The Last Days of the Trump Presidency

Vacancy here very soon

As of this writing, Donald J Trump is still President of the United States. Over six months ago the repeat failure of a New York businessman improbably won the highest office in the land not by the will of the governed, but through the Electoral College. With only 46% of the voters actually showing faith in Mr. Trump, the US Constitution set up the rules to make him President. Very few people believed Trump would win. Many thought he did not even want to win, because he would then have to have some responsibility for his terrible business practices and his somehow worse personal beliefs. Yet, late on the morning of November 9th the nation was starting to come to terms with the Donald Trump Presidency. The country was preparing for the worst.

Since Inauguration day the United States has been living through the struggle we expected early that November day. Donald Trump has been a terrible President. Nearly every week the Trump White House is spinning lies to cover up their latest amateur mistake. The first few months of the Trump Era have been marked by discord, whining, and finger pointing, and that is just from the Republican Party. The Democrats, who have had no vision for almost a decade, have surprisingly united in battling the Trump agenda. The press, who are responsible for this disaster, have started to act like real journalists who have the public good in mind. Donald J Trump has been so bad as President, that it took only a few months to unite most of the political institutions against his terribleness.

The right wing media, and the minority of voters who support Trump, have predictable blamed everyone else for the President's awfulness. Fox News has to resort to Hillary bashing, and cruel conspiracy theories, to try and keep Trump out of the news cycle. They are failing. Defenders of the white man way of life like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly try to diminish the never ending dumpster fire of the Trump administration by claiming that the negative coverage is a crusade against the rich white men of America. They are idiots. The few people who are the President's supporters whine whenever anyone says something negative about the Donald, and they then cry for a safe place to shield themselves from the never ending bad news. It seems that the President and his supporters are the real snowflakes out there. They are losing the debate.

We should not be surprised that things are this bad. Donald Trump has been a comical failure his entire adult life. He declared bankruptcy numerous times. He was the only man to fail in the casino business. He sold terrible steaks and an even worse college education. His marriages, and divorces, were grocery store checkout line fodder through the 1990s. The only reason Trump is still rich is because his father left him a safety net filled with lawyers who made sure that the Donald could benefit from the rich guy corporate welfare championed by President's Reagan and Clinton in the 1980s and 1990s. Donald Trump is like a bizarro version of the American Dream. The fact that he stumbled into the Presidency of the United States just goes to prove that the ideals of James Truslow Adams are now not a part of the American ethos. Being an entitled, coddled, failure his whole life, why did anyone think Donald Trump could succeed as President?

Being a bad President requires the help of a lot of people, and Trump has plenty of help. His cabinet is filled with greedy demagogues who openly work to hurt hard working Americans so they can line their already stuffed pockets. The clowns in Congress, led by class dunce Paul Ryan in the House and Glorious Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate, have no idea how to actually govern. Vice President Mike Pence made his name by driving business out of the state he was elected Governor. The whole Trump gang in DC are so inept that the incompetent leaders of the Democratic Party are starting to look like visionaries to the rest of the country. It is obvious how bad Trump is when Nancy Pelosi looks like the smart one.

President Trump can not even be trusted to show leadership on the photo op friendly global diplomatic stage. The Pope was not that excited to entertain the President. The always present insecurity of Donald Trump causes him to be classless and push other world leaders out of the way so he can be the big boy at the front of the line. His supporters likes how he talks tough about Muslims and terrorism, yet he also bows to the Saudis, touches their creepy orb, and warns his Russian buddies about a pointless US military strike. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the real leader of the industrialized free world, has even urged the rest of the world to move on without the United States. President Trump in just a few short months has reduced American influence more so than any President in history. That does not make America Great Again.

The one certain thing about Donald Trump is that he will quit when things became too difficult for him. He has done that in business and television, and he will do it as President. Donald Trump is a small man, and being a public figure of ridicule is way too much for his fragile ego to handle. The United States has problems, and he has no idea how to fix them. The economic divide between the rich and everyone else is getting to it's worst point in the history of the United States. Donald Trump cannot, and will not, fix this. He is determined, with the help of class dunce Ryan and Glorious Leader McConnell, to widen the economic gap. Their efforts may succeed in the short term, but the next duly elected President will reverse almost all of the Trump Presidency. Everyone knows this. The press, the Democratic Party, and the majority of American voters will constantly remind President Trump of his cruel insignificance. The pressure will crack the Donald's ego, and he will quit being President. That is why in only a few short months, we are witnessing the final days of the Presidency of Donald J Trump.

Thank Gods.

RD

RD is the Founder and Head Editor for SeedSing

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The Truth About President Trump's First 100 Days

Was it this difficult for Abe Lincoln?

