Posts by Jon Talton

I've returned from a long a lovely train trip to Denver, one of adopted hometowns (and what a stunning job they've done with Union Station and LoDo). So I was blessedly off the grid during the latest culture-war battle, over standing or kneeling for the national anthem. At the risk of losing friends among right-thinking people, I am torn about this.

On the one hand, protest has a long history in sports and if one or many of the pro-football millionaires wants to kneel to protest racism, that's his prerogative. Jehovah's Witnesses don't stand. For the players, I'm not sure it's a First Amendment right. I can't write anything I want as a Seattle Times columnist. To be sure, my masters give me wide latitude but there is an invisible fence. I am an employee. Nobody thought my First Amendment Rights were being trampled when the Arizona Republic took away my column because my writings offended the boosters and Real Estate Industrial Complex. Let's also state at the outset that the quisling in the Oval Office has no standing to lecture on anyone's patriotism.

Yet I also couldn't shake two other impressions. First, beyond the symbolism, can anything make amends? What would it take? Even on police shootings of unarmed black men, I have yet to see journalism to tell me whether this is worse now than in, say, the 1960s. It's bad no matter what, but are things getting better as President Obama, who may be remembered as the last American president, said? Or not? This question is beyond my aim today. Second, can't we have any modest civic above politic war, such as standing for the national anthem? We once had a common culture that assumed such things, for all our flaws. I won't even ask if it's a given to stand during the "Hallelujah" chorus. On the anthem, the answer is apparently, no.

On Facebook, my friend Tom Zoellner, one of the smartest people I know, wrote:

Historical reminder: "The Star-Spangled Banner" was a baroque nationalist poem written by a lawyer who helped slaveowners recapture their escaped property. In the third verse (almost always unsung) a line celebrates the murder of African-Americans slaves who had been recruited to fight for their freedom on the British side in the War of 1812. Here's the line: "No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Four months into the Trump administration, it's clear that the president's agenda is anything but his promised "America First."

A budget that slashes Medicaid funding between $800 billion and $1.4 trillion won't just hurt "those people." To be sure, it disproportionately hurts minorities in certain states. But 42 percent of Medicaid recipients are white, many of them likely Trump supporters. Many Medicaid recipients have jobs — their employers are able to socialize their healthcare costs while privatizing the profits from the labor of the low-wage workers. America first?

The Republican repeal of Obamacare will leave 23 million Americans without health insurance. It has passed the GOP-controlled House and stopping it in the Senate is by no means assured, even likely. Remember, Obamacare was a market-based plan created by conservatives — but because it was proposed by President Obama, Republicans have devoted years to destroying it. They're doing it now, even though repeal has yet to pass, because of the uncertainty caused in the insurance markets. Every other advanced nation in the world has universal healthcare. We will lose even the modest gains of Obamacare. America will be even more last in healthcare. And all to ensure a tax cut to the rich and, well, because the Republicans like hurting people.

Other advanced, urbanized nations enjoy high-speed rail and modern subway systems in their cities. Trump wants to dismantle Amtrak — a longtime Republican goal — is holding up federal funding to help electrify the commuter-train line in the Bay Area, severely cut aid for transit, and do nothing to advance high-speed rail. Subways and mass-transit systems across the country are ailing. Only a nation with as many rubes as the United States would be oblivious to how far behind we are.

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Let's be clear about James Comey. He was fired by the president who he was investigating for ties to Russia, in other words treason. Comey's FBI must have been getting close, so Donald Trump acted through his Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who had already recused himself from the Russia probe.

All the rest, about Comey and Hillary's emails (for God's sake), is a distraction or another of Trump's many lies.

At risk is the rule of law and a chilling future. Most immediately, it means Trump can install a crony as FBI Director (Rudy Giuliani?), as he has done in other federal agencies, to wreck from the inside. The independence of the premier federal law enforcement agency would be politicized and compromised. And the investigation into the depth of Trump's connections with the Kremlin — election meddling, money laundering, business connections, blackmail — would be stopped.

If the roles were reversed and the president was Hillary Clinton, she would already be facing impeachment and removal from office. But besides from some tut-tutting by the likes of wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and Jeff Flake — the Republican-controlled Congress is doing nothing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (with a wife in the Trump cabinet) has defended Trump's action.

The nation's infrastructure is graded D-plus by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Bridges collapse with frightening regularity. Our transportation system is stuck back in the 1970s. While other advanced, urbanized nations have high-speed rail, we've struggled for years merely to keep Amtrak alive, a system that eliminated hundreds of passenger trains when it came into being. We have no manned space program aside from astronauts hitching rides with the Russians. The military is at a breaking point after more than 15 years at undeclared wars. All over the country, cities struggle to keep up or rebuild such basics as parks and bus service. Inequality is at historic highs. Our education system is a shambles. The share of national income going to labor is at historic lows. On and on.

Your tax cuts at work.

The greatest con perpetuated on the American people began with Ronald Reagan, continued with George W. Bush, and now comes again with Donald Trump. That taxes must always be cut, especially for the wealthy and for corporations (which "are people," as Mitt Romney said).

We can't have nice things because of tax cuts. We're rapidly falling into Third World status because of tax cuts. This religion is an unkillable zombie. While Democrats fight over LGBTQI rights, gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, homelessness, "privilege," Confederate monuments, Black Lives Matter, mass incarceration, gun violence, microaggressions and safe spaces on university campuses, free college, pronouns, universal healthcare, and, of course, Her Speeches, Republicans persist with a message as monotonous and simple as the words of the Aflac duck: tax cuts. And it has worked spectacularly as a political weapon.

Illustration by Carl Muecke

Donald Trump lost the popular vote by a historic margin, three million votes. He never released his tax returns. He asked for, and received, the help of Russian intelligence in hacking the Democrats and undermining his challenger, Hillary Clinton. He is in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, has not stepped back from his tangled business interests, has stuffed his cabinet with similarly compromised billionaires. His first National Security Adviser was a Russian agent. The fate of 319 million Americans was decided by 77,744 votes in three states out of more than 136 million ballots cast nationwide. Now he has claimed a mandate to radically remake America.

For many, if not most, of Hillary Clinton voters, Trump is an illegitimate president.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stymied President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, an unprecedented act. Garland received neither a hearing nor a vote. McConnell recently executed the "nuclear option," denying the filibuster to Democrats so he could assure the confirmation of the arch-conservative Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. For millions of Americans, we now have an illegitimate Supreme Court, too.

The reaction of Republicans is along the lines of, "This is how we felt during the Obama presidency, too." This is symptomatic of our Cold Civil War. But Obama was soundly elected and re-elected. He was careful to preserve continuity with his predecessor, George W. Bush, observed every norm, and governed from the center — even using the Republican health-care plan as the template for the Affordable Care Act.