Think Local. (With A Shout Out to Jessica Morse - CA04 Congressional Candidate)

There are many lessons that still need to be learned from the results of the 2016 election, but the lesson every American needs to grasp right this very minute is that local elections matter.

Sure, it is easy and more fun to only think about national politics every four years, but we are all a part of our local communities. And if you found yourself feeling frustrated after the 2016 election, feeling as if your vote didn't matter, listen up - if you want to see real change, there is a very real way to make it happen. But you have to be willing to dig in and do more than just post things on Facebook to rile up your Breitbart-loving, crazy, MAGA hat-wearing uncle.

Let's go back to 2010 - the mid-term election that arguably had the biggest political consequence in modern history. Along with the 2010 census, a massive gerrymandering operation was put into place by the state legislatures of key political states. These state legislatures had the power to re-draw their districting maps; to essentially reset the system and set Republicans up for a wave of success for the next decade. This strategy even had a name: REDMAP (Redistricting Majority Project), and was created out of the realization that by flipping the local state legislatures in states that were starting to lean democratic, re-drawing the state and federal lines would help these states eventually lean to the right. And this would have massive national consequences in key states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania - the states we always look at over and over after every election. Republicans spent $30 million on state races in 2010, taking advantage of the fact that Democratic turnout is typically very low in mid-term elections, and when voter turnout is low, it almost always favors Republicans. Thus, with a little bit of money, at the right time, when Democrats weren't looking (although they should have - Karl Rove basically revealed this plan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed), blue states went deep red on the local level, setting up a major shift in the national political landscape. By redrawing the local districts, Republicans essentially shoved all the Democratic leaning areas into the cities and turned all of the surrounding areas into Republican leaning districts. How this plays out is that while more votes for Democratic candidates might be cast in a large population center, such as Philadelphia, those votes are essentially capped, because even though 100,000 people might have voted for a Democrat, that city only represents a small percentage of the legislative seats up for grabs when the lines are re-drawn to isolate the city centers from the rest of the state. Gerrymandering basically negates the idea that the party that gets the most votes wins the election.

*A great resource on the consequences of the 2010 elections and gerrymandering is the book "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy," by David Daley.*

The big lesson to take away from this? Pay attention to your local elections and participate in them, because they have very big consequences. The best way to change a rigged game is to understand how it operates and work against it on the ground level to disrupt the basic operation - this means getting involved in grass-roots organizations and understanding the issues important to your community. And most of all, it means voting in every single election.



A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting of the El Dorado County Democrats, where Congressional candidate Jessica Morse, was going to speak. Morse is looking to challenge Republican Tom McClintock in the 2018 election, and has been campaigning relentlessly across the CA04 district. During the meeting, the members noted that more candidates were needed in positions such as the local school board, as even it had been taken over by Republicans with special interests in potentially changing educational materials, along with shifting federal funds away from public schools. This is why local elections matter.
After addressing the business of the group, Jessica Morse was introduced and spoke for nearly an hour on the issues facing the CA04 district and our country. Morse has literally walked the district from top to bottom, with her family living in the district for multiple generations. In the time that she spoke, Morse exemplified a qualified candidate that knows the challenges and the issues facing this district, but also understands global issues, and can point to how local and global issues connect. I was honestly inspired by her deep understanding of the effects of the logging industry and her knowledge of the agricultural issues facing the district. Jessica pointed to her service in the State Department and her time serving in Iraq at the height of the war, where she saw first hand how political decisions here in the United States impacted people across the globe. She was responsible for handling multi-billion dollar budgets at the State Department, offering solutions to help eliminate debt, while maintaining resources necessary for positive diplomatic operations.

Jessica Morse is the real deal. I can tell you that as I sat and listened to her share her heart for the people of CA04, I also saw her heart to serve the American people, and the people who suffer all over the world. She spoke of the time she recently spent helping folks whose lives had been devastated by the recent Detwiler wildfires, and steps she was able to take with local officials to help these people in time of desperate need. She didn't wait for news cameras to show up...she went and served, and has been back to help that community multiple times, because the people needed action. A servant-leader is the best way to describe Jessica Morse. She is the leader and the voice that CA04 needs, and is a challenger that McClintock should find terrifying, as she is the voice of a generation that is tired of do-nothing politicians.

After hearing Jessica Morse speak, I felt the way that Josh Lyman felt after hearing Jed Bartlett speak in the T.V. show, The West Wing. I felt that I saw someone who can create real change for the people, and I felt actual hope in a candidate.

To learn more about Jessica Morse, please visit https://www.morse4congress.com/

And for the love of everything that is good, dig in to your local elections, volunteer, and VOTE!

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

By now, it should be abundantly clear that the White House has a leaking problem. Last week, Chief of Staff, Reince Prebus, was ousted from his role in the Trump administration, presumably under suspicion that he had been leaking information about the dysfunctional West Wing, or didn't have the clout to stop other staffers that may be leaking information to the press.

So, every administration has faced similar issues with confidential or unfavorable leaks getting to the press. This isn't something new. What separates the Trump administration with previous administrations are the quantity of the leaks and the level of dysfunction these leaks reveal to the world at large.

As a result, the Justice Department is using more law enforcement resources than ever before in pursuit of the sources that are leaking information to the media.

The question that needs to be asked is - what does it say about the Trump administration, when so many people who are currently working in the West Wing are willing to essentially put their careers on the line to share information to the press about the internal workings of our Executive branch? It is supposed to be the honor of a lifetime to serve in the White House, so what does it say about Trump's leadership when the people who serve at the pleasure of the President decide they cannot remain silent when it comes to their working environment? Or, have these folks simply adapted the attitude of Trump - the "me first, no matter what," self-serving approach to the job? To me, this easily indicates a total lack of leadership, not just from the President, but from all senior level advisors and directors. It's clear that this administration lacks the ability to inspire, on top of what appears to be a total lack of trust in anyone outside of Trump's immediate family...and to be honest, I'm not sure that Trump even trusts his own family at this point, and they certainly shouldn't trust him. This is a guy who would throw anyone under the bus to save his own ass.



What I find interesting is that what made Trump so appealing to a number of voters was his acumen as a business tycoon. He promised to stop bureaucracy and introduce an era of governing with a business attitude. Many people were willing to overlook his failures and reputation as a businessman (multiple bankruptcies, not paying contractors, lawsuits, etc.), paying more attention to how Trump marketed himself. For sure, he is a master of marketing, branding, and talking a good game. Where he continually fails is in the grit of business - making tough decisions, being accountable and taking responsibility, and compromise. For the first time, Donald Trump is working for someone else, the American people. The reason he has been able to get away with a less than stellar business record is because he has only had to answer to himself and a nepotistic board of directors. I can guarantee you that if this administration were a business, with Trump being the CEO, he'd be out of a job already and this business would be in emergency mode. No business would put up with their CEO bashing other directors on social media, or appointing inexperienced people to integral roles, just because they are friends or gave him some money, or create new roles out of thin air and appoint family members to lead on issues they have no experience with. Why are we putting up with this? And will we decide to put up with this again, or will we say enough is enough in 2020 (if he makes it that far...I have my doubts)?

