Tag: politics

About the U.S. government shutdown…

On By daevadIn Musings, Washington Whirlwind

Personally, I think that every federal worker not being paid should immediately stop reporting to work.  Every one of them.  They should stay away until their jobs are funded through the remainder of the fiscal year and they are assured of being paid for all their unpaid work.  This will cause chaos and hardship.  So be it.  The Trump administration has already foisted chaos upon us all for a useless vanity project.  They created this mess and can make it go away any time they choose to do so.  Force them to choose.

Here is one example of a consequence of a total walkout:  Imagine the pressure that will be brought to bear on the White House when all commercial airline traffic stops due to the lack of air traffic controllers.  The federal workers have the power to force an end, if they choose to exert it.

Trumpism = Perversion

On By daevadIn Musings, Suggested reading, Washington Whirlwind

According to the Oxford Living Dictionaries:

perversion

noun
1  Distortion or corruption of the original course, meaning, or state of something.

 

 Some examples:

 

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism.
– Henry Wallace

 

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
– Samuel Johnson

 

When you have both parties who will not find ways to compromise, who won’t meet in the middle, you have paralysis. It’s the perversion of idealism.
– Beau Willimon

 

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
– Abraham Lincoln

White flight — to Russia?

On By daevadIn Around the world, Musings

Russia may well be the last country that says, “We’re white and that’s the way we’re staying.”  This gets me to thinking, how can Putin put that situation to his most disruptive advantage?  You just know Putin is wondering the same thing, if he hasn’t already settled on an answer to that question.

Here is one possible idea: A special whites-only program to encourage immigration from the U.S. to Russia.  This could include special help in finding jobs and housing as well as Russian literacy classes.  You think I am nuts?  Sure, I might be.  But consider these tidbits: Russia is the largest country in the world by area, but ranks only ninth in population.  They have lots of space.  That population rank is misleading though, as Russia is one of the few countries with a declining population.  Its population has dropped by an estimated 2.3 million people in just the last three years.

Putin could even enhance the program by giving special preferences to would-be immigrants with specific knowledge and skills that would help the Russian economy.  People with backgrounds in areas like computer technology and fossil fuel exploration and drilling might find themselves receiving additional signing bonuses and accelerated paths to full citizenship.  There are many ways the Russians could sweeten the pot and drain away some skills and brains from the U.S.  It might be quite easy to make a bunch of white supremacist Americans feel quite happy and comfortable in comparatively lily-white Russia.

Of course, this is pure speculation.  However, as the U.S. population becomes ever less white, Trump’s racist base may find themselves embracing Putin and Russia even more than Trump has.