Monday, July 3, 2017

ARE THE GOP HELICOPTER PARENTS?

ARE THE GOP HELICOPTER PARENTS?

Many of you may be familiar with the term “helicopter parent(s).”  In 1969 the term was used in a book Parents and Teenagers by Dr. Haim Ginott. According to Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D., director of the  Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders, “… (Helicopter Parents)  typically take too much responsibility for their children's experiences and, specifically, their successes or failures.” This results in the child's failure to manage with crisis and emergencies, a sense of entitlement, and self-aggrandizing.

That being said, let’s consider how some members of the GOP are being “Helicopter Parents” to Donald J. Trump. During a press conference on June 8, 2017,  Paul Ryan defended Trump’s tweets about FBI Director Comey. He said, “President Trump is ‘learning as he goes’ in reference to FBI protocols." Ryan went on to defend Trump by stating he was “new at government and he probably wasn’t steeped on conversation protocols and relationships between the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and White House.” Trump is the first Apprentice President of the United States.
 Ryan: Helicopter Parent?

On Friday, June 30th Trump suggested repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it at a later date in spite of the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other key Republicans said that there is no guarantee Congress would be able to pass a replacement piece. Where does that leave the American people and their health care?

3;37 AM-30June2017 


Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Sunday that President Trump’s controversial Twitter habit is not getting in the way of his efforts to persuade Congress to pass a health-care overhaul. 
Senator Ben Sasse (R. Neb.) encourages Trump in his repeal and replace later scheme.
Ben Sasse
@BenSasse
Sounds great, Pres. @realDonaldTrump 
We are agreed. We need to break the logjam.


Ben Sasse and Tom Price: Helicopter Parents?

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..
...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!


White House’s director of social media
#DumbAsARockMika and lover #JealousJoe are lost, confused & saddened since @POTUS @realDonaldTrump stopped returning their calls! Unhinged.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders,“When he gets attacked, he’s going to hit back.”

As First Lady Melania Trump is preparing her Anti-Cyber Bullying Campaign, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham reiterated what Melania stated publicly in the past: “When my husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.”

Dan Scavino, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Melania Trump: Helicopter Parents?

Can it get any worse than this?
President Trump tweets doctored clip of himself from WrestleMania beating up CNN.

Donald J. Trump
Verified account
 @realDonaldTrump 12h

Grandma Meg’s Takeaway: Trump is an Enfant Terrible sitting in the President’s chair surrounded by people who excuse his abominable behavior.  Trump could learn much from President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.  Quoting Mrs. Obama,  “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”




READ MORE:
http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/what-is-helicopter-parenting/ 
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/paul-ryan-trump-new-at-government/
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/06/30/trump-health-care-tacts-tweet-orig-alee.cnn
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/melania-trump-offers-mind-numbing-defense-trumps-despicable-mika-brzezinski-tweets
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-tweets-edited-clip-punching-cnn-wrestlemania-article-1.3295421
http://www.brainy-child.com/articles/negative-consequences-helicopter-parenting.shtml










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Friday, June 16, 2017

Politics, Social Unrest, and a Nation Divided


Politics, Social Unrest, and a Nation Divided



Today, The United States of America is not the country in which I grew up and have loved with all my heart. Our nation is perpetually at war somewhere around the globe. 

Unfortunately, we are a citizenry at war among ourselves.  Examples abound. The most recent is the tragic shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice on Wednesday morning, June 14, 2017, wherein 5 people were wounded, some critically. 

In the wake of such tragedy, it does no good to point fingers at each other. I am not a fan of viewing reader’s comments on political issues and I avoid them at all costs. Unfortunately, I sometimes catch sight of such written dialogue and I am appalled at the views encompassing such acrimony, malevolence, and hostility. 

Into what kind of human beings have Americans evolved?
Surely, there has to be a turning point before a life worth living in the United States of America  isn’t.

Live simply.
Speak gently.

Love unconditionally.  
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Sunday, June 4, 2017

David Brooks' NYT's Latest Op-Ed Column







David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists. He is a Canadian-American Conservative who

 writes about politics, culture, and social  sciences. 


I look forward to watching him on the Friday Evening PBS Newshour with Mark Shields as they discuss the week's political events.

"David Brooks has a gift for bringing audiences face to face with the spirit of our
 times with humor, insight and quiet passion. He is a keen observer
 of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs."



http://www.leighbureau.com/speakers/DBrooks/

https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks












  OP-ED COLUMNIST
Donald Trump Poisons the World













This week, two of Donald Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, wrote the following passage in The Wall Street Journal: “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”


That sentence is the epitome of the Trump project. It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath.The essay explains why the Trump people are suspicious of any cooperative global arrangement, like NATO and the various trade agreements. It helps explain why Trump pulled out of the Paris global-warming accord. This essay explains why Trump gravitates toward leaders like Vladimir Putin, the Saudi princes and various global strongmen: They share his core worldview that life is nakedly a selfish struggle for money and dominance.It explains why people in the Trump White House are so savage to one another. Far from being a band of brothers, their world is a vicious arena where staffers compete for advantage.