Leaks are neither good or bad...it totally depends on what information is leaked and how it effects domestic and global policy. In fact, the government has even taken steps to protect leakers and make it harder for Justice Department officials to meddle with a reporter's sources. Even when leakers did damage to Barack Obama's administration, his own Attorney General, Eric Holder, knew the importance of protecting the First Amendment. Where we run into danger is when classified information is leaked to unfriendly sources...something that Donald Trump managed to do all by himself back in May, when he revealed sensitive intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office. And if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's that he has his own hypocritical definitions of fairness and holding people to the same standards, evidenced by the one case of criminal leaking the administration has pursued - the prosecution of contractor Reality Leigh Winner, for leaking a classified intelligence report on Russia's attempt to hack the 2016 election. We know Trump even encouraged WikiLeaks to find damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the campaign. To sum up, Trump wants leaks when it benefits him, but when it reveals his incompetence and inability to be an effective leader, he wants those people prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

And the most recent leak sheds more light on a truth that most of us were already savvy to. As the transcripts of Trump's phone calls with other leaders of the world were made available, it cannot be disputed that our diplomacy across the globe has taken a major hit, due to the gross incompetence of our President. Jorge Guajardo, a long-time foreign diplomat from Mexico, has said of the transcript of Trump's phone call with Mexico's president, "He's the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt. He speaks loudly and carries a small stick. Everyone I've spoken to around the world is laughing." To make matters worse, Trump's phone call with Australian Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbill, was just as bad, providing us with solid proof that Trump is the kind of guy who tends to ignore facts, and is willing to weasel out of previous diplomatic agreements if he thinks it makes him look bad.

The old saying goes "The fish rots from the head." And it's never been more true than now. If Trump wants to find the problem in the White House, he needs to only look in the mirror.

In the meantime, with an administration who invented the term "Alternative Facts," and a President who lies about the littlest things, these insider leaks are more than welcome, as truth has become a rare find.

A Not-So Fine Tuned Machine.

So...did I miss anything in the past couple of weeks while I took a short break?

A lot of stuff is going on, so let's get to it.

As of this morning, President Trump made a major policy announcement - again - via Twitter. He announced that the military can't be burdened with having transgender people serving, essentially reversing action taken by President Obama that allowed openly transgender folk to serve in our military.

The Pentagon isn't even going to try to defend this reverse in policy, and has deferred all questions to the White House. This makes me wonder if there really was a consensus among the top military officials on this decision, or if Trump has been so emboldened by his recent rallies that he felt he needed to appeal to his base, because this definitely has the stench of a purely political move.



Normally, a policy shift such as this one, results in hours of debate and hearings among committees in our Congress, based on years of studies and observations from people serving out in the field. This is how the Obama administration moved forward to reach the decision to allow transgender people to serve, because we once upon a time had a president who actually cared about doing the right thing for the military and for the transgender community. But of course, normal doesn't exist anymore. So, what we're left with is a political decision made by a man who didn't even serve in the military because he received deferments for bone spurs. This so-called Commander in Chief who once said that he would be the best ally for the LGBT community, doesn't actually care about the 11,000 plus service members who have no idea what is going to happen to their lives and careers right now.

One of the first defenses of this horrible policy is that it just costs the military too much. Well...that's bullshit. The Rand Corporation estimated in 2016 that the cost of medical services for transgender service members would be $8.4 million dollars. In 2014, the military spent $84 million on erectile dysfunction medication. Medical services for transgender soldiers makes up less than 1% of the military's budget. So again...BULLSHIT!

And all of this is because Trump's feet are being held to the fire and he's scared. This political move is a result of Trump being afraid that he's not going to get his promised border wall. On the one hand, he doesn't care about his campaign promise to be the best ally to the LGBT community that ever existed, if it means he won't get to build the wall he so desperately wants. He will literally do anything to rally that base of his beloved Deplorables whenever he feels threatened...saving his own skin is actually the most important policy to him, no matter the cost. He spends so much time obsessing about President Obama and Hillary Clinton that he doesn't care at all about how this will effect the lives of the people who have the courage to volunteer to serve in our military...something he never had the guts to do.





In other news, last night the Senate tried to jam through a major health care bill and failed horrendously, just hours after voting to move forward with procedure and debate. The vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act was 43-57, with nine Republicans breaking from their party to vote no on the bill. Even though Mitch McConnell enjoyed a small moment of victory - if you can even call it that, since VP Mike Pence had to be brought in to break the tie - it is unlikely that McConnell will get the big win he is looking for before the next recess.

So, we have the Republicans who have spent the past several years symbolically voting to repeal the ACA, who have campaigned heavily on this action ever since the ACA became law, and now, even though they have majority rule, are unable to actually get anything done. The Republicans are showing that they are unable to govern, even when they are given every single advantage possible. And what this means is what we have known for a long time - that the Republicans do not actually represent the views of their constituents and serve the people. They serve their donors and lobbyists.


And finally, to introduce a new segment I'm going to tentatively call "Oh, that's soooo rich," -



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is going to take some time off, because he's just absolutely exhausted from doing his job. This month, he's spent time in Germany, Ukraine, Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia . He's apparently been incredibly surprised at how hard this job can be and frustrated that he doesn't get to be the ultimate decision maker on foreign policy that effects the whole world. Rumors are also circulating that Tillerson didn't have the warm and fuzzy feelings towards Trump after the President's make-shift political rally at the Boy Scout Jamboree, as Tillerson was an Eagle Scout and was once the national president of the organization.
So, what was all that talk about Hillary Clinton having no stamina? I'd love to hear how Tillerson really feels towards Trump, his boss, who contradicts Tillerson all the time, and then sends him in to clean up the diplomatic messes Trump makes on a daily basis. The common theme here is that Trump is the absolute worst boss, ever.

Theology Thursday: Complicated Complicity.

A few years ago, I sat down with a pastor to have coffee and discuss the current political climate and differing views regarding how the Church views LGBT+ folks. I was relieved that we immediately moved past the surface discussions of what was being deemed as right vs. wrong, and we jumped into discussing this idea of complicity.

Because, when a baker with a business that serves the public decides that he can no longer serve certain members of the public, due to his religious beliefs, we're not really talking about a righteous person of faith standing up for their beliefs. That might be what they tell the public, or the story they tell to the media, or even the lie they tell themselves. But what we're really talking about here is the false notion that by providing a service to someone they disagree with, this business owner is now complicit with whatever activity they hold a religious objection to. By serving the persons they deem as engaging in "sinful" behavior, the business owner feels as if that sin is somehow transferrable to them, thereby they are also engaging in "sinful" behavior.

First of all, this is total bullshit. This is a conservative, evangelical construct to further the bogus idea that American Christians are being persecuted more than ever in our nation. And the irony here is that while conservative Christians have been telling us for years that the LGBT+ community doesn't just want equal rights, they want special rights - it seems that conservative Christian business owners who don't want to serve certain folks are now the ones looking for special rights to discriminate who their businesses serve.

And the crazy thing is that this seems to just be an issue for conservative Christians to dote on. I almost guarantee that if I walked into a Kosher deli tomorrow to order beef for a party that I was throwing, I'm guessing that they probably won't ask me if I also plan on serving shrimp, or perhaps a vegetable tray where two different vegetables might have been grown in the same field, and refuse to serve me because they personally abide by a different set of beliefs than I. Since they serve the public, it is a good business model to not refuse the service of the people who specifically come to you for the particular service you provide. If you want to provide a religious test to determine who you are willing to serve, then having a public business probably isn't the best choice for you.

In the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, where owner Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, one of the points that his lawyer has made to garner public support for Mr. Phillips, is that he has lost business and received negative press for his decision to discriminate in who he provided his services to. To be clear, his personal decision has resulted in business related consequences. This is what drives me absolutely crazy. On the one hand, Phillips is proudly standing up for his beliefs, willing to lose the business of a particular couple because he has a closely held personal religious objection. He's willing to take a stand, but when the consequences result in a business fallout, he suddenly feels compelled to call himself a victim. 

