Illiteracy R Us

All funding for adult literacy programs within the Department of Education has been eliminated from the Trump budget for the upcoming year.

Ditto funding for:

• book distribution
• education for homeless children
• comprehensive education centers
• Indian (AKA Native American) student education
• research in innovation for education
• arts in education
• programs for gifted and talented students
• programs for special-needs students

and literally dozens more.

Perhaps Donald Trump genuinely believes he "knows words" and has "the best words".  If that's so, the budget cuts just mentioned may be his attempt, in truly narcissistic fashion, to center everything on himself. Trump's not an orator, let alone a thinker.  But if everyone else has fewer words, lesser words, or no words at all, he can still consider himself a Renaissance Man.

Warren's New Taxes

15104 exists because of three things:

• my being to-the-bone working class
• my having been exposed, through family and almost from the cradle, to the union movement
• my having become, as a result, committed to progressive positions, including regulated capitalism

No less an authority on that last topic than Elizabeth Warren has proposed two new taxes: the wealth tax, and the real corporate profits tax.  Those could help level thew economic playing field, and finance programs from environmental cleanup through healthcare to infrastructure renovation.

You Go, Pete!

The moralistic sense of pride some folks adopt when criticizing the behavior of others has always bugged me.  One example - those on the evangelical right who decry a homosexual orientation, while looking the other way when confronting misogynism-run-amuck, like that of Donald Trump.

But Saturday, in New Hampshire, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination and an openly gay man, countered such attitudes very effectively.  Mayor Pete confronted the Christian right on a playing field they have long considered belongs to them alone.

Send Me Your Tired, Your Poor - Not ...

Last year, and continuing into 2019 (undoubtedly under the direction of Stephen Miller), the Trump Administration has capped the number of people it will admit annually as refugees to the United States at 30,000.  That's worldwide.

But lest you imagine that to be ameliorative of humanitarian crises like those in Central America and the Middle East, think again.  In 2018, only 22,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S., down from a cap in 2017 of 45,000.

I'm constructing a conspiracy theory: the numbers above indicate not only a lack of compassion, but also an arguable prejudice against those who might become naturalized citizens.  Based on my work with students and colleagues from more than a dozen countries, at least 80% of naturalized Americans become Democrats, and vote religiously.  So take that. Donald and Mike and Stephen - in the end, my babushkas and people like them win.

Change the Record, Donald

Here's what Donald Trump said about Mexico and Mexicans in August, 2016.

Here's what he said on the topic today.

Time to change the record, Donald.

No Longer Even a Pretense of Compassion

It appears that Stephen Miller, arguable a bigot and a xenophobe, now defines and manages immigration policy for the Trump administration.

Wadda ya pense - more cages?