Two days ago I noticed a tiny blue sticker, about one-and-a-half inches long by three-quarters-of- an-inch high, on the right end of the rear bumper of our old Nissan Frontier pickup. On closer inspection I discovered it was a "Trump Make America Great Again" sticker. Before my cataract surgery a year ago, I probably wouldn't …
Tag: Republicans
Should retirees be grateful to Trump?
A year into the Trump presidency the continued rise in the stock market—actually a continuation of a bull market and economic recovery that had begun under Obama—has fattened our retirement portfolio handsomely. And the Republican tax cuts—a wet kiss to corporate America—can't help but propel the continued rise in the stock market, and even the world …
Why are political disagreements today so disagreeable?
Political arguments, even within the family, are nothing new: Think the hippie era, the Vietnam War and the time Sis announced over Thanksgiving dinner she had joined a free-love commune near Taos.Ever since the last presidential election, though, disagreements have become more rancorous, even seemingly unbridgeable. I know people who avoid family visits for fear …
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Waking up to Donald Trump
These days perusing the headlines first thing in the morning often is like taking that first sip of coffee and discovering someone has laced it with Tabasco sauce. You gag. You spit. You say "What the hell?" or worse.Wednesday and Thursday were Tabasco days. Via one of his early morning tweets, which have come to …
After Trump's health care fiasco
For the past two days pundits have been sorting through the debris left by the implosion of the Republican attempt to "repeal and replace" Obamacare and are now looking around for someone to blame.The most risible and illogical rationale is Trump's own, which blames the Democrats for standing solidly against the Republican attempt to obliterate, …
When Pope Francis spoke to me
No matter how prettified San Miguel's colonial Centro becomes, street beggars refuse to go away.And why should they? Beggars have been part of San Miguel forever so why should they pack up and go so as not to offend the sensibilities of tourists who will be here for only a week, or two or spoil …
Two weeks after the Apocalypse
Yesterday morning I spoke on the phone with Rogelio, a mellow, slow-talking childhood friend from Cuba who after I mentioned Donald J. Trump raised his voice several decibels and erupted into a torrent of expletives not suitable for a family blog like this. He said he hadn't slept the night of the election and had …
The age of electile dysfunction
When tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister of Italy—a notorious era when the country was a flying circus of bimbos, corruption and scandals—Americans could afford to snicker. You know, those wild and crazy Italians; only they would think of electing a billionaire with strange skin tones and a slippery grasp of facts, figures or truth in …
A not-too-modest proposal for reforming the American immigration system
It's been a painful, shameful, embarrassing spectacle, even from the distance afforded by living in Mexico, to watch what passes for a debate on immigration among the Republican presidential candidates, led by Donald Trump.The more extreme and ridiculous his positions have become—starting with his opening campaign blast promising that he would build a two-thousand-mile wall …
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The GOP, shocked and maybe awed
While it worked, for more than thirty years in fact, the Republican political strategy of divisiveness—the use of "wedge issues," to pit social, racial, religious and political groups against each other in order to gain political advantage—worked quite well.Southern white voters abandoned the Democrats in favor of the Republicans, even if they brought brought with …
El Rancho Santa Clara 