New York State Department Of Civil Service Request For Proposals: Fill & Download for Free

I reproduce the exhaustive list from The National Center for Transgender Equality (The Discrimination Administration)TLDR: About 77 other things listed below like permitting discrimination by homeless shelters (July 23, 2020) - Please Vote!Anti-Transgender and Anti-LGBTQ ActionsJuly 23, 2020: The Department of Housing and Urban Development formally announced the rollback of a previous rule that protected transgender people from discrimination by homeless shelters and other housing services receiving federal funds.June 19, 2020: The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it finalized the extensive rollback of health care discrimination rules, to eliminate the protections for transgender people experiencing discrimination in health care settings and/or by insurance companies denying transition-related care, as well as to weaken nondiscriminatory access to health care for those with Limited English Proficiency.May 15, 2020: The Department of Education issued a letter declaring that the federal Title IX rule requires school to ban transgender students from participating in school sports, and threatening to withhold funding from Connecticut schools if they do not comply.May 8, 2020: The Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule eliminating collection of sexual orientation data on foster youth and foster and adoptive parents and guardians and rejecting proposals to collect gender identity data.May 6, 2020: The Department of Education published a final rule encouraging schools to dramatically weaken protections for student survivors of sexual violence and harassment, and eliminating a provision that encouraged religiously-affiliated schools to notify the Department and the public of their intent to discriminate on the basis of sex under a Title IX waiver.March 26, 2020: The Department of Justice filed a court brief in the District of Connecticut in opposition to a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows transgender athletes to play sports with their peers.February 27, 2020: The Department of Justice filed another court brief, this time in the Western District of Kentucky, expressing the view of the United States that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is not "a sufficient government interest" to overcome the objections of private businesses who want to deny "expressive" services such as photography services to LGBTQ people, and that these businesses must be permitted to opt out of complying with local nondiscrimination laws.January 16, 2020: Nine federal agencies - Departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Agency on International Development - all proposed rule changes that would eliminate the rights of people receiving help from federal programs to request a referral if they have a concern or problem with a faith-based provider and to receive written notice of their rights; and that would encourage agencies to claim religious exemptions to deny help to certain people while receiving federal funds.November 5, 2019: The Department of Labor proposed to exempt the TRICARE health care program for military dependents and retirees from requirements not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It is not immediately apparent whether TRICARE intends to make any changes in its benefits policies. Currently, TRICARE covers hormone therapy and counseling for transgender retirees and dependents, but DOD interprets the TRICARE statute to exclude transition-related surgery regardless of medical necessity.=November 1, 2019: The Department of Health and Human Services announced it would not enforce, and planned to repeal, regulations prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion in all HHS grant programs. These include programs to address the HIV, opioid, and youth homelessness epidemics, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in other health and human service programs.November 1, 2019: The Department of Education published final regulations permitting religious schools to ignore nondiscrimination standards set by accrediting agencies.September 19, 2019: The Department of Health and Human Services cancelled a plan to explicitly prohibit hospitals from discriminating against LGBTQ patients as a requirement of Medicare and Medicaid funds.August 16, 2019: The Department of Justice filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that federal law “does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status.”August 14, 2019: The Department of Labor announced a proposed rule that would radically expand the ability of federal contractors to exempt themselves from equal employment opportunity requirements, allowing for-profit and non-profit employers to impose “religious criteria” on employees that could include barring LGBTQ employees.July 15, 2019: The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced an interim final rule that would block the vast majority of asylum-seekers from entering the United States, with deadly consequences for those fleeing anti-LGBTQ violence.July 8, 2019: The Department of State established a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” aimed at narrowing our country’s human rights advocacy to fit with the “natural law” and “natural rights” views of social conservatives, stating it would seek to “be vigilant that human rights discourse not be corrupted or hijacked or used for dubious or malignant purposes.” (Shortly thereafter, the State Department official tasked with coordinating the new commission was fired for “abusive” management including homophobic remarks.)July 3, 2019: The Department of Housing and Urban Development removed requirements that applicants for homelessness funding maintain anti-discrimination policies and demonstrate efforts to serve LGBT people and their families, who are more likely to be homeless.May 24, 2019: The Department of Health and Human Services published a proposed rule that would remove all recognition that federal law prohibits transgender patients from discrimination in health care. Courts across the nation have ruled otherwise.May 22, 2019: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a plan to gut regulations prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in HUD-funded homeless shelters.May 14, 2019: President Trump announced his opposition to the Equality Act (H.R. 5), the federal legislation that would confirm and strengthen civil rights protections for LGBTQ Americans and others.May 2, 2019: The Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule encouraging hospital officials, staff, and insurance companies to deny care to patients, including transgender patients, based on religious or moral beliefs. This vague and broad rule was immediately challenged in court.April 19, 2019: The Department of Health and Human Service announced a proposed rule to abandon data collection on sexual orientation of foster youth and foster and adoptive parents and guardians.April 12, 2019: The Department of Defense put President Trump’s ban on transgender service members into effect, putting service members at risk of discharge if they come out or are found out to be transgender.March 13, 2019: The Department of Defense laid out its plans for implementing its ban on transgender troops, giving an official implementation date of April 12.January 23, 2019: The Department of Health & Human Services' Office of Civil Rights granted an exemption to adoption and foster care agencies in South Carolina, allowing religiously-affiliated services to discriminate against current and aspiring LGBTQ caregivers.November 23, 2018: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) erased critical guidance that helped federal agency managers understand how to support transgender federal workers and respect their rights, replacing clear and specific guidance reflecting applicable law and regulations with vaguely worded guidance hostile to transgender workers. While this guidance change did not change the rights of transgender federal workers under applicable law, regulations, Executive Orders, and case law, it is likely to cause confusion and promote discrimination within the nation's largest employer.November 19, 2018: The Department of State appealed a court order directing it to issue a passport with a gender-neutral designation to a non-binary, intersex applicant.October 25, 2018: U.S. representatives at the United Nations worked to remove references to transgender people in UN human rights documents.October 24, 2018: The Department of Justice submitted a brief to the Supreme Court aruging that it is legal to discriminate against transgender employee, contradicting court rulings that say protections under Title VII in the workplace don’t extend to transgender workers.October 21, 2018: The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services proposed in a memo to change the legal definition of sex under Title IX, which would would leave transgender people vulnerable to discrimination.August 10, 2018: The Department of Labor released a new directive for Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) staff encouraging them to grant broad religious exemptions to federal contractors with religious-based objections to complying with nondiscrimination laws. It also deleted material from an OFCCP FAQ on LGBT nondiscrimination protections that previously clarified the limited scope of allowable religious exemptions.June 11, 2018: Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that the federal government would no longer recognized gang violence or domestic violence as grounds for asylum, adopting a legal interpretation that could lead to rejecting most LGBT asylum-seekers.May 11, 2018: The Bureau of Prisons in the Department of Justice adopted an illegal policy of almost entirely housing transgender people in federal prison facilities that match their sex assigned at birth, rolling back existing protections.April 11, 2018: The Department of Justice proposed to strip data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity of teens from the National Crime Victimization Survey.March 23, 2018: The Trump Administration announced an implementation plan for its discriminatory ban on transgender military service members.March 20, 2018: The Department of Education reiterated that the Trump administration would refuse to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, countering multiple court rulings reaffirming that transgender students are protected under Title IX.March 5, 2018: The Department Housing and Urban Development Secretary announced a change to its official mission statement by removing its commitment of inclusive and discrimination-free communities from the statement.February 18, 2018: The Department of Education announced it will summarily dismiss complaints from transgender students involving exclusion from school facilities and other claims based solely on gender identity discrimination.January 26, 2018: The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule that encourages medical providers to use religious grounds to deny treatment to transgender people, people who need reproductive