In the essay, McMaster and Cohn make explicit the great act of moral decoupling woven through this presidency. In this worldview, morality has nothing to do with anything. Altruism, trust, cooperation and virtue are unaffordable luxuries in the struggle of all against all. Everything is about self-interest.We’ve seen this philosophy before, of course. Powerful, selfish people have always adopted this dirty-minded realism to justify their own selfishness. The problem is that this philosophy is based on an error about human beings and it leads to self-destructive behavior in all cases.The error is that it misunderstands what drives human action. Of course people are driven by selfish motivations — for individual status, wealth and power. But they are also motivated by another set of drives — for solidarity, love and moral fulfillment — that are equally and sometimes more powerful.People are wired to cooperate. Far from being a flimsy thing, the desire for cooperation is the primary human evolutionary advantage we have over the other animals.People have a moral sense. They have a set of universal intuitions that help establish harmony between peoples. From their first moments, children are wired to feel each other’s pain. You don’t have to teach a child about what fairness is; they already know. There’s no society on earth where people are admired for running away in People have moral emotions. They feel rage at injustice, disgust toward greed, reverence for excellence, awe before the sacred and elevation in the face of goodness.


People yearn for righteousness. They want to feel meaning and purpose in their lives, that their lives are oriented toward the good.


People are attracted by goodness and repelled by selfishness. N.Y.U. social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has studied the surges of elevation we feel when we see somebody performing a selfless action. Haidt describes the time a guy spontaneously leapt out of a car to help an old lady shovel snow from her driveway.


One of his friends, who witnessed this small act, later wrote: “I felt like jumping out of the car and hugging this guy. I felt like singing and running, or skipping and laughing. Just being active. I felt like saying nice things about people. Writing a beautiful poem or love song. Playing in the snow like a child. Telling everybody about his deed.”


Good leaders like Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt and Reagan understand the selfish elements that drive human behavior, but they have another foot in the realm of the moral motivations. They seek to inspire faithfulness by showing good character. They try to motivate action by pointing toward great ideals.


Realist leaders like Trump, McMaster and Cohn seek to dismiss this whole moral realm. By behaving with naked selfishness toward others, they poison the common realm and they force others to behave with naked selfishness toward them.


By treating the world simply as an arena for competitive advantage, Trump, McMaster and Cohn sever relationships, destroy reciprocity, erode trust and eviscerate the sense of sympathy, friendship and loyalty that all nations need when times get tough.


By looking at nothing but immediate material interest, Trump, McMaster and Cohn turn America into a nation that affronts everybody else’s moral emotions. They make our country seem disgusting in the eyes of the world.


George Marshall was no idealistic patsy. He understood that America extends its power when it offers a cooperative hand and volunteers for common service toward a great ideal. Realists reverse that formula. They assume strife and so arouse a volley of strife against themselves.


I wish H. R. McMaster was a better student of Thucydides. He’d know that the Athenians adopted the same amoral tone he embraces: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” The Athenians ended up making endless enemies and destroying their own empire.People yearn for righteousness. They want to feel meaning and purpose in their lives, that their lives are oriented toward the good.People are attracted by goodness and repelled by selfishness. N.Y.U. social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has studied the surges of elevation we feel when we see somebody performing a selfless action. Haidt describes the time a guy spontaneously leapt out of a car to help an old lady shovel snow from her driveway.One of his friends, who witnessed this small act, later wrote: “I felt like jumping out of the car and hugging this guy. I felt like singing and running, or skipping and laughing. Just being active. I felt like saying nice things about people. Writing a beautiful poem or love song. Playing in the snow like a child. Telling everybody about his deed.”Good leaders like Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt and Reagan understand the selfish elements that drive human behavior, but they have another foot in the realm of the moral motivations. They seek to inspire faithfulness by showing good character. They try to motivate action by pointing toward great ideals.Realist leaders like Trump, McMaster and Cohn seek to dismiss this whole moral realm. By behaving with naked selfishness toward others, they poison the common realm and they force others to behave with naked selfishness toward them.By treating the world simply as an arena for competitive advantage, Trump, McMaster and Cohn sever relationships, destroy reciprocity, erode trust and eviscerate the sense of sympathy, friendship and loyalty that all nations need when times get tough.By looking at nothing but immediate material interest, Trump, McMaster and Cohn turn America into a nation that affronts everybody else’s moral emotions. They make our country seem disgusting in the eyes of the world.George Marshall was no idealistic patsy. He understood that America extends its power when it offers a cooperative hand and volunteers for common service toward a great ideal. Realists reverse that formula. They assume strife and so arouse a volley of strife against themselves.I wish H. R. McMaster was a better student of Thucydides. He’d know that the Athenians adopted the same amoral tone he embraces: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” The Athenians ended up making endless enemies and destroying their own empire.

