The world's respect for American leadership hits record low.

Courtesy of NPR:

The global approval rating for U.S. leadership now stands at 30 percent — lower in President Trump's first year in office than it was under former President George W. Bush, according to the Gallup World Poll. The image of America's leadership now trails both Germany and China, Gallup says. 

International regard for U.S. leadership fell sharply from the 48 percent approval rating for 2016, former President Barack Obama's last year in office. The previous low of 34 percent was reached at the end of the Bush administration. 

The new survey was conducted between March and November of 2017. Gallup found that approval of U.S. leadership had fallen by double digits in nearly half of the 134 countries and areas it surveyed. 

The Gallup report also cites another record: for disapproval. Worldwide, a median 43 percent disapprove of U.S. leadership — more than the median disapproval for Germany (25 percent), China (30 percent) or Russia (36 percent). According to Gallup, that's a record for any major world power, not just the U.S., in the past decade.

Some of the more dramatic losses came from American allies like Germany and Mexico, while America only gained approval of ten points or more in four countries, Israeli, Liberia, Macedonia, and Belarus.

Yeah they really dig ole Trump in Macedonia.

A loss of respect also means losing the ability to lead, and that leaves a vacuum for other nations to take our place.

I guess I better start preparing my taste-buds for a lot more Chinese food. 

Trump's first year in office saw 3.2 million more Americans without health insurance.

Courtesy of TPM:  

Over the course of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, the number of Americans without health insurance increased 1.3 percent—with 3.2 million more people uninsured, according to Gallup-Sharecare’s latest tracking report published Tuesday. 

It’s the largest one-year increase in the uninsured population since Gallup-Sharecare began the survey in 2008. 

The study noted “several factors” swelling the ranks of the uninsured, from increased premiums caused by insurance companies dropping out of the individual market to uncertainty around whether the Trump administration would enforce the individual mandate’s penalty for forgoing health insurance. Exacerbating both factors, the GOP-controlled Congress repealed the individual mandate in December, which is expected to hike premiums by an additional 10 percent or more. 

Premiums also went up significantly in 2017 when the Trump administration cut off cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies, though the vast majority of people on the individual market were shielded from the increase by a bump in their federal tax credits. 

Though the uninsured rate remains well below the high of 18 percent—the year before the Affordable Care Act went into effect—the increase in 2017 is the first reversal of several years of decline. And Gallup-Sharecare predict that the trend will continue, with more people dropping or losing their insurance coverage in the years to come.

Gee, who would have thought that constantly attacking Obamacare without having a better plan to take its place would have such a negative effect?

Oh that's right, the almost 66 million people who voted for his opponent.

Donald Trump claims that he turned down the offer to be Time's Man of the Year. Time Magazine says "Wait, what?"

Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2017

No idea what compelled Trump to send this out today.

After all he was Time Magazine's Man of the Year last year.

Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year 2016 #TIMEPOY https://t.co/5pTGOksevE pic.twitter.com/N8BtqTu9Nl

— TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2016

However the magazine was quick to refute Trump's suggestion that he was asked and turned this year's offer down.

The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.

— TIME (@TIME) November 25, 2017

This is crazy, even by Donald Trump standards.

But then you have to remember that Trump has a weird history with Time Magazine.

You know, like the time he had a fake cover with his face on it put up in Mar a Lago.

Fake Time Magazine, cover, right, hung on Mar-a-Lago wall near entrance. @TB_Times @realDonaldTrump @TIMEMagUSA pic.twitter.com/xwMs6kisYH

— Scott Keeler (@SKeelerTimes) June 27, 2017

Just a reminder that we could have had a sane person in the White House.

But no. 

P.S. You can actually vote on who will ultimately win by clicking here.

Just a reminder that this is why Donald Trump is too afraid to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

I swear I could watch that over and over again on a loop and never get tired of it.

But see THIS is why Trump does not want to sit up on that stage for the dinner.

He knows that he will be following the guy who was often called the "Comedian-in-Chief."

And he also knows that since he has started a war with the press that the jokes at his expense will be BRUTAL.

