Juliajms

I'm horrified that we are on the edge of taking military action in Syria under a president who doesn't know what he's doing. What a nightmare.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-hodeidah-yemen-famine_us_58a88970e4b037d17d28610b? U.S. policy about to make famine in Yemen more likely.

^ Aren't the AARP crowd baby boomers who used to be hippies? I feel like I'm missing something. How did these people become so conservative? I know a lot of people become more conservative as they age, but this seems extreme.

^ So embarrassing. I wonder why he snubbed her, but maybe there is just no understanding that man.

"However unsavory she and her countrymen may find Trump, Germany has no viable alternative to the U.S. partnership, either in economic or security terms." If that's true poor Germany and poor Merkel. I'm sickened by how many strong women have been demeaned by having to deal with Trump. As for the handshake that didn't happen, I wonder if he didn't hear her? They did hand shakes throughout the day, so what would be he point of snubbing her in the Oval Office? I'm not one to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but maybe this one time he wasn't an ass on purpose? OK, that's probably a longshot.

Wow. And then something about HUD cuts being part of infrastructure. I'm not sure what that means. Other than we are going to have more hungry, homeless people in our country, while he ultra rich rake in more money.

Yes and I for one will welcome them back into the fold of sanity. As for Trump being a racist, of course he is!! Does anyone even deny it at this point? He's shown it at every opportunity. I would argue that most people have bias whether they know it or not, but Trump has clearly embraced it. He enjoys hurting people.

That's going to have to be the answer for all of us who oppose this madness. Our JCC got a bomb threat yesterday. It struck me as especially sad because an old age home is attached to the main building. So in addition to scared little kids they had to evacuate the sick and old. I'm looking in to volunteering there on weekends, since I don't know what else I can do. As DeeeDeee said it's going to be a long four years.

^ It's really disheartening. I feel like every day we wake up to find out something awful that's being done to the most vulnerable among us. I've read Meals on Wheels doesn't just serve food, but gives seniors a tiny bit of company and someone to check in and make sure they are ok. I hope people are really waking up and vote out everyone who is going along with these terrible policies.

That really is next level ugly. It reminds me of the Grinch reaching down from the chimney to take the last little crumb from Cindy Lou Who.

I have really mixed feelings on it. Feelings I'm not going to go into on the internet.

Thanks Marceline. I'm grateful everyday I was lucky enough to escape the insane level of ignorance. I'm sure region makes a difference too. I grew up in the mountains of upstate NY, which is more backwoods then some people realize, but it's not like being in the south. We were never taught to hate other races, but there was some stereotyping. It's really funny looking back because even into college I would have said I wasn't a victim of sexism, but now I see it was totally off the charts. I'm sorry your grandmother scared you with religion. I can totally relate. It's funny now, but my best friend and I were always worried about being left behind in the rapture. I remember once we walked into an empty room where a ball was bouncing and we looked at each other and she said "We've been left behind!". We were eight or nine and totally believed it.

As someone who was raised in similar ignorance, I'd say they pretty much all know Jesus is a Jew and they probably know more about the biblical middle east then they do about Europe. I certainly did until college. Most likely they do read the bible themselves quite a bit. They just tend to interpret it literally, which leads to a lot of crazy ideas. Of course, there are different strains of Evangelicals, but they actually tend to be pretty friendly towards Jews. Not long ago I watched a Vice episode about Evangelicals donating large sums of money to Israeli settlements (in hopes of bringing on Armageddon, I kid you not). I was not surprised. Until recently, I'd say Jews had a lot more to fear from Catholics then fundamentalists. The phrase "Jews killed Jesus" was unheard of in my po'dunk church, but you didn't want to be on welfare no matter how poor you were or you would be unmercifully shamed. We were on Social Security after my father died (hello Paul Ryan) and my mother never heard the end of it. We didn't have health insurance and we were still pretty damn poor. I certainly grew up thinking health insurance was an exotic luxury and no one I knew had it.

^ The courts have really been saving the day. I dread all he appointments Trump gets to make.

I find it really sad. Just the whole cycle of poverty and lack of education. So brainwashed by religion they don't even think healthcare is a right they should have.

^ Is she really that delusional or is she just playing to the people who are dumb enough to believe this stuff? I truly can't tell. Meanwhile Obama was involved in the DNC race. I'm grateful he's sticking around, but I can hardly believe it. I thought for sure he would want to get away from politics. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/13/14750528/barack-obama-trump-post-presidency

^ Meanwhile we've been keeping our society going "with other people's babies" this whole time. American born women do not want to have enough babies to keep the population growing. That goes even for families that are second and third generation immigrants. He calls himself a Republican, but he's still too stupid to realize you can't have a capitalist society with negative population growth. That's obviously it's own problem when it comes to the environment and climate change, but both Japan and parts of Europe are examples of what happens to your economy when you don't have enough babies. Not to sound cold hearted, but children are a precious commodity and we should be scooping up those Central American and Syrian kids with both hands.

The Obamas were in Omaha today, meeting with Buffet. I wonder what he's fundraising for. Whatever it is I hope he got what he came for.

They don't care enough about anyone who isn't them to change their political ideology. Hell, his female voters don't even care about the people who are them. I don't deny that at all. It's absolutely surreal how many white supremacist got close to the ultimate seat of power with this election. The reason I think it makes a difference is that it leaves more hope for the future. If we truly had 40 million rabid racist/sexists on our hands we would be well and truly f*cked for the foreseeable future.

I still believe that. Just because he inspired and attracted white supremacist does not mean everyone who voted for him is a white supremacist or sexist. There are a hell of a lot of people who are ideologically opposed to the democratic platform no matter what. If you say that they were willing to overlook these dangerous elements because they cared more about other issues then I'll agree with you there.

Very true. I think the attorney I was working for was just very much about individual responsibility and choice. I probably shouldn't let her POV color my whole perspective, but it was a very small office, so it kind of did.

Me too. It's really the best case scenario, but it's a terrible way to run a country. If only Hillary had won I think the ACA would have been entrenched too deeply to be undone. Then it could have been fixed instead of the uncertainly that's about to come our way. I think we can realistically hope that the bill as it stands won't pass, but if it does I feel really bad for people approaching old age who don't have employer health care.

@JaneAusten Well, I think we've talked before about how the working poor tend to hate the non working poor, but think the rich are wonderful and to be admired. That mindset is deeply ingrained in our culture. I was reading Hillbilly Elegy the other day. Kind of an interesting read, but midway through the author goes poor white person's Bill Cosby and starts talking about how awful food stamp recipients with cell phones are. How much he resented them when he was a checker and couldn't afford the steaks they were buying. He just goes on and on about all the bad choices poor people make because that's the problem and not the gross income inequity in this country. It reminds me of when I was interning at the ACLU during grad school and expressed some sympathy for some of the downtown prostitutes who were being rounded up and my boss told me they made choices. That always stuck with me as an asinine comment because I'm pretty sure she and I never actually chose not to be prostitutes. I know people think the ACLU is our salvation right now, and maybe they are, but I've never been their biggest fan since working there.

I'm steeling myself for chaos in the area of healthcare. It seems to me that it will take the Republicans a couple of years to do whatever terrible thing they are going to do. With any luck Trump won't be reelected and the Democrats will come along and undo it. It's going to be years of people knocking down other people's sand castles, while most of the American people are screwed in such an important aspect of life.

^ Pretty much. Just a fluff piece.