Scott Pruitt and Pat Toomey

Some years ago Sen Pat Toomey spoke at Penn’s Peak.  You might remember me; I was the one sitting in the audience with my back to the podium.

Toomey talked of the fun he had rafting on the Lehigh, a major tourist draw in Carbon County.  My Dad and I also rafted on the Lehigh in the 50s.  We put in at the Jim Thorpe Market.  As we went past the Railroad Station, an outflow pipe was dumping raw sewage into the river.  It was not pleasant.

Now we have an EPA chief whose main goal is to try and eliminate the EPA.  Nixon did a lot of bad things, but ever since his administration, the EPA has worked, not always successfully, to protect us against air and water pollution and examine the environmental impacts of projects and developments.  It is hard to imagine the type of environmental degradation that will result when the EPA is defanged.

Toomey, so-called Republican moderate and Lehigh River rafter, voted to confirm Scott Pruitt.

What Trump supporters want

If you read this blog a few times, you know that I care about many issues–perhaps too many.  I worry about climate change, mass extinctions, deforestation.  Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and campaign finance are concerns.  Tax reform, school reform, and prison reform.  Minimum wage.  Employees’ right to organize.  Nuclear war.  Just yesterday Congress passed a bill to allow the mentally ill access to guns.  Perhaps a small issue, but I worry about it.  

What do Trump supporters worry about?  Even Republican members of Congress don’t seem to care about the E.P.A. or the ignorance of Betsy DeVos or illegal contacts with the Russians.  Eight committees to investigate Benghazi; none to investigate foreign influence on a presidential election.

Recent articles about Trump supporters report they are quite happy with the first month.   The happy people fall into four rough groups.  

The anti-immigrant crowd and the racists are pleased.  These are the people who think that Muslims are devils, Mexicans are drug dealers, and people without papers are voting by the millions.  They are happy with the restrictions, happy with the wall.  Better build a wall than a new spillway on the Oroville Dam.

Many businessmen are happy.  Build the pipelines, even if they go through Indian lands.  Eliminate environmental protections so we don’t have to worry about useless bog turtles.  Who cares if we wipe out endangered species.  Remove the Dodd-Frank protections.  Eliminate labor unions.  What is important is the bottom line.

Evangelical Christians are delighted.  These are the people who don’t care how many Syrian children die in refugee camps, or how many American children are shot up in gang violence.  What is important is the “unborn.”

The yahoos are satisfied.  Trump was elected to “shake things up.”  He’s “shaking things up.”  I don’t know what that even means.

Chris Rock explains Trump

“Big Traders Bask In Trump’s Victory” read a headline in today’s Business section of the Times.

The article noted that Carl C. Icahn, a billionaire investor, said he made a billion dollars worth of bets in the stock market the morning after Trump won the election.  Other investors are looking forward for big tax cuts and the rollback of environmental and financial protections.

In his latest comedy show, Chris Rock explains that Trump is not the anomaly.  Rather Trump is a return to business as usual, in which rich white guys run the show and reap the benefits.  President Obama was the anomaly.  

Switzerland rejects Islamophobia

For immigrants to Switzerland, the process of becoming a citizen was rather onerous.  Foreigners had to live in the country 12 years before applying; they then had to go through a series of tests and interviews.  Even more confusing, the requirements differed from canton to canton.  

The Swiss have nothing like our 14th Amendment, which states that if you are born here, you are one of us.  (I’ll point out that President Andrew Johnson opposed the 14th, noting that even Chinese would be citizens.)

Last week the Swiss opened the door just a bit.  If you are under 25 and your parents and grandparents have permanent residency status, the process has been simplified and streamlined.

A right-wing party campaigned against the measure, using posters of a woman in a burqa with the slogan “No to uncontrolled naturalization.”  The Trump tactics did not work; the measure passed with over 60 percent of the vote.

Information on the Swiss vote is from Nick Cumming-Bruce, “Switzerland Eases Path To Become A Citizen,” New York Times, (13 Feb. 2017), p. A4.

Oroville Dam

Our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson Gavin live in Chico, the largest city in Butte County.  That’s the county in which the Oroville Dam is located.  Oroville is the county seat.  Let me quickly say that Chico is not in any immediate danger, since it is about 15 miles upstream from Oroville.

The problem is that south of Oroville, the Sacramento Valley is very flat; flat enough to flood hundreds of thousands of acres every year to grow rice.  That means that a one to two foot wave of water will damage homes, fields, and roads, and if the emergency spillway erodes and the main spillway erodes, we could have a disaster of Biblical proportions.  Sacramento itself is in that floodplain.  

Supposedly Sacramento is protected by the Yolo Bypass.  When the Sacramento River gets too high, gates are opened up at Knights Landing, the water flows south between Davis and Sacramento, and returns to the river at Rio Vista.  The Bypass has worked well in the past, and I have been on I-80 when it was running.  That system, however, was designed for “normal” floods, not a catastrophic reservoir collapse.  

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the next storm system is a mild one.

Abetting Voter Fraud

I keep reading letters to the Morning Call about voter fraud.  It seems that quite a few people have knowledge of fraud at the polls and share that fact with us in a letter.  Really?

On Friday, for example, Mr. Alfred Gruenke of Lower Macungie Township said “Not having a government ID to vote enables voter fraud,nothing more.”  How does he know?  Does he have evidence?

I am starting a list of all these letter writers.  In a few months I will turn in the list to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State.  If those people who know all of this voter fraud have not come forward to the proper authorities, they are abetting that fraud.  I’m pretty sure they are committing a felony, but I’ll let the Secretary of State make that call.

Pat Toomey and Anne Frank

If Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey had been living in Amsterdam next door to Anne Frank and somehow heard about her hiding, he would immediately have run to Gestapo headquarters to turn her in.  

You know that I am right.

Personal note:  I’m back home.  As you can see, I have lost none of my anger, but I am walking much better.  I have nothing but praise for the nurses and doctors at the Lehighton Hospital.  I even liked the food.  Now I will go through rehab for a number of weeks, and I should soon be able to run the triathlon.