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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I Have to Say Something About the Republicans and Their Healthcare Bill

It is going to be mighty hot in this world, and the next, for the Republicans

I know that I have stated that I am out of the politics game here on the site, but after yesterday's atrocities, I just cannot think of a better place to heap my disgust at this maniacal, tyrannical, stone age of a "government" than my blog.

The "health' care bill that the House passed is an absolute disaster. That bill does nothing except make the sick and poor more sick and poor, and make the rich even richer. It is a downright shame that something like this was even brought to the table to vote. This is an outrageously horrible bill that will take millions upon millions of people off of health care, while making corporations more rich, and lining the pockets of the slimy pigheaded people that voted yes on this horrific bill in the government.

I hope that all the yes men and women that work in government that voted yes on this know that they have special place in hell waiting for them. I personally do not believe in a heaven or a hell, but the moronic right wing nut jobs that occupy Washington D.C. seem to always talk about the bible and God and other religious stuff, so I'm sure they believe in that nonsense. I hope they are prepared for an eternity of fire and Satan, or whatever, because that is where they are headed. I'm sure some of you that will read this are Republican, or right wing, and will say, that's too mean Ty. I say, shut your god damn mouth. If you support this bill and these monsters, then I have nothing but contempt and disrespect for you.

This bill is downright insane. This bill is going to directly effect the very same people that voted this douchebag into office. He is aiming for the sick and the poor. He and his cronies do not care about you unless you are a multi billionaire. If you do not give anything to him and his bunch of frat boy subordinates, he could care less about you. That is why something so ridiculous was pushed through the House in such a hurry. They didn't vet this bill, or even read it for that matter. Trump is such a puppet that someone gave him something, told him to sign it, and like the dip shit he is, he did it, no questions asked.

Then, the fact that thy were celebrating and drinking Bud Light after it passed is just appalling. What, was there no Natty Lights for you assholes to drink? This is so disgusting and very disturbing.

The fact that this passed has made me scared and very, very angry. To take healthcare away from the sick and the poor is so unconscionable, it makes me literally sick to my stomach. I mean, how do these people sleep at night knowing what they are doing to the less fortunate? The government was supposed to protect us and our civil liberties. Now, it is just a game to the villains in office. They do not care what the piece of paper they are signing says, they just want it to pass. The moronic and archaic GOP bitched and moaned about Obamacare for 8 years. That bill had a ton of thought and fought its way to get passed. This new health bill, they looked at for less than 100 days. That should frighten everyone. The fact that they just rushed it through proves to me that no vetting or any rational thought went into it. This was just something that they wanted to get done to make their investors, possibly the Russians, happy. I know that the Senate still has to look at this bill before it becomes law, but the fact that the House had enough votes to pass the bill is a nightmare scenario.

Look, this first 100 days plus of this monstrosity of a "government" has been anxiety fuel and I am sick and tired of being angry and afraid. Nothing these horrible monsters do makes me feel at ease. The people in charge are trying to destroy this country. They do not care about anyone but themselves. People like Trump, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions, are horrible, horrible people that will get what is coming to them. They are going to go down as some of the worst people in the history of the US. But, the scariest thing about that, they do not care, or are too dumb to realize that what they are doing is so very, very wrong. With each passing day of this "government" I become more worried and more angry. Every morning I wake up hoping to hear that all of these crooks and criminals are being sent to jail, but it hasn't happened, at least not yet. Everyday I also scour the internet and my email looking for petitions, numbers to calls and things that I can do to try and stop this disaster of a "cabinet". I just want to wake up one day and not be afraid anymore.

What makes that even worse, I will not, at least at first, be effected by any of this stuff. I'm a middle class white man. But, I have friends that count on things like health care and LGBTQ rights and free speech. And from what this "administration" has shown so far, they are screwed.

We will fight. Go out and look at all the reactions from the majority of the country. People are starting to get woke, and I'm proud to say that I am going to stay woke as long as these injustices keeps happening. Listen up you monsters in D.C. that think you can control us, we will never stop fighting while you are in office. Get ready for more protests and more and more people questioning you and your cronies. You are thieves, crooks, and after yesterday, killers. I hope you all know that you are going to rot in jail before you rot in hell, and I want you to know that I will fight you, tooth and nail, until you monsters get what you deserve.