care, and others.January 18, 2018: The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights opened a "Conscience and Religious Freedom Division" that will promote discrimination by health care providers who can cite religious or moral reasons for denying care.December 29, 2017: President Trump fired the White House Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. The transgender community is disproportionately affected by HIV.December 20, 2017: President Trump nominated Gordon P. Giampietro to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Giampietro called marriage equality “an assault on nature.” Giampietro's nomination was eventually withdrawn.December 14, 2017: Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were instructed not to use the words “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based” in official documents.October 6, 2017: The Justice Department released a sweeping "license to discriminate" allowing federal agencies, government contractors, government grantees, and even private businesses to engage in illegal discrimination, as long as they can cite religious reasons for doing so.October 5, 2017: The Justice Department released a memo instructing Department of Justice attorneys to take the legal position that federal law does not protect transgender workers from discrimination.October 2, 2017: President Trump nominated Kyle Duncan to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Duncan has dedicated his career to limiting the rights of transgender people, and even defended the anti-trans parties in the North Carolina’s infamous HB2 debacle and the school district that discriminated against Gavin Grimm.September 7, 2017: The Justice Department filed a legal brief on behalf of the United States in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing for a constitutional right for businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and, implicitly, gender identity.September 7, 2017: President Trump nominated Gregory G. Katsas to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Katsas played a central role in helping Trump ban qualified transgender people serving in the miiltary.September 7, 2017: President Trump nominated Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Kacsmaryk opposes LGBTQ protections in housing, employment, & and health care, and called transgender people a “delusion.”September 7, 2017: President Trump nominated Jeff Mateer to become a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Mateer called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan” and openly supported debunked and dangerous “conversion therapy.” Mateer’s nomination was eventually withdrawn.August 25, 2017: President Trump released a memo directing Defense Department to move forward with developing a plan to discharge transgender military service members and to maintain a ban on recruitment.July 26, 2017: President Trump announced, via Twitter, that "the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military."July 26, 2017: The Justice Department filed a legal brief on behalf of the United States in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, arguing that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or, implicitly, gender identity.July 13, 2017: President Trump nominated Mark Norris to the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. Norris has worked to make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and even worked to discriminate specifically against transgender kids.June 14, 2017: The Department of Education withdrew its finding that an Ohio school district discriminated against a transgender girl. The Department gave no explanation for withdrawing the finding, which a federal judge upheld.May 2, 2017: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a plan to roll back regulations interpreting the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination provisions to protect transgender people.April 14, 2017: The Justice Department abandoned its historic lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-transgender law. It did so after North Carolina replaced HB2 with a different anti-transgender law known as “HB 2.0.”April 4, 2017: The Departments of Justice and Labor cancelled quarterly conference calls with LGBT organizations; on these calls, which had happened for years, government attorneys shared information on employment laws and cases.March 31, 2017: The Justice Department announced it would review (and likely seek to scale back) numerous civil rights settlement agreements with police departments. These settlements were put in places where police departments were determined to be engaging in discriminatory and abusive policing, including racial and other profiling. Many of these agreements include critical protections for LGBT people.March 2017: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) removed links to four key resource documents from its website, which informed emergency shelters on best practices for serving transgender people facing homelessness and complying with HUD regulations.March 28, 2017: The Census Bureau retracted a proposal to collect demographic information on LGBT people in the 2020 Census.March 24, 2017: The Justice Department cancelled a long-planned National Institute of Corrections broadcast on “Transgender Persons in Custody: The Legal Landscape.”March 13, 2017: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that its national survey of older adults, and the services they need, would no longer collect information on LGBT participants. HHS initially falsely claimed in its Federal Register announcement that it was making “no changes” to the survey.March 13, 2017: The State Department announced the official U.S. delegation to the UN’s 61st annual Commission on the Status of Women conference would include two outspoken anti-LGBT organizations, including a representative of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM): an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.March 10, 2017: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it would withdraw two important agency-proposed policies designed to protect LGBT people experiencing homelessness. One proposed policy would have required HUD-funded emergency shelters to put up a poster or "notice" to residents of their right to be free from anti-LGBT discrimination under HUD regulations.The other announced a survey to evaluate the impact of the LGBTQ Youth Homelessness Prevention Initiative, implemented by HUD and other agencies over the last three years. This multi-year project should be evaluated, and with this withdrawal, we may never learn what worked best in the project to help homeless LGBTQ youth.March 8, 2017: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) removed demographic questions about LGBT people that Centers for Independent Living must fill out each year in their Annual Program Performance Report. This report helps HHS evaluate programs that serve people with disabilities.March 2, 2017: The Department of Justice abandoned its request for a preliminary injunction against North Carolina’s anti-transgender House Bill 2, which prevented North Carolina from enforcing HB 2. This was an early sign that the Administration was giving up defending trans people (later, on April 14, it withdrew the lawsuit completely).March 1, 2017: The Department of Justice took the highly unusual step of declining to appeal a nationwide preliminary court order temporarily halting enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination protections for transgender people. The injunction prevents HHS from taking any action to enforce transgender people's rights from health care discrimination.February 22, 2017: The Departments of Justice and Education withdrew landmark 2016 guidance explaining how schools must protect transgender students under the federal Title IX law.January 31, 2017: President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch has a history of anti-transgender rulings.January 20, 2017: On President Trump’s inauguration day, the adminstration scrubbed all mentions of LGBTQ people from the websites of the White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor.Other Harmful Trump Administration ActionsThe Trump administration has taken many other actions to roll back civil rights and health care protections and target vulnerable communities. While not specifically directed at transgender people or gender identity protections, we list them here because it is critically important that we view our quest for transgender equality as intertwined with other social justice movements. These include attacks on reproductive rights, the Affordable Care Act, refugees and other immigrants and the enforcement of civil rights laws. Many of these actions will also disproportionately harm transgender people. These are just a few examples:Kicking Americans off Medicaid and Food Stamps: The Trump Administration has taken numerous actions to kick Americans in need off of Medicaid and SNAP coverage. On April 10, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to push for work requirements for low-income people in America who receive federal assistance, including Medicaid and SNAP.Targeting Reproductive Rights: On October 6, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation allowing employers and insurers to deny coverage for birth control, as long as they can cite religious reasons for doing so. In April, President Trump and Congress overturned a regulation that protected Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest providers of care for transgender people, and other family planning clinics from funding discrimination by states.Harming Sexual Assault Survivors. On September 7, 2017, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced she would withdraw historic guidance on schools' and universities' responsibilities to address sexual assault and sexual harassment. On September 27, 2017, the Department replaced this guidance with flawed and dangerous “interim guidance” tipping the scales against student survivors seeking protection on campus. This is especially dangerous for transgender students, because 47% of transgender adults in the US Transgender Survey were sexual assault survivors.Cruel and Relentless Attacks on Immigrant Communities. On September 5, 2017, President Trump acted to strip hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families of security, stability, and safety by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On April 6, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy that separated hundreds of immigrant children from their families. On April 10, a federal official announced that the Department of Justice was halting the Legal Orientation Program, which offers legal assistance to immigrants. On June 11, Attorney General Sessions ruled that domestic or gang violence are not grounds for asylum in the United States. These are just a few of many anti-immigrant actions that are especially dangerous for many LGBT immigrants who could face life-threatening violence if deported.Putting Health Care Out of Reach: On April 13, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services rolled back numerous Affordable Care Act rules to reduce protections for people seeking and using health insurance. These actions make it harder to enroll in health care plans, allow plans to sharply raise deductibles, and weaken requirements for insurance plans to have in-network providers that serve low-income communities. These changes disproportionately affect people of color and any one with lower incomes, including transgender people. These changes make getting health care coverage harder for people who lose coverage or who depend on community clinics.Expanding Immigration Detention: The Department of Homeland Security is vastly expanding the number of immigrants held in immigration detention centers nationwide, while also eliminating protections for health and safety in detention centers. Reducing these protections for immigrants who are being detained is wrong, and it's especially dangerous for vulnerable transgender immigrants, many of whom are asylum-seekers who risk extreme abuse.Banning Muslims and Refugees: On January 27, 2017 and again on March 6, President Trump signed executive orders seeking to ban entry by refugees and travelers from certain Muslim-majority countries and drastically reduce the number of refugees allowed to seek safety in the United States. We cannot stand for a world where people in danger are denied entry because of who they are, including where they come from or whether they are Muslim or any other religion. LGBT refugees are among the many who are fleeing life-threatening persecution because of who they are or what they believe. While the bans were allowed to take effect by the Supreme Court, court cases challenging them continue.

