Bernie Sanders has this to say on the graph here: “Stress kills.”
To that I would add the multiplicity of other stuff that kills poor people: malnutrition, shoddy healthcare, living in communities whose air and water are polluted, dangerous professions, more interaction with police, incarceration, and driving older, less safe cars.
From AdWeek: President Donald Trump referred to CNN and MSNBC “illegal” during a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday. It marked the latest escalation in his language about the news media and those two networks in particular since he returned to the Oval Office in January.
As we all know, making comparisons between Trump’s words and actions to those of the 20th Century fascists don’t win progressives any points, but it’s hard to understand how calling out the reporting of one’s critics as “illegal” don’t fall right into line here.
At left, we have the words of American planetary scientist Dr. Carolyn Porco, who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s.
FWIW, I don’t take the same tack. As a guy who’s done his fair share of tutoring young people in science, and who has also raised two kids, I’ve had to deal with the issue a great many times.
When someone wants me to tell them what happens when we die, I ask, “Do you want to know what scientists have learned about the universe as it applies here, or what the believers in an all-powerful God think? I’m happy to explain the ideas of both of them.”
Normally, at this point, the kid (understandably) wants to change the subject, which is just fine with me.
From a reader: Trump is causing a completely unforced recession, the markets (are) tanking, and your 401k’s plummeting, and he’s focused on invading Greenland.
Funny you mentioned that. I had a recent conversation with a Trump supporter in which she asked, What do you think is so wrong about our president’s demand to own Greenland, if it’s strategic to our national defense?
I responded:
Do you think that Denmark wouldn’t offer the U.S. whatever part of Greenland that could possibly protect world security, given that we have air bases in dozens of countries all around the globe, some of which have far less affinity for us than Denmark?
Maybe it’s for the same reason that he wants to turn the bombed-out Gaza into a U.S.-owned beach resort, or that he’s being so aggressive with our European allies, Panama, Mexico, and Canada. Perhaps it’s the same reason he keeps asking about the prospects of having his bust carved into Mount Rushmore.
It’s time for us to understand that he’s never done a single thing for any person or group of people for any reason other than his own self-aggrandizement, and that he couldn’t care less about anyone who doesn’t make him richer or more powerful. The well-being of common American means nothing to him at all.
Let’s not forget that Trump pardoned hundreds of violent criminals who were serving long sentences that judges had imposed for storming the Capitol and causing the deaths of several policemen and the injury of 138 more. Why the pardons? These people were were among the most despicable Americans of all time, but they were among his support base.
Re: Liz Cheney’s words at left, a reader notes: Quoting Liz Cheney? Really! She is such a war monger. She has no credibility.
IMO, this is what makes her so interesting: she’s an extremely conservative Republican. That she can see through Trump and is brave enough to stand up against him makes her extremely rare among GOP congresspeople.
At left we see some of the most compelling reasons that no decent person should be supporting Trump at this point.
The only thing that the president has going for himself is what could be called the “firehose effect” with which all these illegal/unethical acts are coming at us; he figures that if he can overwhelm us with the sheer volume of his criminality, we’ll be unable to deal with any of it.
OK, the interview at left won’t happen. But it is illustrative of how Trump supporters find twisted ways to justify anything and everything that their hero does. Will the United States be a better, stronger country without things like European allies, a decent public education system, and economic stability?
Right now, as you’re reading this, there are people at Fox News, hard at work behind the scenes, creating narratives that explain how all this crap happening in Washington is actually Making America Great Again.