All of you DC Republicans disgust me. I hope the people that voted for these monsters, or even worse didn't vote at all, feel real bad about yourselves. You let this happen, and now, these criminals are trying to get away with whatever they can. For shame. As for now, keep resisting. It is going to be a fight, but it is a fight that we can win. Trust that.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is woke. Are you? 

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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.

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Someone Needs to Remind Me Why Donald Trump was Elected President

I have a question

Being an internet journalist, and being very serious about SeedSing's duties to the good reading public, I feel like I need to make something crystal clear. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in the 2016 Presidential election by almost three million legitimate votes. The only voter fraud being prosecuted currently is against Republicans, like the GOP chairperson in Colorado. We should assume if you take out all the Republican voter fraud, Trump lost by a whole lot more than 3 million votes. Yes Donald Trump is President of the United States, but not because the majority of Americans want him to be. The sycophants at Fox News, his loud supporters on social media, the insignificant lords of talk radio, and the alt right may have gotten their wish with a Trump Presidency. I accept that. But why did Trump get elected? What has he, and the Republican majority in DC, done?

Most recently, the Republicans failed to do what they said they were going to do. There was a scheduled vote in the US House of Representatives on Thursday, March 23rd, 2017 to begin the process to repeal the Affordable Care Act and implement the GOP drafted American Health Care Act. The vote was canceled because Speaker Paul Ryan knew that he did not have the 215 votes he needed to pass the legislation. Something the Republicans, and Speaker Ryan, have been running on for years has failed due to people in their own party. Speaker Ryan does not need any Democratic votes on the American Health Care Act, yet he is still short of support. Repeal and replace has started with a big fat failure for the Republican majority 

President Trump, who was sold to the American public as some kind of awesome deal maker, was dispatched to Capitol Hill this week to work his deal making magic. He threatened members of his party with electoral losses, tried to work changes into the law to appease one group, and sent his White House minions out to the press to say everything will work out. No deal was made. President Trump failed.

The myth of Donald Trump, the best deal maker of all time, has been proven to be nothing but pointless bragging from an overexposed blowhard. Before the election, the X Millennial Man talked about their world's history with Donald Trump. He was a joke in the 1980's, disappeared in the 1990's, and was resurrected in the early 21st century with no substance. The only people who believed in Trump's business genius were either working for the marketing department of NBC, or they were people who had no intellectual curiosity when it came to basic business success. To everyone else, the President's failure on making a deal with the American Health Care Act was sad and predictable.

There was also the myth of Donald Trump "draining the swamp" of DC and returning the American government back to the American people. Who the hell still believes this garbage? His cabinet is filled with idealogues who care more about their failed philosophies than they care about making America great again for all Americans. While they cut taxes on the highest earners, Trump's White House is making sure that student loan borrowers are being harshly punished with outrageous late fees, that PBS is defunded, that women's health is being made more expensive, and that Meals on Wheels is nothing but a memory of an America that cared about it's most vulnerable citizens.  It sure looks like President Trump was lying when he said he wanted to drain the swamp.

At a typical Trump rally, the candidate would highlight the unsubstantiated claims of Hillary Clinton's corruption. Many of his supporters would chant "lock her up". New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held a mock prosecution of the Democratic nominee at the Republican Convention. Trump himself even said that Clinton would be in jail if he was President. The American people were being presented with a choice of Hillary Clinton, a self serving corrupt President, or Donald Trump, a man who is clean as a baby's fresh bottom.

A funny thing has happened in the first two months of the Trump Presidency. He and his administration are as filthy as baby who just dropped a big bomb in their diaper. The FBI was forced to admit that they are currently investigating Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Michael Flynn, the National Security Adviser for a few weeks, is a registered foreign agent. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort was paid millions of dollars by a Russian oligarch to influence US feelings towards the Russian government. While the Trump supporters were screaming for Hillary Clinton to be in jail because of alleged crime, there is actual proof of Trump surrogates working for the will of Vladimir Putin and the Russian state. If it was not for the spineless majority party in Congress, there would be an independent prosecutor assigned to find out if our President is being influenced by a foreign government. 

