Response Number One to Trump's Attack On the People of Puerto Rico Today

From reporter, writer, Dan Rather, today:

Excuse me, Mr. President but your tantrum tweet storm this morning attacking the mayor of San Juan, a fellow American citizen dealing with a real-time life and death struggle for hundreds of thousands of her constituents on an island of millions in crisis, is not only far below the dignity of the office you hold. It fails even the most basic test of humanity.

Did she have harsh words for your Administration's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria? Yes. It's called a reality check, and one that conforms to every firsthand account coming out of Puerto Rico no matter how much you try to deflect with your "Fake News" epithets. To take this personally is to put ego before country. And you also blame the Puerto Ricans themselves? That they want "everything done for them"? No. They just expect to be treated as any other American would.

I have seen more than my share of wretched desperation over the course of my career. I have reported from crisis zones where matters of life and death hang moment to moment in the balance between action and inaction, where communication is limited, and the sense of panic is building. I have seen the most steadfast of leaders feel the crushing weight of responsibility as they survey a landscape of almost incomprehensible need.

It does not take a saintly amount of compassion or empathy to feel for those who are struggling to stay alive, who are worried for the fate of family and friends, and who have seen so much that they have known and loved blown and washed away. You swore to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and that means a responsibility to look out for all Americans, even if they live on an island in the ocean, or look different or even speak a different language than what you think is America.

I worry that whoever has your ear has not adequately impressed upon you the gravity of this situation, or even the political price you are likely to pay (although that can be no where near the top concern at the moment). Or perhaps you have been told and haven't listened.

Regardless, what Puerto Rico needs now is not rhetoric but help, not a bumbling response, but the precision and competence we expect of our government. I do not believe "blame the victim" is what Americans expect of their president.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump can't be bothered. He's off at his New Jersey property today, this weekend.

Golfing.

Kudos and Great Thanks to Steve Kraske

In the last couple of months, at least, if not longer, it seems reporter/interviewer and "man about town" Steve Kraske, of the Kansas City Star and KCUR 89.3 FM radio, has posted and posed more good questions and issues and history of our area than just about anyone.

I think what really first turned my head, so to speak, in his reporting, was when he brought up the issue of whether or not the name of our one very prominent fountain in town, on the Country Club Plaza, the JC Nichols fountain, should keep its name or not, given Mr. Nichols deepset, historical, proven, public  racism.

Kansas City should confront racist past and rename J.C. Nichols fountain

The fact is, it's Mr. Nichols racism that was a huge factor in making us the very divided, very segregated city and metropolitan area that we still are, today. That impacted where people live, where they work, where they go to school and so, obviously, the education they get, the jobs that are possible and finally, how much they earn. Those are huge, huge ramifications and they've reverberated through people's lives and so, through the city, and for decades. It's what has made what and who we are today, personally and as a city and metropolitan area. We know it goes all the way out, across the state line, ito Kansas.

Then, he didn't just ask it once but twice in the Star:

 I’m still talking about J.C. Nichols, racism and renaming the fountain

With Yael Abouhalkah off the staff of our local paper, who else is covering the State of Kansas fiscal debacle like this?

Massive Kansas tax cuts were the result of Gov. Sam Brownback’s lie

Not to be done there, this week, just a couple days ago, he had this one in the Star:

We’re taking down lots of monuments these days. But here’s one we should add

He proposed we should maybe, as a city or state, or both, at least, put up a monument---or two? more?--to the Americans who helped build our nation, innocent Americans, but who were lynched by fellow Americans.

Then, on KCUR, the local NPR station, he followed up that article with this interview and topic:

Death Sentence Changes A Juror's Life, And Understanding America's Legacy Of Lynching

He has singlehandedly done some pretty fantastic writing and interviews and is touching on stories that need to be covered no one else is, I think. He's really having us and helping us examine our history and by doing so, showing us where we are today.

With these examples alone, I can't think of one other person in the metropolitan area, or the region or state, for that matter, that is posing such provocative issues and questions for all the rest of us.

So kudos, Mr. Kraske.  Good on you. Thank you, deeply and sincerely, for getting and keeping the rest of us out here thinking and questioning what we might otherwise not question or think about. And please, do keep up this good and even important work. The only other challenges we seem to get are from the Right Wing and Republicans who seem to want us to be or get or remain selfish and stingy and even racist, lately.

To other reporters and writers and people in the media, you would do well to copy this example.