This calls to mind the story of Joseph of Arimathea in John 19. This was a man who was part of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the religious governing body that handled religious and civic matters for the people of Israel. Joseph is said to be the man who was responsible for burying Jesus. This meant that he had to defile himself, because he had to touch the dead body of Jesus, a direct violation of their religious doctrine on the eve of Passover. Joseph was assisted by Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin, because they wanted to give Jesus a proper burial. They tossed aside their deeply held religious beliefs to remain pure for Passover, so they could serve a man who had been tried and ultimately executed at the very hands of the governing body they were a part of. Joseph even gave up his personal tomb to Christ, and insisted that his body be properly wrapped and treated with spices. We don't have much information about what happened to Joseph and Nicodemus, but to be sure, I bet their fellow members of the Sanhedrin wouldn't have been thrilled with their actions. There is a very good chance they would have been thrown out of the group, maybe even shamed and forever ruined their reputations, and likely their entire families would have been cut off from associating with anyone ever again. That's the price they were willing to pay, and they did it. They didn't cry foul or play victim. They sacrificed their religion and their deeply held religious beliefs for Christ.

On top of this particular story, we know that Jesus himself associated with all of the folks that the religious zealots looked down upon. I mean, come on...it is arguably the most revolutionary lesson Christ had to offer - that exclusionary behavior is not representative of holiness. When we invite everyone to the table, serve them, and resist our human instinct to expel those who are different than us - those are the moments when we are the best representations of Christ.

And that's why this idea that we should feel sorry for Mr. Phillips or anyone else who has refused service to someone because of their deeply held religious beliefs is a total load of crap. He decided to take a stand for his beliefs, and there are very real consequences for that. Be willing to pay the price for your beliefs or stop pretending you follow Christ. 

The truth is that I think what Mr. Phillips' case and similar cases represent is the selfish notion that we can't serve those we have disagreements with because it makes us dirty. What a small view of God these folks must have, to think that the God they claim to serve can't differentiate between unselfish service to others and "sin." Why go into business as a means to be a representative of Christ and serve others, when you actually aren't willing to serve and "be Christ" to everyone? If you're not willing to wash the feet of others, to show love and not condemnation to those the zealots deem unclean, you are not following Christ. That's the bottom line.

And yet, in the last 24 hours we have another case of blatant hypocrisy by a religious business. Hobby Lobby, who famously went to the Supreme Court to argue that they shouldn't have to provide their employees with birth control, because it would make them complicit in providing abortifacient drugs or perhaps encourage their female employees to engage in extramarital sexual behavior, is now facing millions of dollars in fines, because their "love of the Bible" has led them buy and smuggle black-market ancient artifacts out of Iraq. It is likely that the money the company used to buy these artifacts, was paid to groups connected to Isis. So, not only did Hobby Lobby engage in purposefully lying to Customs officials by labeling the artifacts as ceramic samples while they were being shipped to the United States, but the money they used could have potentially been used to fund a terrorist group that regularly murders Christians around the world (though they mostly murder Muslims). On the one hand, Hobby Lobby insisted that they would not be complicit in what is actually a woman's personal & medical choice, but they are totally ok with being complicit in funding terrorism and murderers, as long as it saves inanimate objects.

Independent.

I'm going to take the opportunity on this 4th of July to talk about women, and I'm going to do just that, but first, I wanted to take a step back and do a little PSA on how I will cover Donald Trump from this point forward:



It has become increasingly clear that our President is a vulgar human being, who uses social media not as a platform to talk about issues or to try and make a positive impact on the world, but instead, uses it like a cowardly internet troll. And while I think there is a time and a place to call out his insanity and instability, his wrong doing and inappropriateness, I do not want to be distracted by his circus act while important things are going on. And whether or not the GOP intended for this to be their strategy - to work on unpopular legislation while everyone is looking the other way - I am going to keep my eye on the ball. It's easy to get caught up in the words of a madman, but it's the actions of his handlers and enablers that I am going to do my best to stay focused on. I encourage us all to buckle down and get more involved in understanding the actions and legislation coming from this administration & the legislative branch.

Back to the issues at hand...

A woman named Bethany Kozma has been appointed to the office of Gender Equality & Women's Empowerment. Some fun little facts about Ms. Kozma - she held a position in the George W. Bush administration, but has spent the last several years raising a family and opposing equal rights for the LGBT community, especially the T (transgender) folks. Just last year, Kozma wrote a piece for a publication arm of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political organization focused on those poor, mistreated American Christians (I hope you can hear the sarcasm), in which she called for them to rise up against the Obama administration's guidance to public schools in allowing transgender students to use the restroom of the gender the students identify with. Rousing that unfounded fear tactic that children will be sexually assaulted by a transgender person, Kozma asserted that her own children were at risk and encouraged the Christian Right to go to battle over where people go the bathroom. That's right...this lady will now be at the table for the US Agency for International Development. Because if there's one important issue the US can teach the world, it's to care too much about where people go to the restroom.



In a somewhat opposite, but equally interesting move by the administration, the White House is trying to determine whether or not to keep the Council for Women & Girls. Of course, this probably shouldn't be incredibly surprising. The George W. Bush administration disbanded a similar council started under the Bill Clinton administration, so it only makes sense that the new Republican president would hit the undo button on literally anything the previous Democratic president did. We obviously know that our current president has an acute issue when it comes to women, plus we have a vice president who refuses to even meet alone with women, so that he can retain his religious sanctimony.



Despite the fact that we apparently have a administration full of powerful women, who seem to care about women's issues such as equality, the pay-gap, family leave, and STEM education when it is politically convenient (I can admit they are powerful and ambitious, even though they are either brainwashed or self-loathing), and a First Lady who has yet to do anything impactful, the administration can't seem to realize that keeping this council would be an easy slam dunk. Instead, they are so repulsed by any Obama legacy positions that they just let them die, instead of seeing how it could actually help their cause or help them gain points. I miss Michelle Obama more than ever, and miss the positive influence she had in the lives of all of our children, especially our young women. I don't think the 3rd Mrs. Trump can hold a candle to her, and she's certainly not a figure I would even want a child to look up to.

So, while the current voices in power seem to want to hush up the women, quite literally, I want to share the stories of some women who should be celebrated on this Day of Independence:

• Deborah Samson - a young woman in her 20's, who had been freed from indentured servitude, joined the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment disguised as a man named Robert Shurtlieff. Samson was wounded numerous times and refused medical treatment, fearing her identity would be discovered. When she fell ill from a sickness she contracted at camp, a doctor discovered her identity. She was not allowed to remain in the Army, but was given an Honorable Discharge, and later fought to get back pay and pension from the Army. She is now officially the Massachusetts State Heroine.
• Sybil Ludington - the 16 year old daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, who rode a 40 mile circuit to awaken a militia to warn them of the British army.
• Lydia Darragh - a Quaker woman who played double agent. She allowed her home to become a gathering location for British soldiers, then she passed along British information to the spy network of George Washington. Darragh sewed messages into button covers and other locations. When she passed along British plans for attack, she likely saved hundreds of soldiers. 
• Margaret Corbin - wife of a soldier who handled cannon ammunition, Corbin often assisted her husband. During battle, when the soldier firing the cannon had been hit, her husband took over firing the cannon. Her husband was killed, and Margaret stepped up and manned the cannon herself, until she was horribly wounded from opposition fire. 

If you want to read more stories of heroic women who played incredible roles in the Revolutionary War, check out this article from Mental Floss. 

We Should Have Known.

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." - Maya Angelou

One of the truly remarkable things that the Trump administration will likely be remembered for is President Trump's ability to step on his own toes & shift the focus from getting substantial work done to his inability to not be a petty, 71 year old narcissist with a Twitter account.