There are so many other incidents in the early weeks of the trump Presidency that should put all Americans on alert to how un-Presidential this man really is. The unnecessary, and sad, lying that comes directly out of President Trump's mouth. His inauguration was not as well attended as the two previous ones, yet he decided to exposes his smallness, and his inability to tell the truth, by claiming that his inauguration was the best attended ever. The accusations of wrong doing from the British intelligence services show that Trump is oblivious to how his lies can do actual damage to longstanding international relations. The wire "tapps" (I prefer the questionable spelling of the US President) comments, and directly accusing the previous President of dirty tricks, is not only pathetic, but it is extremely scary. The fact that it has been proven that Trump lied about these "tapps", and the press has not constantly called him out on it, says more about the terrible establishment media than it says about the President's inability to be truthful.

With all of this being said, and this is just the tip of a terrible iceberg, why the hell did people want Trump to be the President? Did the 46% who voted for him just want a Republican in the White House so Paul Ryan could finally pass his agenda? How is that working out for you?

Did they hate Hillary? Why? People tell me it is not because of misogyny, then what is it? I already addressed the corruption, and did not even bother with the conflicts of interest. The only logical reason is that the 3 million less who voted for Trump did not want a woman to be President.

Was it a hatred for Obama? What do you have to hate. Bush's wars are still going on, Guantanamo Bay is still open, the stock market is in record territory. It cannot be because of the former President's race, at least that is what I keep hearing. 

The fact is that the early days of Trump Presidency have not been good, and they are only getting worse. In the days after the 2016 election, the liberal elites who work in the media based on the coasts claimed we need to reach out to the middle American disaffected voter who reluctantly supported Trump. We need to figure out why they voted for the New York businessman over the career politician. We needed to find out where the Democratic Party went wrong.  We do not need to reach out to them and find non-existent answers to these questions. There should be only one question to the minority of people who voted for Trump. In what reality is President Donald Trump a good thing?

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Do you still have hope for President Donald Trump?  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? 

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

Brexit, Democracy, and the Ash Heap of History

The first on the fire?

Have you heard about how the Brexit referendum has destroyed democracy? It definately ended Prime Minister David Cameron's political career. Since the British people voted 52%-48% to leave the European Union, almost everyone with an opinion has decided that Britain made the wrong decision. The "Leave" voters have been called racist, children, and ignorant. People are trying to make the referendum vote as proof that there is a divide between people living in urban areas and those living in rural parts. Those of two different generations have views that are diametrically opposed. The young urban intelligentsia have compassion, and the old uneducated hick is an idiot. The war between the future and the past was fought during the Brexit referendum, the old barely won, and the rest of the world has lost. Democracy has failed to secure our future.

Almost everything written, or televised, about Brexit is insulting and wrong. The coverage is focusing on a small group of angry remain voters, and discounting the 17 million plus majority voters who want to leave the European Union. Let's take a closer look at how the British people actually voted.

A big deal is being made out of the urban "Remain" voters against the rural "Leave" voters. The majority of the urban centers did vote for "Remain", along with all of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was not just the far out, lowly populated, rural areas that carried "Leave to victory. The majority of England and Whales voted "Leave". Once you exit the center of the urban areas, nearly all of the suburban parts voted "Leave". Almost all of the blue collar, highly populated, areas pushed "Leave" over "Remain". 

The higher educated were also applauded for wanting to remain in the European Union. Nearly three quarters of UK citizens with a college degree voted "Remain". The problem here is that less than one third of UK citizens have a college degree. The media tries to make it look like half the country is college educated and the other half is not. The fact is that by using this group in one's analysis, the whole truth cannot be seen. A minority this small is insignificant in swinging an election.

Another interesting piece of the Brexit vote is party affiliation. Predictable the "Leave" voters mostly identified with the conservative party and the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The conservatives are currently the majority party in the Parliament, and had won a hard fought election just over a year ago. Even if the former Prime Minister David Cameron was backing "Remain", many of the voters stuck to their conservative principles and voted with their nationalistic hearts.