President Donald Trump recently said that it is ridiculous that we judge a President by their first 100 days. He then followed those thoughts up by stating that his first 100 days have been great. He is right on both counts.

The idea of the first 100 days as a benchmark started with Franklin Roosevelt. The country was in bad shape due to the beginnings of the Great Depression. FDR had just come off a decisive victory over incumbent President Herbert Hoover because the promises made by Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign. The country was looking for quick answers to their problems, and FDR delivered on many of his campaign pledges in his first 100 days. Every new President since FDR has used the electoral mandate of the American people to deliver on the promise of their respective campaigns. If the new President wants to do something big, it must get done in the first 100 days.

That is the story we are all told, and it is a media created myth. FDR invented the idea of the first 100 days, but he was not referring to the first few months of his own administration, he was referencing the 100 day session of the 73rd US Congress. Many of Roosevelt's programs to fight the Great Depression were started in the first few months of his administration, but many of these programs were created via executive order, and it took much longer than 100 days to make them legal. The intentional slow pace of the US Congress meant it was years before many of FDR's New Deal Programs were made legal, or were thrown out completely. FDR's true legacy was created by what the President did over the years, not in his first few months.

Since FDR, there was little talk about the importance of the first 100 days. Nearly ever President after FDR, and almost all of them before, still worked to pass big pieces of legislation almost immediately. That is what happens after an election. The candidates made promises to the American electorate, swift action is always expected. Easy to pass electoral red meat, that is what gets done in the first 100 days. The concept was largely forgotten about for decades after FDR.

With the inauguration of Barrack Obama, the media love affair with the first 100 days suddenly reappeared. Once again the country was in the midst of a big economic problem attributed to the policies of the previous administrations. The American voter expected President Obama to do something quickly. The press quickly jumped on the easy narrative of the first 100 days, and constantly questioned President Obama'a administration about their successes in this very short amount of time.  President Obama was tired of the idiotic idea of being judged by the first 100 days, and even remarked that "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference". Eight years later, Obama has proven that the 100 days idea is unworthy. 

This is why President Donald Trump is right that the first 100 days mark is an idiotic standard. The press has not cared about this moronic ideal with forty-two other Presidents. The legislative process is intentionally slow and difficult. The media should not set up unrealistic expectations with the American people. If Donald Trump is going to make America great again, he will need a hell of lot longer than fourteen weeks and some change.

Understanding that the first 100 days is a dumb standard, President Trump is also correct in saying that his first 100 days have been wildly successful. The success may not be easy to see, but it is still there. The impact of President's Trump may not be as clear to the American people like FDR's or Obama's, but his actions have been equally important to setting up the future of United States. This may sound like fake news to the 54% of American voters that did not want Donald Trump to be President (that is a majority of the voters in case some people are still confused by this). The three million more people who voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump may not see success in the new President's first 100 days, but it is still there. That is a fact.

The first big success for the new President was his ability to keep the vacant Supreme Court seat in the hands of the conservatives. Unfortunately, this was not really any success from Donald Trump, but more of a spoil from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's war on the US Constitution. Not happy with already disrespecting the wishes of the Founding Fathers during Obama's Presidency, great Leader McConnell also decided to throw out centuries of Senate rules and decorum to get his way. Maybe we should chalk up the Supreme Court victory to the America hating temper tantrum of Leader McConnell. But, President Trump did say Neil Gorsuch's name on television, so he should get some of the credit.

As far as policy victories, President Trump did promise to make sure all Americans would have healthcare coverage. Thanks to the incompetence of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the GOP's campaign promises on repealing the Affordable Care Act was seen for what it really was, pointless political pandering. Speaker Ryan, along with the help of the Freedom Caucus, made sure that Obamacare would be the law of the land for the foreseeable future. President Trump and Speaker Ryan did try to put a new "replacement" bill up for a vote, but their majorities in the House and the Senate could not be counted on to follow their party leaders wishes. Thanks to the terrible leadership of Speaker Ryan, and the "who knew healthcare was so complicated" malaise of President Trump, most Americans can get healthcare coverage thanks to the ongoing existence of Obamacare. Trump has been able to keep his campaign promise that all Americans will have access to healthcare, thanks to his predecessor.

