Franksummers3ba's Blog

This is a long way from a full bore announcement of anything new and unique tot the Trump era and how it affects my view of the country but it attempts to relate the radical proposals in this blog made during the Obama administration to the current conditions under Trump. I will say my own position is similar and so is the blog. I am in a bleak personal position and not at all in the position from which President Trump is able to negotiate his preferences for the future of the country. that is the truth, what more is involved and why that is true is beyond the cope of this post.  But a lot of rural white men in the central portions of the United States are alienated from the U.S. establishment and that is evident in this election. I am such a man. like those millions in some ways and unlike them in others. I know what it is to be entirely cut off from any real prospects of a whole lot of things one grew up hoping were possible.

Dr. Boustany and I at a town hall meeting. This was several years ago.

News paper article about China

I do not write this post as a successful journalist, an elected official or someone who is independently wealthy. I am neither very happy, nor married nor a father. I am not one of those who voted in the Trump revolution either. But I hear the music in my head along with many of my neighbors.

It is Wednesday morning and I am at the public library taking advantage of the free wifi before heading over to my parents house to use their washer and dryer. I also usually visit with my mother and often my father during laundry days which are usually Wednesday.  The huge protest and demonstrations that have gone on for weeks since Trump was elected President of the United States seem to have subsided somewhat. One has to ask where this  energy for so much unrest is coming from an where it is going.  One place where it is not absent is the Federal Employee Unions. The new CEO of the United States is dealing with a workforce which is more Democrat than Republican — but the difference is not as extreme as many people may think according to Gallup. For the story link here. However there is a definite correlation to policies which are seen as different from those of fiscally conservative, free market conservatives — defining that difference may be harder than many believe.

The fact that one has to travel a good distance from the White House to find a county that voted for Trump has contributed to the poorer than desired showing at his inauguration — which was still fairly well attended. The media images of empty spaces on the Mall did not show the crowds in the large area around the capitol are along the parade route equally. But crowds were  smaller in large part because  Hillary won big around D.C. –huge margins. That is more significant because trump won such a huge majority of other counties and parishes. Almost all counties voted for Trump is close to a true statement. The map blow shows the red counties and parishes carried by Trump and the blue counties and parishes carried by Hillary. For the University of Michigan study that generated this map see here.

So we are reminded too that the news media and so much else is largely located in those blue counties as are many other influential institutions. Did that contribute to the fact that the results of this election came as a surprise to so many across this country?  I am not sure to see what a major research institution says about the reasons for the surprise and the failure of predictive apparatus see this link.  White Americans are dying younger are at least have lower life expectancy in America and that is only one sign of the distress that they feel. the reality of their lives in many parts of America is increasingly bleak. places many of us would call the heartland of America are reputedly real bad places to live. The Trump phenomenon had something to do with that reality as well.

So Trump is trying to change things now in a way that will limit the the free access to undocumented migrants from the south, that will bring back manufacturing jobs, that will provide hope for forgotten Americans. he has also threatened to send Federal troops into Chicago if they do not bring the murder epidemic under control. this is a sign of a new era. the trump era has also revealed that we do not live in a post-racial Age of Obama. We are not in my opinion sure of what age we are entering just now.

I have long stated that I believe America is in a place where relatively radical and fundamental change is necessary. I have spelled out some of those proposed changes here, here and here.  These changes are still nowhere near any path to success. They are not predicated largely on free market reforms nor do they largely oppose those reforms. My view is that there are 264 million odd acres under the Bureau of Land Management. This is an area of land comparable to the size of Western Europe. The quality of use of this land and its value as a program for cultural, ecological and resource reasons is open to question and is in fact much discussed. One analysis of a small piece of this question (grazing lands) is available here.  but as we look at a society sunk in levels of public indebtedness and social ills that amply justify President Trump’s use of the term “carnage” in my view. We have to ask what is permissible in terms of squandering this resource.

