Category: Howard Sosbee’s posts

Could there be a secret strategy by the GOP to let Trump be Trump, continuing to shock America’s sensibilities (and keep the resulting intraparty intrigue on the front page) in order to divert attention from Republican misdeeds in states they control? It might be their best way to influence down ballot votes. After all, Trump speaks Republican better than anyone has ever mastered that language.

How can we know, as a white person, what goes through the mind of a black man after a police killing of another unarmed black man? The answer is we can’t. There is no way we can appreciate the combination of sorrow (for it may have been a relative), anger (for it will probably go unpunished), fear (for it might be me next time) and frustration (for we know such things will continue to occur and no one is doing a damn thing about it!). Will we ever be able to say: “there, but for the grace of God and the color of my skin, go I”. And will our collective attitudes change, somewhat, toward people in the Black Lives Matter movement? And when someone responds with “All Lives Matter”, can we remind them that “all lives” are not being systematically snuffed out by cops with guns?

Trump gets credit for “telling it like it is.” Should not Clinton also be credited when she does likewise? She didn’t claim ALL Trump supporters were “deplorable”, only that half who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” How else could you describe those characteristics if not “deplorable”? And if Trump can tell it like it is, why can’t Clinton?

If you want to see the most egregious fallout from the so-called Republican revolution of the 1980s, look no further than the way we treat our public school teachers. When the public school system was originally established, teaching was considered “woman’s work” and their pay was set accordingly low. It was considered to be a second income in a family. And there it has stayed. With tax cut after tax cut, public schools have been repeatedly and progressively more underfunded. We have known for years how teachers have been purchasing supplies, etc., out of their own pockets, now we learn from a feature article in a recent issue of The Nation Magazine how teachers in high rent areas are forced to take second jobs, like driving for Uber and Lyft, not only to buy supplies, but to pay their rent and put food on the table. And many are still unable to live in the community where they teach. It is hard to imagine a situation more disgraceful. And do any of our presidential candidates have an answer?

To Paul Fleishman regarding your September 18, 2016, Your email 42 I don’t know 42 registered on so I don’t know has to be, and it otherwise wouldn’t have that manyletter on the “demonization of taxes”: Well said, Sir. That, along with the demonization of government, itself, formed the basis of the Reagan revolution of the eighties which split the country apart and directly led to the super majority of Americans who feel that we are on the wrong track.

Big Democrats are ganging up (as are lots of big Republicans) on the candidate for president Donald Trump. In fact, the Republicans are doing such a good job dissing Trump that anything the Democrats say is simply overkill. So let us agree, here and now, that the adversary most in need of being taken down is the GOP itself. No one with an “R” next to their name on the ballot in November should get your vote. If you have no other reason to go to the polls in November, make it your patriotic duty to keep as many “R”s out of the office as possible. Bernie showed us the way, and it is the only way we can hope to accomplish the improvements we so desperately need.

Clinton’s huge head start has given her the momentum to coast to victories in several key states and will probably put her over the top in delegates. However, the tactics used by the Democrat party to give Clinton such a head start gave her campaign a stain so ugly that only an open convention can erase it. There could well be a substantial number of those super delegates who would really prefer Sanders but declared for Clinton out of loyalty to the party. There must be a way to bring those progressives back to the polls in November. All the years of Obama administration sidelining, ignoring, and belittling progressive initiatives have created a lot of virtual pigeons that came home to roost and stayed home in the midterms of 2010 and 2014, when Democrats were “shellacked”. How many of these progressives have not yet fallen in line for Clinton? We don’t know, but an open convention would allow enough debate to neutralize the negatives of both candidates, and settle on a platform that would give the eventual-named candidate something to fight with. Clinton cannot win without the progressives. Period. An open convention is the only way she can hope to bring them over to her side. Clinton could signal her willingness for an open convention by releasing all her delegates now. It would be the honorable thing to do. If she is the right candidate, the convention will say so.

Another indication of how crazy this primary season has become: the one guy who makes total sense is Bernie Sanders, but he is being attacked from every quarter, including, believe it or not, the whole Democrat party and their surrogates. There is not one of his ideas that have been proven to be unworkable. Even so, you hear terms like “pie in the sky” and any other deprecation they can think of. Bernie would beat any Republican alive, but the total Democrat party effort is focused on a candidate whose negatives are so numerous, and serious, that she cannot possibly win a general election. Crazy!

It is nice to know that at least one letter-writer (in this case Peter Gelblum, April 14, 2016) knows enough about how the economy works to describe the overall effect of a higher minimum wage, to wit: more money in circulation, more consumer spending, a healthier economy, more people enjoying what the world has two offer. That can’t be all bad.

(personal attention: Paul Krugman)
Shame on you, Paul Krugman! You know darn well the Democrat Party leadership stacked the deck against Sanders by scheduling the earliest primaries in locations where Clinton is known to be heavily favored. You know this, yet you have the nerve, the gall, actually, to imply that the calendar “front loaded some states very favorable to Sanders,” when all the front loading was done to favor Clinton. The strategy, of course, was to give Clinton such a big early lead that competitors would be discouraged from entering the race, and even if they did enter, the bulk of the campaign financing and the delegate commitments would already be gobbled up by Clinton. The strategy is working. And were it not for the very unexpected presence of a guy named Sanders (who is not offering more of the same), there would be no primary at all. In that case, we could expect a succession of laudatory speeches by sycophantic politicians and a final coronation at the Democrat convention, only to be followed by a stinging defeat in the general election by a Republican Party with no compunction against bombarding Clinton with all her numerous negatives. Sanders changed that scenario by simply telling it like it is, so to speak, which is: America is desperately ready for drastic, real, not cosmetic nor incremental change. Obviously a large portion of voters agree with Sanders. The essential fact has become obvious: Sanders is gaining and has gained from the very beginning while Clinton is losing ground everywhere. If the Democrat party had not so cynically engineered such an early lead for Clinton, there would be no contest. Sanders would win the nomination easily. As it is, he has the difficult challenge of keeping the momentum going against the full force of everything the Democrat party can throw at him, including the likes of your April 16, 2016, article.You told so many whoppers, it would take too long to enumerate them here. Suffice it to say, Sanders has a hard enough task getting his message across without the need to fight off attacks from people who should be supporting him and his ideas.