I suppose it could be said that what was supposed to be a week focused on technology was not an entire failure. After all, Trump used his favorite piece of technology to help him achieve the role of schoolyard bully as he took aim at talk show co-host, Mika Brzezinski, this week for simply doing her job.

So, here we are again, unable to talk about policy, health care, the fact that the White House literally just asked all the states to hand over their voter rolls to a guy who is infamous for wanting to enact huge vote-suppression tactics, or major world events, because our president is behaving like a child...again.

I'm honestly not sure why anyone is surprised at Trump's behavior. We know this is who he is. This is the way he has always been. He's done this so many times before. I don't understand why people thought the office of President would change him for the better, since he's given us every indication that he's only interested in the position for the fame and to further promote the Trump brand. I can't believe that people are more outraged at this behavior than from the Access Hollywood tape where Trump brags about how he can't control himself around women and just grabs them.


The thing that should have disqualified Trump from being president still exists and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It's his temperament. Who he is as a person turns out to be exactly who he is, and it's a rich, privileged, ridiculous old white guy, with a penchant for all things tacky, who thinks he can do whatever he wants because of his money and name, can dish out insults, but can't take them (especially if they come from women).

You guys, if a shitty person runs for president and wins, it should be no surprise when we're stuck with a shitty president.



It's no surprise when our collective intelligence and standing in the world drops like a rotten floor under the weight of a man with such a fragile sense of self.

It's not that we should be shocked that is Donald Trump. We should be shocked that there is a portion of our population that believed that he would make a good president.

For people of faith who voted for Trump, or for Trump supporters who are women, or have daughters or any women at all in their lives...how in the world do you excuse yourself for picking this man? How is this the leader that you look up to, or expect to lead us in the world? How are you ok with this? How did you not see that this is the man you picked, when he has shown you who he truly is the whole time?

People were outraged at Kathy Griffin for her photo stunt of posing with a decapitated head that resembled Trump. People thought it crossed a line, were concerned about Trump's children, particularly his young son, that could have seen the photo, and Griffin was fired from a New Year's Eve hosting gig with CNN and has had performances cancelled across the country. When she did something that crossed the line, there were immediate consequences. And she's just a comedian. She's not the mayor of a town, she doesn't hold public office, or is someone who is seen as a leader of our country. Trump even used his young son as a sort of human shield when this happened, expressing concern for what his 11 year old son might have seen, though, instead of spending time with his son after this horrible thing happened, Trump spent the following weekend golfing.

I wonder what Trump's son thinks about the way his dad cyber-bullies people who criticize him? What does this young man believe is the best way to respond to people who disagree with his dad? I wonder what he thinks is okay to say or do to a woman? I mean, if we're worried about what he is exposed to, the kid is exposed to his dad, and that is worrisome enough, given that his dad admitted he has no control of himself around beautiful women.

What about Mika's daughters? What about the children of every person Trump has called names, insulted, or just flat out lied about? When Trump spent the first few years of the Obama presidency proclaiming that our then-president wasn't even an American, did he spare any thought at all for Sasha & Malia, who were actually younger at the time than Barron Trump is now? When Trump cracked assassination jokes about Hilary Clinton, did he think at all about her grandchildren?

I almost can't even with women like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and KellyAnne Conway going on television to defend what the president did. Conway now works for a guy she knows lacks the mental capacity to be president...she said as much in an interview on CNN when she worked for Ted Cruz, whose wife was another victim of Trump's childish insults during the campaign.

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders?!? The daughter of Mike Huckabee, the Christian minister-turned politician, defended Trump's insults by saying that America chose a man who will fight back when he is attacked.
So, we should just forget all about that time that Jesus said that we should turn the other cheek?
We should forget that every single president had to endure being attacked every day, because it comes with the territory.




We hold female comedians to a higher standard than we hold the current President of the United States to.
That is so messed up.

We are heading towards a 4th of July week where I am so ashamed of our country and this president, that I don't feel much like celebrating us.

I think we all need to think about the wisdom of Maya Angelou and realize that we know who our president is...and we need to rethink why we are here and how we can get out of this hole we've dug ourselves into.

Why Resources Matter.

I'm still trying to make sense of my experience in Bible college. There are days when I'm overwhelmed and angry with myself for paying so much money and spending so much of my time to get an education that will literally get me no where...unless you hear of a progressive church willing to hire a gay lady for a pastor, then please send me the deets.

But there are days when I feel really proud of the knowledge I gained during that time, and I feel grateful to the few professors who took academia very seriously, even to the point that the passing of their knowledge could have been misconstrued by the university as heresy or subversive.



If I had to pick one lesson, one idea that has been the most valuable during my collegiate studies and now, in the post-college world, it would be the simple, two-word lesson I learned during a class called Bible Study Methods:

Resources matter.

I know that from our earliest experiences in school, we're taught to go to the school library, look for all of the books that pertain to whatever subject we're writing a paper for, create a bibliography, and gather all of the information possible in our tiny little world. This was before the internet. And just to highlight how far technology has come over just in the past ten years, I'll tell you that when I was finishing up my undergrad degree in 2007, most of my professors still felt hesitant in letting students use Internet sources...I almost guarantee they cannot do that now.



When I was young and did a science project on the genetic disease neurofibromatosis, all I had to do was find any resource with any amount of information on the subject. Gathering information was the easy part of doing the report. I never had to worry that someone who knew very little about the disease or that someone who had some strange idea that the disease was fake, would have published a book about the disease in an attempt to mislead the public or push their own crazy ideas about the disease. I didn't have to consider the source.

Years later, in those 100 level classes that were designed to teach me about how to effectively study the Bible and do the hard work of exegesis and theological study, my professor made it clear that not every source was valid, and that some sources, though they might still be considered academic in nature, would potentially have a slanted view not suited for objective, fact-based study. This has always been an issue when it comes to Biblical study and the interpretation of religious sources. Now, throw in the Internet and people who could self-publish their works, who managed to later sell their work to publishing companies who were owned by people with a particular worldview and may or may not be high level donors in the political world, and it became necessary to look at every source critically.

We have a President who has actively called the press the enemy and calls every news outlet, save for one that resembles a propaganda machine, "Fake News." We've seen the fallout in recent days as three CNN reporters resigned after the news corporation had to pull a story about a Trump associate, after it was discovered that the published story did not meet CNN's usual standards of reporting. Within days of Trump taking office, we saw Sean Spicer perform his first of what has now been become hundreds of lies, as he peddled the whopper of a lie that the crowd at the inauguration of President Trump was the largest crowd for any presidential inauguration, ever. When that lie was obviously questioned and proven to be untrue, KellyAnne Conway coined the now-famous term for lie: Alternative Facts.



In fact, just yesterday, Sara Huckabee Sanders went on a tangent about how unfair the media is to Mr. Trump and went on a Sean Spicer-inspired tirade about fake news and false reporting...then encouraged everyone to watch a video in which she could not verify the footage to be real. Spoiler: the video she asked everyone to watch was a video made by James O'Keefe, the guy who appears to record secret "gotcha" videos, then heavily edits them to fit a particular political narrative. He's been arrested for trespassing, has had to issue multiple public apologies for purposefully misleading the public through doctoring "undercover" videos, and has had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements where he secretly recorded people, edited the footage to promote a false narrative, then publicly release such videos. I mean, he is the personification of Fake News, and the White House press office just peddled his newest video while calling other news outlets fake. Probably doesn't hurt that the Trump Foundation donated $10,000 towards the project that Sanders promoted from the podium, yesterday.



These are just a few instances where the lesson we need to walk away with is that resources matter. There are literally hundreds of other lies being told from the White House daily, from the President, from his surrogates, and from media outlets with a vested interest in representing the administration in a certain light.