Please.

Now if only he could get KCPT to include minorities, "people of color" on their "Ruckus" and weekly news programs. And every week, at that. Seems they don't think, down there at our local PBS station, that black and Hispanic people live here or that they have anything to contribute to our city and any possible solutions to issues and problems of the day.

Here's hoping.

The Kansas City Star, KCUR and we all are lucky, very lucky to have him in our midst and reporting and interviewing.

So again, Mr. Kraske. Thank you sincerely. Please don't stop now.

Links:

Up To Date | KCUR

Steve Kraske | KCUR

Up To Date : NPR

UM System President Bullish On Downtown KC Arts Campus And Improving Diversity

Inequality Reshapes Families, KC's Sandlot History, And State Senator Faces Likely Expulsion

The Psychobiology Behind Love (R), And Race Relations Under President Trump

Quote of the Day -- On Yesterday's House Health Care Debacle

How can you prescribe a cure for heartlessness? 

What a deplorable day for America. 

Perhaps the Senate will stop this assault; we will see. 

Meanwhile the congressional GOP, and its fundamentalists, are full of real bastards, replete with the hubris and conceits that blind white people of privilege. 

It’s the stuff of fiction. 

All of them are the pious and stunted Babbits who have shown up time after time in American history. In the 19th century, these ignoramus moralists used to tar and feather the wicked and clutch their skirts and get the vapors, when their real motive was fleecing someone. 

And now? 

Snake Oil comes in Red, White, and Blue with a GOP pin. 

Once again, the officiously comfortable afflict the poor, elderly and vulnerable, and proclaim their righteous glory and salvation while killing them, Alleluiah. No dunking chairs, stocks or nooses are being used here, and no one is quite being run out of town, but it's a bonfire of hubris. 

And of course, a rancid lecher like Trump and his administration target women and the poor. 

He is enabled in so many ways by those who obsess over the organ Trump is so fond of and yet horrified by, the organ which does all those things he and his coterie are so terribly, demonstrably, shamed by. Misogyny, racism and an orgy of white class privilege define today; NOT American ideals. 

This is ancient, orgiastic Rome on the Potomac. 

Or, leap ahead to the 17th century: You don't have to endorse everything HRC did in her campaign to be appalled by her burning at the stake by Comey and the rest with casual, partial, deadly “reveals". (Comey tosssed letter bombs.) 

So, friends, what comes next? 

Demonstrations, protests, and 2018. 

The Democrats may have been less than elegant today -- but really, who can blame a visceral reaction in the face of an Orwellian overload of cant? We're watching democracy be trampled, and decent people be trampled, and our way of life -- I don't think I'm exaggerating here -- be peeled off to appease and enrich the exalted triumphalists. 

They should start wearing togas. 

Staid, pleasant rhetoric doesn't cut it for me in these times. And unless we're really willing to do the hard work of connecting people, this ugliness dominates. I think we're on the cusp of a radical act: Democracy, and yanking it back in 2018 from the worst, most venal characters since the days of Vigilantes, boss rule and segregation and other nativist elements. 

Can we provide the cure for the diseased heart of the American power structure? 

For the heartlessness and greed which lie at the heart of Trumpism and the GOP? 

That's my definition of palliative care: vote them into oblivion. Whatever it takes, wherever we are, but link arms, and do not be silent.

--Jacki Lyden

Link:

Jacki Lyden - Wikipedia

Proud of You, Kansas City!!

Yes! #Strongertogether

You passed the street bonds bill, flood control bonds and animal shelter bonds!!

KC voters approve $800M bond package for streets, sidewalks, flood control, shelter

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/#storylink=cpy

Kudos!!  Great job!!

We don't get something, things, from nothing.

Yes sir, I'm happy for and proud of you, Kansas City.

Yael Abouhalkah got it right.

Hail Mayor Sly James – and Kansas City voters 

Additional links:

KC voters come out for marijuana question, 

animal shelter in election

KC voters approving lower penalty for pot possession

Yael on the Trail – Opinions from the Midwest

More of our imbalanced American priorities

Fifty States of Fear

Edward R Murrow on America

Famed reporter, journalist and author Edward R Murrow on America and our history:

"They were ahead of the law, ahead of education and established institutions. They made their own...There grew up a tradition of violence and lawlessness... They fought a four-year civil war. And the status of the Negro...is still one of the greatest problems facing the nation. I believe we lynched only three or four of our black fellow-citizens last year, which is some improvement...

