In an oft-reported exchange between Gertrude Stein, an American widely known for her wisdom and glittering 1920s Parisian literary salon, and one of her earnest admirers, the admirer asked her – “What are the answers, Madame Stein?” She replied “What are the questions?”

Within our media/political/corporate culture of self-censorship and taboo topics, we should restate Ms. Stein’s rejoinder—what are the questions of gravity and relevance that are chronically unasked?

Here are some questions that should be asked, until answered!

Since 2016 we have been deluged with a variety of empirical studies that should give us some sense of the political and economic realities of life in the United States. The data makes clear what progressive strategies should be as well, at least over the next two years.

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)

A Presentation at Fort Lauderdale, Occupy Labor Outreach, March 15, 2014
 

The hatred of the poor, is it guilt gone rancid? That the rich have so much and still conspire to steal a baby's medicine, a woman's life, a man's heart and kidney. When those Congressmen talk of people who are counting their last change for gas or eggs choosing between cold and hunger they snarl. How dare we exist? (From Marge Piercy, Who has little, let them have less, Monthly Review - January 2014)

Betsy DeVos is forging ahead in her efforts to make American schools less safe.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today lambasting the Trump administration for its ACA sabotage.

New Proof About $21 Trillion Missing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=ybgfY2XRAlg

First 13 min. of video

Trump Reverses Modest Improvements in US/Cuban Relations

With God’s help, a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve…I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.” (Donald Trump in “Trump Outlines New Cuba Policy in Speech in Miami’s Little Havana,” USA Today, June 16, 2017.)

These are difficult days for genuinely religious folks–the ones who understand their theologies to require ethical and loving behaviors.

The 2016 election highlighted the glaring hypocrisies of Evangelical Trump supporters; more recently, it’s Catholics who are cringing. In Pennsylvania, a grand jury found the Church had concealed 70 years of sexual abuse by over 300 priests. Here in Indianapolis, the administration of a Catholic high school learned that a longtime, much-loved guidance counselor is in a same-sex marriage, and demanded that she divorce her wife or resign.

Frank Bruni had a recent column headlined “Mike Pence: Holy Terror,” with a subhead asking “Do you really want to get rid of Donald Trump?”

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.

That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.

A hallmark of a corrupt administration is a need to keep secrets and avoid accountability. It’s probably no coincidence that as the walls close in around Trump, all of his tactics to silence dissent are on full display.

1. Demonize the press. Attacking free press is a theme for this administration:

President Trump has repeatedly and vehemently denounced what he calls “chain migration,” in which adult American citizens can obtain residency for their relatives.

On Thursday, his Slovenian in-laws, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became United States citizens in a private ceremony in Manhattan by taking advantage of that same family-based immigration program.

It’s hot. But it may not be the new normal yet. Temperatures are still rising.

American bank customers are losing billions of dollars in higher interest payments because they’re not being “frugal shoppers” and making a telephone call or sending an email to compare interest rates. If they did, they would find out that the Federal Reserve’s three years of gradual interest rate increases have finally pushed the banks—traditional and online—to make ten times more in interest payments to savers than millions of bank customers are now receiving.

[…] Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.

I’d like to you to consider any aspect of your life which has consumed over five years. Chances are you’re considering something major – your education, your career, your marriage, your mortgage, your children.  These are common human experiences to which we can all relate; we expect these milestone events to absorb our efforts and energies. 

I never expected to spend over five years on a pile of rocks. 

Dr. Linda Hanson Board Member, League of Women Voters of Indiana

[...] 

SITUATION IN INDIANA

Is there a single environmental measure that the Trump Administration isn’t willing to ditch in order to benefit their cronies bottom lines?

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.

To Donald Trump

[...] I am old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon telling lies on TV, about Vietnam in both cases, and Watergate for Nixon. I remember the travails and deceptions of Bill Clinton, and of George W. Bush in the buildup to the disastrous Iraq War.

But never before have I seen an American president consistently, repeatedly, publicly, and shockingly advance the interests of another country over those of his own government and people.

Continued study and research into the origins of the folk music of various peoples in many parts of the world revealed that there is a world body-a universal body-of folk music based upon a universal pentatonic (five tone) scale.

[...] Former Fox News Channel chief political correspondent Carl Cameron has a warning for America: “The Trump team were colluding with the Russians in 2016 – and they are still colluding.”

The entire Trump enterprise is a gigantic environmental disaster, but who knew Vice President Mike Pence and his family were a walking superfund site all on their own.

While the media and the country are being distracted by the daily crazy/sleazy coming from Washington, the Trump Administration is working feverishly behind the scenes to dismantle the rules: rules that protect us from dirty air and water, from discrimination in housing and education, and rules that guarantee us access to health care, among others.

On the heels of the Great March of Return in Gaza, when Israeli soldiers killed 112 Palestinian protesters and wounded thousands more, a four-ship Freedom Flotilla will set sail for Gaza this month from a port in the Mediterranean Sea. Although it is an act of piracy for Israel to confiscate ships in international waters, the Israeli military will most likely do just that. The very first Freedom Flotilla boats traveled to Gaza in 2008, and four managed to get there—the first international boats to do so in over 40 years.

Psychiatrists define “projection” as a defense mechanism employed by people who are having trouble coping with difficult emotions. They project their feelings of inadequacy or remorse over shameful behaviors onto someone else–accusing other people of undesirable or reprehensible actions of which the accuser is actually guilty.

For example, Donald Trump and “fake news.”

[...] Following are just a few of the key findings in this report:

WASHINGTON — President Trump singled him out for praise even while attacking other members of the Supreme Court. The White House nominated people close to him to important judicial posts. And members of the Trump family forged personal connections.

The couple reside in Normandy, France, in the belly of the French nuclear beast. To the north of them, on the Cherbourg peninsula, sits the biggest blight of nuclear France, the La Hague reprocessing facility.  “The currents there are very strong so I assume they chose the site because it can disperse the liquid radioactive wastes into the sea very quickly,” Didier told Arnold, not without a hint of sarcasm.