The most telling voter data can be easily described by the BBC.

"Younger people voted Remain

According to polling by Lord Ashcroft, younger voters were much more likely to vote Remain than older voters.

But turnout in areas with a higher proportion of younger residents tended to be lower."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028

The millennials who are being championed in the media as the sensible losers in Brexit, most of them did not even vote. Lack of interest in voting is not being discussed in the Brexit vote because the media would rather paint the millennial generation as victims of baby boomer excess. Once again voter turnout is a problem.

Why do we swallow the media narrative of the disappointed electoral minority and immediately discount the majority votes of an entire nation? More than seventeen million people voted to leave the European Union, and the global narrative is focused on the exact opposite. The answer is quite simply. It's all about the money.

Every single post Brexit story focused on the fall in the global stock market and the devaluing of the British Pound. The concern for a few peoples wealth was way more important than the humanitarian consequences of Brexit. President Obama and Speaker Ryan supported Britain staying the EU because of how it would effect US trade policy and what an exit would mean to the business owners in the United States. That is exactly what the elected leaders of the United States should do. It was the same thing around all the industrialized economies of the world. The world's economy was going to suffer if Britain left the EU. Quietly, Vladimir Putin supported Great Britain leaving the European Union, but that has more to do with consolidating power than it does for global economic stability. If Putin supports something, it usually means the rest of the global economic powers will be against it.

If the economic consequences are so dire, why would 52% of the voters want to bring about the chaos? The answer is that the majority of Britain's citizen's, and the citizen's around the world, have been exploited and held down by the politicians and business leaders of the twenty first century economy. When David Cameron took the keys to 10 Downing Street, he immediately enacted programs that drained the social programs of needed funds. These so called austerity measures were supposed to restore the economy to pre-2008 levels. The Prime Minister's family was named in the Panama Papers as someone who was avoiding taxes. He has no idea how important the government funded social services are to people that cannot afford to hide their money and dodge taxes. Cameron did not have anything to lose by demanding that the working people pay more, and sacrifice much more. He did not care how much the majority would suffer.

The non-college educated working class suffered the most from Cameron's austerity plan, and the rich got even richer through tax cuts/incentives. London Mayor, and fellow conservative, Boris Johnson enthusiastically blamed immigrants for the city's economic troubles. The people who could not afford to live in downtown London saw their social safety net being cut to shreds by Parliament, and had immigrants to blame through the mayors racist rhetoric. Nigel Farage, the head of the UKIP, was even running advertisements in the suburbs telling people that the money saved by leaving the EU was going to help strengthen the drained National Health Service. The day after the vote, Farage sort of rescinded that promise on national television. When the majority of your voters are non-college educated, struggling to get by, and looking for a way out, leaving the European Union was their only viable choice. That is why leave carried the day.

The myth of democracy is what caused the Brexit vote. David Cameron could not find anymore of the people's money to give away to his rich business donors, so he approved the Brexit referendum. Boris Johnson had a small period of time to maintain the immigrant hatred, so he pushed hard for Brexit. Nigel Farage is another demagogue he wants to justify his hate through the will of the people. Brexit was formed out of fear and economic hardship. The rightfully elected majority party in Parliament created and fed this flame of discontent. The will of the people was created by these leaders of government. Modern democracy created the majority leave voters.

Today we are questioning the will of the people. It has been weeks since Brexit, and our global economy is begging for a do over. David Cameron has resigned, and new Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to carry out with Great Britain's exit from the European Union. Democracy must be respected. The people have spoken, even if their voice said the wrong thing.

Brexit should represents the end of our love affair with democracy. The fact remains that 52% of Britons voted for the wrong thing. The leave supporters were fed a bunch of lies, and voted on baseless fear. The voters were used as pawns by rich men who were trying to hold onto the little bit of power they can still embrace. Austerity did not work, it only made things worse. With the failures of austerity, the leaders turned to racism. That will also one day fail. Great Britain has shown that an up or down popular vote is not the answer. The conservatives gained power by standing on top of the majority. The weight of the conservative party's greed has crushed their nation. Leaving the European Union was politically their only way to hold onto ill gotten power. The fallout from Brexit will hurt all of Britain, and leave the conservatives with no avenue forward in their quest for wealth and influence. 

