In support of rational and compassionate public policy at all levels of government which affect the residents of Newtown Township and Bucks County
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." ~ John Adams
Democrats secure one Senate and one House seat in special elections, narrowing the Republican advantage in the Senate and preserving a slim majority in the Houses.
“Danny is a battle-tested patriot who represents the best of his generation. Bucks County will be safer with him as our Sheriff,” said former Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy.
Whatever you might think of the New York Times, their analysis of what was at stake in this election is dead on. No election has ever been more consequential in determining the path of our country in the decades ahead.
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Trump and Republicans made a series of promises as outlined above, which, if fulfilled, would bend the federal government toward authoritarianism and Constitutional crisis. An openly partisan Supreme Court has already paved the way for an imperial Executive, and Trump will get the compliant generals and advisors he lacked in his first term. The threat issued by The Heritage Foundation's Kevin Roberts, that the "second American Revolution" will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," is real.
Based on Trump's and Republicans' promises, the following outcomes may be anticipated.
Tariffs on imported goods will fuel inflation and wealth inequality.
Tariffs have been the defining feature of Trump's negotiation with our allies. The stock market has fallen. Inflation has not been reduced, and fears of stagflation have emerged.
The Department of Justice will answer to Donald Trump and prosecute his enemies.
The tone set by Attorney General Pam Bondi does not inspire hope that the DOJ will retain its nonpartisan pursuit of justice.
Formerly nonpartisan agencies will be restaffed with those willing to bend to Trump's whims, ending the use of facts and science to formulate policy in matters of climate, health and economics.
The chaos sown by Elon Musk's DOGE, through capricious and self-serving firings of government employees, has nothing to do with saving money. The purpose is to cripple the federal government such that it can be bent to Trump's and Musk's will. Courts are pushing back, leading to Trump insulting judges and quite likely inspiring violence against them.
Trump will weaken NATO and our ties to allies. He will hand Putin a large chunk of Ukraine, if not the whole country, in return for peace. Ukraine will have none of it and fight on its own, with potentially disastrous consequences for them and for the free world.
Trump has operated based on the mindset that Ukraine and its natural resources exist for himself and Putin to divvy up. The end game is not defeat for Russia and freedom for Ukraine, but hegemony of superpowers over Ukraine's sovereign territory.
Managing Russia from the position that it is a co-equal superpower, mutually entitled to acquire and exploit the resources of the rest of the world, will end in disaster for the US.
Millions of immigrants—including hard-working and law-abiding residents, and those brought here as children—will be rounded up and deported, creating needless suffering and denying employers the workers they desperately need.
Detention camps have been established for immigrant families. ICE raids have stoked fear in immigrant communities, even among legal residents. Illegal deportation flights to El Salvadorian prisons, some of the most brutal and cruel in the world, have been carried out despite a judge's explicit order to turn the planes around. The deportees received no due process considerations.
Hostility toward foreign visitors has not been limited to undocumented persons. Europeans with visas have been detained and removed.
At Trump's whim, the military will be deployed against US citizens protesting his and Republicans' actions.
Numerous Republican have branded peaceful protest, protected under the Constitution, as illegal, and called for the arrest of protestors who have broken no laws. Non-citizens have faced deportation for exercising their right to free speech on our soil. The stage is being set for suppression of the very free expression essential to a democratic republic.
President Trump has called for those who have vandalized Tesla dealerships to be detained in El Salvador prisons. Thus the door to US citizens receiving the same extrajudicial treatment as immigrants has opened a crack.
Tax cuts for the wealthy will cripple the federal government's ability to meet its financial obligations, placing community safety, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid at risk.
Medicaid has been curtailed.
Chuck Shumer's capitulation on the recent Continuing Resolution (CR), which will fund the government as President Trump desires through September, has been gleefully interpreted by Trump as a signal that he will be able to cut taxes on the wealthy and enact other right-wing initiatives with Democratic support. Trump may be right.
Musk has called recipients of government payments the "parasite class." His loathing is palpable. Currently, it is within the scope of his power to cripple these programs simply by firing a critical mass of the employees administering them. An act of Congress is not needed. He has already begun doing so.
The number of women without access to abortion and life-saving reproductive care will continue to rise, as will unnecessary deaths of women denied such care.
Prosecutions have begun against physicians accused of providing abortions in states with bans. In what resembles a cold civil war, states with shield laws wrangle with those who have passed abortion bans.
Fed chair Jay Powell will be forced out and the Fed will lose its independence.
Thus far, rather than singling out Jay Powell and the Fed as the cause of bad economic trends, Trump has chosen to claim that restoring the economy will require short term pain: a bizarre twist for someone who promised to bring down costs on day one.
The Affordable Care Act will be dismantled, denying millions access to life-saving medical care.
Since the election, the ACA has been absent from the news. We await the effects of Musk's job cuts on administration of the ACA, and any action by Republicans in Congress on health care legislation.
Extremists will continue to undermine free and fair elections and the rule of law.
Trump promised evangelicals that he would "fix it so good," they would "never have to vote again." His recent executive order on election "integrity" erects a series of roadblocks to voting in a system which, as presently constituted, has not experienced significant voter fraud.
Democrats faced an uphill climb to victory in 2024. Shifting gender politics made the climb steeper.
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Fact: Climate change is real. Promoting clean energy is an urgent matter of national security.
Fact: Transgender persons exist, and cannot be legislated out of existence.
Fact: Students need a factual account of our history, including slavery and its residual effects on the rights and freedoms of all Americans.
Me Imperturbe
Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the best—I am not subordinate;) Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland, A river-man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
~ Walt Whitman
Tired
I am so tired of waiting, Aren’t you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two – And see what worms are eating At the rind.