We...engineered a frontier incident with Mexico. We took that huge territory of Texas, and what is now California... Later on, we were to land marines in Nicaragua and Haiti, narrowly avoid war with Germany over Venezuela, and create a heritage of mistrust amongst the South American peoples as a result of high-handed methods and dollar diplomacy. Cuba and the Philippines came into our Lebensraum...

And all the time we were despoiling a continent. We cut the top off it, and sent the timber floating down the rivers. We ploughed the prairies, wasted our soil... Later on in this series you will hear about the New Deal, our racial problems, and how we came to be a nation of which one-third is ill-clothed, ill-housed and ill-fed. You will also hear something of our achievements."

--Edward R. Murrow from his "Meet Uncle Sam" series.  Quote taken from the book

MURROW: HIS LIFE AND TIMES by A. M. Sperber

Links:   Edward R. Murrow - Wikipedia

Heard today on the Penn State scandal

"If they play football come September at Penn State, something's wrong." --Bob Costas, NBC sports reporter, writer, speaking today to David Gregory on "Meet the Press"

Great articles in The Star today

The Star hit some balls out of the ballpark today, I think, in their reporting.

Good for them. Good for us.

The first I'll mention is their series on all the people across town who have gotten shot, for whatever reason, in the past and then didn't press charges against their assailants so the police had to abandon their investigations. As I posted yesterday and as the Star so rightly points out in these articles, unless and until people make others responsible for these actions, not only will the shootings and killings not stop but they will likely get worse, as we've seen over the years in town. It has a 2nd part in tomorrow's paper, too.

The other great article--also on the front page of the paper--tells about GSA bonuses given to staff who also happen to be under investigation.

Does that make any sense?

They're under investigation for some kind of possible transgression but they get a bonus anyway?

Anyway, as a side note, it should be pointed out that it was reporter Russ Ptacek, before he left town, who got these investigations started. (I did point it out on Facebook, on Russ Ptacek's page, in an effort to thank him).

So kudos to you today, Star, and thank you.

Now, if maybe more and yet more local reporting across our cities, towns, counties and states of Missouri and Kansas can come from our paper, people will want and even need to subscribe, for fear of missing out on important, local stories. Maybe, maybe that will help save this rag. ("Rag" not meant disparagingly).

Here's hoping.

Have a great week, y'all.

Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/02/3639299/special-report-many-bullets-little.html;
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/02/3639310/who-stands-up-for-the-people-getting.html;
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/02/3639313/gang-shootings-create-cycles.html;
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/02/3639290/gsa-is-under-fire-for-bonuses.html

Happy birthday, Gloria Emerson

"Gloria Emerson was an American journalist and writer, who with passion, insight and art documented some of the darkest scenes of our times. She was best known for her award-winning reporting of the Vietnam War for Te New York Times."

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/gloria-emerson-6163682.html

Who is our Gloria Emerson of today?

I wrote yesterday, briefly, about the mistakes we made--and learnede nothing from--as a nation, regarding the Vietnam War. I also mentioned a very famous, brilliant writer named Gloria Emerson of The New York Times who wrote an equally brilliant book about our nation and the Vietnam experience in "Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, And Ruins From The Vietnam War".

In it, she wrote, rightly, that we, as a nation and as a people learned nothing, really from Vietnam. If anyone didn't agree with her when the book came out in 1978, by now, they would have plenty of proof she was correct, what with our attacking Iraq in 2003. She surely must be spinning in her grave.

So my question now, today, is, who, exactly is our so-needed Gloria Emerson of the day? Who is out there doing the research, on the ground in Afghanistan, getting the information, writing about what's going right--if anything--and what's gone and is going so terribly wrong for our that country, those people, our military and our country and people?

I can't think of a conflict that needs "lessons learned" any more than this one.

Can you?

And doesn't it seem we've made a great deal of mistakes and have plenty we do need to learn? And as soon as possible?