Democracy has exposed the mob as not fit to govern. Brexit is the most glaring example popular voting's failure. More than 17 million people believed that leaving the European Union would improve their rapidly declining economic conditions. They never thought the people they supported in previous elections were the ones who were causing the economic decline. Once democracy relies on racism and fear to gain power, it is time to find a new way. Leave won because the supporters relied on lies and fear, while the opponents were met with low voter turnout and disorganization. Is this the best way to govern an entire nation, or a global economy? Democracy has failed, and Brexit is one of many examples to come. The fires of history has produced a lot of ash. Democracy will be next. What do we do know?

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. What is our new way forward? Tell us by writing for SeedSing. 

Stop Waiting for Congress to Pass Gun Laws

The Congress could not regulate this over 200 years ago. Why trust them now?

This week the Democrats in the United States House of Representatives, led by Georgia Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis, did something amazing. They took a seat for the American people. On Wednesday, June 22nd, Representative Lewis gave a fiery speech lamenting the inaction of Congress on doing anything to help curb the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. After his speech, Lewis was joined by other Democratic party members of the House and they all took a seat. The sat right down on the floor of the US House of Representatives. The Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, ended the session and cut off the live video feed provided by the cameras of the Cable-Satellite Public Access Network (C-SPAN). The Republican party wanted to block the images of the Democratic sit in from the American people. Unfortunate for Speaker Ryan, 21st century technology allowed the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution to live on. Many House members used Twitter's Periscope live video app and started to stream the images out to the internet. C-SPAN started to air these Periscope streams out through their airwaves. Many more Democrats, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and current Presidential candidate (as of this writing he has not conceded) Bernie Sanders, joined their colleagues on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Democrats were finally fed up with Republican inaction on any meaningful firearm regulation, and all of America was able to see the spectacle going on in the nation's capital. Things were about to change in Washington DC.

Twenty five hours after Representative John Lewis's sit in started, it was over. The US House of Representatives adjourned for an extended break, and the American people were promised by the Democratic party that the fight for gun regulation would resume when everyone got back to Washington DC. Once again America had another gun massacre answered with anger, spectacle, and inaction. Our elected representatives, who make around $174,000 plus expenses paid by the taxpayers each year, left the nation's capitol to take another mandated break. Over the next two weeks there will be no chance of any reasonable firearms legislation. The current batch of firearm regulations will be forgotten. Inaction will once again rule the day.

The next time the nation will see something like the Great Sit-In of June 2016 will be after the next horrible firearm massacre. Unfortunately the next massacre is more likely to occur within the next few months. The bodies will be dead, and the nation will once again cry out for answers to an all too common occurrence. The Republicans, backed by their NRA handlers, will ask for a moment of silence and not want to "politicize" the issue. The Democrats will look at the recent shooting, and try to build conversation about what could have prevented that one singular incident. Once a week has passed, the NRA will have helped sell thousands of more firearms, the Democrats will have forgotten about any meaningful legislation, and the dead will be forgotten. We will be witness to the whole process again once the next firearm massacre occurs. 

Why do we look to Washington DC to solve our gun violence problem? As more people die needlessly, the inept process never changes. Twelve dead at Columbine High School, no action. Thirty two dead at Virginia Tech, no action. Nine dead in Charleston South Carolina, no action. Twelve killed at the Navy yard in Washington DC, no action. Thirteen dead at Ft. Hood, no action. Three dead at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, no action. Twelve dead in Aurora Colorado, no action. Nine dead at Umpqua Community College, no action. Fourteen dead in San Bernardino California, no action. Twenty-six dead, twenty of them children, at Sandy Hook Elementary, no action. Forty-nine people dead in Orlando, no action. (ed note: these are the shootings I remembered off the top of my head. There are many, many more Here is an excellent look at the recent history of US mass shootings from the LA Times.) The killings continue, and the government does nothing.