However what he does not seem to realize is that the show WILL go on, and that with him out of the room the jokes will only be MORE BRUTAL.

Personally I can hardly wait to see this year's dinner.

I actually had no intention of watching it with Trump attending, but now that he chickened out I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Hey remember when Mitch McConnell was a real stickler for cabinet appointees to have their paperwork finished before any hearings? Yeah neither does he apparently.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate plans to rush forward this week with confirmation hearings for many of Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet and other key executive positions. Though many of the picks have not yet completed the customarily required ethics clearances and background checks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has shown no willingness to delay.

But back in 2009, McConnell took the exact opposite view. A letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), posted on Twitter by Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington co-founder and former Obama administration ethics adviser Norm Eisen on Sunday, shows he demanded that “financial disclosures must be complete” before any confirmation hearings be scheduled.

In his letter, McConnell wrote that his party’s duty to “conduct the appropriate review” of presidential nominations, “consistent with the long standing and best practices of committees, regardless of which party is in the majority,” was one it took seriously. “These best practices serve the Senate well,” he added, “and we will insist on their fair and consistent application.” The then-Senate Minority Leader called the financial disclosure process and other ethical steps essential “to fairly review a nominee’s record and to make an informed decision prior to a vote.”

Yep, that ole Mitch McConnell is a by the book kind of guy.

Right up until it inconveniences a president from his party that is.

The biggest celebrity filled shindig in Washington DC this month will not be the inauguration, it will be a farewell party for the Obamas.

Courtesy of the Obama Diary.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

January 2017 will definitely see an onslaught of A-list tourists at the White House. But they’re not coming for the inauguration. 

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will host a goodbye party for close friends and major donors Friday, according to a person with knowledge of the marquee affair. The Obamas themselves confirmed during an interview with People Magazine last month that they’d have one final bash at the White House. The president told a young fan that they’d have a “grown up” party before packing their bags. 

Of course, there’s no official word from the White House yet. Typically the Obama administration keeps a tight lid on celebration details until the 11th hour, releasing a just-the-facts statement the day of the event. But the big names thought to be on the guest list have been slowly trickling out this week.

Those big names are said to include Oprah, Beyoncé, Jay Z, Bradley Cooper, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Samuel L. Jackson, as well as directors George Lucas and J.J. Abrams. Among others of course.

Why do I get the feeling that Donald Trump would give his left shriveled orange nut for just one of these people to show up at his inauguration?

Damn I'm going to miss this POTUS and FLOTUS.

They have really raised the bar for class in the White House.

Too bad that bar is about to be buried along with Michelle Obama's vegetable garden after they bulldoze it and replace it with a Hugh Hefner like grotto featuring its own stripper pole. 

P.S. Of course news of this has agitated the little Tasmanian she-devil in Alaska as well.

In my opinion that is just the cherry on top.

The election of Donald Trump fills Bruce Springsteen with fear.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Rock music icon Bruce Springsteen, a high-profile Democratic donor, questioned President-elect Donald Trump's competency in an interview published Monday. 

"I've felt disgust before, but never the kind of fear that you feel now," Springsteen told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast. "It's as simple as the fear of, is someone simply competent enough to do this particular job? Do they simply have the pure competence to be put in the position of such responsibility?" 

Springsteen said he is afraid of what he sees as the effect Trump has had on the future of the US. 

"When you let that genie out of the bottle -- bigotry, racism, intolerance, they don't go back in the bottle that easily if they go back in at all," he said. "Whether it's a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered un-American and are un-American. That's what he's appealing to. My fears are that those things find a place in ordinary, civil society."

Springsteen goes on to say that there are good people who voted for Trump, though I often have trouble seeing that, but that there were others with an "agenda."  I will assume that he is referring to the racists.

Springsteen is a multimillionaire who will easily survive this Trump presidency.

But he is also very attached to the working class mentality, so when he says he is afraid he is likely channeling a fear that he has for those people whose lives will be dramatically impacted by what Trump does in these next four years.

It will be interesting to see how many of those folks, who believed they were voting for change in our political system, respond to the kind of corruption that will surely permeate every policy decision that Donald Trump makes.

