Take note, the price of goods is about to go up. And that means another bite out of the working man’s wallet. So “Mexico will pay for the Wall” has become taxpayers are going to pay for the Wall. You know, the Wall that every security authority has said is an outrageously expensive symbol that is unnecessary. It will be ineffective; it will be unbuildable. A tax on Mexican goods is going to be paid by customers in the US, not the Mexican government. The Mexican government may lose revenue from taxes paid by its manufacturers. Mexicans may pay with lost jobs. But we, the American people are going to take one more hit when we pay for this monstrosity. Trump may try to convince us that his maneuvers, in some complicated muddle, actually represent Mexican payment for the wall, but the arithmetic won’t add up. We and our children too will be paying for that Wall in federal debt service for years. And along the way, they’ll be asking us to make sacrifices in federal services to ameliorate some of the deficits.
And what of the Mexican President? Enrique Pena Nieto’s scheduled meeting with Trump could hardly have proceeded after Trump diss’s him and his country. Only the narcissistic Trump (and Kelleyanne) would make a big deal out of who cancelled the meeting, but it seems likely that it was a mutual cancellation. A civil discussion could hardly be expected in the current atmosphere.
It is hard to imagine that Trump is politically astute enough to have a strategy about governance in Mexico, but someone like Steve Bannon might. Pena Nieto has been unpopular at home but has seen a bump in popularity since he’s stood up against Trump. Their earlier meeting was not popular in Mexico, nor is the super slanderer Trump. However, more anti-American left wing Mexican populists are watching Pena Nieto carefully and yapping at his heels.
Trump’s America First myopia, so obvious in statements like “unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly with respect,’ always casts our country as a victim, rather than the leader of the free world which has provided aid to poorer allies. We have been a country known for empathy for the downtrodden, engaged in programmatic approaches to improvement. Trump’s darker vision of the country parallels his deep personal victimology borne from lack of universal praise and veneration. Trump’s America is the US as a half empty cabinet being pilfered by the world. As an ally, how could a Mexican David show anything but respect for the US Goliath? Trump seems determined to force a slingshot into Mexico’s hand.
It is Donald Trump’s vision to take America back to the good old days, when white men called the shots, when corporations could do whatever they wanted to their workforce and to the environment, when police, rampant with corruption, were free to conduct themselves however they pleased. We may be going even further back to the early 20th century when robber barons did even more damage. But his first stop will be the Bush administration. Conservatives believe that information should be controlled. 
It is freedom of speech that permits free expression of all forms of speech across the political spectrum, ultra-right to ultra-left, even fake news. Thus the news can report whatever stories it chooses from whatever point of view. Traditionally, we have expected the print, radio and TV outlets to report well documented stories which have been verified by multiple sources. The development of the 24 hour news cycle has thrown much of that into disarray; Fox and CNN make no bones about reporting from a conservative perspective, so much for “objective reporting”. They specialize in breaking news where the reporter is the story. We follow him/her as they search for the news in the moment. Now we have the everyone man reporter; have phone will post. Why not, if they can make you believe in them. 
Trump, nurtured in the celebrity bubble, appears to have a different perception of the role of the press. Perhaps, his comfort with the falsehood derives words as celebrity publicity, to be contorted in ways that put the star’s best foot forward. He suffers from the delusion that the best press coverage says what you want it to. Trump was flying high when that’s exactly what happened during the campaign. Now the media is reeling from the sucker punches. Still Trump is more in control than not; the daily scramble to cover and the night’s Tweets continues. 
These activities have all the hallmarks of a dictator in the making. Destruction of a free press is vital to ongoing government control. Currently the Egyptian military and Turkey’s Erdogan, both countries that lack constitutional guarantees of a free press, have closed newspapers, harassed and detained reporters and exported dissidents. The state controls TV and radio. Russians, who have never known a free press nor possessed even a rudimentary understanding of democracy, get information that is completely controlled by the state. The vast majority of Russians believe Putin’s version of the world and its’ events, because they haven’t heard anything else. Vast stretches of Russia have no electricity, let alone internet access, so they are cut off from any web based alternative internet sources. 