In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting we are experiencing one of the rare instances when the national government does try to pass meaningful gun regulations. The law being proposed is so flawed it would be better if it never passed. The Great Sit-In was centered on two laws the Democrats were championing. One was to make all gun sales subject to a background check. There is currently no requirement to perform a back ground check on a private gun sale. That  type of law has never passed in the history of the United States. The other law would ban the sale of guns to anyone on the United States government's no fly list. This bit of new gun regulations was first brought to the nation's attention by presumptive Republican Party Presidential Candidate Donald Trump. The NRA at first seemed to be behind the law. A bill was introduced in the US Senate, one written by Republican Senator Susan Collins from Maine, that would ban people on the no fly list from purchasing firearms. The bill received 52 votes in the Senate, but since every controversial bill is threatened with a filibuster, the bill needed sixty to pass. The US House had yet to take up debate, or voted, on the no fly no buy bill. The Great Sit-In happened, and ended. Representative John Lewis has vowed that the House will take up the legislation when Congress gets back from their well deserved vacation.

The No Fly No Buy Bill has the best chance at being the first meaningfully firearm regulation to be enacted into law in over twenty years. Unfortunately it is a very bad law. Many Democrats just want a political victory, and they have rallied behind a bill that at best is ineffective and at worst is racist. The bill is one of the few laws in history to be opposed by both the NRA and the ACLU. The NRA just wants to sell guns, the ACLU is worried about people's actual freedom. The No Fly list is a secret list administered by unknown persons. The list became part of US policy after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Many non-terrorists, like children, former Senator Ted Kennedy, and sit-in leader Representative John Lewis, have had their names appear on the federal no fly list. No reason is given if one's name appears on the list, and there are no standards in place to have your name removed. The government claims that over 98% of the names on the no fly list are not American citizens. If you are a non-citizen, you cannot buy a guy already. Legal visa holders with proof of state residence (i.e. students) can purchase a firearm, with a background check. The No Fly No Buy bill is not only potentially racial profiling, it is utterly useless. There is no possibility for preventing any future massacre with the No Fly No Buy law. It is political theater being used to try and convince the American people that Congress is compassionate. It is worse than doing nothing.

The United States government has proven absolutely incapable, and unwilling, of protecting the American people from firearm massacres. Decades of inaction has led to political stunts being carried out for the passage of ineffective and racist laws. We must accept that there will not be the passage of any meaningful gun laws by the US government. The faith of the American citizen needs to be put elsewhere. Congress is filled with failure, America should not continue to look towards failure. There needs to be a new way.

The state of Hawaii just recently became the first state to have gun owners registered in a federal database. The Aloha state is doing something to keep its 1.4 million residents a bit safer. The rest of the country does not have politicians with a will to protect their citizens like Hawaii does. What can be done by the American who is not represented by the thoughtful politicians of the Hawaiian Islands?

Only 1/3 of American households and 1/4 of individuals even own guns. Regardless of what the NRA, or the government says, gun ownership is not very popular in the United States. The number of smokers in the US is close to the number of gun owners. The large majority of non-smokers were able to make smoking an anomaly. The same can happen to gun ownership. Privately the nation sees owning a gun as an odd thing, publicly we can do the same. Having a firearm is not a normal thing, and gun owners should know that. If we want gun owners to responsible, the non-gun owners should demand it. There are plenty of non-smoking areas, there should be areas where we do not accept guns. Many public places have designated spots for the smokers to gather and poison each other. The same should happen for guns. Let all the gun owners gather in the spots designated for guns, and our society will know who these gun lovers are. Hunters are already well known as gun owners due to the season and attire required for their hobby. If one has a gun that is an antique, is unusable, and has no ammunition, they do not have to gather in the designated live gun zone. The professionals who require guns for their employment, i.e. police officers and military personal, they are already known by society as carrying a live firearm. A non-government registry of gun owners would quickly be created when everyone in their neighborhood knows whose house has all the guns. Knowing that one's guns are acknowledged by the public will make these gun owners a lot more responsible. It may even cause these gun owners to give up their mythical need to protect themselves with weapons designed for mass killing. The very small minority of gun owners would shrink to a much smaller, and manageable number. Owning firearms designed for killing a whole lot of people would not be an NRA marketing campaign, it would be a source of shame.