If they thought politics was ugly before, they have not seen anything yet.

Happy New Year IMers!

Ball Drop cartoon: https://t.co/MuSiJnKkHX #NewYearsEve #Trump #world #Russia #China #nukes pic.twitter.com/EQqKh79EMZ

— Rob Rogers (@Rob_Rogers) December 31, 2016

I am not going to lie, as fucked up as 2016 was I am even MORE worried about what 2017 holds in store.

Vladimir Putin will be the new president, Donald Trump will be his first lady, and I fear that everything President Obama accomplished in these last eight years is in danger of being stripped away.

I literally almost feel going into this new year like one of those teenage girls in the slasher flick who puts her hand on the door of the abandoned cabin in the woods only to hear this sound.

Oh well at least we have each other.

Trump claims that he does not care that no big stars want to perform at his inauguration. "Parties aren't his thing."

Courtesy of TMZ: 

Donald Trump's inauguration is going to be "strictly traditional" and the President-elect has no interest in courting big Hollywood stars or entertainers to hobnob or perform at the events ... TMZ has learned. 

Sources involved in inaugural prep tell TMZ ... Trump is hardly engaged in the party planning at all. We're told he does feel, however, the parties should not be "over the top," but he's leaving all the details to others. 

One Trump insider says the Prez-elect is "obsessed" with energizing American business and industry ... the parties just aren't his thing. 

Yeah parties aren't his thing.  Right.

Trump loves parties, and everybody knows it. Hell he even showed up to a party that he was not invited to.

The source also claimed that Trump did not want a bunch of "big names" at his party because they certainly did not help Hillary's campaign to succeed. 

Please, does anybody really buy that?

No Trump is being pissy because no A list celebrities want to perform at his inauguration/white supremacist cross burning on January 20th.

Obviously nobody who did not like having celebrities around him would have hosted a show called "Celebrity Apprentice."

Personally I find this hysterical.

The guy is so thin skinned that I dread the first time that some foreign leader snubs him or hurts his stubby vulgarian feelings.

Actor Michael Sheen abandons his profession, and his life, to fight fascism full time. And in doing so shames us all.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Michael Sheen is so disturbed by the rise of far-right populism he is quitting acting to become an activist, and says he does not know if his relationship with Sarah Silverman will survive. 

Sheen will leave Silverman, his partner of two years, and family in Los Angeles and move to Port Talbot in south Wales to combat the wave of “demagogic, fascistic” politics he believes has engulfed the West in the past decade. 

He told The Times: “In the same way as the Nazis had to be stopped in Germany in the Thirties, this thing that is on the rise has to be stopped. 

 “It’s not going to look like this in 10 years’ time. Everything has shifted. The dice are being rolled again.” 

His steel-making hometown, population 37,000, voted for Brexit and the Welsh actor says his frustration at this has formed, in part, the impetus for his decision to begin his activism back where he began. His fears were exacerbated by the ascension of Donald Trump and the tensions stoked by his divisive rhetoric. 

You know I would like to think that the hours that I put in on this blog have some meaning, and that I am doing my part to fight the good fight and push back on the fascism that we see invading our country. (And let's not bother lying to ourselves to say that fascism is not coming, because we are already seeing it in North Carolina.)

But truth be told I am not sacrificing nearly as much as I should, and neither are most of us.

Make no mistake, despite interference by James Comey, and hacking by the Russians, American voters are ultimately responsible for casting the votes that helped Trump win the electoral college.

Even if we assume that some voting machines were hacked the election still has to be close enough for that to matter.

So We the People are ultimately responsible for helping to usher in fascism and for defying the will of the Founding Fathers.

To rectify that, to save what is left of our republic, we need to rise up and fight.

No, I am not suggesting that we start shooting each other in the streets, or plan assaults against Washington, I am suggesting that we fight back with the same tools used to cripple us in the first place.

If fake news and Right Wing propaganda got us here in 2016 then real information and Left Wing fact checkers can steer us back to where we need to be in 2017.

For starters if you are a Facebook fan of this blog then promote it to all of your friends and family every single day. Or if you are more comfortable with Twitter than by all means use that.