The election of Donald Trump was going to return America to time before we promised to be the world's policeman. Before he supported the Iraq War, Donald Trump was always against it. The never ending battles in the Middle East were going to end, promised candidate Trump. Sure we may still be at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but all the messed up military operations in Trump's first 100 days are really the fault of Obama. Trump did bomb Syria, after he cleared it with Russia, but that was because Obama did not do it years before. Yes, Trump did say that Obama should not bomb Syria, but that is Obama's fault for listening to an uninformed blowhard. Yes we are gearing up for war in North Korea, but that is because Truman did not finish the job almost 70 years ago. And Obama, he is to blame for North Korea. So President Trump may not want to be the world's policeman, but Obama has made him do it. It may not be a first hundred days success, but it is not President Trump's fault.

The economy has done a lot better under President Trump. Sure, all the economic data in the early days were still a reflection of the Obama Presidency, and the new economic figures are not looking quite as good, but Trump is delivering on making the American economy strong. He promised to end NAFTA, but backed down when he saw how stupid that is. He promised to hold China accountable on currency and trade, but after sharing cake with the Chinese President Trump had a change of heart. Candidate Trump promised to improve the economy by fixing the crumbling infrastructure, but President Trump may need more than 100 days to get a win here. The Republican led Congress can not seem to get anything passed. Trump promised that the economy would not be affected by his glorious border wall on the US - Mexico border because the Mexican government would pay for it. Another pivot for Trump when he learned that Mexico is a sovereign nation. The economy under President Trump has survived the last 100 days because the ideas of candidate Trump have all been thrown out. I'm sure Trump's tax returns show how great of an economic mind the President has, we should judge him on that hope.

Candidate Trump also promised to surround himself with the best minds in all of America. Sure his initial campaign manager, his first national security adviser, and a few other appointees have all been tied directly to the Russian government. Again, this was all Obama's fault. Why should we expect a man who wants to be President of the United States to look into his own confidants? Why the high expectations?

President Trump did appoint some great outside the box type minds. Adviser Kellyanne Conway and Press Secretary Sean Spicer may not seem to grasp basic things like being coherent and not telling lies, but they try real hard. Just look at Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, a man who did not know what the Department of Energy is responsible for. Or how about Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos? She may know a lot about bear attacks at US Schools, but her lack of compassion and knowledge about the US Education system can be easily overlooked by her large political contributions. Trump does have great political minds like son-in-law Jared Kushner and failed Hollywood wannabe Steve Bannon in the Oval Office. Unfortunately, these two geniuses have been allegedly fighting, but how is this President Trump's fault? At least he picked his daughter Ivanka to right the ship. That has worked out well. It is not fair to judge President Trump on the 90% of questionable picks, we should only look at the good ones.

When Barrack Obama was elected in November of 2008, he promised to work for all Americans. After eight years of constant obstructionism from congressional Republicans, never ending hit pieces by Fox News, and hateful treatment from private citizen Donald Trump, President Obama left the White House with a high approval rating. President Trump promised to be even better than the terrible Obama.

In the unimportant first 100 days, Trump has achieved record low approval ratings. That is not really his fault. The media keep pointing out that the new President is signing UnConstituational, and unenforceable, Executive Orders on immigration. Maybe if the Republican controlled Congress passed the immigration laws they keep promising, President Trump would not have to worry about the courts correctly interpreting his bad ideas. The press has also been highlighting all the times President Trump has tried to deny health to women and lower class workers. Why would women across the country correctly point out how inhumane this is? The President has said that his administration is pro-science. Why do people who support science, and actual scientists, get so upset when President Trump promote proven anti-science ideas with his administration. The new President wants to make sure the ideas of the minority, the 46% of the voters who actually supported him in the 2016 election, get equal billing with the proven work of people who actual understand science. President Trump is not dividing the country, it is the women who care about their own agency, the racial minorities that do not want to be hate crimed, and the real scientist who are using their expertise to make the new President look bad in front of the press.

Judging President Donald Trump on his first 100 days is not fair, but assessing his accomplishments is breathtaking. On the campaign trail Donald Trump made a lot of promises to the voter who was not happy with business as usual politics. With the help of political inept billionaires, incompetent DC insiders, and his children, President Trump has quickly evolved into a business as usual President. Endless and pointless war? Check. Giveaways to political donors? Check. Broken promises to the American electorate? Check. Blaming your predecessor for your inadequacies? Check. With all of that in mind, Donald Trump has had a great first 100 days. Just like the great 100 days of the fourty-four men who preceded him. With the greatness of his first 100 days, how great will the first one-thousand be?

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He never got to the great tax plan of President Trump. You know, the one that will never pass. Do you have any thoughts on it. Come tell us.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The GOP's Inability to Govern - Healthcare Edition

This fake elephant has more ideas than the current GOP

It has been over fifty days since Donald Trump took the oath of office, and Obamacare still lives. After nearly eight years, the Republican party can finally vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and have a President who will sign their repeal. President Donald Trump claimed that Obamacare was a failure and promised to make repealing the law a top priority. Almost every single Republican in Washington DC has campaigned on the promise to repeal the law. After so many show votes, where Congressional Republicans unanimously supported repealing the Affordable Care Act, there is nothing stopping the GOP from fulfilling a campaign promise that dates back to the midterm elections of 2010. Yet nothing has happened. Is not the duty of the GOP to fulfill their promise to govern?

