The ongoing saga…

The Great – Being with family over the holidays…

The Good – The Trump Administration released its 50 point recommendation list on what to do in health care but, for those of us who are policy nerds – it was a bit short on detail and action.  But, at least there is a list out there to facilitate discussion…

The Anxiety Provoking – The gyrations of the stock market are enough to give you the willies!!  I keep listening to the advisors; however, who tell us to sit tight.  Turning off the news helps too…

The Bad – The government shut down – to what purpose besides demonstrating total impasse?

The Ugly – The continuing animosity derived from tribalism – on both sides of the aisle – that seems to have a stranglehold on open discussions and debates at tables all across America.

The ongoing saga… 

The Great – We live in a nation where we can debate anything…

The Good – Some of us are predisposed to bringing back the art of listening and demanding it from our political leaders… 

The Bad – The abyss which is evolving in our nation is troubling…

The Ugly – The intemperate, uncontrolled, intimidating and volatile exchanges we are seeing in the Twittersphere from all sides of the current debates are not helpful. 

A final thought: 

Let’s disengage from the rants of rhetoric by listening to one another

The ongoing saga… 

The Great – We can breathe the wonderful Fall air for a day before starting a new election cycle…

The Good – In my last blog, I noted that I couldn’t think of anything “Good” so I asked my readers to send me their thoughts.  Here are a couple of responses:

• “I am heartened by the younger generation who will, I fervently hope, make the needed cultural, social, and economic changes – unless they too become seduced by power and privilege. Sadly, our generation has failed in spite of “the summer of love”, etc.
• “Things that are good: 1) Scrapping the TPP, 2) A $1 trillion infrastructure plan, 3) Guaranteed paid leave; and, 4) Laws to encourage women in STEM 

The Bad – The divisiveness of American politics.  Thank goodness, the mid-term elections are over but, then again, the next Presidential election cycle starts next week…argh!!

The Ugly – How many shootings does it take before we put in place some common sense gun laws for all Americans? Check out the most recent Gallup Poll.  It shows that two issues: background checks and evaluating those who might be a threat are overwhelmingly support by the American public.  So, why not just those two? 

The ongoing saga…

 The Great – The mid-term elections are now only 26 days away. Then, a couple of days of reprieve before we head into the next election cycle ☹.

The Good – Hmmm…if you have thoughts – send them!

 The Bad – There is so much “bad” going on that it’s difficult to come up with a singular “bad” issue.  However, the 13,000 children who came to the United States on their own and which are held in federally contracted shelters is the worst of the worse.  There are now five times more children in immigrant shelters than in 2017.

The Ugly – The entire Kavanaugh hearing saga is replete with ugly issues on both sides of the aisle.