No more "fake news"

The term “fake news” has been trademarked, which means I can no longer use it.  A group of professional journalists from Florida legally trademarked the term “fake news.”  

They have already sent a “cease and desist” order to President Trump, but he so far has not replied.  I am hoping they will take him to court.  

Other good news on the media front–Twitter will not run political ads.  Now if Facebook would follow..., but that snotnose Zuckerman wants the money from the ads.

The information on the fake news trademark is from a recent article by Kyle O’Brien in The Drum entitled “No White House Response.”

Christian nation?

Only 49% of millennials consider themselves Christians.  The share of American adults who identify as Christian has fallen by 12% in the last decade.

Look at what many Christians, especially the evangelicals who support Trump, have to offer.  Sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, hate instead of love.  They are the people who use religion as a business, who run the megachurches, who are more concerned with preventing abortions than with preventing immigrant kids from being caged and ripped from their parents’ arms.  The gospel they preach is far removed from the one in the Bible.

Many Christians, of course, aid the sick, provide for the homeless, protect immigrants, and try to live a life based on the Sermon on the Mount.  I know some personally.  I wish there were more.

The statistics are from Nicholas Kristof, “Less and Less A Christian Nation,”

New York Times, (Oct. 27, 2019).

Washington Nationals fan

I haven’t paid much attention to baseball for years, but suddenly I find myself a Washington Nationals fan.  Actually, I’m more of a fan of Washington Nationals fans.

This is what happens when Trump shows up at a gathering of people who aren’t his hand-picked supporters.  “Lock him up!” and “boo!”  

Do I feel guilty for enjoying this?  What do you think?

Obama was better

Trump actually wanted the American military to kill a named terrorist so he could better Obama, who was president when Bin Laden was killed.  I’ll admit that killing the head of ISIS was impressive, but it didn’t measure up to Bin Laden.  Trump’s announcement also did not measure up to Obama’s reasoned and serious statement.  

No matter how hard he tries and how much he works at it, Trump just can’t measure up to Obama.  Obama is always better, smarter, better liked, more handsome, and superior in every way.

I don’t tweet, but I’m sure one of you can send this to Trump.

Pipeline blowout party

We have now been fighting the PennEast “natural gas” pipeline for over four years.  (It always amazes me that gas produced by pumping chemicals into the ground is called “natural.”)  Every year we have a party at the Big Creek Grange to celebrate our victory over the proposed pipeline; so far we have delayed it by at least two years, and we hope it will die of natural causes.

Forty people showed up today to eat, drink, and hear a pep talk on continuing efforts to prevent this environmental and climate-destroying pipeline from being completed.  The attendees consisted of landowners and environmentalists, although some, of course, were both.  Attendees included a teenager and a 92-year-old farmer.  It was a roomful of people who ordinarily might not have much in common, but they were united in their opposition to PennEast.  The battle continues, but we are optimistic. 

Door hangers on Lehigh Avenue

This morning Frannie and I put door hangers on all houses on Lehigh Avenue in Palmerton.  The hangers listed all the Democratic candidates for Carbon County offices along with their pictures.  We didn’t use a list of Democrats but just blitzed the whole street.  A small army of volunteers covered all of Palmerton before noon.  Carbon Republicans can’t do this because their party is split down the middle.

I didn’t realize how long Lehigh Avenue was.  I was dragging by the end.  Frannie had finished her side of the street and came back a block and a half on my side to help me out.  Of course, she does zumba four times a week while my exercise consists of walking down the the mailbox and back.  

Note:  The first part of last night’s post was correct.  Trump did cancel the New York Times and the Washington Post and is pushing to stop any subscriptions of those publications for all federal agencies.  I made up the part about being mean and using big words.  It sounded believable though, didn’t it?

Trump cancels his subscriptions

On Thursday officials announced that the New York Times and the Washington Post would no longer be delivered to the White House.  The administration is also moving to force other federal agencies to end their subscriptions to the papers.

In the announcement, Trump said, “Those papers are really mean to me.  When I do great things, and I do a lot of great things, they don’t praise me.   Also, they use big words.  Very very big words.”

Letter to Rep. Meuser

I am sending the following letter to my representative tomorrow.

Rep. Daniel Meuser

326 Cannon House Office Building

U. S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative Meuser:

I sometimes wondered what constituents of Iowa’s Steve King felt when Rep. King made stupid statements or did stupid things.  Now I know.  Your performance yesterday was an embarrassment to the citizens of the 9th District of Pennsylvania.  The Committee that is hearing witnesses is performing its constitutional duty, and the “invasion” of the hearing was the kind of behavior done by bullies who have no regard for rules and decorum.  It got you some press, but it was a juvenile move with no purpose other than propaganda.