According to the Republican Party, the Affordable Care Act was such a terrible thing that the only way to fix it was to kill it. Never before in one of the countless show votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act did the GOP offer up a replacement bill. Prior to 2017, the Republican Party used taxpayers time and money to have one pointless repeal vote after another. It was feasible to think that the GOP had no idea on how, or any intention to, replace the Affordable Care Act. The only tactic the Republican Party knew how to enact was one of non-governance. They wanted to get rid of a law that was designed to help people. The GOP would rather go back to a time when people desperately needed help. That was the Republican Party plan on healthcare before 2017.

Unfortunately a funny thing happened when the Republicans took total control of the law making process in Washington DC. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and President-Elect Trump all started to talk about how they needed to "repeal and replace" the Obamacare. It seemed that the new power in Washington DC realized that the health care system, and the problems with it, were quite complicated. The President himself was shocked by how complex the issue was, even though he spoke about how easy the fixes would be while he was running for President. Everyone in the Republican Party started to realize that when they repealed the Affordable Care Act, they would then own it and have to deal with immediate consequences from the fallout. Millions of citizens would lose their healthcare, or see their prices skyrocket even higher. Once Obamacare is gone, the Republican Party would have to use their seats of power to steer the country out of more pressing problems. Repeal only was not an option. 

Another danger in a repeal only of the Affordable Care Act was that the GOP refused to acknowledge that the health insurance industry liked many parts of the Democratic Party's overhaul of the industry. Obamacare wanted to give more people insurance, but the federal government would pay the private insurance industry to cover the new customers. The Affordable Care Act was a transfer of money from the government to private business. Obamacare allowed the health insurance industry to go about business as usual, and have yearly guaranteed revenue from American tax dollars. Health insurance lobbyists were going to make sure that this fixed revenue stream was not going to stop.

There are also many parts of the Affordable Care Act that the health industry does not like, and this is where they have manipulated Congressional Republicans in crafting the replacement law. New customers with preexisting conditions cost a lot of money. Speaker Ryan may not understand how insurance works, but the sick are funded by the healthy in all forms of health insurance. By adding people with preexisting conditions, and little ability to make a reasonable income to cover these illnesses, the health insurance companies raised the rates on their healthy customers. If the Republican Party could get rid of the requirement to cover people with preexisting conditions, the health insurance industry could keep the rates where they are now, and not have to pay out to people with ongoing medical expenses. It may seem cold, but that was how the system worked before the Affordable Care Act. With no prexisting conditions to worry about, and being able to keep rates from going down, profits will be through the roof.

The individual mandate is another area where the health insurance companies was not benefiting. The financial penalties on not having insurance were going into the coffers of the government, and not the bank accounts of the health insurance companies. Speaker Ryan changed all of that by letting the insurance companies charge, and keep, the financial penalty for someone who let their insurance lapse. The doublespeak employed by Speaker Ryan, and Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, said that people should have the freedom to choose healthcare or something else to their liking. Chaffetz said people should chose between an iPhone or health insurance, they cannot have both. Through Representative Chaffetz, GOP has equated a person's health and well being as a luxury item. Luxury should be expensive, and not mandated by federal law. Here the GOP and the health insurance industry are in agreement. 

Predictably, the Republican Party has used their Obamacare replacement bill as a method to help the rich, and put greater economic pressure on the middle class. There are tax cuts for those who do not need them, and financial penalties for those that cannot afford them. Programs like Medicaid and Medicare that were created to be self sustaining are being robbed to cover the fiscally irresponsible practices of the GOP in the replacement bill. Even a seemingly good idea, and one championed by Donald Trump on the 2016 campaign trail,  like being able to purchase healthcare plans offered in different states was shelved from the replacement bill because the health insurance lobbyists would not let the Republican Party put it into the proposed law. No matter what non-jacket wearing Speaker Ryan, or twitter user President Trump say, the GOP replacement bill treats healthcare as a commodity, and does nothing to help the majority of Americans.. Because of this, the healthcare industry will not lower rates, they will make a ton of money, and millions of people will lose their insurance.