A New York city mayor running for President of the United States? Many have tried, many have been talked about, but none so far have won. That could change, and I'll get to why, but...Meantime, you guys got time for a little story?A story that will take you through an airplane crash, bad timing, a bosses' puppet turned corruption fighter... two of 'em, why it's bad to make fun of small towns, a politician named Clinton (not that one or that one), and an assassination caught on film...YOU SEE, ALL THAT NEW YORK WORLD photographer William Warnecke really wanted to do was take the picture of the Mayor of City of New York, in a lively pose, while talking.Instead he recorded history...It was 1910, and then New York City Mayor William J. Gaynor was touring a boat docked outside of Hoboken, NJ. Warnecke was getting a few photos of the Hishonor, not sure which one would be used, if any, in the next day's issue. Just as he snapped his camera, a disgruntled and recently fired city employee named James Gallagher walked up to the mayor and, at point blank range, shot a bullet through Gaynor's neck.Gun and camera were improbably timed. And in an age well before TV journalism, the resulting image was one of the greatest but also the most horrific works of photojournalism up until that point.Gaynor would survive the shot and recover quickly, though the bullet would remain lodged in his throat. And given his record of reforms in a city run by bosses- indeed Gallagher was just one of many boss -- appointed employees that Gaynor had dealt with, but especially given that Gaynor was and still is the only new york mayor to suffer an assassination attempt, and given that the photo made its way around the world, Gaynor became a national name and was mentioned among many as a candidate for governor and / or President. But three years later, just as Gaynor was to run for a second term, something that would have been needed if he was going to be considered for President, complications from the shooting caught up with him, and he passed away in 1913.Gaynor is rare to be a New York City Mayor known and liked nationally, and to be under serious consideration for President. But why? why didn't more people rise up from America's greatest city to lead the nation. Why is it rare for Mayors to even be talked about for President... until 2007.By announcing his intention of running for President as a former mayor of New York in 2007, Rudolph Giuliani became one of just three individuals in 218 years to formally go from having what one John Lindsay called "The Second Hardest Job in the World", and to then officially try to secure what must be, to follow that logic, the First Hardest Job. In the entire history of the Presidency and the Mayorality of America's largest city, which actually has a longer history than the office of the American President, the paths of these two great offices, these jobs of great responsibility, headaches, control over the lives of citizens and jobs, have not often crossed, though there's been a few moves in that direction.Prior to 1991, when someone spoke of two Clintons in politics, there were two very different Clintons they were speaking of: George Clinton, Thomas Jefferson's Vice President and former governor of New York, -- and his nephew, DeWitt Clinton. De Witt Clinton was like his uncle a politician in Jeffersonian Republican circles, and was appointed Mayor of New York twice. This was before the Mayor was popularly elected, that would not occur until 1834. In this case the mayor was appointed by a state board which was in control of his uncle.So disappointed with President Madison, particularly his embargo against England that hurt Northeast merchants, that DeWitt Clinton switched to the Federalist party (or we should say, sought the Federalist's out) in time for the 1812 election, and ran against James Madison in attempt for a second term. With Madison, deep in an unpopular war, DeWitt came pretty close but would fail to get the Presidency, and would go on to finish his term as mayor and then become New York governor.The Mayor Who Ran For President of New York CityProbably the boldest mayor was Fernando Wood, the first New York City mayor to recognize, cultivate and manipulate the Irish-American immigration coming into the city and the creator of the New York Police Department as a source of jobs for them. Though Wood's police were not the NYPD of today , they were corrupt and deeply associated with gangs such as the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys.Fernando Wood never ran for President of the United States --- but did attempt to make New York City its own country and then preside over it. Well, if not a country, more like a Free City. When South Carolina seceded in 1861, New York City, which did a brisk business with the South, was perhaps about to lose a lot of its customers. Business leaders were concerned about the upcoming war. Wood's solution was that New York city secede. There were benefits to the concept... as Mayor Wood detailed.As a free city, with but nominal duty on imports, her local Government could be supported without taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free from taxes, and have cheap goods nearly duty free.His idea was not immediately dismissed either. City businessmen were considering Wood's idea. There was no way to predict how the Civil War was going to go at the outset. There had been cities in Europe, such as the not-yet-unified Germany and cities like Hamburg, which were 'free cities.' of no nation. Also, Mayor Wood's suggestion came at a time when it looked like their may be many successions -- one of the Pacific states like California and Oregon, one of the Midwest, as well as the south. In such a scenario, New York would be one of many.One person not taking Mayor Wood's idea seriously was the new President Elect, Abraham Lincoln who would not take office for another month when Wood made his proposal to the city council. Lincoln had just been elected with a minority of the votes, losing 2 to 1 in New York City. He regarded as folly to think that new York could survive and perform all its needed services from port revenue without the benefits of national government. Comparing New York City to the Front Door of America,It will take some time for the front door to settle the house-keeping for itself.A backwoodsman criticizing the snobbery and arrogance of the big city. Though the politics were reversed, the cultural feeling was the same.It was not Lincoln's sarcasm that did in Fernando Wood's chances to move from Mayor of a city to leader of a country. It was the Confederacy he was hoping to do business with. They instituted a new tariff policy that lowered tariffs, specifically to undercut New York City. And after the beginning of hostilities, Mayor Wood reluctantly participated in Union mobilization efforts. In the 1862 he would lose the mayor's office to a war-supporting Republican.Republicans would do quite well running for New York City mayor, although an ambitious dandy from the state legislature named Theodore Roosevelt would lose his bid in the 1880's. Mayor William Strong would combine the cities of New York and Brooklyn and take Queens, Bronx and Staten Island in. A Democrat, Robert Anderson Van Wyck, was the first true mayor of the consolidated city. Van Wyck got caught up in an ice monopoly scheme. The New York World reported that the American Ice Company of planned to double the price of ice, from 30 to 60 cents per hundred pounds (from 66 cents to 1.32 dollars per 100 kilograms). In the era before refrigeration ice was the only preservative available to keep food, milk and medicines fresh. Van Wyck owned stock in the company. Outraged Democrats joined with Republicans on a fusion ticket.This set up New York City's first Brooklyn mayor, Seth Low. He had been mayor of Brooklyn and New York City and will remain the only to do so. A well-regarded person, he was never a national candidate.The fusion ticket didn't last. Tammany Hall found a way to beat the Republicans and that was to invoke the still popular name of former Union War General George McClellan, who at this point had served a term as Governor of New Jersey. They ran his son, George McClellan, Jr. or Max McClellan, and he defeated Seth Low.As head of Alderman and acting mayor in the 1890's, he was famous for ordering an Irish flag raised over city hall on St. Pats and didn't back down when questioned about it. As mayor, he named Times Square, builte bridges. He established the first NYC subway and drove it himself for the first ride. (This according to the excellent Bowery Boys Podcasts Know Your Mayors: George B. McClellan Jr. - The Bowery Boys: New York City History.)An intrepid tale springs up about McClellan involving the grand opening of the IRT’s first subway tunnelin October 27, 1904. Meant only go ceremonially start up the engine of the first train, McClellen requested that he would like to actually go ahead and drive the train all the way up to Harlem! (And Bloomberg brags that he only rides the train.) He deftly steered the new engine up to 103rd Street before handing over the controls.He also banned movies on Christmas Eve one year.The mayor exiting one of those new automobiles. But his ride would end. McClellan's aren't known for liking politicians - see my answer on his father and his opinion about how the war went - he started hiring non Tammany Hall employees, and relations between he and the bosses that sponsored him soured, and he was denied a third term in 1909.But not before