We now have a president who pressures foreign countries to investigate his opponents, who abandons allies, who sucks up to dictators, who has no understanding of the Constitution or American history, and shows all the symptoms of a sociopath.  And I am represented by a Congressman who evidently approves and supports this behavior.  

Sincerely,

Roy Christman, Ph.D.

In case you wonder why I just don’t call or send an email, think about this.  How many emails do you delete in a day?  How many letters that you receive in actual envelopes do you throw away without opening?  Letters are more effective than either emails or phone calls.  They are physical things.  They are opened and must be dealt with, even if it is just to throw them away.  

Take it to the streets

In the past week I’ve read two opinion pieces calling for mass demonstrations against Trump and his policies.  Michelle Goldberg recently pointed out that demonstrations do work.  They call attention.  They change policy.  

I didn’t think too much about this until today when a group of Republican House members actually disrupted the hearings on Trump’s illegal threats and arms embargo against the Ukrainian government.  Like the bullies they are, they prevented a House Committee from conducting its constitutional business.

It is time to take it to the streets.  It is time to stand up for our democracy.  I don’t know how to create or organize a national day–or week–of action.  I know there are savvy people on social media who do have those organizational skills, and I hope they are planning as I write this.  I’m ready.

Medicare for all?

Tonight I attended a lecture on Medicare, Medicare supplements, and Medicaid.  The speaker was an expert on health care programs for seniors, of which I am one.  What amazed me was how complicated the whole thing is and how people can get caught up in tangles they didn’t even know about.

I can truthfully say that the slogan “Medicare for All” is not a winning slogan for me.  The system is complicated, inefficient, and often arbitrary.  The drug portion alone is a complicated nightmare.  

I give Amy Klobuchar a lot of credit for calling out Elizabeth Warren at the last debate.  Warren says she will reveal her plan.  I hope she also reveals how she would fix the present complicated and rather arbitrary system.

I married an agitator

Today Linda and I visited Northampton Community College to see an art exhibit by Jan Crooker, an artist we both like.  When we arrived on campus, we didn’t know our way around, so we picked up a map in the bookstore.

The map was somewhat confusing, but we saw a large group of students and some police.  The students were shouting at a small group of speakers who were anti-feminist and carried signs that said things like “Feminists are pedophiles.”  They were religious fanatics and, I’m sure, Trumpists.  I tried to figure out the map, while Linda went over to see if she could get directions from one of the students in the crowd heckling them.

She took a long time, so I finally went over the the group.  Linda was organizing some students to chant “Asshole, Asshole, Asshole” directed at the demonstrators.  She never even asked about directions.  

We did eventually find the building with the help of a maintenance man.  The show was great.

The Addams Family movie

Since the Palmerton Halloween parade was postponed because of rain, I had some free time and decided to see the new Addams family movie.  The family moves into a spooky house on a hill above the town, and the real estate agent and town leader is upset that property values will be lowered.  She goes on social media to whip up prejudice and hatred against the strange newcomers.

I saw this as a metaphor for Trump’s efforts to stir up hatred against immigrants and refugees.  

Maybe I need to take a break from politics.

Climate change is already killing us

Anthony Patrick O’Brien, a professor emeritus of economics at Lehigh University, wrote in today’s Morning Call how “Climate change is not going to kill us.”  The article went on to say that predictions are often wrong and that people would continue to live on our earth.  He did call for a carbon tax and admitted that “climate change is a significant problem,” but the gist of the article was–don’t panic.

My response to this is to tell you to panic  My second response is to say that climate change has already killed some of us.  We are seeing huge wildfires, flooding, heat waves, rising oceans.  Many of the refugees around the world are climate refugees.  Deserts are growing.  The ice pack is shrinking.  Thousands of species have already become extinct.  

People will be on the planet for a long time, but their lives will be unpleasant, narrow, and difficult.  Of course predictions may be wrong, but as the saying goes, hope for the best, plan for the worst.  The worst is already at our doorstep and our seashores.

Lies on Facebook

When Abbie Hoffman was asked at a forum whether he believed people had the right to yell fire in a crowded theater, he marched to the edge of the stage and yelled “FIRE.”  While I don’t go quite that far, I am a proud member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a constant defender of the First Amendment right to free speech.

Nonetheless, I found Zuckerberg’s comments on the refusal of Facebook to prevent political ads that are lies were unconvincing.  Earlier this week I posted that Zuckerberg had endorsed Donald Trump.  That was from a Facebook ad placed by Elizabeth Warren to illustrate the problems with Facebook running lies.  I don’t know how many of you believed it, but it was an outright lie.  