The Republican Party has spent the last few years claiming that the Affordable Care Act is a terrible law that is threatening the very fabric of the American dream. They are not wrong that the law is terrible, but their replacement law takes a bad idea and makes it much worse. By not leading when they did not have the White House, the GOP never crafted a law that will help the Americans they claim to be concerned with. The Republican healthcare law, written by healthcare lobbyists, is more of the same. Corporate welfare, class division, and not solving anything, that is what the GOP is good at. Maybe if the Republican Party actually knew how to govern we would see some innovative solutions. They do not know how to govern, they only know how to create division. To the Republican Party freedom is code for denial. They care not for the well being of the average American. Their healthcare replacement bill proves this.  If the GOP knew how to govern they would understand that healthcare is a human right, not an iPhone.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Is good health not a human right? Is an iPhone better than an HMO doctor? Why do we ask so many questions?  Come tell us. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Legacy of Barack Obama

Legacy demands a great building

Late into the night on Tuesday November 4th, 2008 history was made. For the first time in over two-hundred years of Presidential contests, the American people elected the first non-white man to be President of the United States. The election of 2008 had it’s moments of racism and sexism, but they were mild. The candidates who fought it out to gain their parties nominations played politics in a manner that Americans had become accustomed to. There were the typical smear campaigns, but most of America did not care. The Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin, was downright civilized compared to the person she would become. The GOP’s Presidential candidate, John McCain, was out on the campaign trail corrected voters who believed that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim trying to usurp our nation. It was a different era. The feeling was that America had matured beyond the damage of things like the Swift Boats and the Southern Strategy. Barrack Obama won the 2008 election, by a large margin, because American voters believed in his vision of hope for the nation. The first non-white man to win the Presidency happened because Americans believed that we could all do better, and Barrack Obama was the leader who was going to bring the best out of us.

Within minutes of Obama being inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, the Republican thought leaders worked to make the new Executive’s job a living hell. Glenn Beck would go out of his way to paint Obama as a dangerous communist, and a racist. The half-wits at Fox News went into their old “Bill Clinton” mode and amplified any minor story out there that would embarrass the White House. The fringes of the Republican party constantly questioned the President's place of birth, and therefore his legitimacy to be President. The morons who pushed the birther issue were given more news coverage than the people trying to restore hope back to America. From the very beginning, President Obama faced a temper tantrum throwing right wing media, and a ratings starved mainstream media, who refused to let his vision of hope to take hold.

While the network news, and the jv squad that is cable news, were incompetent and unamerican in their activities, the Republicans in the US Congress were historic in their dealings with President Obama. Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner would use every arcane rule in the history of the United States Congress to stop President Obama’s agenda. When McConnell and Boehner would not get their way, the two would run to the media and complain about the President trying to do his job. There was little hope to found on Capitol Hill.

Once the Republicans took over the House, and eventually the Senate, the Republican obstructionism went from outrageous to downright dangerous. McConnell proudly declared that his number one job was to make Obama a one term President. The Republican leader failed miserably at this number one job since Barack Obama was easily reelected in 2012. Since McConnell could not accomplish any tasks, he worked to make sure the President could not govern. The “highlight” of Mitch McConnell’s tenure has to be the Un-Constitutional act to not allow the President’s Supreme Court nominee to have a hearing or vote. Never in the history of the United States has a politician spit on the ideals set forth by the US Constitution like Mitch McConnell has.

Eventual Speaker of the House John Boehner, and his replacement Paul Ryan, used their power to tie up the legislative authority of the US House of Representatives with meaningless show votes, and expensive politically motivated subcommittee hearings. The endless votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act were taking up time that should have been devoted to combat the rise in gun violence, and the price gouging being conducted by unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies. Elementary kids being killed with legal guns, and other kids being denied lifesaving medicines because of personal greed, was of no importance to John Boehner’s caucus. Along with Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Paul Ryan assured their place in history as the most ineffective, and immoral, Congress in the history of the United States.

How did President Barrack Obama deal with a historically terrible Congress and a media that was ineffectual? With little choice, President Obama seemed to present his vision through the pulpit of the White House, and not get in the way when history started to move forward. The President is an incredible communicator, and was be artful in presenting his message. On the campaign trail in 2012, Obama was able to dull the right wing noise, and make people believe in hope again. Once the next group of people were killed by a bad man with a bad gun, the President would share the heartbreak of the American people. With historic movements in rights for the LGBTQ community, the President communicated his joy and compassion towards all Americans. When the GOP Congress would spout off Tea Party talking points, the President would counter them head on, and present a better view of the nation. President Barack Obama will go down as one of the greatest communicators who has ever occupied the Oval Office.