his name was floated at the 1904 Democratic convention in St. Louis. After two losses by William Jennings Bryan, the party needed a break from populism. Yet there was too many competitors. There were 13 candidates for president: Alton B. Parker, William Randolph Hearst, Francis Cockrell, Richard Olney, Edward C. Wall, George Gray, John Sharp Williams, Robert E. Pattison, George B. McClellan Jr., Nelson A. Miles, Charles A. Towne, Arthur Pea Gorman and Bird S. Coler. It took one ballot of commitments, one ballot of shifts and a unanimous vote to decide on Parker as the presidential candidate. Why? He offended no one, not the hard money types nor the Populists.Tragic Reformer and Boy MayorWith the dark cloak of Tammany Hall controlling events, the mayorality and the Presidency would not be talked about much together, even remotely, until 1910 when an unconventional mayor named William J. Gaynor was appointed, a creature of Tammany Hall bosses. But once Gaynor got in, he soon defied Tammany hall. He filled high level government posts with experts and city employees were chosen from civil service lists in the order they appeared, effectively curbing patronage and nepotism, and continued the development of the New York City subway system. As we refered to earlier, Gaynor's time as mayor would be cut short by the lingering effects of an assassination attempt on him.His dream didn't completely die with that bullet. The man who succeeded Gaynor would share his reformist beliefs. A special election was held and at thirty-five years old, John Purroy Mitchel was the youngest person ever to be elected Mayor of New York City, a distinction that earned him the nickname, "Boy Mayor."A hyper ambitious graduate of Columbia University and New York Law School, Mitchel held numerous government posts after being admitted to the bar. While city Commissioner of Accounts, Mitchel uncovered a protection racket in the Police Department and conducted investigations that forced the ouster of two borough presidents, and prompted another to flee the continent. In 1913, he dealt a crushing blow to Tammany Hall, winning the mayoral election on a fusion ticket by a large plurality.Mitchel's waste-cutting measures and accounting practices earned the city national acclaim. He brought into the administration competent professionals and devised a zoning plan to govern city development — the first such plan in the nation. He also standardized salary and work requirements for city employees. But Mitchel was unable to beat Tammany a second time to win re-election. In 1918, he enlisted in the Army Air Service to be trained as a pilot in World War I. His life was cut short during a training exercise in Louisiana, when his plane plummeted 500 feet to the ground on July 6, 1918. He was only a few days shy of his 39th birthday when the incident occurred. Though he would never live to see future office or national office, Mitchell did see national press...there is no doubt that had he returned from World War I which would have lasted only about six months after his accident, as a hero and former reforming mayor, a gubernatorial and perhaps national office was sure to follow. This was a man not even 40 who had already served a term as mayor of America's biggest city.As Theodore Roosevelt said about him. "No stauncher American, no abler and more disinterested public servant, and no finer natural soldier than Purroy Mitchel was to be found in all our country." Surely the plane took the life of young man who was going places.LaGuardiaOne New York City politician who had better luck with his own airplane, who did make it back from the early air service of World War I was Fiorello LaGuardia, or "Little Flower," son of immigrants of Italian and Jewish ancestry one of the best known mayors in New York City history.He interrupted his first term in Congress to fly a plane called the Congressional Limited over the fields of France. His tenure redefined the office. He was reelected to Congress, and after. After losing the mayoral election to Jimmy Walker in 1929, he successfully ran for mayor again in 1933 on a fusion ticket after Walker would resign in disgrace.More importantly, La Guardia was able to do what many 'reform mayors' were not able to do - he was reelected. For the next twelve years, the 5 foot 2, demanding, chief executive dominated New York City.And he was popular - he ferreted out corruption in city government and brought in talented professionals. LaGuardia earned a reputation for placing the city ahead of politics. Although technically a Republican, he worked closely with the New Deal administration of President Franklin Roosevelt to secure funding for large public works projects. LaGuardia never made any moves for national office during Roosevelt's lifetime, but in 1945, after Roosevelt's death the first three-term New York City mayor decided not to seek a fourth term, and it was widely sought that in a time when one out of 10 Americans were in New York, LaGuardia was going to enter national politics. But his health would thwart his ambitions, would die of pancreatic cancer before the next Presidential election in 1947.Lindsay's AmbitionJohn Lindsay, a Republican Congressman with a Kennedy-like charm, successfully ran for mayor in 1965 as a Republican in a three-way race defeating the Democratic candidate Abe Beame, then City Comptroller, as well as National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., who ran on the Conservative line. Lindsay inherited a city with serious fiscal and economic problems. On his first day as mayor, the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) led by Mike Quill shut down the city with a complete halt of subway and bus service.One area of success was in race relations where though New York was no interracial utopia in the late 60's, the city managed to avoid a major race riot that had plagued several other major American cities. Lindsay was credited for this, and his walks in different neighborhoods helped residents to keep calm.Lindsay's position in the Republican Party grew precarious over time. In 1969, a backlash against Lindsay's policies caused him to lose the Republican mayoral primary to State Senator John J. Marchi. Lindsay was still on the ballot as the candidate of the Liberal Party, and with a coalition of minorities, Jews and public sector unions to eke out a win by a plurality. Lindsay would take this razor-thin reelection as a sign that he should be promoted, and in 1971 Lindsay became a Democrat and shortly thereafter began a brief and quite unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination. His run was never serious and he attracted more attention from hecklers and protesters than voters.You could say in general terms that the famous Ed Koch, who became mayor in 1978, was a Presidential possibility, however slight. In 1982, he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of New York, losing the Democratic primary to Mario Cuomo, who was then lieutenant governor. A pledge that all he was interested in was being mayor hurt him, as well as an interview with Playboy magazine in which he described the lifestyle of both suburbia and upstate New York as "sterile" and lamented the thought of having to live in "the small town" of Albany as Governor, turning off most voters from outside the city. So while its true Koch never ran for President, though much of the eighties he and Speaker Tip O'Neil were the best known Democrats.Cuomo, he was never as well known as Koch when he ran for governor had parlayed that office in to national fame, albeit never tested Presidentially. Had Koch and not Cuomo won the governorship, who knows where this personable figure would have sought out next?A Matter of Timing?Since Lindsay, no mayor actually had run until Rudolph Giuliani. For him, the crime-fighting mayor had a national reputation especially reinforced by an overwhelming reelection in a city of Democrats and the national profile on NYC as a result of the 9/11 terror attacks. But his timing was somewhat unlucky. Giulani's two terms as mayor propelled him to the national scene but at a time too early in his first term to be seriously considered for President in 1996, and by the time of his exit, a member of his own party was President and just starting an eight year stretch.A Republican who could win New York City and likely the state was a rare bird in those days, and had the GOP nod been open in say,2004, he might have a great shot. As it was in 2008 the GOP chances weren't very good, and Giuliani made a fateful decision to stay out of Iowa and New Hampshire, allowing John McCain to gain early momentum.He spent millions of dollars in the Florida primary, only to lose to McCain. While he likely will not become President, a former mayor of NYC has taught a valuable lesson to future campaigns.Bloomberg's First "Not-Run"Giuliani's successor Michael Bloomberg. Though he keeps saying he is not a candidate, he seems to be dropping some hints, weighing in on gun control and national healthcare, issues that don't seem to be in the realm of New York city mayor alone. He's ended some speeches calling for Americans to think anew and set a new course for our nation...then combined with the fact that he refuses to rule out a run in the future. It's not likely that Bloomie challenges Rudy, but many are concluding that he is looking to create a Republican left wing in '08 I didn't happen, and in 2009 he left the Republican party to boost his third-term chances. But there's the talk again 8 years later.Would it have been a good idea for La Guardia, for Lindsey, for Koch to become President? Is it a good idea for Bloomberg or Giuliani? At first glance, the awesome job of Mayor of New York, with control over thousands of city jobs and a city of nearly 10 million people, would seem to be uniquely suited for a run for President. On one hand, a mayor is an executive, and we know that American voters prefer executives -- like governors, incumbent Presidents and Vice Presidents -- more than they like Senators or legislators when choosing a President.On the other hand there is a difference. The Mayor of New York has actually a lot more direct control over the city than the President has proportionately over the nation. New York City has a strong mayor-council form of government, with the mayor in charge of all day to day administration and the council approving the budget. When its not budget time, the city council serves as a weak monitoring body. What little the city council can do, the mayor can veto like the President. In fact, the control has recently gone up as the Mayor now controls the schools system of New York City.Hishonor for the most part, orders people around. He has hiring and firing power and tells people what to do. The President, outside of foreign policy, doesn't bark orders - he must lead Congress to secure funding for his policies, to approve appointments and secure treaty agreements. He must constantly court public approval. Mayors are concerned of course with re-election and public approval but in the end of the day the bulk of city government is under their control. This does not bode well for a New York Mayor running for President.Yet something