Facebook is a new phenomenon that I doubt James Madison could have anticipated.  Facebook has over two BILLION subscribers worldwide.  For a comparison, the New York Times has about four million.  That’s about two-tenths of one percent of the people reached by Facebook.

Zuckerberg gave a speech yesterday in which he mentioned Martin Luther King and the Founding Fathers and explained how he was defending free speech and advancing dialogue.  He said it would be difficult to determine lies.  Almost every day both the Washington Post and the New York Times analyze Trump’s tweets.  They present facts that show Trump is making things up, or is partially telling the truth, or is factual but misleading.  If those newspapers can do that, why can’f Facebook with its far greater resources?

Of course, you could always do what I do.  If you are on Facebook, quit.  Life goes on.  If you haven’t signed up, don’t.  Your life will be better.

Giuliani and Fethullah Gulen

Mr. Gulen lives in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles from my house.  He is a cleric whom Turkish dictator Edogan blames for a coup attempt.  Mr. Gulen has denied all knowledge of this.

The U.S. has had a history of providing asylum to political opponents of dictatorial regimes.  Until now.  Rudy Giuliani pushed Trump to send Gulen back to a sure death, and Trump was receptive to the idea.  His aides told him this might hurt him politically as well as being illegal, so he hesitated.

I already knew that Trump was despicable.  I didn’t know until the last few weeks that Rudy Giuliani was equally despicable.  Mob bosses are more ethical than the creeps now running our government.

Food pantries

We drove through many small towns on our trip to Acadia.  We ate lunch in Bainbridge, New York, and we noticed a sign for a food pantry.  We stopped in a small coastal town on Route 1 in Maine, and we saw a sign for a food pantry.  We stayed overnight in Ellsworth, Maine, and we saw that the old Federal Building had been turned into a homeless shelter.

After we did the loop in Acadia National Park we drove through Bar Harbor, a town crowded with tourists and containing some homes that must have been worth a lot of money.  We noticed a sign for a food pantry.

This is America in 2019.  Great economy.  High employment.  And yet we seem to need food pantries and homeless shelters.  We must be doing something very wrong.

Ranked Choice Voting

I keep wanting to ask various people in Maine what they think of "Ranked Choice Voting," but it is somewhat difficult to bring up in casual conversation in a seafood restaurant or checking into a motel or  at a park overlook.

Maybe tomorrow when we visit the Portland Museum.

Acadia, by the way, was just lovely.  And so so many people.  Our national parks really need increased funding.  More visitors, fewer staff, deferred maintenance.  Just like Pennsylvania's state parks, they are always at the back of the line for funding.

Zuckerberg supports Trump

I heard that Mark Zuckerberg will not remove Trump campaign ads on Facebook that contain outright lies.

Now I understand why.  Zuckerberg has endorsed Trump.  How do I know that?  It was on Facebook.

And now some advice.  If you are in Maine, it is probably best not to eat at a Mexican restaurant where the cooks and staff are young Anglos who seem very concerned with gluten and spinach tortillas.  Just so you know.

North of Boston

We are on our way to Acadia National Park in Maine.  Unlike our last big trip to the Everglades, this one will be through blue states.   It isn't all wonderful, however.  We ate at a restaurant near Andover and the place was crawling with Patriot fans.  Our waiter was wearing a Gronkowski jersey, and a framed Tom Brady's jersey was hanging on the wall.

The fall foliage up here is spectacular.  Jim Thorpe, eat your heart out.

The news follows us, of course.  ISIS prisoners escaping, Turks invading the Kurds, U.S. troops possibly caught between opposing forces, and Trump still in office.

Lock Him Up!

During the 2016 presidential campaign our friend Rene stayed with us for a two weeks to help out with the Clinton campaign.  Rene was one of the few people I knew who thought Trump had a chance to win.  He pointed out that all of the “Lock Her Up” and other homemade anti-Clinton signs were evidence that people really supported Trump.  His theory was that you had to care to make your own homemade signs.

Taking a lesson from Rene’s analysis, I made my own sign and put it out yesterday morning on Pohopoco Drive.  It was a simple sign that said “Lock Him Up!”  It lasted a full day before some Trumpist stole it.  

I believe the word for people easily offended is “snowflake.”  Trumpists can dish it out, but they can’t take it.  But don’t worry.  All I need is a Sharpie and old yard signs, and I will make more.  My future signs will get right to the point, although I’m not sure if they will say “Impeach Trump” or “Impeach the Fake President.”  Probably “Impeach Trump” because they don’t take as much effort to make. 