This can be no more apparent than the interview that Trump gave to Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt, when she asked about President Trump revealing that he had no tapes of his conversation with Jim Comey. On camera, Trump goes into his usual word salad response that Earhardt interprets as that by implying that he might have had tapes of his conversation with Comey, that forced the ousted FBI Director to suddenly change his story and tell the truth. When Trump finishes rambling, she says, "That was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in those hearings."

Wow. No wonder Fox News recently dropped their slogan "Fair & Balanced."



This is not journalism. This is not even someone pretending to be a journalist. This is propaganda from an outlet that is barely covering the news of the day, because the news of the day is that our President and his team lie, get caught about lying, and may have broken some laws and committed treason. If you can stomach watching Fox News for any amount of time, you'll find that you'll get very little news or information. Perhaps this is why Fox is losing viewers and has lost their place of dominance in the ratings. 

I'm not being totally naive here, either. I know that all of the news channels are slanted a bit in one way or another, politically speaking. I get that. But other news channels pale in comparison to Fox's blatant attempt to worship Trump, just so they might get mentioned in one of his tweets or get an exclusive interview so Trump can talk about himself and get softballs lobbed at him.

There is one journalist doing truly incredible work right now, and she has been for some time...and it's good to see her finally getting the viewership and accolades she deserves. Yes, my friends, I know some of you have been trained to hate anyone or anything that comes from the MSNBC machine, or have been exposed to too much Rush, Glenn Beck, InfoWars, and Fox News to know what real journalism looks like, but you need to just be a grown up now and accept that there is only one journalist right now that makes everyone else look like hacks. Rachel Maddow, who graduated from Stanford University with a degree in public policy and received a doctorate degree in political science from Oxford University, where she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Her education background alone gives her far more credibility than other journalists. The fact that she's never lost a job due to sexual harassment helps, or has never been arrested for prescription drug fraud, and actually made it through college (Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity both dropped out, as well as Rush Limbaugh) should make you wonder why she is just now getting the accolades she deserves, and why these other guys have gotten away with pretending to know what in the world they are talking about for so long. 

Some time ago, the very conservative mother of one of my dearest friends, asked me why education was so important in journalism. She said that sometimes the most educated are the least open minded people. And maybe she has personal experiences to back up that claim. But here's what I can tell you (and it's how I felt when Trump promoted himself as a political outsider): I don't want someone who dropped out of medical school to perform appendectomies, I don't want a pilot who didn't complete hours of flight training to fly planes, and I don't trust that someone who couldn't even make it through college to be able to accurately report the news and give the public the nuanced details of policy and government operation. I certainly don't trust a guy who has used bankruptcy and shady financial dealings for his own benefit to run our economy. I want leadership and integrity in journalism...and in my president, for that matter. 



Resources matter. And that's why I will shamelessly promote Rachel Maddow. She is killing it right now and you would do yourself a great favor to tune in to her every night to see what she is reporting on. You have to pay attention and care about the details, just as my professors in Bible college instructed me to do. And you don't have to agree with every single thing and viewpoint she might have, but you will get details, resources, and history you will not get any where else. 

Tune in, for the love of all that matters!



Please visit my Resources page to see what books, blogs, podcasts, & other media I regularly reference and recommend. And please feel free to share your recommendations that you've discovered, as well!

And one more thing...big shout out and all caps THANK YOU to Brian Karem, who courageously stood up to the White House Press Office, yesterday. We need more like, you, Mr. Karem. 

Make America Bamboozled Again.

Yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate unveiled the highly secretive details of their new health care proposal. For weeks, the public has experienced the most terrifying way that our legislators have changed the way that laws now get passed. A small group of 13 Republican men spent days upon days behind closed doors, deciding the fate of how health care will operate in the daily lives of 320 million American people.

In a manner that could only be described as "Trump-esque," Congress has been working on a plan to revive the health care plan they proposed earlier this year, to such dismal approval ratings that many of our lawmakers were terrified to face their own constituents during their last recess.



The idea of Trumpcare didn't even make it off the ground before it crashed. Paul Ryan was not very pleased when he had to admit that "We're gonna be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future," as the Republicans couldn't even manage to repeal the health care law they've spent over 7 years symbolically repealing and campaigning on. Though they now have majority rule in both the House and the Senate, plus a newly minted Republican president, they still couldn't manage to put together a solid plan to replace Obamacare. The public hated it, giving it a staggering 17% approval rating. But, leave it up to a man who has bankrupted several of his own businesses...even a casino (how in the world do you bankrupt a casino?!) and 2 failed marriages to take that as a license to keep going, and here we are with a mutated version of the House bill that is best described as a "shit burger."

The funny thing is that I truly think that Trump, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell sincerely thought that people would just forget about how much they hated the plan they created back in March, and they could make it even worse, and somehow, everyone would love it by the time Congress goes home for the 4th of July recess. That is literally the only reason this bill is being decided on right now; members of the Congress and Senators do not want to go home to the flurry of angry constituents they faced at town halls the last time they went home. They are so afraid of the people they represent, they have to shove this bill through as fast as they can so they can shrug and say "what's done is done," when they are faced with questions about health care.



So, I think it's really important to show the difference between how the ACA was passed and how this new zombie version of the AHCA, "Trumpcare," or "Wealthcare" is being handled by the folks who are supposed to be representing the people. Why is this important? First, Republicans have spent the last several years lying through their teeth about how the ACA was passed, saying the bill was shoved down their throats in the dead of night, so we need to just debunk that pile of burning garbage right now and bring the truth to light. Second, think about it...the more transparent legislators are with the passage of a law, the more accountable they are to the public they represent. Instead of asking for public discourse and permission to vastly re-organize an institution that makes up 1/6th of our economy, 13 Republican men are essentially taking the great risk of "better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission." Hardly seems like the vision our Founders set forth for our democracy, right?

Public Hearings

• ACA or "Obamacare": went through 3 committees in the House - Energy & Commerce, Ways & Means, and Education & Labor, with open hearings over a course of many months.
• Including 79 bipartisan hearings with markups over the course of an entire year.
• 100 hours in these hearings, 181 witnesses from both parties, 239 proposed amendments, with a final tally of 121amendments finalized.
• The Senate held dozens of hearings, including 14 bipartisan discussions, 13 bipartisan hearings, and 20 bipartisan walkthroughs on the reform process.
• The Senate considered nearly 300 amendments, accepted more than 160 Republican proposed amendments.
• The Senate Finance Committee held 53 meetings on health reform.
• There was a seven day markup of the bill in the Senate Finance Committee, ending in a 14-9 vote to approve the bill.
• Senate Finance markups included 41 amendments, 18 of which were voted on unanimously.
• The Senate spent 25 consecutive days in session on the topic of health reform.
• AHCA or "Trumpcare": Zero House hearings in relevant committees.
• Debated for 3 hours in the Rules Committee, which governs floor debate processes.

CBO Scoring

• ACA or "Obamacare": Due to the multiple months of hearings and debates, the CBO was able to issue multiple reports on the details of the financing of the bill, showing revenue would rise as a direct result of the individual mandate provision. 
• Was only voted on in the Democratic-led House after the report was issued.
• AHCA or "Trumpcare": Due to lack of debate and hearings, the CBO was rushed to submit a report in time to indicate how Americans would be affected by the first version of the AHCA. 
• Republican-led House voted on the new version of the bill before a revised CBO score could be released.
• Since the Senate Republicans didn't even release the details of their plan before yesterday, and plan to hold a vote in time for the July 4th recess, the CBO hasn't been able to release a new report for the new version of the bill, because that will take at least 2 weeks.