I’m was watching President Barack Obama’s last press conference. There’s no real news there; it’s no longer important what he thinks about future policy. But, it’s a symptom. I find myself hungering for his calm voice, his demeanor, his often eloquent phraseology. His intelligent and thoughtful approach to the language he speaks as he presents his rationale for why he has done what he has done. As he glides through his answers to questions across the spectrum, the intelligence of his logic flows through multisyllabic words.
The Trump administration is ditching all that subterfuge. He started in the campaign, decrying political correctness for bigoted name calling which emboldened his minions to do the same. Now that he’s won, he has called his band of multimillionaire supporters into the halls of government, out of the back rooms where they were whispering in politicians’ ears to the head of government. They can restructure the government in service of raping the country and its citizens to add to their own personal wealth. His appointees aren’t shy about it either. We hear the resurgence of “states rights”, e.g “that should be left to the discretion of the states”. “The federal government should not intrude on the states who are best placed to understand their own needs.” That’s political speak for spreading ill-begotten wealth outside the Washington bubble. 
It should not be lost that almost a decade after 
The ways in which Jim Crow lowered productivity in the workplace is nowhere better demonstrated than the “colored bathroom”. Mary Jackson spent 40 minutes getting back and forth to the nearest bathroom, available in the building where a group of colored women worked. Rain or shine, she ran one half mile, carrying her work with her. When Al Harrison confronts her about the long absences, Katherine, soaking wet, explodes in a diatribe about her working conditions, possible only because of her valued work and sympathetic boss. The audience applauded when Harrison smashed the “colored bathroom” sign off the wall, ending the practice in his area. Even more impressive is the acceptance by the rest of the white women in the division. At least, that’s the way the movie betrayed it. The real life experience was probably peppered with daily at least verbal assaults on Black women. So be it. Katherine worked many a late hour doing what could have been done during those 40 minute runs. 
The script has some choice dialogue.“I have nothing against you all” says one white supervisor to Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) who replies,”I think you believe you don’t”. It would take too much explaining to capture the broad implications of that statement, from the sense of superiority and self worth segregation gave whites to the job security they gained from denying access to jobs that should have belonged to better qualified Blacks who often outperformed them. Mary Jackson ran circles around her supervisor Paul Stafford who repeatedly took credit for her work while trying to conceal information needed to do the job and excluding her from meetings. Along the way, he used security clearance and gender cards. NASA was fortunate she eluded his every move or we might yet be trying to get to the moon. 
The lesson of separate and unequal is clear. We work less efficiently, mired in racial tensions. Our country is squandering the talents of many considered to be unworthy of education by class, race, ethnic group, and zip code. As long as school funding is dependent on residence, schools will remain segregated. As long as educational funding depends on tax base, the poor will be left in schools without resources. The result is the falling international ranking of test scores of US kids compared to other countries. Worst still, rather than utilize our native talent, we are filling our graduate schools, particularly in STEM studies, with the Chinese and other foreign students. The advantage for universities is these students, often sponsored by their governments, pay full tuition. But often the Chinese take their skills home with them where they work to copy discoveries or counterfeit products. We are importing Indians and other Asians to work in high tech jobs, rather than training our own. It’s a double whammy; we are simultaneously neglecting our own resources and training foreign resources to compete with us. 
Was the minute to minute coverage of Trump’s rallies which was masqueraded as breaking news, more effective than the release of DNC emails by Wikileaks? How did the role of the press’ fascination with Trump as a ratings and subsequent advertising rate booster effect Clinton’s campaign coverage? Did any of it matter in the face of Trump and Republican strategies to tap into racial and ethnic divisions, honed over the years since Ronald Reagan developed coded words for the threat from black and brown minorities to whites. Trump, himself, did forego a lot of the codes, which made it socially acceptable once again to wear bigotry proudly, except in liberal circles. What were those Trump supporters in middle America really thinking? No, the CIA, FBI and Homeland were in no position to investigate any of that.