The Democrats who sat down this week deserve our admiration. They were trying to bring attention to the inaction that has plagued our nation for decades. Their intentions were good, their law is bad. The NRA has used the government to create a sense of gun ownership being vital and normal. It is not. Since the NRA has used money to buy most of Congress, the American people can not rely on the elected representatives to protect us. We must rely on ourselves. Stop waiting for Congress to act, they will not. Start creating a safer world in your neighborhood. Our actions will be stronger than the money, and ineptness, of Washington DC. We can stop gun violence today. Yes we can.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.He wants to hear the counter opinion on owning guns. Write for us.  

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. 

Why do the Republicans love losers so much?

How most of America watches the Republican Presidential debates

Another pointless Republican debate, another stage full of idiots, another lost night for America. The Republican party doesn't care, they love losers. The modern party embraces the failures and quitters of the political world. The current crop of national republican leaders are the height of failure. When your policy is to avoid real leadership at all costs, the biggest losers will become your leaders.  Good thing that none of these never been Republicans will be President of the United States. They are losers. They lose.

It may seem harsh, and Trump like, to ascribe the loser label to the entire Republican party. Well take a look at their nominees. Donald Trump is an ill prepared hate monger who lost money because he tried to be a business man. Dr. Ben Carson may actually be a stupid person. Carly Fiorina is one of the most comically bad CEOs in history, plus she is a pathological liar. Marco Rubio is a lazy opportunist, oh and he is also a lying about his family history. Jeb Bush is an entitled spoiled brat. Ted Cruz is a crazy person who hates the very idea of America. The rest of the cast doesn't matter because they will be lucky to win a single delegate. There is not a uniter in the group. They learned to only be dividers, like a dog learns to shake. Do a simple task and then get your reward. So not only are the Republicans losers, they do not have intelligence beyond the common dog.

How did one of our major political parties come to embrace and celebrate losers? Is it racism? How about sexism? Is the current republican white male (that  is the large majority of the party) so insecure that they have to embrace known losers? The Republicans claim to be the tough ones, yet Vietnam was lost on Nixon's watch. They claim to be tough on terrorism, yet Reagan illegally sent weapons to known terror groups. They claim to have America's safety front of mind, yet George W. Bush admitted to not being that concerned about Al Qaeda or Bin Laden just a month before September 11th. The modern Republican party has been a colossal failure in nearly every aspect of foreign policy.  Even the idea that Reagan ended the cold war is comical in how much his administration over estimated the strength of the Soviet Union. The Americans had next to nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet empire. People like Reagan were very lucky to be around when history was taking its inevitable course. The war in Afghanistan had more to due with the downfall of the Soviet Union than any US military build-up. Once the Iron Curtain came down the Republican party had no idea how to handle post Soviet Russia. Years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Reagan disciple George W. Bush gave Russian premiere Putin a pass. Good old George saw into Putin's heart, and he thought all was good. Another Republican getting it horribly wrong.

Now the question becomes how can these incompetent losers still rule much of our political landscape? We have discussed many, many, many, times about how the Democrats have ceded the US Congress and state governments to the Republicans. We have also discussed how a lazy, greedy, and overall incompetent media likes to prop up the failures in the republican party. Any Republican candidate is given a head start because we have been force fed this idea that the GOP is tough on terror and good with money. The facts show a completely different story. The current Republican Party has no bold leadership, look at the folly of errors leading up to Paul Ryan reluctantly accepting the honored position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. The party has horrible when it comes to fiscal policy. George W Bush inherited a strong economy, fiddled with it, drove it into a massive recession, and then President Obama fixed his mess. The Republican parties work in foreign policy led directly to the creation of ISIS, and America's overall sense of isolation from the rest of the developed world. All of these actions are not the mark of an intelligent and winning direction for America. The debate on Tuesday night had a bunch of losers continuing to embrace philosophy that has failed.