has changed, particularly on the Democratic side of the equation. There is a bit more of a demographic change that helps Democrats in California, Florida. And Democrats have done better in swing states like Virginia and Colorado. And the state wins are not due to moderation in ideology but due to population changes, voter preferences, blue voters moving West and South and better Democratic turnout, especially among young voters. A New York City Democratic mayor who is able to get their party's nomination may have more of a shot than they would have in the 80's.Now it's too early to look at this, but I do note that current mayor Bill de Blasio is attending a fair amount of national conferences supporting a more progressive agenda for the party. He's also visited Iowa. While only in his first term, if he can cobble a second term victory (and perhaps run for governor), I would not be surprised to see him mentioned as a Presidential possibility, a Bernie Sanders of the 2020 or 2024 race. Long way off.Getting Around to Bloomie. And, you know, Answering the QuestionSo while history doesn't have a lot of hope for a New York City mayor running for President, demographics have changed a bit in the electoral college, always purple has taken on a blueish tint. Bloomberg has staked out a national position particularly on gun control and could attract some attention.He has run both as a Republican and an Independent in three terms as mayor, and had supported Democrats in the past. Ostensibly there could be some support for him. There are a couple of issues though:Independents running for President will always suffer from strategic voting considerations. Voters don't want the worse alternative, so a moderate is more appealing than favorite choice for a good part of the electorate. Even his top supporters, gun control advocates, may fear a strong gun-rights President who would be elected if he split votes.Bloomberg get's all the downside of being a New York City mayor without a serious upside of at least uniting Democrats and hoping for ubber youth turnout and an electoral college win.While a few of us believe gun control is an issue that should be more of a focus, it is a decisive issue and one that the 'anti' is strongly 'anti.' His run could enthuse partisans of the opposite side.Bloomberg generally was deemed to be a good mayor, a good manager, but he's no LaGuardia, Lindsay or even Giuliani. He lacks the personal touch and the charisma needed for a long run.His second and final terms were average by most accounts and not as successful as his first, he won his third election narrowly against a no-name where he spent millions.He could be subject to criticism as a one Percenter, upper class, sometimes a little arrogant. Great for Mayor, not so much for President.

Well since you asked, let me list the various points of credit for which Mr. Trump is so most deserving.Trump is claiming an economy that Obama delivered, (chart follows) and has been able to ride on Obama’s economic success until his own “economic policies’ bit with disastrous effect. Now the USA is facing the real possibility of a recession in spite of the fact that he was handed a large and growing economy.U.S. posts a record trade deficit in goods despite ‘America First’ policies The 2018 figure shows that President Trump’s tariffs and tough policies have failed to shrink a trade gap that he argues represents a massive transfer of wealth from Americans to foreigners. Source Washington PostTrump promised he would get rid of the national debt in 8 years but now it’s at an all-time high with Trump actually adding $8.3 trillion in additional debt. Source: Trump and the National Debt Trump Pledged to Eliminate the Debt. Instead He Will Add $8.3 TrillionThe VA is in shambles and he fired the only man that vets trusted. Trump and the Republicans pulled support for the Vets while the Dems supported a number of bills to help them. And it was Trump who fired the only Vet Director that the vets had any faith in and put in place a lackey that has done nothing but undermine the advances the prior director had made. “According to Military Times: “Vets still face long waits with the fraudulent VA Choice program. Dems up to saving taxpayers from another GOP fraud.According to Stars and Stripes, veterans using VA Choice program could get stuck with a $30,000 medical bill. GOP up to no good. If Dems don't stop con fraud, who will?”Trump’s Budget Proposal Cut Support for Disabled Veterans?The president's plan did call for changes that would have had a significant financial effect on some disabled veterans. Source Military timesHow often do Republicans undermine veterans?When you hear Republicans praising veterans, do not believe it for a minute. Congressional Republicans blocked or filibustered bill after bill that would have aided veterans, all in an attempt to undermine President Barack Obama while cutting taxes for the wealthy are still at with Trump as leader.Mitch McConnell and his cohorts filibustered a stopped a total of $21 billion in funds that would have expanded veteran benefits and saved expansions.Trump and the GOP claim they love the military, maybe so, but the sure as hell have no use for them when they have done their duty for their country and come home!Here’s a partial list of what the Republicans “did” for the Vets:• blocked a $1 billion jobs bill that would have helped millions of vets• blocked a bill that would have kept benefits on par with the cost of living• killed the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act• killed the Veterans Retraining Act• killed the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Act• killed the Disabled Veterans Home Improvement Act• killed the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship ActHere Is just another few examples of what Trump is planning for the Vets:1.Source: The Stars and Stripeshttps://www.stripes.com/news/group-urges-white-house-va-to-reject-resurfaced-proposal-cutting-disabled-unemployed-veterans-benefits-1.561091“WASHINGTON — A cost-saving proposal has resurfaced in a new Congressional Budget Office report as an option to help reduce the federal budget deficit.The report suggests removing approximately 235,000 disabled veterans from a Department of Veterans Affairs program called Individual Unemployability in 2020, projecting it could save $47.6 billion in the next 10 years. Veterans removed from the program would see their monthly incomes decrease by an average of $1,300, according to CBO estimates.“We want the White House to immediately make a statement saying Trump’s recommendation is out of line and will not be considered,” said Joe Chenelly, director of Veteran Affairs.The program applies to veterans who have disability ratings through the VA of between 60 percent and 100 percent and are unable to secure jobs because of their disabilities. It allows them to receive the highest compensation rate.The CBO suggested removing veterans from Individual Unemployability once they reach age 67, claiming those veterans would be eligible for Social Security by that time.The cut was one of 121 cost-saving proposals included in the CBO report, titled “Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2019 to 2028.” The CBO periodically compiles the list of policy options to help inform lawmakers.2.Trump 2020 budget: Which department budgets would be cut ...https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-budget-2020/Mar 11, 2019 - The Trump administration released its 2020 budget request on Monday, Veterans Affairs ...Also Cuts $845 billion over the next 10 years from Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to older Americans.3. White House has no answer for 7 million veterans who stand to lose health care"In their desperation to gain votes for their unpopular plan to repeal Obamacare, House Republicans inserted a raft of “improvements” to the bill, including one that could harm up to 7 million veterans by making them ineligible for the bill’s tax credits.The most recent estimates suggest about 9.1 million individuals are enrolled in VA health programs. However, a 2014 Congressional Budget Office score of veterans’ choice legislation concluded that “about 8 million [veterans] qualify to enroll in VA’s health system but have not enrolled.” Subtracting for VA enrollment gains since that CBO score leaves approximately seven million veterans eligible for, but not enrolled in, VA health programs, and thus potentially affected by the House’s “technical” change.”Source: https://defendingthetruth.com/threads/7-million-vets-could-lose-health-care.60726/4.Veterans are losing 6 different ways right now’The implosion of Ronny Jackson’s nomination to lead the Veterans Affairs Department may look like the Trump administration’s drama of the moment, but it carries big consequences for 9 million veterans in a sprawling health care system with uneven results and a precarious future.Not only does the VA have no leader, but the veteran health care community is also divided between conservatives inclined to privatize much of veterans’ care and those who want to invest more in fixing the current system. The impact can be seen across 170 medical centers and hundreds of clinics of varying quality that treat veterans who served in the U.S. military in every conflict since World War II.5. Did Congress Just Screw 7 Million Vets Out Of Their Tax Credits?Source: https://taskandpurpose.com/congress-veterans-ahca-trumpcareTrump has appointed cabinet heads all intent on reversing the very oversight, rules, and regulations in favor of big business, but which were originally put in place by both sides of the aisle to protect consumers and the environment. Toxic chemicals threaten water supply Source Washington PostE.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math“The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.”The E.P.A. had originally forecast that eliminating the Obama-era rule, the Clean Power Plan, and replacing it with a new measure would have resulted in an additional 1,400 premature deaths per year.Source: E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its MathThe EPA is also cutting off funding for several research centers that study the effects of pollution on childhood development. Greenwire’s Corbin Hiar and Ariel Wittenberg report: “The move, critics say, is part of a broader effort by [Trump] to downplay science that could lead to stricter regulations on polluting industries. At issue are 13 Children’s Environmental Health and Disease “Prevention Research Centers located at institutions across the country.” Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/category/the-daily-202/?utm_term=.1d89f15bad9b&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1Trump has 17 investigations and criminal charges against his companies, family and his presidency, all of which undermines the presidency as well as America’s standing on the world stage. The direct result, it is taking time and serious attention away from the very issues that need fixing.The $1.5 trillion in tax breaks that he promised the middle class, didn’t go to the working poor or the middle class, but instead directly benefited him, his family, the richest 1% and the most profitable corporations on the planet. The same CEO’s and top executives gave themselves major bonuses and then bought back their own stock that gave the markets a temporary surge, only to collapse as investors lost confidence in Trump and his looney policies and tariffs. “The tax cut has utterly failed to deliver the promised investment boom. Companies didn’t use their giant windfall to build new plants and raise productivity, they used it to buy back a lot of stock, passing the gains on to wealthy investors.” Source: New York TimesAT&T pocketed Trump’s tax cuts after promising 7,000 new jobs — but slashed 23,000 jobs instead while pocketing the tax cuts. Source: AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs insteadThese unfair and misdirected tax cuts resulted in a double whammy adding to already serious fiscal deficiencies by reducing taxes overall while increasing the burgeoning deficit problem. Not only has America been ‘robbed’ of those taxes now and going forward, but these are taxes that should in all fairness be paid by the very rich, and highly profitable corporations. “Trump’s twin deficits show that his party has been lying about its policy priorities and that he is completely clueless about his signature policy issue”. Source: New York Times. This unwarranted tax cut for the rich has increased the deficit by an additional $1 trillion dollars, now estimated to actually come in at close to $2 trillion. And guess who is going to pay for it… one guess.Both Rubio and McConnell have both stated very clearly on a number of occasions that the deficit will have to be reduced with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and wait for it…. your own hard-earned Social Security benefits. You know, the fund you have been paying into all your working life, the one, that you counted on to supplement and assuage your retirement when the time comes! Well, thanks to Trump and the Republicans, that is now up for grabs and is imperiled. And this is just in: Trump’s recent budget proposal included billions of dollars in Social Security cuts. The proposed cuts were a huge betrayal of his campaign promise to protect our Social Security system. Source: Trump is employing this insidious strategy to attack Social Security — and avoid a massive 2020 backlashCuts in Medicare and your Social Security is just part of the Trump agenda, as are his tariffs which are adding additional tax on those imported consumer items you are buying, and speaking of his infamous tariffs, based on his, “I know what is best” claim when he decided to instigate his tariff plan against the advice of both Democratic and Republican economists and CEOs, the results have been disastrous. “As many people have pointed out to no avail, Trump is all wrong about what trade deficits do. “ Source: New York Times“Tariff Man Has Become Deficit Man - Donald Trump focused his ire mainly on trade deficits, insisting that “our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us.” But over two years of unified G.O.P. control of government, a funny thing happened: Both deficits surged. The budget deficit has hit a level unprecedented except during wars and in the immediate aftermath of major economic crises; the trade deficit in goods has set a record. Trump really has no idea how international trade works.” Source: New York TimesTrump’s tariffs have meant nothing more than an added extra tax on Americans and have cost taxpayers an additional $12 billion that Trump had to dole out to soybean farmers alone for lost crops, and he is now promising the same farmers $15 billion as they face even greater losses than estimated. To cover for his stupidity and wrong-headed Tariffs, “Tariff man” Trump, as he likes to call himself, lies to the American public by telling them that the tariffs are making America richer as they are filling the American treasury, when in fact they are an added tax on consumers, now estimated to cost an American family between $500 and $800. “Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports hurt American businesses; “Over the past year, the US has placed about $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, in part to make Chinese products more expensive so Americans don’t buy them. The administration has also placed steep tariffs on all imported steel, angering other major US trade partners. Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade warAs for those coal mining jobs he promised, nothing, zilch, an nothing either in terms of companies being brought back. Try and name even one that hadn’t been in the planning stages prior to Trump being elected. Of course, there have been jobs still fleeing as evident by Harley Davison closed a factory and moved the jobs to Europe to avoid Trump’s job-killing Tariff program of terror. Western Farmers are not only seeing their crops rot in the fields for lack of markets due to Trump’s tariff war, but they are now losing hope and farms as bankruptcies are on the rise. Farm bankruptcies are on the rise. “A total of 84 farms in the upper Midwest filed for bankruptcy between July 2017 and June 2018, according to the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis. That’s more than double the number of Chapter 12 filings during the same period in 2013 and 2014 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.” Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade war “ farmers are freaking out. Some are facing financial ruin now that millions of Chinese consumers, who once bought about 60 percent of American agriculture exports, have stopped buying their products. Exports to China from Minnesota dropped about 25 percent after the first round of tariffs went into effect last year” Trump created a $12 billion bailout program for farmers, and on May 17th, he outlined another plan to give them an additional $15 billion. Farmers are far from happy with this approach “it’s not clear if those bailouts will be enough to keep farmers happy. “We don’t want another check from the government,” Isane said. “People don’t realize that once you lose a market, it’s hard to get it back.” Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade war“Net farm income has fallen by 50% since 2013 and the trade war has pushed commodity prices down even further. Many farmers and ranchers are on the verge of financial collapse.”…the resolving the trade war with China should be the administration’s “top priority” the Agriculture Department was told…farmers were disappointed to see tensions between the two countries escalate in recent days….the Agriculture Department was told that the president’s proposed bailout package for American farmers would not do nearly enough to stop the bleeding — it “will not make up for lost export markets and long term implications of trade disputes.” “Farmers are hurting,” he said. “It is critical the upcoming trade assistance be structured in a manner that does maximum good for our farmers and ranchers.” Source: Kansas GOP senator writes desperate letter to end Trump’s trade war: Farmers ‘on the verge of financial collapse’GM had to fire 14,000 workers in large part due to tariffs on aluminum and steel, making their cars much more expensive and Ford’s CEO has reported that the tariffs have cost the company an additional $1 billion as of the end of Nov. These costs have to be passed onto customers or absorbed by the company by cutting staff and workers, and it just keeps getting worse day in and day out.. yet this fool has no clue… “Trump’s Trade Grade- We get a look at his transcript on trade policy. It’s not pretty. President Trump’s economic policy: He picks a yardstick to measure the American economy — the trade deficit — that’s mostly meaningless. He spends years criticizing it as too high and promising to reduce it. And under his administration, it surges.” “By just about any measure you pick,” Slate’s Jordan Weissmann writes, “his effort appears to have been an absolute flop.”“He set out to fix a non-problem (a trade deficit) and created real ones including international conflict, higher consumer prices and gross inefficiency in our economy,” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes.The vice president of the National Farmers Union, appeared May 16th, 2019 on Fox News to discuss President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with China.“It has been insane,” Edelburg said. “We’ve had a lot of farmers — a lot more bankruptcies going on, a lot more farmer suicides.”“We have more commodities, more grain sitting on the ground now because we lost huge export markets. We’ve lost export markets that we’ve had for 30 years that we’ll never get a chance to get back again. Farmers are hopeful to get their crops in the ground this year but really hope we have a place to sell it come fall.” Source: FOX NEWS May 16th, 2019Edelburg said the Trump administration’s plan to provide up to $20 billion in federal aid to farmers would help, but wouldn’t be a solution to the problem.“We don’t need band-aids. We need long-term fixes to make sure farmers are able to survive. …the way (Trump ) is going about it may not be the right fix.”He was just found guilty of using his charity fund as a private piggy bank and was fined $25 million for defrauding idiots for being suckered into this get rich quick “Trump University” scheme...this and these continuing malfeasances have taken their toll in misdirecting attention, time and required action away from the serious issues that face all Americans.All of this In less than two years, and yet he has also managed to:. Divide the country like no politician ever before, by doing so the worst way possible, along racist and economic lines.. He has marginalized the rights of women, minorities and those of non-traditional sexual preferences.. He has normalized hatred, racism, and misogyny. “We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives. The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — the original sin that hardens the heart, separates Americans from one another and serves as model and fuel for other injustices.” Source: New York Times. He has made America and the planet dirtier for years to come through egregious environmental deregulation. Here’s what Obama’s EPA reported: “fracking contaminates water. For instance, they state that "Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources" causes contamination. ... The EPA also notes that disposing of fracking wastewater directly into surface water contaminates drinking water.” This under Obama’s administration. But under Trump’s crooked EPA appointment of Pruit, who has been forced out of office for personal spending of Government monies,Trump and his EPA lied to the America public and had this to say "Data gaps and uncertainties limited EPA’s ability to fully assess the potential impacts on drinking water resources locally and nationally. Because of these data gaps and uncertainties, it was not possible to fully characterize the severity of impacts, nor was it possible to calculate or estimate the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle.". He has profited illegally from his position, as have his children and son-in-law.. He’s lowered the level of discourse throughout