Instead, his Twitter stream today was full of backslapping over his election victory. Once again, he insisted the election outcome was not affected, even though there’s been no investigation into that. “Voting machines not touched!” Trump tweeted. No one has suggested that voting machines were tampered with. “The only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed!” He characterized the RNC as having strong defenses against hacking, but the DNC was grossly negligent to let it happen. He thinks only fools would oppose good relationships with Russia. The 140 character limit restricted discussion of how that is possible, assuming that Trump had any idea. And he will ask Congressional committees to investigate the leak of the intelligence report information to NBC before he saw the report. At least, they have some ideas about what to do with the information, unlike Trump. Trevor Noah tweeted that NBC should quickly change the name to “Russia”. Trump should remember NBC is broadcasting the New Apprentice, which Trump executive produces.
There is still very little conversation in this country about the enormous global propaganda boost for the Kremlin. Russian influence has been ratcheted up to the stars. The Russian bear is powerful enough to penetrate computer servers in the US, at the highest governmental levels. Putin was able to disrupt the American electoral process, whether it affected the outcome or not. Putin’s favored candidate won the US presidency and so far appears to be putty in the dictator’s hands. Since the Russians created a narrative that the US instigated the Russian protests against Putin’s resuming their presidency, they can now smugly say that Putin not only retained and extended his power but his revenge assisted a change in his enemy’s leadership that is more favorable to his regime. And he has precipitated chaotic debate in the US, splitting the leadership of the Republican party from it’s newly elected president. With the destruction of Hillary Clinton, her party is stumbling to recover its political core. While this scenario may seem farfetched in American mind, Europeans, where parties rather than candidates dominate, have a different perspective. Propaganda can often appear farfetched. 
Vladimir Putin has managed a feat that a century of Russian Communist dictators could not. He has installed a puppet leader in the United States. Our incoming President appears to be marching to a Russian drummer. Trump deluded voters into thinking they were electing a president who would put America first. What they picked is a wolf in sheep’s clothing tiptoeing down a path that will lead to a country, withdrawn from world leadership, economically crippled and socially divided while a dysfunctional government remains mired in partisan political wrangling.
Trump travelled to Russia in 2013 for his Miss Universe Pageant. Certainly, Trump was surveilled by the Russian security (a routine as it was probably for the CIA) during the trip. Some misbehavior could be the source of one Putin hook. Trump tried desperately to get Putin to attend his Miss Universe contest, tweeting invitations on his way there. Sadly, he ended his twitter stream asking something like “Will he be my best friend”, sounding more like a doting adolescent than a 65 year old man. Putin did not attend, but sent a gift.
All this speculating is adding up to a blockbuster movie or series script. A businessman and reality TV star is blackmailed by Russian security for various indiscretions to become an unlikely candidate for the US presidency. Russian dirty tricks and web based activity, including social media posts of fake news and Twitter as well as cyber-espionage help the unlikely candidate, ridiculed at first, win the White House. The newly elected candidate begins setting himself up in opposition to the outgoing president, maliciously using Twitter to grab the attention of the press to which he studiously avoided talking. He ignores government traditions and begins a dialogue within the country about Russia that creates a global propaganda windfall for the Russian president, grown more powerful in the world’s eye. He sets about undermining American policy with European allies and the Chinese. All while the reigning president was still in office. He tries to undermine the country’s confidence in the intelligence community, while dissuading legislators and the public from responding to the Russian espionage. His cabinet appointees are designated to implode their government agencies. His early acts in the White House reverse consumer friendly regulations that will swell the profit of businesses. His tax reforms cuts will create huge deficits, which ultimately will splinter Congress, causing periodic shut downs over raising the debt ceiling. US government bond ratings will fall, further increasing the deficit because of increasing interest rates to finance the debt. China and Russia will become the established world leaders as our allies scramble for cover while watching the US recede from leadership. . . Let’s hope the script is more fanciful than the reality. 
When the 115th Congress opened on January 3, Republicans reached their Dunkirk. Since its passage in 2009, Republicans have shouted for the death of the Affordable Care Act. In each session, a total of 61 times, they have voted to repeal Obamacare, just so their junior Congressmen could campaign in the next election that they had voted against it. Obamacare is a Republican dog whistle; a battle cry in every partisan pronouncement they’ve made throughout the Obama presidency.
oleblacklady 