It must be incredibly frustrating for many republicans that the competent members of their party have to be shoved aside for all the losers. Ohio Governor John Kasich is very popular in a state the GOP must win, yet the national press and his own party treat him like a pariah. Rand Paul may very well be the only one on that stage that can actual create votes, yet he his sabotaging his own campaign by trying to dumb down to the rest of the group. Mitt Romney is the best candidate the Republicans have had in a generation, but he had to cower to the zealots on Fox News and therefore ruined any chance to reach new voters. Failed Governors like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker recieve more respect than viable candidates like George Pataki and the aforementioned Kasich. The entire Republican party is not a bunch of losers, just the people who lead them.

While the media treats the Republican party with kid gloves, and the white male Christians claim to be victims, America can feel good about itself because no one on stage last Tuesday will ever win the presidency. The GOP primary debates are entertaining in their chaos, and infuriating in their lack of truth. Americans like success, the Republicans are lacking. Americans like practicality, the Republicans fail to deliver. Most importantly, Americans like winners. The Republican Presidential candidates are losers. They lose.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He enjoys the idea of political debate and welcomes any one who disagrees to write for SeedSing. Make sure you get all of our great thoughts by follow us on twitter @seedsingrdk.

First Annual Get Your Ass Out and Vote Call to Action

The beginning of the end

Hello All

It is election day. I assume many of our good readers are well informed of the candidates and issues. You all probably woke up bright and early, presented your voting credentials, and are now wearing the "I Voted" stickers to the embarrassment of your non-voting friends, co-workers, and family. To all the good voters out there, good job, you make America proud. 

The preceding paragraph represents less than 30% of America's eligible voter population. Off year congressional elections have voter turnout rates less than 50%. In over 75 years we have seen Presidential election turnouts rate top out at 65% of eligible voters participating only one time (1976 - Jimmy Carter's victory). What the hell is the problem? Why do people not vote? The onslaught of the 24 hour media, and the subhuman conversation on talk radio, make elections into a quasi philosophical battlefield. Cowards like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck use their time on publicly created radio and television airwaves  to claim America will be ending if their chosen politicians do not win. The professional left (once again thanks Robert Gibbs) makes every election into a referendum of their latest cause. With all of this noise, very few people actually vote, especially in non-presidential elections.

What the hell is wrong with you people? I get that a non-presidential election is not very exciting, but it means so much more to your life than you know. The national (and most state) Democratic Party has totally given up on local elections so they can win the "Best in Show" ribbon that is the Presidential election. Way to go Democrats, Obama won two elections. How has that worked out? We have the psychopaths of the tea party in congress now, non-stop obstructionism, and the glowing profiles of dirt bag Paul Ryan because he is the least crazy person we could get to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party's lack of developing any local candidates, and supporting them, has led to nut jobs like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and worst of all Ted Cruz. The mighty party of the people has completely failed at building a strong stable of candidates, and left the power to the most self serving political movement in American history.

The people who are on your school boards, city/town councils, and municipal courts have a ton more power over your lives than anyone who is elected to Washington DC. Your kids go to schools run by the philosophical whims of the school board. Your emergency services are managed by your city councils. Your home values are dictated by the people elected today. Yet nobody seems to care. We all get excited to vote for history (Obama) or vote to take our country back (anyone in the modern Republican field), but we care not to vote for the person who will give the next generation a chance to thrive. What is wrong with us? The election you do not participate in today will elect the crazy person to your school board. That person will next move on to win a city council race you refuse to vote in. Next thing you know, that crazy person is being featured on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" as another crazy right winger who belongs in the 1800's. They got there because we refused to stop them from winning their first election.  We elected them by not participating.

Wake up and get your ass out to vote. I know that levies, school boards, and trustees do not excite our electoral urges. Grow up. Your home values, your kids education, and the overall future of our society depends on who wins this November 3rd, 2015. If you decide not to vote, I will blame the next Ted Cruz on you. 

Vote.

(Special thanks to FairVote.Org  for help with research. Plus I do know about John Oliver's recent episode about local elections. I only wish he did the episode a few weeks ago when people could still register to vote.)

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor of SeedSing. He does not know what to write over the next year because Hillary has already won the 2016 Presidential election. Is he wrong? Go tell him.