Bipartisanship vs. Closed Door Sessions

• ACA or "Obamacare": In January of 2010, President Obama traveled to the Republican retreat for House members, and spent one hour and 22 minutes in an open debate with Republicans about the ACA. He answered questions, appeared informed and knowledgable (probably helpful that he is a constitutional scholar) on the bill that would bear his name, and even acknowledged mistakes made along the way.
• Again, it should be noted that the Senate debated the ACA for 25 straight days before passing it in December of 2009.
• There were some closed door meetings with insurance industry folks when the ACA was being proposed.
• AHCA or "Trumpcare": Since President Trump rarely talks about anything other than himself, and can only declare that "Obamacare is dead," (because he & Republicans in the House & Senate are deliberately sabotaging it), we literally do not know if he has any idea what is in the law. In fact, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that he does not even know if the President has seen a draft of the bill.
• Senate Republicans have openly stated that they have no intention of working with Democrats on their replacement bill. In fact, the gang of 13 have been so secretive that most Republicans in the Senate did not know what was in the bill until yesterday.

It should be abundantly clear by now that there can be no equivalency between how the ACA was passed and how the current version of the AHCA pales in comparison to transparency, public knowledge, and open debate. Mitch McConnell knows that if he limits the debate time of the new AHCA, he and fellow Republicans will not be forced to defend a bill that even Trump at one point called "Mean." There is no way they can adequately defend this bill. A part of me is so shocked that McConnell has the balls to assume that he will never be voted out of office or be held accountable for policy he put in place, because if he had any sense of accountability, he would surely know that people are going to be livid when over 487,000 Kentuckians are going to lose their health coverage if this shit burger bill passes. It is as if he is a madman, grasping on to any win he can get, since he didn't live up to his promise to make President Obama a one-term president. This is literally all he can do now...using his hatred for the first black president to obliterate Obama's trademark piece of legislation, simply because it is called Obamacare. He clearly doesn't care about the 20 million-plus folks who will lose their healthcare. He doesn't care about how this will change the way laws get passed, he doesn't care about leaving a legacy to be proud of.

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump are pulling the fastest bait-and-switch they can possibly come up with, out of sheer partisan politics...facts and public disapproval of their job performance be damned. 

I'm sorry, America. You've been bamboozled.

Bluffer In Chief

Well, we've received the answer that so many of us have been looking for over the past several weeks. On May 12, President Trump (is it weird that I still get a little sick typing that?) tweeted that "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

Since then, we've all been on pins and needles, wondering when those "tapes" might be released. We assumed that tapes must exist, because who on Earth would say something like that if there weren't tapes? Who would bluff about such a thing, or lie about something that could be so easily discovered to be untrue?

That's right, folks. Only one man could do such a thing, and he is our President.

Mr. Trump revealed today, on Twitter, that he, in fact, did not make or possess any such recordings of his conversations with the ousted FBI director.

He lied. Reporters and the White House press office can call it bluffing or whatever they'd like, but the bottom line is that the President of the United States lied to the public when he threatened Comey via a social media platform (how's that anti cyber bullying campaign coming along, Melania? Oh, right...she hasn't even tried to create one, yet)

Right now, Americans are worried about what is going to happen to their health care. An American family is dealing with the death of their son, who was imprisoned in North Korea. Several Navy families are mourning the deaths of their loved ones who were killed in a collision with a merchant vessel off the coast of Japan. Tropical Storm Cindy has made landfall and we don't even have a FEMA director, because Trump has filled less than 5% of the positions needed to ensure that our government agencies are functioning on the most basic level. We're not talking about how easily the mentally disturbed can get guns (thanks, Republicans!), when a shooting nearly took the life of Congressman Steve Scalise at the Congressional Baseball game last week.

Instead, Mr. Trump spends his days keeping up on his TiVo, tweeting nonsense about himself, and likes to ask his cabinet members to go around the room and say nice things about him.

He cares nothing about the American people. He is only drawn to issues when it gives him a political advantage or makes him look good. He's so obsessed with himself that he can't do anything other than tweet about the "witch hunt" of the Russia investigation. He spends one minute talking about how we need to get to the bottom of what took place when Russia hacked our 2016 election, then spends the next minute talking about how the whole thing is a hoax. He is the highest representation of what is wrong with America - the cartoon version incarnate of why we are no longer the Leaders of the Free World.

We are dealing with a man so insecure and so bad at his job that Paul Ryan has to make excuses for him by saying "He's new at this," as if Mr. Trump had no idea what job he was applying for when he decided to run for office. Isn't every president new to the job? Isn't this why the final two presidential candidates receive intelligence briefings, or why presidential transition teams are put in place - to ensure the peaceful and smooth transition of power from one administration to the next? When the public voiced concerns that Trump neither had the knowledge or temperament suitable to the role of Chief Executive, why didn't Paul Ryan speak up? I mean, Trump himself boasted of having more knowledge than our generals - that didn't raise any red flags to the Republican establishment?

I wasn't sure that Trump could top the offensiveness of essentially not apologizing for comments about how and where he likes to grab women, but I have to say that I am now more repulsed that this is our new normal - a "dotty old racist in decline" (thank you, Jon Lovett & Pod Save America) that can't be bothered to run the country because his handlers allow him too much screen time when he's not busy golfing. I'm repulsed & you should be, too, that the White House press office regularly lies or provides no answers to the public, and is now restricting audio and video recordings of press briefings. We are now on the slippery slope we've been warned of for years.

This is not okay, my friends. We cannot let our most cherished institution be bankrupted by a man who loves bankruptcy. We cannot sit idly by while Republicans in the House and Senate seek to undermine our oldest social safety nets so that they can please their big name donors.

We cannot let the worst bluffer in history sabotage our most basic rights.

Stand up. For the first time in your life, make that phone call to your representatives, whether they are Republican or Democrat. Pay attention to the news. Go to a town hall. Use your right to peaceably assemble and protest when you need your voice to be heard. Participation is the heart and soul of democracy.

Let's call his bluff.

5 Reasons Why Candice Wiggins is Wrong

As I have been watching the college basketball tournament over the past week, I've been thinking about Candice Wiggins and her words regarding the culture inside the WNBA as relayed in an article from the San Diego Union Tribune back on February 20th. To summarize, Wiggins, now retired from the WNBA, gave an interview to the SD Tribune in which she laid out a negative experience in the league, featuring being bullied for being a straight woman, being called the "B word," and a level of competition that, for some reason, bothered her.

For those of you who don't know, Candice Wiggins is a recently retired WNBA player. She played 7 seasons in the WNBA after entering the league in the 2008 draft as the number 3 pick. Previously, Wiggins was a superstar at Stanford University, holding the women's record for scoring at both the university and in the PAC-TEN conference. She's played in the WNBA for the Minnesota Lynx, the Tulsa Shock, the Los Angeles Sparks, and the New York Liberty.

Wiggins' interview has been on the back burner in my mind for quite a few weeks, and it didn't really hit me until I was watching the women's games in the NCAA tournament, as to why it irked me so much. But I get it now and I want to talk about this, as it relates to a bigger picture about women in sports. Candace Wiggins has been asked to clear up a few of her statements following that interview, but has conveniently refused, insisting that people should look forward to her forthcoming memoir.

Well, I don't need to wait for her book in order to point out her ridiculousness, so I offer at least 5 reasons why Candice Wiggins is wrong.