Much like Ronald Reagan before him, Barrack Obama has been given credit for many things that happened because he was in the White House when history happened. In the 2008 campaign, then Senator Obama was not fully onboard with gay rights. In fact, no major viable political candidate was embracing basic human rights for the LGBTQ community. Generations of hard work by people on the ground led to the landmark decisions made by the courts to give all Americans equal rights. Obama did not create this culture, but he did not impede it either.

The death of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is also listed as a high point in the Obama Presidency. Many people give credit to Ronald Reagan for the release of hostages from the Iranian government, not thinking about how the Carter government really did all of the work. The killing of Bin Laden happened because President Obama gave the order, but any person in his position would have done the same. Like it or not, the George W Bush administration created much of the ground work to finding Bin Laden We were going to find the al-Qaeda leader no matter what, it was just a matter of time.

When it comes to actually policy, the Obama legacy is a little thin. The last eight years have not been as impactful as what Lyndon Johnson, Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt accomplished. Some things like the Lilly Ledbetter act should have been done decades ago. The stimulus was a necessary program started under Republican President George W Bush. The booming stock market has been great for very few. The growth in the economy has been slow, but has moved in the right direction after the disaster of the previous administration. All of these actions occurred mainly because President Obama did not get in the way and allowed them to happen on their own.

The one signature law championed by the President and passed by Congress is the Affordable Care Act. Once again the do-nothing Republicans, assisted by the media, painted the law as something extremely terrible. The fact is the Affordable Care Act is not that great. It has been responsible for the rise in healthcare costs, mainly because there is no incentive for the self serving health care companies to lower costs. The bill was loaded with so many corporate handouts not just because of Republicans, but also because of Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The congressional democrats wanted to make sure their corporate donors were rewarded in this massive government program. In a place where President Obama could have led, he instead stayed out of the way as the Pelosi/Reid Congress passed a flawed law. Even the President’s incredible communication skills could not hide the problems behind the Affordable Care Act.

The Obama Presidency should also be judged by the state of his political party. The Democratic Party is currently in the worst condition it has been in for over a generation. Under Obama, the Democratic Party has lost a massive amount of elections at all levels of government. Terrible Governors like Chris Christie in New Jersey, Sam Brownback in Kansas, Bobby Jindal in New Orleans, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and many many more have won reelection after awful first terms. They win because the Democratic Party spends no resources to launch any meaningful campaign against these terrible leaders. If the party spends no resources on Governor races, that means they spend no time working to get people elected to any levels of government.

This lack of resources is directly related to Barack Obama and his campaign machine. In 2008, and again in 2012, the Obama campaign would take all of the resources out of competitive states and leave nothing for the local candidates (what we like to call The Ohio Problem). When the President does not care about the down ticket races, the down ticket loses badly. This strategy extended to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and 2016 saw even more losses for the Democratic Party. Couple this with the fact that President Obama would defend ineffectual leaders like Debbie Wasserman Schultz at the Democratic National Committee, President Obama staying out of the way, and not intervening in down ticket races, has been detrimental to the majority of the country who support the ideals of the Democratic Party.

Does President Barack Obama leave with a historic legacy? Will his Presidency be notable, or just another one of insignificance? It is easy to look back at the end of one man’s Presidency and think about what has been, and what could have been. Anytime a new President takes office, we are filled with angst. Barack Obama’s legacy will not be truly known for many years. In the meantime we can have our immediate reactions dictate what impact the man has had on the nation, and the world. Will his great communication skills be studied? Will his laissez faire approach to the moment of history be admired by future leaders?

The fact remains that Obama’s election was a moment of great historical significance. He will be one of the most recognizable Presidents of students in the far future. The question is will he be remembered like the Roosevelts for being figures of profound change, or will he be remembered like John Quincy Adams for being someone of trivial curiosity.

RD

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Do have thoughts on legacy? Tell us all about it.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing 

The Republicans are Draining the Swamp by Making it More Toxic

Draining the Swamp has made Capitol Hill look even worse

There may be only a few days left in Barack Obama's presidency. but the new empowered Republican controlled congress has been governing for a few weeks. We have learned a lot about the newly installed 115th Congress in these few short weeks. People who do not believe in government are now in charge. Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have spent their entire careers obstructing anything and everything. They have crafted a dream ideology of no oversight, and the will of the individual. Now they have a blank check and can actually govern. How have the done in these few short weeks?

The first issue the Republican government attempted to “fix” was to eliminate ethical rules for members of Congress. This was the GOP’s very first step in draining the swamp, less ethical oversight. Many of the typical Republican defenders, Brit Hume and the brainless ones at Fox News, tried to defend the House Republicans by saying the ethics office under fire was not necessary. Maybe Brit is right, but it does not really matter. The news media, rightfully so, pointed out that the first action of the House Republicans was to create less ethical oversight. These idiots spent the summer railing against how unethical the Democratic Party Presidential nominee is, and their first concern is to make oversight weaker. Good job republicans, you exposed your hypocrisy in the first minutes of the new congress.