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Saturday, April 8, 2017

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

THE TRUTH WILL OUT
       #1


“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” 


If Trump is to be believed, President Barack Obama  is the person to blame for all of the problems that he has had to face as the new president. From the time the birther movement originated from a post on the FreeRepublic.com  (March1,2008), until today April 6, 2017, Trump continues to vilify and disparage President Obama’s presidency and to delegitimize Mr. Obama’s legacy.

Thus we see Trump’s impulsive tweets used  to misdirect attention away from the major stories of the day. The ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election is just one example.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

As usual, Trump provides no evidence to support his accusations. On March 20, 2017, James Comey the Director of the FBI announced that there was no information to back Trump’s claims of wiretapping. And so it goes. Trump’s tweets show a correlation between problems at the White House and his attacks blaming others. In short, he makes false connections in order to transfer attention from himself to someone or something else. 
I cannot recall any president who was so hell bent at immediately destroying his predecessor’s legacy as Trump.

The answer is quite simple really. By his own behavior and words during the Presidential Election and afterward , Trump has shown himself to be a racist and a bigot. The world has observed his tirades to incite his followers with a view to keeping them loyal.

Why the rush to roll back policies and regulations? Does Trump and his administration believe that all Americans are ignoramuses and cannot possibly perceive his ulterior motives? 

Trump is taking away the power and safety nets of average Americans, those  of whom Obama championed. By repealing  and replacing the American Care Act, expunging the regulations that help Americans have clean energy, a healthy environment, Internet Privacy, workplace safety,  and more, Trump is wreaking havoc on our citizens.  There will always be threats to the United States. If you remember nothing else about this post, keep in mind what Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” It made sense then and it makes sense now.




Live simply.
Speak gently.
Love unconditionally. 
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Friday, March 31, 2017

My Amazon Book Review of Up Up and Away

Up Up and Away
                                                      by Nesta Tuomey




As I read Ms. Tuomey’s’s novel Up Up and Away, I was 
captivated by Kay Martin, the Irish protagonist (heroine), in the story.
Kay is lovely, young, and winsome. Her only ambition in life is to become an 
Air Hostess for Celtic Airlines. 
The story is doubly intriguing since  I was the same age as Kay living in the 
turbulent times of the mid-1960’s.  
Ms. Tuomey paints convincing images of the cultural and historical
 period in which Kay lives. In the same way, Kay’s emotional and
 moral struggle with her impassioned love for Captain Graham 
Pender causes  real conflict within herself and the reader. 
Personally, I didn’t know whether to cheer Kay on or counsel 
her. 
Ms. Tuomey takes the reader into the bewitching but provocative
world of Irish Airlines to view the rivalry between young 
Air Hostesses struggling for independence and competition 
in a world fraught with changes. 
As for the character of each Airline Captain , I give you leave to draw your own 
conclusions. It isn’t quite the undertaking one may imagine. Think 
conquest,  sex, and infidelity.
A delicious must read.



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Friday, March 24, 2017

Repost from The New York TimesThe Best Time to Become an American Is Now

Dear Friends and Family,
Now more than ever, we Americans must stand up and let our voices be heard. There is an attack on our Constitutional rights and as voters, it is our duty to compel Members of  Congress to listen to US, the voters of the USA. The Republican Led Congress is deciding what is right and best for us. I am not OK with that. I am holding Members of Congress accountable to reach across the aisle to work in a bi-partisan way to act for the greater good of ALL Americans. I have added the following historical note to emphasize that Americans must be united if we are to remain a true democracy.

Let's show our pride and support of our country by acknowledging what is written in our The Pledge of  Allegiance.

Regardless of which version one chooses, the words ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, and ALL must be defended.

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.

In its original form it read:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

In 1923, the words, "the Flag of the United States of America" were added. At this time it read:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God," creating the 31-word pledge we say today.

Today it reads:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."


This article written by Yascha Mounk is a timely reminder of our freedoms and what happens if we do not stand in unity to defend them. A must read.

