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In the last week, President Donald Trump suddenly reversed two major decisions.
He announced he would not begin mass deportations of those who are living in the country illegally, which he previously threatened to do, and he pulled the plug on a bombing attack on Iran, even as the military jets were on the runway.
The reversals stunned aides and allies alike.
This week in Washington, the powers that be are hearing from a vital new democratic force in this country.
For three days, the Poor People’s Campaign will bring poor and low-wage Americans to the nation’s capital to call for a moral renewal in this nation. They will question many of those who are seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Congressional hearings will showcase their Poor People’s Moral Budget.
Nuts.
There may be fancier words to describe President Donald Trump’s latest lunacy — but just plain “nuts” is most accurate.
The president decided, overnight, that he wanted the United States to go “ back to the Moon, then Mars.”
For Donald Trump, America First is increasingly translating into America alone. He apparently believes that the United States is so dominant that it needs no friends. Trump prefers to act alone, often on impulse, in conflicts across the globe. He views allies as a burden, international law as an affront. He claims that America is back, more respected than ever. In fact, it is becoming more isolated than ever.
The reaction — shock, joy, disbelief, euphoria — revealed the importance of Robert F. Smith’s stunning gift, when he announced, unexpectedly, that he would pay off all the college debts of Morehouse College students graduating this year.
His gift literally changed the prospects and the lives of the vast majority of those 396 graduates.
Alabama — led by utterly clueless male legislators — just passed the most restrictive ban on abortion in the country, with Georgia and Missouri piling on. Other states dominated by right-wing Republican politicians are jockeying to join in.
Their aim is to get the courts, newly packed with right-wing judges appointed by Trump, to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark precedent that established a woman’s right to choose in the early months of pregnancy.
This week marks the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the unanimous Supreme Court decision that outlawed apartheid in America, declaring segregated schools “inherently unequal” and unconstitutional.
Today, the common sense of the Brown decision is under attack. For nearly three decades, our schools have been re-segregating, reversing the progress made under Brown, reflecting the deep racial and economic segregation of our communities. Worse, several of Donald Trump’s nominees to the federal courts refuse even to endorse Brown as unassailable law.
We all have heard about WikiLeaks and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Few Americans know that the United States is a participant in the bitter civil war in Yemen, a conflict that has savaged that impoverished country.
Trump wants a border crisis that he can use politically, not a solution that can ease human suffering.