The next step for Speaker Ryan, and Leader McConnell was to “advise and consent” on President Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet selections. There’s Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, recently the CEO of a company who relies on fossil fuel and makes money by taking valuable resources from despotic governments and polluting the planet. We also have a person who was denied a judgeship because of his racism being vetted as the Attorney General. People like Ben Carson and Rick Perry, who have no experience or curiosity in their given departments, are being given a free pass by the morons on Capitol Hill. Somehow none of these jamokes hold a candle to the farce that is Secretary of Education pick Betsy DeVos.

The pick of Michigan activist Betsy DeVos to Secretary of Education is proves that the GOP has no plans to help the middle and lower economic classes of America. The fact that Congressional Republicans have no problem rushing her confirmation hearing, even if all of her ethics background checks have yet to be completed, shows that people like Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell have no idea how to govern. DeVos is anti-public education, how in the hell is she qualified to run the Department of Education? Betsy DeVos does not want to fix the education system, she wants to take all the federal money and move it into school choice, aka public funded religious schools. The concept of school choice has been a disaster everywhere, but the so called fiscal conservatives have no problem using tax dollars to prop up this failure of an idea. Betsy DeVos is a school choice champion, and Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell are excited to use tax dollars to push her broken ideals. There is no concern for accountability, just pure political opportunism. I heard Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell rail against the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee over her political opportunism. It is nice to see with the DeVos hearings they accept being the hypocrites we always knew they were.

The next big agenda item for the GOP congress is to weaken the rules on endangered species. The original Endangered Species Act was passed unanimously in the 1970’s, but the current GOP fell like it needs to be repealed. This is one of the most important items facing our new government in the feeble minds of Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell. The needs of a few rich businessmen is more important than the future of America.

The last big thing that Congressional Republicans feel the need to attack is the Affordable Care Act, also known as the devil named Obamacare. With numerous show votes to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, and wasting millions of tax payer dollars, the GOP has revealed itself as a petulant child who has no idea what they really want. The Affordable Care Act helped people get insurance, and at the same time made sure the insurance companies were well compensated. The actions of Congressional Republicans prove GOP only cares about giving federal dollars to private insurance executives. The repeal process has secured these federal subsidies, but has made sure to move the neediest of American citizens off the protected list. The inhumanity of the GOP has been on full display in just a few short weeks.

This week will mark the beginning of the Donald Trump Presidency. Even though the incoming President lost the popular vote by nearly three million people, Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell believe they have a mandate to govern as they choose. President Elect Trump has shown no vision to help the supposed middle America white voters who launched him to victory, and the GOP Congress is working to make these angry voters lives even worse. To the Republicans, ethics, education, and the environment are the true demons haunting the American dream.

Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, but all we have gotten in return is a cuckhold Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell to make the President Elect and his buddies even more wealthy and disconnected. In a few short weeks, the Congressional Republicans have moved fast to protect the coastal business elites, and leave the middle of America behind. There is no corruption to awful for this group of hypocrites Good thing we did not elect a career civil servant who was bad at e-mail.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is camping out waiting for the next Benghazi hearing. The Republicans do care more about American lives than political showmanship, right? 

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Donald Trump and the End of a Center Right Nation

Our political compass has no direction

No matter how many times the political experts predicted the end of Donald Trump (see the many, many times I have said so) , the New York businessman is going to be the Republican nominee for President in the 2016 national election. This means we will have six more months of Donald Trump and his great ideas to make America great again. Six more months of the national press treating these ideas as credible ones. Six more months of the liberal pundits on HBO and Comedy Central being apoplectic about Trump's ideas.  We have six more months of Donald Trump's Republican Party. A party that can in no way claim to be conservative or center right. The days of a center right nation are gone.

Shortly after the election of Barack Obama as President in 2008, the professional media class started to use the term "center right". Center right meant that Americans did not fully subscribe to the ideals of the far right or far left, but sat somewhere in the middle. Americans sat in the middle, but were leaning more to conservative ideas. The media class thought that Americans were moving away from supporting social safety programs, moving towards national defense, and wanted to slow down on changing excepted social norms. The term center right was used to make it look like the country still believed in the brand of conservatism that President Reagan and Bush II practiced. Barack Obama may have been elected President, by a very large margin, but the country was not willing to embrace the Democratic party's plans to implement health care reform and to scale down on military intervention around the world. 