My “Impeach Trump” bumper sticker has been on my truck tailgate since Trump’s inauguration.  My other stickers that say “Deer Creek Archery” and “No Farms, No Beer” probably have protected it from getting torn off.  I have more “Impeach Trump” stickers.  Let me know if you want one.  It is amazing how many people wave approval.  At least I think they are waving approval.

A New Abraham Lincoln Brigade?

In the 1930s hundreds of Americans volunteered to fight on the side of the Republicans against the Fascist leader Franco in Spain.  These members of the “Abraham Lincoln brigade” were vilified at the time, but today we (or at least many of us) consider them heroes.

Now I read about Michael Maldonado, 31, a former Marine lance corporal from California in Syria to help the Kurds.  He is staying on to fight the Turks.  Maldonado said it didn’t matter to him that Turkey was a NATO ally. 

“Ally or not, we are going to fight.  We see a strong country coming to massacre people who are just trying to live their lives, and we are going to try [to] stop this.  We feel we have no choice.”

See Ben Hubbard and Carlotta Gall, “Turkey Attacks U.S. Ally in Syria," New York Times, (Oct. 10, 2019), pp. A1, A8.  

DCNR Report on State Parks

The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources released a report on the results of a two-year effort to find out what the public wants from its parks.  Since 1970 Pennsylvania has created 36 state parks (one of them is Beltzville) with an additional 81,000 acres.  Also since 1970 the number of state park staff has actually decreased.

The parks need about an additional $500 million to fix visitor centers, dams, and recreational facilities.  Right now state parks receive less than 2% of the state’s general fund budget.  

Groups of volunteers like the Friends of Beltzville State Park try to make up for the staffing shortfall, but it isn’t enough.  A common solution bandied about in this area is to charge visitors, which has the effect of driving away the low income visitors who are the most in need of open space and contact with nature.

You might explain to your local representative what Pennsylvania needs is increased funding for our parks.

If your representative is Doyle Heffley or Jerry Knowles, good luck with that.

Statistics for this post are from Kayla Dwyer, "Here's how Pennsylvanians want to help state parks," Morning Call, (Oct. 9, 2019), p. 6.

Get Big or Get Out

That phrase was the mantra of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for decades.  It was a message of support for corporate farms and a middle finger to family farms and small agriculture everywhere.

In the Obama Administration this philosophy seemed to be in abeyance, but now it is back in full force.  U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue recently said about small dairy farmers at the World Dairy Expo “In America, the big get bigger and the small get out.”  He was not saying this in a critical way.

The president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, Darin Von Ruden, whose family runs a 50-cow organic diary farm, said of Perdue’s speech:  “The mindset that has been pushed on farmers to continually grow is ultimately pushing them out of business as overproduction forces market prices down.”

I also have a statement in response to Secretary Perdue.  If all the milk that I have milked by hand were put in a swimming pool, it would be enough for you to swim in, or even drown.

Removing the tripwire

During the Cold War American troops were stationed in West Germany.  They were not there in numbers that could halt a Soviet invasion.  The force was too small.  They were there as a warning.  The Soviet leaders knew that if the U.S.S.R. attacked, it would be attacking American troops and the United States would retaliate.  The troops were a “tripwire.”

U.S. troops in Syria have been serving the same function.  Our number one and most faithful ally in that area, the Kurds, who were a mainstay in the fight against ISIS, were threatened by Turkey.  Erdogan, the “strongman” of Turkey, hates the Kurds and would like to move against them.  He did not dare to do that as long as American troops were there.

Now, if I understand today’s news reports correctly, President Trump says he will withdraw all American troops from Syria.  He will pull the tripwire.  The Kurds will be left to twist slowly in the wind.  

I don’t know why we even have allies.  We are not reliable.  We are not dependable.  We are the equivalent of Neville Chamberlain writing off Czechoslovakia.  

World Communion Day

Today Linda’s church (Big Creek United Church of Christ) celebrated World Communion Day.  Pastor Robison preached a very short sermon.  He said he had intended to quote Gandhi about how you could judge a government by how it treated its weakest members, but his internet search turned up empty.  He did, however, find a quotation from Hubert Humphrey, who was Lyndon Johnson’s Vice President.  

I’m paraphrasing, but Humphrey said you could judge a government on how it treated the most vulnerable people–the young, the poor, and the sick.  Yesterday an article in the Times noted that our government is making further cuts in food stamps.  I couldn’t help thinking about Trump’s efforts to gut the ACA and the kids in cages.  

In 1968 I voted for Dick Gregory for President instead of Hubert Humphrey.  I stuck to my principles.  I was pure in heart.  And I was completely wrong, because people like me helped to put Richard Nixon into the White House.  I hope I won’t do something that stupid ever again.