My basic recipe for transformation is to dissolve the Bureau of Land Management and redistribute all these lands. The National Parks and an additional one percent of lands chosen by the Park Service would be entirely disentangled from the BLM. They largely are disentangled now. The new one percent of lands would be carefully chosen to strengthen the parks. The  land would be distributed in the transforming along with a small but real percentage of lands in each state and a trip arbitrarily along the Canada and Mexico border. In addition the status of Indian reservations as entirely outside the States would be established. This would be another substantial amount of land session. Most of the land ceded by the states would be the most distressed land and problematic land in the state but some prosperous areas especially with racial minority majorities would also be incorporated into this pool. There would be a system of Territories based primarily but not solely on the Indian reservations. There would also be Possessions built around predominantly African American communities but with the lands, swaps and exchanges creating a shift somewhat to the rural west of this population but not overwhelmingly so and in fact almost every change that could be mitigated would still be a big change.  Also there would be handful of special cases that are rather huge in Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico and less so in California, Louisiana and Texas. These lands which would create a whole set of new homeland with representation in Congress and the electoral college would also enter into their autonomy with little or no State debt. The States would also pledge a small but permanent percentage of their income to the development of the bordering jurisdictions established primarily in the interest of nonwhites.  This should all create a huge demand for things these new jurisdictions would need.  A map of all existing Indian reservations in the continental United States is given below.

The States however, would never again pay for all the uplift programs that disproportionately benefit minorities. Those jurisdictions would be responsible for  developing their own programs and building relationships with industry. A few years ago Pat Buchanan discussed the way in which government employment supports the Black middle class and social mobility and there is little doubt it is in direct harm to the white middle class in areas where that struggle is very real. The whole article is here, but a significant passage is reproduced below:

Because not only are African-Americans disproportionately the beneficiaries of federal programs, from the Earned Income Tax Credit to aid for education and student loans, they are even more over-represented in the federal workforce than they are on state payrolls.

Though 10 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, African-Americans are 18 percent of U.S. government workers. They are 25 percent of the employees at Treasury and Veterans Affairs, 31 percent of the State Department, 37 percent of Department of Education employees and 38 percent of Housing and Urban Development. They are 42 percent of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 55 percent of the employees at the Government Printing Office and 82 percent at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

I have discussed how the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal is indicative of the crisis in understanding where various parts of our society stand here. So there is a need for dealing with the chasms that exist. There is also a need for hope for all Americans. Not all distressed areas are racial minorities and not all aspects of the transformed society would be racially defined. But in all cases the change would accompany a new sense of community. Below are two figures on distressed cities. To see the sources consult here.

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I am planning to do some lawn work this afternoon or tomorrow, I just refilled on date plan and have another to refill. I have aging equipment to repair and I will be subbing for an absent minister at Mass on Sunday morning.  All of that is more urgent in my life than politics. The inauguration is over and like many of you I need to get back to my life. But I also do believe in this things called the United States of America. I am interested in seeing what will happen in the next four to eight years and so in this brief post I am taking a little look around.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

Today is the first full day of work at the Trump White House. The Executive Orders and related documents are indeed flying around. A summary of his agenda for today is as covered here.  His agenda for the first hundred days is discussed here in relation to Obamacare and more specifically elsewhere on the FOX News site , both these discussions are in video form from the same source. there is a good bit of discussion about where we stand with regards to the Affordable Care Act. I have heard and read in snippets that Trump has already issued an executive order requiring the government not to enforce penalties for Obama care and to anticipate that the law will be repealed by April 15. The Patient Freedom Act put forward by Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has a chance of being the template for  replacing Obamacare. Given the nightmare that much of my situation has been for a long time I would like to be optimistic that this one issue which made a bad situation much worse will now be remedied. While I am not actually optimistic I am aware that things could improve in one aspect of my life which would be very much against the trend of recent years.  I just did a post which described the general downwards motion of my life and Obamacare’s individual mandate has been the icing on the impossibility cake of my life in this country for decades.

in addition to that, Donald Trump has been discussing the need to do something about NAFTA. He claims that he will start changing that trade deal very soon. He has been clear that it is his top priority to reverse the damage that he and many of his supporters see that the deal has done as regards the American economy. I will have to see what happens. However, overall I would describe myself as having mixed feelings and being apprehensive while still believing a renegotiation is a reasonable objective for our chief executive.

Trump has also begun the act of killing Transpacific Partnership Pact. That may be problematic but it has many effects. One could be that it may ease tensions with China in a time where we are bound to face some tensions with them. In addition Trump is likely more aware than most Presidents have been that his federal workers did not show up in large numbers to greet their new leader. I agree that this does indicate that some things need to change. I did not need anything to indicate that some things need to change. I already find much of the status quo nightmarish. but if this has something to do with Trump’s federal hiring freeze — then I say Hallelujah! Let a new broom sweep clean.

In the world of money issues, Trump has been sued by CREW over the supposed foreign emoluments and conflicts of interest involved in his daily business operations around the world.  The New York Times has discussed this suit here.  Meanwhile, Politico projects that another great business leader will be confirmed as Secretary of State in short order. Tillerson will divest himself of his Exxon-Mobil stock. Rex Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin seems to have been resolved and understood to the satisfaction of  most of his skeptics among Republicans in the Senate.

