. Two… Read More Russia, Trump and Collusion
Donald Trump clearly knows he is facing a losing battle for a second term. Yesterday, he announced that he is pardoning Susan B. Anthony for her 1872 arrest for voting. Anthony was convicted of casting an illegal vote by casting a vote before women were allowed to vote. The irony of pardoning someone for voting… Read More Let The Games Begin – Donald Trump Pardons Susan B Anthony
I have been watching the debate over voting by mail in the upcoming elections in November with interest because the debate checks off several issues that have my attention at the same time. They are making sure Donald Trump does not get another term, my disgust with the United States post office and American elections.… Read More Voting By Post Office
Congress is in its summer recess while the American economy faces further devastation. Covid-19 has devastated the American economy with the closure of businesses resulting in the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. Without workers churning out products and services the American economy falters in place. The problem – in its simplest terms –… Read More Congress Devastates Economy Further
There are times when I am left speechless, completely unable to articulate a word, must less a sentence. Today is such a day. Some readers may be aware of the 8-year-old boy that police in Key West tried to handcuff only to find out that the handcuffs were too big. It happened in 2018 and… Read More Sometimes I Do Not Have The Words
Some readers may be thinking that their paychecks will be going up now that Donald Trump signed an executive order ordering a payroll tax holiday for everyone. What Trump has ordered is a 6.2% payroll bump in your paycheck starting on September 1. The order says it will last until December 31. What this means… Read More So You Think You Have A Payroll Tax Holiday Coming Up
Really? What is wrong with Americans? The Centers for Disease Control issued a “formal warning” about the dangers of drinking hand sanitizer. You read that right, the CDC, tasked with protecting Americans from bad drugs, was forced to tell Americans not to drink hand sanitizer after four people had died and another dozen were poisoned… Read More What Is Wrong With Americans?
The Trump Wall, better known to Mexicans as the Wall of Hate is about demonizing Mexicans and it has nothing to do with protecting American from terrorists or drugs. It is symbol of hating Mexicans. Biden knows this as other Democrats, but Biden is playing a careful game of distinguishing himself from Trump by placating… Read More Joe Biden Plays Both Sides on Wall
Anyone that knows anything about Donald Trump knows that Trump has waged an unrelenting war against immigrants. His attacks on immigrants is xenophobic. The Trump narrative is that immigrants are bad for America. Trump argues that in this time of economic strife, immigrants need not apply to come work in America because Americans deserve to… Read More Trump Wants Immigrant Workers But Not Immigrants
Today, the emergency $600 weekly federal unemployment stipend expires. As of now, Congress is unable to come to an agreement about how to move forward on stimulating the economy as the Coronavirus pandemic continues to destroy the economy. With the November elections less than 100 days away, it is surprising that the Republicans have put… Read More About Twenty Million Americans About To Go Hungry
Immigrants in America are facing a binary choice in November between the status-quo of remaining marginalized in America or being terrorized for being immigrants. The two presumptive presidential candidates; Donald Trump and Joe Biden are not for immigration, notwithstanding the political rhetoric coming from both. Neither are offering to bring immigrants out of the shadows.… Read More Immigrants Have a Choice Between the Status-quo or Terrorism in November 2020
And, there have it, the Band-Aid has been pulled off and it is time that Americans reconcile with the inconvenient truth that America was founded on the backs of slaves. The wound is open and oozing because some Americans continue to hold on to the façade of American exceptionalism. Today’s America is the culmination of… Read More Slavery Was A Necessary Evil Says Senator
It didn’t take long after I first arrived in El Paso that I realized something was different about the city. It was very Mexican but not Mexican at all. I know, it doesn’t make sense and it didn’t make sense at first. Cd. Juárez dominates El Paso in population and in its economy but most… Read More What A 1964 Book Teaches Us About the Origins of the Glass Beach Study
In the coming days, the federal unemployment subsidy will expire. The subsidy provides $600 a week in unemployment benefits to workers impacted by the pandemic. The federal eviction moratorium will also be ending. Both are scheduled to end this week. Congress is now considering two competing stimulus packages with the House Democrats pushing a $3.5… Read More The Rental Eviction Tsunami
The Coronavirus pandemic was going to “magically disappear” was what Donald Trump was hoping for. It didn’t. Instead it is re-surging and the American economy is under more pressure to reopen. As if that wasn’t enough, both Trump and the Republicans need a strong economy in November for them to succeed at the ballot boxes.… Read More Second Stimulus Package On the Way, But At What Cost?
Those hoping for an economic rebirth to happen in 2020, after the pandemic emergency ends, need to rethink their dream. It is not going to happen. Many are likely arguing that Wallstreet is booming so the economic outlook must be good. Looking closely at Wallstreet it soon becomes apparent that in between the headlines of… Read More The 2020 Economy Is Dead