Rep. Dan Meuser, stirring up hate

Before Nov. 2018 my congressman was Matt Cartwright.  Rep. Cartwright is a member of a small group in the House of Representatives called the “Problem Solvers’ Caucus.”  These are Democrats and Republicans who sit down together and actually try to make things better.  In 2018, however, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found the Congressional districts unfairly gerrymandered and redrew the lines.  While the Court did an excellent job overall in drawing fair districts, a byproduct was that Carbon County is now in a Republican district.  In 2018 that district, the 9th, elected Dan Meuser.

Meuser is NOT a member of the Problem Solvers’ Caucus.  In fact, he echoes Trump in promoting hatred and hysteria.  Today he wrote a column in the Morning Call about how the Democrats were harming the country with the impeachment hearings.  Evidently Trump’s calls to foreign governments to destroy one of his political opponents is not a problem for Meuser.

Meuser goes on to say that the Democrats wanted a complete takeover of elections.  He said this provided “false hope to their base, including those here illegally.”  This is total crap, but it will alarm readers of the column who may not believe that a Congressman would lie.  (Note that Meuser did not come out and say people here illegally would vote.  He implied.  He used innuendo.)  The whole column is full of misleading statements or flat out lies, like the one that said the Mueller report “vindicated the president.”

He concludes his column saying the Democrats “are showing no regard for the Constitution.”  This is another Trump trick.  Accuse the other side of your own bad behavior.

It is people like Meuser, rich, unpatriotic, willing to sell this country out, who are tearing this country apart.

Those of you who are Facebook or whatever other social media sites you inhabit, feel free to spread this post.  The more people who know the kind of person Meuser is, the more likely he will be defeated in 2020.

It's not only California

You know Andrew Wheeler, head of the E.P.A., revoked California’s authority to set emission standards.  What you may not know is that other states' officials are siding with California, including Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Here’s what Shapiro said:  “The Trump administration has assaulted states’ rights, and Exhibit A is this clean cars law, where states have taken it upon ourselves to protect our citizens and now they are unlawfully trying to strip us of our authority.”

13 states had enacted California’s standards before the Trump administration declared them to be illegal.

Info for this post is from Coral Davenport, “‘Chilling Message’ in a Hard Line on California,”  New York Times, (Oct. 4, 2019), p. A12.

Politicizing Veterans

It is always an interesting phenomenon that while the Democratic Party supports programs for veterans far more than Republicans, many vets seem to think the Republican Party is on their side.  

Tonight the Carbon County Democratic Party discussed whether or not to send an official delegation to participate in the county Veterans’ Parade.  The consensus was that the parade was to honor veterans, not to score political points.  A Democratic Party contingent would be more about the party than the vets, and we should not use the parade as a political prop.

I wonder what the Republicans will do.

The poet

You just thought I posted howls of rage on this blog every night.  Guess again.  I am also a poet, with a few hundred in my backlog.  I won’t post any of them here, but I do try to get them published.  

The process is this.  I usually send for a sample copy of a poetry review.  Then I submit four or five poems that I think might get published.  Then I wait, sometimes a few weeks, sometimes over a year.  Along with the poems I send a self-addressed stamped envelope (known in the poetry business as an SASE).  Then, when that comes back I tear it open with eager anticipation to read the rejection slip.

I have been published in a few journals, including Barbaric Yawp, Coal City Review, Song of the San Joaquin, and Stirring.  The usual payment for a published poem is two copies of the journal.

I read that the last poet to make a living from publishing poetry was Robert Frost, and even he gave lectures and talks to supplement his income.

We have no choice

A great deal of speculation centers on whether the impeachment inquiry will help or hurt Trump’s re-election.  Some commentators think “the country is not ready.”  Others point out, as I have in an earlier post, that it is doubtful that the Senate will vote to impeach even if the House makes its case.  

What these commentators seem to be missing is that this has to be done.  Congress cannot allow a President to pressure a foreign government into interfering in our election process.  It can’t allow a President to withhold authorized aid to a country for his own personal advantage

The New York Times on Sunday published a long editorial on the process.  It was entitled “The Only Option.”  This kind of behavior cannot be ignored.  Even if Trump escapes a guilty verdict, at least we have set a precedent that such behavior will be called out.

If you think the process doesn’t matter, think about this.  Do you admire Bill Clinton?  Do you think that his sexual liaison with an intern was no big deal?  I don’t think Clinton should have been removed from office, but I think the process showed that he acted improperly and was reprehensible person.  Even if the House stopped all of its inquiries tomorrow, it has accomplished a great deal already.