America where simple bumper sticker bromides pass for intelligent thought.. He has destroyed the country’s relationships with our best and most loyal allies and cuddled up to the world’s most disgraceful authoritarians.. He made truth and facts irrelevant for his base while making intellectuals and the media the enemy of the people. And has told close to 10,000 verifiable lies Back on Jan 21 he was up to 8,158 false or misleading claims. but now it is more than 10,000 Source Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com. He has crushed regulations meant to level the market so that small businesses had at least a small chance of competing against large corporations.. He has overturned financial regulations, making it now virtually impossible for consumers to protect themselves against the practices of shady banks… allowing for another probable meltdown. John Taylor, president of the nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition had warned of the last crash and says "We got into that mess because of the lack of regulation, and now we're talking about making banks less accountable. It makes no sense whatsoever." Source:10 years after the financial crisis, have we learned anything?. He’s made the USA a global embarrassment.. For many businesses and farmers international trade is infinitely more difficult than it was just a few years ago.. He has driven the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis since he refuses to accept or simply breaks the laws of the land at will.. He’s ripped up numerous trade deals and replaced them with either nothing or moved the deck chairs slightly around the deck so that he could proclaim victory when in fact all he really did was to justify another so-called win. A good case in point was the needless drama, cost, and loss of goodwill caused in settling the NAFTA dispute with both Mexico and Canada. With a simple inclusion that didn’t materially alter the plan from the original, Trump then changed the name and claimed victory.. While the Supreme Court has long been known as non-partisan, Trump and the GOP pushed through two hard leaning rightwing justices, and is already been pushing cases through the lower courts in order to overturn numerous civil rights that are favored by 70% of the country and which had been considered untouchable, (established laws can be reviewed and altered as a precedent as Kavanaugh referred to existing laws while lying to ensure his appointment as a Trump surrogate and protector ). Trump is constantly spreading fear and paranoia regarding everything from border protection, threats of nuclear war, murderous gangs, allies raping America economically, and white people being victimized and marginalized by a country made vulnerable by left-leaning Democrats, none of which is true. Trump employs hateful rhetoric for no other reason than to keep his rabble at a constant boil, all to the detriment of civil discourse, fairness, and honesty.. And of course, there is Trump’s magically wall that the Mexicans are going to pay for while claiming that the Democrats are against border security.. when in fact all sane people, no matter the party, don’t support Trump and his magic beans that will somehow grow the wall that the Mexicans have clearly stated for which they certainly will not pay.. Trump colluded with Russia to influence his election and has spent over two years obstructing justice in broad daylight as a cover-up. Now there is evidence that the NRA received monies from Russia to pass along to Trump’s campaign and there is some discussion that even Saudi Arabia may have helped out trump get elected with more foreign contributions, a crime of its own. In order to cover up his deals with Russia, Trump fired Comey, then the head of the FBI, discredited the Justice Department, and then, the heads of the FBI while calling main news media fake and putting forth the claim that the “Deep State,” in fact his own government, were all out to get him.. Trump has attacked the free press time and time again because they have the tenacity to point out the hypocrisy and wrong-headedness of his policies and knee-jerk decisions that are detrimental to America and in direct violation of America’s number 1 constitutional right, freedom of speech.· Trump has undermined and demonized international alliances that have loyally stood with and have gone to war in support of America for decades· He endangered the entire world economy with his tariffs and isolationism· He prompted many countries to seriously look to find alternatives to US’s vaunted support and stability while allowing both Russia and China an upper hand in gaining influence and control of countries that had previously favored the USA.. Trump decided against entering the Trans-Pacific Strategic EconomicPartnership Agreement that would have given America an upper hand and a controlling interest in trade agreements with all the Pacific Rim countries in one fell swoop.. Trump actually turned down the TPP agreement because Obama was for it, and this in the face of the only one thing that Republicans supported Obama on. They, like Obama, saw this as a next to a perfect opportunity for freezing China out of the Partnership while gaining the advantage of winning a free trade agreement with all countries across the entire and the important economically growing Pacific Rim.. Trump mistakenly believed that CHINA was the main partner in the TPP agreement, but it was not until the USA pulled out, that the rest of the Rim countries decided to allow China entry; they had been counting on America to be the go-to leading partner for the entire partnership. Trump was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of an easy victory!. Trump has decided to go it alone and has hit China as well as a number of favored counties with tariffs, a move from which neither the USA or these countries will benefit. The tariffs have already decidedly increased hostilities, bad will, and has already meant countervailing restrictions as both China and friendly countries have raised tariffs on the importation of American Goods and services.. American soybean farmers are already looking at loses of $3.2 billion against next year crops and the risk of possibly losing the very markets that Trump has attacked with unwanted tariffs, as these importers become conditioned to stay with their new source of supply once tariffs are inevitability withdrawn. With $16 billion worth of Chinese imports, global trade relationships are changing in ways that could eventually leave American farmers out in the cold.. Where farmers have worked tirelessly to build relationships with importers worldwide, they find that these hard-won markets are now being taken over by Brazil, Canada, Argentina, or Russia – among other competitors. No aid or financial support will bring back those markets. And even if the trade war ended tomorrow, the damage to important and lucrative relationships with buyers has been done.. Trump consistently oversimplifies the complexities of policy issues to the detriment of those who elected him. As an international senior executive of a major Fortune 500 company, I have seen it close up and visited markets where America had a solid lock on goods and services and I can vouch for the fact that global trade is about more than tariffs. It includes a complex, interconnected network of suppliers, regulators, inspectors, shipping routes, and value chains. It’s built on relationships, cost, and reliability. Unfortunately, Trump only determines policies and makes decisions on one thing, dollars, and cents.. Most importantly, competition is fierce and growing. While tariffs can be turned on and off quickly, building – or reclaiming – trade relationships can take decades. This is what’s really at stake here. Unfortunately Trump, who is looking for an easy win, either doesn’t get it or doesn’t care. Either way, the USA is the loser for Trump’s lack of leadership, interest, care, and understanding.As it stands America” families will be paying an additional $500 to $800 because of the tariffs which, in spite of Trump’s lies that they are being added to the USA treasury, are in fact a tax on families.The May 10th. tariff hike to 25% on a bulk of U.S. imports from China will cost the American economy $62 billion by next year, according to data from Oxford Economics.That total translates to $490 per household. More extreme protectionist policies would cost $800 per household.“While negotiations are ongoing, and the possibility of a deal remains significant, a further escalation of trade tensions would have dire consequences for both protagonists and the rest of the world, says Gregory Daco, Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist” Source: Trump's new tariffs will cost Americans about $500 per household, by one estimate. This is a guy who is becoming more and more isolated and convinced that he doesn’t need counsel or advice as he has supreme confidence in his own ability. This means certain disaster for the country, a definite certainty if there is an emergency whether domestic or international in nature.. Trump is fixated on the mistaken notion that trading partners are responsible for screwing America by holding fast to the notion that both allies and foes are accountable for America’s economic decline because of America’s imbalance of trade. Trump bases this false notion on his take that America is losing economic advantage and by extension, respect for him as president. This is manifested in his rants about reciprocal trade. In turn, he has gone ahead with fights with virtually the world and put in place self-defeating tariffs in order to address the deficit, specifically caused, according to him, by an” imbalance of trade.”And he has failed miserably: WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit reached its highest sum ever last year, defying President Donald Trump's efforts and promises to shrink it through his economic policies. ... The government said Wednesday that the U.S. trade gap in goods and services reached $621 billion last year, its highest total since 2008. Source: Associated Press. Trump fails to understand that an American trade deficit with another country doesn’t mean that that country is taking advantage of the USA, it means that Americans want and purchase goods and services equal to the amount of that deficit. in other words, they are getting goods that they want and for which they pay, choosing Chinese over American produced goods. It is called free trade, a position that Republicans held as sacrosanct and inviolable down through the last 70 years.WHAT IS THE TRADE GAP?