Link: http://gloriaemerson.com/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Emerson; http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/emerson/; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/gloria-emerson-6163682.html; http://vietnamwarfromatoz.blogspot.com/2011/02/winners-losers-by-gloria-emerson.html; http://www.amazon.com/Winners-And-Losers-Battles-Retreats/dp/0393309258

Rep. Cleaver's SBA loan: A story made for a good media outlet and reporter

If ever there were a story that seemed made for a good reporter and media outlet--be it newspaper or local TV station--this one right now about Representative Emanuel Cleaver and his $1.46 million loan from the SBA that's "going South" seems to be just the one. Here you have a situation where the local, sitting government representative to Washington and the Federal government has taken out a government loan AND HE'S NOT GOING TO REPAY IT? This on top of the fact that in the past he's gotten caught with outstanding taxes unpaid? I'm not saying anyone's guilty of anything here, either. I'm just saying here's a story that has stink all over it and some reporting bloodhound should be all over it. Where's Russ Ptacek when you need him? Say, what about Chris Hernandez? SOMEBODY, please take this and run with it. Please. According to Newsbusters today, no one is going with the story, so far. This, I repeat, stinks. Somebody, somewhere, sic 'em. Please? Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/06/3540958/taxpayers-could-have-to-cover.html; http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2012/04/09/more-emanuel-car-wash-cleaver-coverage-ap-does-local-story-doesnt-name-p; http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2012/04/09/kid-glove-treatment-emanuel-car-wash-cleaver-kc-star-ap-has-no-national-

We deserve answers and information, Rep. Cleaver

Last week we were given the news (see link below) that our own Representative Emanuel Cleaver II took out an SBA loan for $1,100,000 and now we, the taxpayers, will likely have to "eat" that loan. Well, I can only say--and it needs to be said--that we'd like to hear from good Mr. Cleaver on the matter. I'd like to know why we shouldn't be mad as hell about this, Rep. Cleaver. The Star, in the article, says they tried to get answers but couldn't get any. I'll be damned if I'll vote for him again unless or until this is cleared and cleaned up. So far, nothing from him or his office, to my knowledge. The same standards for every other politician applies to this one, for sure. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/06/3540958/taxpayers-could-have-to-cover.html

TKC reports: $1m "Emergency" IT Contract at City Hall

As Tony reports today on his blog (http://www.tonyskansascity.com/), the city of Kansas City, Missouri apparently just let a contract for one million dollars for an "emergency" IT contract. Three things come to me, right away: First, I hope it was competed, competed fairly and wisely and they can prove it. Second, seriously, as said in the comments section at Tony's blog---why couldn't/didn't they find someone local who would supply these services? I find it difficult to believe there aren't companies here in the area--in the city itself?--that can't and don't supply them. Third and finally, was this contract rushed through? And if it was, why and by whom? Let's hope it wasn't. Now we need a Russ Ptacek-type reporter SOMEWHERE in this town--the Star? KMBC? KSHB? KCTV? somehere--to go do some digging on this and find out at least that much about this contract. It's not so much to ask. Link: http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/liveweb/Documents/Document.aspx?q=FJdztn5pZS50Yvhu0FN92nVbLLjL49qzHW30zeQ6AjxFZ84X8ymz7wOiRYRgkDFa

Quote of the day

"Romney asks a girl wearing a Hollister California sweatshirt, 'Oh you're from Hollister California are you?'" --Ari Shapiro, NPR reporter on the campaign trail, according to his Facebook page this evening from Mitt "I swear I'm not out of touch" Romney

Your evening's entertainment

Could you have kept a straight face? Makes you kind of want to meet the guy who set this thing up, doesn't it? At least for a little bit. Sounds like a real nut-job. Have a great evening, y'all.

Quote of the day--plutocracy

"Plutocracy and democracy don’t mix. Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder."    --Bill Moyers








Link to original post:  http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-money-fights-hard-and-it-fights-dirty64766

Todd Tiahrt and the Republicans: having it both ways

So Todd Tiahrt and his band of Republicans are supposed to be for "small government" and nearly no government at all, to hear them say it. Heck, the way they talk, you'd think they were all "slash the government" Libertarians. But right now, ol' Todd is running like a banshee for office, so what does he come up with? Check it out: Todd Tiahrt, who is running for U.S. Senate in Kansas, said he will press for a federal law to require cell phone companies to help find missing persons... The issue involving cell phone companies arose in the case of the late Kelsey Smith. She was abducted and killed in 2007... The proposal would require cell phone companies to release records to investigators working on missing persons cases. So, sure, the Republicans are for "small government." Unless they're running for office. Or trying to help their big, corporate friends... Or... Apparently, Republican George W. Bush's intrusive and far-reaching "Patritot Act" just isn't enough for these people. Link to original post: http://www.kmbc.com/news/24408955/detail.html

Let's call it what it is: Wealthcare

Let's not call what we have in America "health care" any longer. Let's be honest.