And no not just this blog, but every blog and news site that is working to get information out to the masses.

If we want to make real change, if we want to rescue this nation that we love so much, we must be ready to irritate, frustrate, and ultimately educate the people we love until they see the reality of what is happening in the world.

We should present a deafening roar of facts and figures, a cacophony containing compilations of vital statistics, a constant drumbeat that shatters any illusion that this is business as usual and awakens people to the danger we face as a nation.

I know we cannot all just up and quit our jobs to make activism a full time occupation, but I also know we can always do more.

And truly what ultimately is more important than our future, the future of our families, and the future of this great country?

Republicans announces that repealing Obamacare is their first order of business in 2017.

You elected our presidential candidate, so no health insurance for you.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Repealing Obamacare will be the first order of business in the U.S. Senate in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Tuesday. 

Republicans will replace President Barack Obama's signature health insurance program that provides coverage to millions of Americans "step by step," said Senator John Thune, another member of the Republican leadership. 

McConnell did not say when the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, as it is officially known, would go into effect. Senator John Barrasso said it might be effective in two or three years, and that the timeframe was still being debated.

I think a lot of folks believed that the Republicans would simply leave Obamacare in place until they had something to replace it, but if they are planning to repeal it right away that is clearly not the case.

Which is really bad news as there are now estimates as to how many people could die directly as a result of the repeal of Obamacare.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Nearly 36,000 people could die every year, year after year, if the incoming president signs legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act. 

This figure is based on new data from the Urban Institute examining how many people will become uninsured if the law is repealed, as well as a study of mortality rates both before and after the state of Massachusetts enacted health reforms similar to Obamacare. 

In fairness, 36,000 is a high estimate of the number of deaths that will result if Obamacare is repealed, as there is some uncertainty about how congressional Republicans will repeal the law. Even in the best case scenario, however, a wholesale repeal of Obamacare may cause about 27,000 people to die every year who otherwise would have lived.

36,000 or 27,000 no matter which is correct that is far too many thousands dying.

The thing is that a large number of Republicans are among those 25 million newly insured Americans, and are certainly among the thousands that will die. Which kind of makes you wonder how the GOP will spin this to lay the blame on Obama?

It is also worth noting that the Affordable Care Act was modeled after Mitt Romney's plan in Massachusetts, which of course borrowed heavily from the conservatives 1989 plan.

So if President Obama essentially used their playbook for his own health insurance program, and they rejected it, just what do they have left to replace it with?

CBS interviews Jon Stewart about election of Donald Trump.

Here are a few of the exchanges that caught my attention courtesy of CBS News: 

“It all ties together... Here’s what I would honestly say. I don’t believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks ago,” Stewart said. “The same country with all its grace and flaws, and volatility, and insecurity, and strength, and resilience exists today as existed two weeks ago. The same country that elected Donald Trump elected Barack Obama. I feel badly for the people for whom this election will mean more uncertainty and insecurity. But I also feel like this fight has never been easy. And the ultimate irony of this election is the cynical strategy of the Republicans, which is: ‘Our position as government doesn’t work. We’re going to make sure… that it doesn’t work.’” 

“Draining the swamp,” Rose said. 

“But they’re not draining the swamp. McConnell and Ryan, those guys are the swamp. And what they decided to do was, ‘I’m going to make sure government doesn’t work and then I’m going to use its lack of working as evidence of it,” Stewart said. “Donald Trump is a reaction not just to Democrats, to Republicans.” 

Stewart said Donald Trump is “not a Republican,” but a “repudiation of Republicans.”

And then this: 

Stewart said America wages a fight “against ourselves” because it is not “natural.” 

“Natural is tribal. We’re fighting against thousands of years of human behavior and history to create something that no one’s ever-- that’s what’s exceptional about America and that’s what’s, like, this ain’t easy,” Stewart said. “It’s an incredible thing.”

A number of very salient points were made by Stewart in this interview, and of course it made me miss his unique brand of observational comedy all the more.

Fortunately for us it appears that he will soon return on HBO this time, to help us through this dystopic deathscape we find ourselves living in right now.