5. Professional sports are hard.
In her original interview with the San Diego Union Tribune, Wiggins said of her time in the WNBA "There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we're all fighting for crumbs."
No kidding? A lot of jealousy and competition? In the professional level of a sport? Shocking.
If there's one thing that should be seen as common sense in sports, it is that as the level of competition increases, the sport gets harder, not just in play, but in the entirety of the package that comes with being a professional athlete. This is the reason why it's not for everyone and why not everyone becomes a pro athlete. Some people can handle being in the spotlight and some can't. It's the reason why only 1% of female college basketball players go pro. I'd like to ask Wiggins if she knows how many other women would have done anything to be in her place, to even have the opportunity to play basketball professionally, for a living (even though players in the league do not make anything close to their male counterparts, the average salary is $75K). I'd like to give Wiggins the benefit of the doubt for this remark, as she could have been referencing something else, but since she sees herself as a prominent athlete, she should have made a clearer statement. I would expect something more professional from well...a professional.

4. Don't diminish the struggles of those who came before you...or of those still willing to fight.
"Nobody cares about the WNBA," said Wiggins in the interview.
Of the number of the incendiary statements Wiggins made in her interview, this one has some pretty serious implications. In five words, Wiggins seemed to diminish the blood, sweat, and tears of all of the women in basketball that struggled for just a chance to play, let alone, play at the professional level and make a living doing it. Now, it's true that the WNBA doesn't enjoy the fanfare of the NBA or any other male-dominated sport, for that matter. But what bothers me is that if you go and look at the comments section of a story on ESPN.com covering women's sports, you'll inevitably see some douchebag bro make that exact same statement.
Over the course of the past 20 years that the WNBA has been in existence, so many women have worked hard just to have a shot to do something that was unthinkable in our lifetime. And we can talk about attendance numbers (which have grown, by the way), we can continue to talk about the wage gap (though Wiggins enjoyed a hefty salary most women and current players could only dream of), but the fact is, it has taken a long time just for women's basketball to get to this point. Players much better than Wiggins paved the way for that. Players much better than Wiggins do and will continue to play and fight for this league that was only a dream for some.

I can't help but wonder what Pat Summitt would have said to Candice Wiggins if she dared say "Nobody cares..." in her presence.

3. Get over yourself.
One of the claims made by Wiggins is that players were jealous of her and the way she looked and played. She also said she was often thrown to the ground as a way that other players communicated their dislike for her. Also, she stated that she had never been called the "B-word" more in her life.
Well, guess what, kid? You chose to play a competitive sport that includes a lot of physical contact. You're going to get shoved around and tossed down a few times, especially when, as you seem to believe, you are a premier player (and I'll concede that fact, as Wiggins was the number 3 overall pick from Stanford in 2008). Other players will make it their job to take you down a notch. And you will constantly have to compete with players older, younger, better, and worse than you for a starting spot on the floor. If you're not getting shoved around, then you're not a threat.
As far as the name calling, I can't think of something more stupid to complain about. Everyone gets called names, regardless of their profession, or how much money they make, or who they are. It doesn't make it ok, but it's just a fact of life. And when you're an athlete, particularly a professional one who will play games on the road to some unfriendly fans, it's just part of the deal. You should expect it and you should have the presence of mind to either let it go or let it drive you.

2. You don't know about bullying.
Wiggins' statement about being a victim of bullying really hit me the wrong way. She claims to have been bullied about her heterosexuality, though not a single additional WNBA player has yet to come to her side to confirm this. In fact, a number of players have disputed her claims, and not a single team that Wiggins played for can corroborate her stories, since she never bothered to file a complaint to anyone in the organization.
It might serve Candice Wiggins well to speak with players such as Tamika Catchings, who retired after the 2016 season from the Indiana Fever. Catchings was born with hearing loss and has worn hearing aids. She details being bullied from a young age because of this in her book "Catch a Star," which I would highly recommend everyone, especially Ms. Wiggins, to read.
And Catchings' story is not the only one Wiggins should read up on. Countless other players in the WNBA have overcome actual real-life obstacles to play the game and make it to the professional level. And I don't doubt that Wiggins has overcome her own obstacles in life, but to call this one out specifically is a joke, especially given that we have hard evidence that homosexuals consistently are bullied far more than heterosexuals.
I, like Candice, grew up playing this wonderful game and at times had to play with boys. For a long time, I was the only girl in the league, let alone a team. Even up to high school, I would play in competitive recreational leagues with boys. You want to talk about bullying, come talk to me about the disgusting things said and done to me. And I know I'm not the only one.
It is more likely that Wiggins made these statements to play up the anticipation of her forthcoming memoir, an action I find manipulative and contradictory, considering that she apparently believes nobody cares about the WNBA...if that is so, I don't think many people will be interested in her book.

1. I'd check that math, if I were you.

Of course, the most outrageous thing that Wiggins claimed in her interview that "I would say 98% of the women in the WNBA are gay women."

The irony here is that while Candice is stereotyping professional women basketball players, she is playing into the stereotype that women aren't good at math. A number of players have stepped forward to let Wiggins know that she's being ridiculous on this, both straight and players who identify with the LGBT community. Wiggins went on to say that the WNBA culture encouraged women to act like men, leading her to feel bullied because she is "proud to be a woman." 

First, let's just call this what it is...total bullshit. If Wiggins' math was correct, she'd be one of 3 straight women in the league - and that math just doesn't add up.

Next, this seems to contradict something that Wiggins said on the record, not too long ago. In 2015, Wiggins went on the record, celebrating the WNBA's Pride Night, saying "It's good to open up the conversation, to get people more comfortable with things that maybe before they didn't identify with."

So, which is it, Candice? Has the WNBA set a good example for their focus on diversity, or has that diversity been negative for you?

In a follow up with the San Diego Tribune, Wiggins defended her comment by saying she used that figure to be more illustrative, implying her words shouldn't be taken literally.

That sounds so familiar...not to drag politics into this, but this is the same thing Trump's surrogates end up saying on the Sunday shows to fend off questions about his tweets. When you have to say that, combined with an inability to admit you were wrong, it's a symptom of an ego problem.

The homophobic nature of Wiggins' statement is disgusting, and if it's only a taste of what is to come in her forthcoming book, then no, thank you. Hard pass.

Perhaps it's time for Candice Wiggins to hire a better PR person, if she has one at all. Those gay ladies she complains about make up a large portion of the fans that attended the games she was payed to play. When you alienate a fairly large portion of that fan base, I think you probably shouldn't expect great sales when your book comes out, unless you're going to market it to the Westboro crazies or the people who refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings. 

I think what we're actually seeing with Candice Wiggins is a player that came into the league with insane potential to be great, but she didn't have the illustrious career expected of her. But after facing fierce competition with women who play year-around (both for financial and physical reasons), having to move to different cities for new contracts, injuries that required surgeries, and less than superstar stats (Wiggins averaged just 8.6 points per game, about half of what she scored in college), I believe Wiggins has become bitter about her career, and didn't choose her words very carefully when she was first interviewed by the San Diego Union Tribune.

If all of these hardships she faced in the league were real, she should have reported them and spoke up at the time. That would be the best example she could have set for young women, everywhere and in every walk of life. She could have become more involved with the league union and fought to make the league better than she found it. That's what a great player would have done. 

And that's why few will remember the career of Candice Wiggins.

Mr. Trump Goes to Congress

As I've stated before on this blog, I love the Presidential address to Congress. It is one of the biggest political highlights of the year. Throughout the Obama presidency, I always looked forward to hearing him address the nation in his trademark hopeful, optimistic tone, while being able to tell us the hard truths about the state of our nation.

I have to admit that as much as I've always looked forward to this yearly address to Congress and the nation, I've spent the same amount of time since the election trying to not think about what would be Trump's first address to Congress. It was one of those things that I couldn't even fathom, and even when I tried, all I could imagine was the Trump we all saw on the campaign trail - a blowhard amateur, unable to stay on message, much less speak in a complex sentence structure. I figured that the only good thing that would come out of a Trump address would be non-stop fodder for the writers at Saturday Night Live.