It's "wealthcare"--health care for anyone and everyone with money.

That's what we have and it's getting worse.

There is a terrific, front-page article in The Kansas City Star today that shouldn't be overlooked, partly because the Star can't do that many insightful articles any more, what with their much-reduced staff but also because it gives great, cutting-edge information on yet another new wrinkle in our health care system.

It's called "concierge medicine" and if you assume that, because it has a French name it's more expensive, you'd be correct.

It works like this: You pay, say, $1,000.00 up front, PER MONTH--that already puts most of us out of this option--then approximately $125.00 more per month. For that you get virtually unlimited access to your own personal family physician.

Want to see him or her that day? Sure.

Need to see him or her that evening? No problem.

For that much money, it shouldn't be a surprise.

Get this--the doctors still recommend you carry insurance, on top of these costs, of course, to cover "hospital visits and specialist's care."

Sure, it's terrific, personal coverage but at what a cost. Holy cow.

Understandably, as it says in the article, doctors are going crazy with our current system of health care because it pays them for procedures. This means that, the busier they are, the more they get paid so the more their practice gets paid.

Let me repeat a familiar refrain: This is no way to run a health care system.

It's crazy.

It's paying the doctors to just fix problems after the fact, instead of helping us all stay healthy ahead of time.

But as long as we keep going back in and paying our insurance premiums, and the doctors work like little rats in a cage and the clinics and hospitals keep their costs down--by denying care, frequently, and minimizing treatments and reducing the amount of time a patient sees a doctor and the amount of time we're actually healing in the hospital--then the system works great.

Except not at all.

This is another, gross extension of this crazy system that's been created here in the US since the 60's, when corporations have taken over health care.

All they see and want is money and profits and the more and bigger, the better.

This makes health care even more a matter of good health for the wealthy and little or nothing for the middle- and lower-classes.

It provides further proof that our system is grossly broken.

We need both the single-payer option so there is only one form for all care--instead of the 1300 different forms there are now, one for each insurance company in the country--and we need the "public option" for health insurance to keep costs for coverage much lower.

At best, with the proposals now going through Congress, we may get the public option. Hopefully, it won't be too watered-down as to be meaningless.

Push for reform, folks.

We need it badly and it will help all of us.

Just not the insurance companies.

Then go read this article in The Kansas City Star, if you haven't already. You need to know what's going on.


Link to original story: http://www.kansascity.com/746/story/1513257.html

Article on "Wealthcare" from The New Republic:
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/wealthcare-0

And go here, to The New Republic, for a large selection of articles on our current health care status: http://www.tnr.com/blogs/the-treatment

Misinformation at its worst

In The Kansas City Star today, there was yet another example of gross misinformation, in this instance, on the part of a reader--no surprise--and it points out the mistaken ideas people have about real life, situations and hard statistics.

Here's most of the letter to the editor:

Government can't be trusted

"What is it The Star does not get when it keeps publishing liberal editorials pushing for national health care, claiming that such a system will drive down costs and provide affordable care for all?"

"Do you realize that everywhere this has already been attempted it has been a disaster? (i.e., Europe and Canada)."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I have to stop. (Fortunately, he didn't go on much longer, anyway).

What the heck??

That is such a blatantly mistaken statement, it's beyond belief.

Virtually the entire free world has health care for all its citizens--except the United States--and Canada's and Europe's health care systems, in specific, are two of the most successful, working health care systems of all these.

It seems this writer must purely be basing his thoroughly untrue and incorrect statement on some fictional opinion he holds.

Reality absolutely shows, unequivocally, how both Europe's and Canada's health care systems (pick a country) work so very efficiently for both the patients and practitioners in the industry. The doctors and health care givers are paid reasonable wages and the costs are far lower for the institutions and respective countries, in spite of everyone getting the care they need.

The US statistics, by comparison, show we spend more than any other nation on the planet for our health care, for starters. Followed by the facts that we also rate 37th, internationally, in terms of morality rate and, finally, that we have at least 46 million of us who have no health care insurance at all, no one can claim we have a good, working system.

Far from it. Our health care system is broken. Badly broken. And needs repair.

Let's start there, with the fact that it needs fixing and then use only good information, to take us forward.

Link to facts and data on other countries' health care plans by T.R. Reid, from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html