While the Women’s March that has shown such large numbers is largely pro-choice (as they call themselves) millions of women voted for Trump — including most of the white women who voted.  Many of them are pro-life voters. Trump seems to be using Executive Orders to get things done on their behalf as well. America will present a more pro-life face to the world.

One of the pictures in the group above is a very bad selfie of me greeting a couple of visitors to my hometown of Abbeville, Louisiana who had come from Abbeville, France. It was anice visit although my French is far from effortless and that was the only language in which we conversed. but it did remind me as many things do that while many ties bind us to the world the Presidency is a principal connection between Americans and the world. So, busy and overextended as I am, I take some time to care even though I feel very far from the corridors of power. Despite all that I do not have, I am an American and I know that the things happening in the White House matter.

I was very disappointed that Word Press did not furnish an official summary of 2016 on my blog that could be shared. The performance of the Blog was fine. At least as good as last year. But it is not the same for me to report it as for you to read their review. Life is full of disappointment. This is certainly not the only one that I have to deal with at this time.

In 2016, my blog had visitors from over 60 countries. Only the United States had visitors that numbered in the thousands. Brazil made it into the hundreds and the United Kingdom and a few other countries were not too far behind Brazil. Most of the countries had a few visitors. But there’s a real difference between countries with a few dozen visitors and those with a visitor or two.

There was a decline in comments which have always been limited. I did gain some more followers while still having few of those. The same basic number of visitors had substantially more views than the last two years. So visitors were more engaged with the blog in 2016.

I moved to Abbeville, presented an academic paper, worked with the Acadian Museum and failed to get into LSU Graduate School. I began ministry at a church parish ( distributing communion) for the first time in many years.

Overall, my life continued the trajectory of the last twenty years with the exception of my time in China. It’s gone clearly from bad to worse every year and this was not an exception.

I am paying for a post office box that returns all my important mail to sender as well as another box. No problem I deal with here is ever reasonably addressed and my general outlook is horrific. I stay bust doing small but useful things for now without hope.  I often wake up amazed at how badly things have worked out. But I am also aware that they could be worse and probably will be next year.

in

The occasion of having been sick for the second time this winter is the occasion for this post taking the form that it has. That sickness was very likely some form of the flu. But I also have spent these last few days trying to understand some of the people who will be persons of influence in the next administration. Pruitt, Price, Hayley, De Voss, and others who are up for significant appointments join the ranks of Matthis, Tillerson, Sessions and Mike Pence himself in either appearing before the Senate Committees or otherwise being more visible to the nation as a whole. I wonder at what influence each of these men and women may have and what other influences they will deal with and compete with. I am also aware of some of the limits and parameters of my own influence. I have certainly got a sense of the bleak and desolate quality of my own future which has become a more pronounced part of my life. But aside from that, I have been through a period of reasoning related to the transition period which is not always bleak. I do see some positive promise for the future in this set of changes. I have resented much of the nonsense of the Obama Administration. This period definitely promises to purify much of that.

I have been sick twice this winter. Perhaps, I will come through this time alright and perhaps not. It seems to me that at the time I started this post I had the flu, perhaps I still  I have the flu. I have also been smoking more the last few months than I have ever permitted myself to smoke before and over the last few years in general I have smoked too much. I don’t really aspire to never smoke. But nicotine withdrawal and somewhat abused lungs have doubtlessly complicated and worsened this bout with the flu. The day I spent on Wednesday was a day of accelerating recovery, dealing with irritating old news about problems with my mail which I cannot solve. I also worked on some problems with computers and household appliances at the home of my parents. But we also discussed the upcoming Inauguration Day on Friday.

While sick earlier this year  set up three Go Fund Me Campaigns. My sister is the only donor that has contributed to any of the three so far. This time I am working on those campaigns and other projects but also reading a book on flipping houses and related ventures. It is titled “Building Wealth in Today’s Real Estate Market” and is part of the assigned reading for a seminar my mother and I are supposed to attend in March. Our tuition is already paid up. The three day seminar we are scheduled to attend is in March. Wealth is much discussed this week. That includes the disclosure of the fact that the eight richest men have more wealth than the poorest half of the human race.

This is my interim blog post. Soon I hope to be posting about President Trump and other matters and people who appear to matter. While still remembering that we all matter.