Well, Mr. Trump certainly did not let me down in his first address to Congress and the nation last night. There were many issues with Trump's speech; not just in the words, but in the optics, and also in the context of all of the things going on around the speech.

First, I'd encourage all of you to go read the transcript of Trump's speech and see if you can identify a common thread in the writing, as compared to the transcript of previous addresses made by Obama.
Do you see it?
Here's an excerpt from President Obama's final state of the union address to Congress:

"That's why Social Security and Medicare are more important than ever; we shouldn't weaken them, we should strengthen them. And for Americans short of retirement, basic benefits should be just as mobile as everything else is today. That's what the Affordable Care Act is all about. It's about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we'll still have coverage. Nearly eighteen million have gained coverage so far. Health care inflation has slowed. And our businesses have created jobs every single month since it became law.Now, I'm guessing we won't agree on health care anytime soon. But there should be other ways both parties can improve economic security. Say a hardworking American loses his job – we shouldn't just make sure he can get unemployment insurance; we should make sure that program encourages him to retrain for a business that's ready to hire him. If that new job doesn't pay as much, there should be a system of wage insurance in place so that he can still pay his bills. And even if he's going from job to job, he should still be able to save for retirement and take his savings with him. That's the way we make the new economy work better for everyone."

Now, here's an excerpt from Trump's first address to Congress:

"Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.Over 43 million people are now living in poverty, and over 43 million Americans are on food stamps.More than 1 in 5 people in their prime working years are not working.We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years.In the last 8 years, the past Administration has put on more new debt than nearly all other Presidents combined.We've lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved, and we've lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion dollars.And overseas, we have inherited a series of tragic foreign policy disasters."

Notice the difference in sentence structure? It seems as if the writers of Trump's speech realized that he is unable to speak in complex, understandable sentences, so they relegated him to small phrases made up of 7-9 plus words that translate to bullet points when spoken.

The reason this is worth pointing out is because it speaks to the fact that we have a guy in the Oval Office who does not understand the complexity of the job he was elected to perform. He lacks the awareness of nuance and can only speak in a manner suitable for Twitter, not for the Leader of the Free World.

Next, Trump made many claims throughout his speech that when fact-checked, turn out to be untrue or slightly true, but also misleading. When Trump takes credit for being a job creator, taking credit for bringing jobs from Ford, Fiat, Intel, and others back to the American people, what he's not telling you is that in many cases, these job increases were parts of plans that had already been in place for years. It seems crazy that Trump can take credit for Fiat-Chrysler jobs that have been part of an industrialization plan put in place last year to coincide with a 2015 deal with the UAW.

If I remember correctly, Trump was still nothing more than a celebrity millionaire with a reality show in 2015, toying with the idea of running for office, and was also still peddling the claim that President Obama was not born in America. His only connection to Fiat-Chrysler at the time might as well be that he owns multiple vehicles. But we know this is a trademark of the Donald Trump era - taking credit for something you literally had nothing to do with.

As quoted above, Trump stated that 94 million Americans "are out of the labor force." What Trump is trying to sell you is a scary number taken out of context with the intention of proving his campaign claim that "The unemployment rate may be as high as 42%." Trump is not telling the truth on a couple of levels. First, his 94 million number includes folks who are retired, are college students, the disabled, and stay at home parents. The majority of these folks have said they either didn't want or need at job at this time. This number that is meant to scare the public is simply not true, nor is it an indicator of a bad economy.

Now, how about that statement to work with members of both parties to create clean air and water? This one actually made me laugh, because literally in the hours before the speech, Trump signed an order rolling back the "Clean Water Rule." Also, it is being circulated that Trump intends to lay off nearly 20% of the people currently working for the EPA. Hardly seems like a sincere attempt to create clean air and water. Also, consider that Flint, Michigan has now gone over 1,000 days since they've had clean drinking water.

But perhaps the biggest moment of the evening and of Trump's speech is the one that made me sick to my stomach: he used the widow of fallen Navy Seal Owens as a political prop to sell his first military operation as a success. Trump went on to lie, saying that General Mattis confirmed that the operation in Yemen was a success that generated large amounts of intelligence. Now, we don't know if Mattis actually said this to Trump, but we do know that an overwhelming amount of military analysts and officials would not characterize this operation as a success. And let's be honest here, labeling a military operation such as this one, a success or failure is a false binary choice. It's hard to call an operation successful when it resulted in the death of a solider or civilians, or when a $90 million dollar aircraft had to be destroyed, or when a top leader of a terrorist organization escaped capture. There's no way the American people should accept the claim that this operation was a success, especially considering the way that this operation was handled.
From the start, it's disturbing that this president couldn't be bothered to interrupt his dinner with his son in law and Steve Bannon to go down to the Situation Room to observe the mission, instead spending the evening on Twitter. I think of the iconic photo of President Obama in the Situation Room, surrounded by the folks involved in the decision to green light the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. The President was present, intent on being as close as he could be with the soldiers who risked their lives on his order.
That is leadership.

In the days following the raid, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, first said the raid was a success, then as details were released about the numerous civilian deaths, the destruction of the Osprey, failure to capture any valuable intelligence or enemy operatives, Spicer shifted his position, saying the operation was originally planned by the Obama administration. This shift was intended to place the blame on the outgoing administration, though it was clear that Obama never gave the green light on the operation, due to timing and insufficient evidence that the operation would be worth it. Trump seemed to jump on the first opportunity to give the green light to a military operation, an amateur move meant to convey an image of a decisive and strong Commander-In-Chief, though he clearly didn't even know or care enough about the operation to oversee it. Spicer then tried to sell the raid as an intelligence gathering operation. Another lie, as Seal Team Six is not the team that gets sent in for intel based missions. But even if that were true, what intelligence was gathered? Again, another lie comes from the administration as the Pentagon releases an instructional video of homemade bomb-making techniques believed to be recovered...that we already had in possession for over 10 years!
But now the story has shifted again, with Trump proclaiming this operation as a success, even after saying just yesterday morning that it was the Generals who lost Owens. When asked, he specifically said "they" lost him, shifting all the blame and responsibility to someone, anyone else. Later that evening, Trump used a moment in his speech to prop up a grieving widow in order to gain political points. It is sickening to see this woman being manipulated and used for the sole purpose of making Trump appear presidential. And even more sickening, the media is highlighting this moment to say that this is the moment where Trump became President.

The idea that a man who literally has no idea what he is doing, who got up in front of Congress and was able to read a prepared speech off of a teleprompter, written by someone else, and written in a manner suitable for a 3rd grader, has magically become Presidential, is the lowest possible bar we could set for what leadership looks like in this country. The media is giving him points for not insulting someone, as is his usual style. Are you kidding me?!?! Anyone could have gone up to that podium and given that speech...it is not an accurate measure of the ACTIONS Trump has taken in his first weeks on the job.

Last night, we saw an Adderall version of Trump, meant to appear as someone who could appeal to the masses. This is not an accurate portrayal of the man who sits in the Oval Office now, who gives in to every chance to jump on Twitter to spout libel about someone or something he doesn't like; the man who has spent more time Tweeting and golfing than in intelligence briefings, the man who gave the green light on a military operation in such a cavalier manner that he didn't even bother to stay up to hear the results of the raid.

I'm becoming more convinced that throughout this presidency, these addresses will mean nothing. Instead, we must look at the actions and the doings of this administration to see what is really going on. And what is really going on is an unhinged, power hungry man, looking to stoke his ego and expand his brand in any way possible, no matter the cost or who gets lost in his wake.