Category Archives: Political

How much must it cost?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), signed into existence by Richard Milhous Nixon hisself, is no longer in the business of protecting the environment.

I’ve been telling my kids for several years, whenever they’ll listen to me briefly ranting, that the smog over Los Angeles, and the rancid brown muck that was the harbor in San Pedro, were not cleaned up out of the goodness of oil companies’ hearts. No one ever voluntarily cut their output of pollutants if it cost them a dollar. It all happened because the state and federal governments made them do it, and made not doing it cost dollars.

The free market does not produce clean air and water; it’s not profitable.

So how do we make Donny and his buddy Pruitt get back in the business of protecting the environment? Maybe it has to cost them, deep deep in their pockets, to not do it.

Head-scratcher of the day

The U.S. Presidential oath of office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I don’t see how one gets from there to “I have the absolute right to do whatever I want”.

Don’t feed the Russian trolls

At this point it’s reasonable to assume that anyone stirring things up on social media with pro-fascist, pro-nazi, pro-Trump, anti-liberal fulminations is probably a Russian troll being paid to inflame and distract. And it’s now incumbent on those folks to prove that they’re not.

Keep your eyes on the impeachable offenses, follow the money, and ignore the distractions. And don’t feed the Russian trolls.

What if. . . ?

The Republicans are going to pass this abomination of a tax bill come hell or high water (or both). Is it possible that, once they have the president’s signature, they’ll be ready to dump him? In which case, get on with the tax bill − it can be changed later, when sanity returns − and move on to impeaching Donny!

Asking for a friend. . .