“Trump often misrepresents the trade deficit. He has frequently labeled it an outright economic loss. “We’ve been losing, on average, $375 billion a year with China,” the president said in February, referring to the 2017 deficit in goods between the United States and China. That imbalance surged to $419.2 billion in 2018 under Trump’s watch. Yet the trade gap isn’t an outright loss. It simply reflects the greater value of what the United States imports compared to what it exports. And it’s not necessarily a cause for concern.” Source: Associated Press.Trump is fixating on the wrong data and drawing the wrong conclusions. This is not in any way to suggest that China is not a problem, they are. But going it alone and shunning the assistance of America’s allies who have the same issues with China while failing to call on the WTO ( World Trade Organization that rules on unfair trade practices) is just another example of Trump’s bull-headed stupidity and his claim that “ only he can fix it”.Americans want and are willing to buy cheap stuff rather than support more expensive American manufacturers. They have a choice and they choose the cheaper goods. For all his misplaced promises and bluster, Trump’s trade policies are a complete bust. “ U.S. deficits in goods with China and Mexico surged to record highs. As president, Trump’s signature effort to stimulate U.S. growth — deficit-funded tax cuts — likely helped fuel the willingness of American corporations and households to spend, including on imported goods. That is especially true at a time when much of the rest of the economic world has weakened and is less likely to buy U.S. goods. The result has been more imports than exports.What’s more, the tariffs Trump imposed on steel, aluminum and hundreds of billions’ worth of Chinese goods likely contributed to the trend: During 2018, American companies that import goods from China appeared to accelerate their spending on them to avoid Trump’s future import taxes. Source: The Associated Press. The turbulence and uncertainty caused by Trump’s trade war have created a geo-economic feeding frenzy. U.S. competitors from Argentina to Ukraine are aggressively working to eat into markets once dominated by American farmers. But according to Trump “Only he can get it done”, “ only he alone can fix it” and fix it he has!!!, Perhaps without repair or at the very best, chances are that it will take years of hard slogging and lower selling prices resulting in lost profits to win back what had been exclusively America’s to lose.· Trump has relentlessly sought to take down or cripple organizations like NATO and the WTO and the UN; institutions that have presented the world with both stability and a bulwark against aggressive and hostile rogue nations· Trump furiously worked at alienating the US’s closest and strongest allies with the mistaken notion that they were screwing America, when in fact America is going through as is the world, a period of transformation where automation and lack of skills have caused high paying manufacturing jobs to disappear or for greedy companies that Trump has supported to move offshore.. With AI ( artificial intelligence) on the horizon and China and Russia spending heavily on research and emerging technology, Trump has no plan and no clue.· Trump has cozied up to dictators and expressed admiration for their strong arm anti-democratic leadership that has emboldened them to become more aggressive without what previously had been the USA’s moral authority that had previously held them in check.. He made his presidency a laughing stock around the world causing damage to America’s standing, moral authority, and leadership position.· He gutted the government and put in place a cabinet charged with tearing down the very Departments for which they were put in charge. This resulted in weakening consumer, environmental, safety and underlying health standards at home while causing a detrimental effect on America’s standing abroad· Trump single-handedly made the USA a country where children are ripped from their families, put in cages and traumatized for life. Because of the lack of planning or care in handling what Trump has labeled “rapists and murderers” from “shit hole countries”, kids have been separated never to be reunited with their parents and now at last count, two young children have died in Trump’s administrative so-called “care’.. These and other anti-immigration atrocities have become so normalized that ordinary people are actually arguing about whether or not it’s acceptable· Trump has created a safe atmosphere for racists and violent nationalists to voice their views and come out of the closet for the first time in 50 years. The result, Hate, and Race crimes are at an all-time high under the Trump presidency.· He has cast doubt as to the trustworthiness of societal and governmental institutions, thereby weakening the very fabric of American democracy.· Trump and his administration have transformed the very concept of truth into a post-modern quagmire of double speak and “alternate facts” worthy of Stalin’s communist rule or Hitler’s propaganda machine, undermining (if not completely destroying) the democratic principles on which the USA was founded· He has upset world order by taking an isolationist approach that previously led to the great depression of 1929. As it stands, America’s isolation position has already had a detrimental effect on the world economy, with many economists pointing to the inevitability of a recession. ‘Not my fault’: Trump struggles to defend his record amid setbacks on immigration, trade, North Korea More than halfway through his term, the president has failed to make progress on a number of his top priorities. Source Washington Post· Trump has overturned not only Obama’s policies but arguably the entire Civil Rights movement and the various progressive cultural, economic and societal gains of the twentieth century, including equal pay for equal work, and the protection of unions for the working man· He has encouraged dissent and destabilizing dialogue among staunch US allies, turning allies and friendly nations into enemies· Trump has used the power of his position to enrich himself, his friends and his family, and now has 17 criminal investigations and two guilty findings, all of which is debasing the presidency and is taking time, energy and effort away from the vexing social and economic issues facing the USA.· He has validated the punitive inhumane actions of oppressive governments all over the world· He has single-handedly relinquished any moral high ground that the US still held· Trump managed to get millions to focus on bullshit Trump instigated dramas and Trump made problems instead of policies and issues that actually affected peoples’ lives and that of their family and friends.. Instead of addressing real issues of concern to all Americans, Trump offered empty promises like, having a massive cement wall built across the southern border and having Mexico pay for it, promising health care for all that would be better and cheaper but with no idea or plan on how to accomplish it while at the same time, killing a health plan that Americans have come to love.. There is no end to his lies now approaching 10,000 Know major lies, all given to distract and confuse a concerned public for no other reason than to cover his malpractices, lack of leadership and personal failings.. And as this writing, he has held 800.000 Government workers ransom without pay for a month in order to get his way to put up a wall on the southern border that the majority of people don’t want, experts have told him won’t be effective, and have advised that electronic devices and an increase in border personnel would be a far superior approach, yet Trump believes he is right and they are wrong..Trump claims there is an emergency situation at the southern border that needs to be addressed by a wall, but doesn’t take into account the fact that experts say the wall if built, would take anywhere from 3 to 5 years to complete. So much for responding to what he calls an immediate and pressing emergency.. Trump keeps lying that there is a crisis at the border even though the number of illegal crossings is the lowest it has been in 30 years. Source: NYTimes: “Border Crossings Have Been Declining for Years, Despite Claims of a ‘Crisis of Illegal Immigration’. Once again, Trump uses lies to make a case that no one other than the most gullible believe, and yet he persists with his lies, threats, and bullying for no other reason other than to get his way for a wall that he considered a joke when told to first use it as a rallying call during his campaign. It was initially intended as a mnemonic device to remind him to mention immigration. And interesting enough, when he was elected and placed a call to the President of Mexico, he virtually begged him to go along with the charade for “ political” purposes… LOL. Trump claims there is a humanitarian crisis at the border, and yes there is, but not the one of which he speaks, there is the one created by Trump himself by locking children up in cages and separating literally 1000’s of kids from their parents never to be found again. Neither Trump or his administration have any idea as to who they are or where they went once they were in the USA.. Trump is currently being investigated as a possible Russian Agent by the FBI… wow, now that is a distinction that Obama nor any other former president can claim.. Trump’s public war on the Mueller inquiry has gone on long enough that it is no longer shocking. Trump rages almost daily to his 58 million Twitter followers that Mr. Mueller is on a “witch hunt” and has adopted the language of Mafia bosses by calling those who cooperate with the special counsel “rats.” His lawyer talks openly about a strategy to smear and discredit the special counsel investigation.. The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.. Matthew G. Whitaker, the former acting attorney general, was put under scrutiny by the House for possible perjury. But Whitaker was just the warm act now that Trump appointed W. Barr as his permanent Attorney General.. Barr has proven himself to be no more than a toady for Trump by acting as his personal lawyer while denying any neutrality and supporting Trump in his every attempt to thwart the House of Commons in their oversight efforts to investigate Trump, his Cabinet and their work in order to prevent the Russians from once again interfering in the upcoming elections by supporting Trump in his 2020 re-election run.. Trump has spent much of his time venting publicly about there being “no collusion” with Russia before the 2016 election, which has diverted attention from a growing body of evidence that he has tried to impede the various investigations. Yet the Mueller report shows at least 185 cases where the Trump campaign interacted with Russians in order to gain an advantage for Trump in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election.. This is death by a million cuts. The public is exhausted and overwhelmed by the transgressions, lies, larceny, and the illegal activity of this President and his corrupt family. Copious like pebbles on a beach, any one of these misdeeds would have created a volcanic eruption for any other President. Trump has always felt that being outrageous in public is a defense like hiding in plain sight ..thankfully the law does not work that way. The public needs relief.. The facts show that Trump sold out to Putin and the Russians for financial gain and is a traitor to his own country. Do I need to say more?All of the foregoing is what I consider what Trump is “ good at” and the main points of credit that can be honestly listed in praise of this carbuncle on humanity, this open sore called the Trump “presidency”.