SundayReview  | OPINION 

The Best Time to Become an American Is Now

By YASCHA MOUNK
Emiliano Ponzi 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I always thought I knew what I would do the day I became an American citizen: I’d go to the nearest park with some close friends, open a bottle of champagne — and hope a cop would give me a ticket.
Since coming to the United States from Germany on a student visa in 2005, I’ve been a little paranoid about breaking the law. When roommates headed up to the roof to have a few beers, I stayed behind in the living room. When a romantic prospect started to feed the ducks on a trip to Central Park, I remained on the gravel path some 50 yards away, pointing to the “Don’t Walk on the Grass” sign.
Admittedly, I was probably being overly cautious. But, I would sheepishly explain to my friends, immigration benefits are a privilege rather than a right. When applying for a work visa, or for a green card, or for naturalization, I would have to document every citation and arrest. And since the law explicitly instructs the officer who would decide my fate to ascertain whether I am of “good moral character,” I preferred to avoid the slightest risk of legal trouble.
I am middle-class and highly educated, white and with a valid visa. I know that I’ve always had it far better than millions of other immigrants. Unlike them, I had little reason to think that an open-container violation might mean getting kicked out of the country.
This contrast has only become more stark as the new administration has ramped up deportations, rescinded thousands of visas, even attempted to stop green-card holders from countries like Syria and Yemen from entering the country. In the past few months, thousands of families have been torn apart. Millions more live in a state of terror.
Many of them face a trade-off that is much more pernicious than any I ever had to endure: They can protest the government at the risk of getting deported, or they can stay silent in the face of injustice aimed directly at them.
This month, the long-awaited day finally came. I put on a bright blue suit, a white shirt and a small black button with a quotation from the protest movement against the Vietnam War: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” As I drove to my citizenship ceremony at the John F. Kenedy Presidential Library, I thought about all the reasons I want to be an American.
Since I’ve come to the United States I’ve gotten a Ph.D. in political science. At first, I focused my research on more abstract questions, like the role of personal responsibility in the welfare state. But a few years ago — long before Britons voted to leave the European Union or Donald J. Trump announced that he was running for president — I started to worry that liberal democracy was under real threat in the United States and around the world.
In my studies, I showed that citizens now give less importance to living in a democracy than they once did, and that they are more open to authoritarian alternatives like military rule. So it did not come as a surprise when frustrated citizens from Britain to Hungary, and from the United States to India, began casting ballots for authoritarian populists who promised a radical break with the status quo.
There is plenty of democratic energy behind these movements. But because populists like President Trump value only the support of a narrow segment of citizens and claim an exclusive right to speak on behalf of “the people,” they are a real danger to the norms and institutions that are necessary to sustain democracy.
Like Mr. Trump, democratically elected dictators have often believed that they don’t owe political consideration to the minorities they vilify. And like Mr. Trump, they have often claimed that all those who challenge their rule — independent judges, critical journalists — are enemies of the people. For anybody who has studied how democracies die, the president’s dark rhetoric sounds familiar.
One of the things I most admire about the United States is its fierce attachment to the Constitution. Americans have as deep a commitment to democratic institutions, and as active a civil society, as the citizens of any other country in the world. If the defenders of democracy don’t make it here, it is doubtful that they will make it anywhere.
But one of the things I most fear about the United States is that the veneration of the Constitution is always in danger of turning into complacency. While the country’s system of checks and balances gives Americans the tools to safeguard their freedoms, the Constitution cannot defend itself. The defenses it puts in place will work only if citizens are prepared to use them.
As this realization dawned on many Americans in the past months, and a valiant fight for the soul of the country got underway, I felt increasingly self-conscious about my status as a “resident alien.” While I had plenty of opportunity to speak to Americans, I could not speak as an American. And that is why the election of a dangerous demagogue to the presidency of the United States made me more, not less, determined to take on citizenship. Now more than ever I want to be a fully paid-up member of this society — and fight for the survival of liberal democracy alongside my new compatriots.
The oath of citizenship moved me more than I had expected. For a moment, I choked up and found it difficult to get the words out. But then my voice took on a new resolve: proud and determined, I swore to “defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
After the ceremony, I did not go to a park with friends. I did not have any champagne. I did not try to get a cop to give me a ticket in celebration of my newfound freedom. Instead, I did something that millions of others cannot do without fear: I joined a protest in Boston against the revised executive order on immigration.
The couple of dozen people who had assembled on a clear, cold afternoon, holding signs like “No More Families Torn Apart” and “Immigrants Are America,” did not make for a very impressive crowd. The police barely paid us any attention. Nor did anybody else.
The moment felt no less meaningful to me. For the very first time, I was standing up to the unjust actions of my government. And for the very first time, I could say, as an American, that the executive order — and the larger worldview it represents — violates our values.
Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard, writes a weekly column at Slate and hosts The Good Fight podcast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opinion/sunday/the-best-time-to-become-an-american-is-now.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
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