The media was invested in the idea of the United States being a center right nation because of the disaster that was the George W. Bush presidency. By the end of 2008 the US was mired in an endless war with no real purpose, an economy that had crippled the middle class, and public confidence that was at an all time low. The media of the early 2000's was built to cater to Bush and the conservatism of John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell. The tea party had not been given a national platform in 2008. Fox News gained strength in the first part of the 21st century because they embraced the notion of being the "news channel" for the right. The other media outlets quickly raced away from journalism and into republican propaganda to try and catch ratings on the coat tails of Fox News. NBC, CBS, and ABC used their nightly newscast to gin up support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Journalism was replaced by ratings friendly war mongering. The same "fair and balanced" media were also defending the destructive economic ideas of the republican party. Story after story of a booming housing market were being fed to the Americans, while no one was talking about the obvious coming collapse. Vice President Dick Cheney made secret deals with the energy industry, there were no investigative stories until after 2008. The media was an accomplice to the bad policies of the Bush administration, and they wanted to cover their own rear ends. Saying America is a center right nation took the blame off of the media, and put the blame on the voters.

The idea of America being a center right nation was wrong in 2008, and it is wrong today. The Republican party may hold the US House of Representatives and the Senate, but that has more to do with shady manipulation of the electoral process and general incompetence of the Democratic Party. In 2008 and 2012, President Barack Obama easily beat his republican challengers. Neither of those races was even close. Obama still won with the media allowing the right wing to paint the President as a foreign born communist who hates America. Rights for the LGBTQ community have grown at a fast, and much needed, rate. The press keeps giving the bigoted side a voice, but the large majority of Americans are on the correct side of history. Hillary Clinton is having trouble sealing the deal on the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination because most Americans are not supportive of protecting the wealthiest of our citizens at the expense of everyone else. The media has tried to marginalize Senator Bernie Sanders, yet here in the middle of May and Clinton is still not the nominee. America was not center right in 2008, and we have been moving further and further left since then.

Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee, the center right lie can finally be buried on the ash heap of history. The story surrounding Trump's ascension has centered around how much everyone got the New York businessman's rise so wrong. Even liberal darlings like Nate Silver and the people at fivethirtyeight.com have egg on their face. The real story should not be how wrong everyone was, but how in the world did the Republican party nominate someone who has held mostly Democratic Party ideas his entire life. Trump has a history of being pro-choice, pro raising taxes on the wealthy, and pro healthcare reform. The Paul Ryan's and Mitch McConnell's of the Republican party have used their entire careers railing against these ideals. Ohio Governor John Kasich could only win one state, and rarely broke 10% of the vote in any other state. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the poster boy of Republican obstructionism, only gained traction in the primaries once he was deemed the true Republican alternative to Donald Trump. No one in the classically defined Republican establishment could take Trump down. One could say that Trump's win in the 2016 Republican primary means that the GOP is becoming a center left party.

The rise of Trump is unfortunately not the rise of a center left Republican party. In hindsight it is very easy to see how Donald Trump was able to beat the rest of the Republican field. The blind hatred of the GOP towards Obama and the Democratic Party has created a lot of tiny fractures in the national Republican party. The tea party was built on blind racism. Radio and television personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity demanded purity in the philosophies of elected republican officials. The right wing worship of the founding fathers (most of them were slave holders) and the original Constitution (where African-Americans were counted as 3/5ths of a person) started to show the party as being unreasonable and not have the ability to properly govern in the 21st century. The national identity of the Republican Party was split into many pieces. The fiscal conservatives never found their candidate, and that hurt voting. Kasich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush could never gain any unified support. The religious conservatives had incompetent buffoons as their choices. Former Governors Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and former Senator Rick Santorum were so idiotic even the media could not shield them. Ted Cruz was hated by most of his party, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson were so bad that they helped bring the GOP brand further into the dirt. The only unique option int he filed was Donald Trump. His persona appealed to the angry white man. His ideas fueled the racist, misogynists, and bigots, in the Republican party. Donald Trump was the only Republican in the field that had a voting block to himself. This voting block turned out in high numbers, and Trump was able to survive the cage match that was the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary. His victory is actually quite easy to understand, now.

A minority of the Republican Party was able to nominate a life long Democrat to be their 2016 Presidential candidate. White male christian persecution complex has replaced conservative social and economic philosophy in the GOP. Donald Trump may be a Republican now, but many of his ideas lean to the left. The professional media created Donald Trump, and helped destroy their own narrative of a center right nation. For better or worse, America is stuck with Donald Trump and his new Republican Party. For at least six more months.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Hear RD and Ty talk about Trump and the 2016 Presidential election on the latest episode of the X Millennial Man.