Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Stealing Your Hamburgers

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We’re living in a country where it seems like everything is broken and no one knows how to fix it. Hyperbolic? Yeah, a little bit. But, there’s a sheen of truth in that opening salvo, too.

Donald Trump ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again.” MAGA speaks to an idea that we’re not what we once were, as a country. While I might disagree with President Trump and his prescriptions for “fixing what’s broken,” I can’t disagree that we’re not where we ought to be, either.

On Friday, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes went to the Bronx, the NYC borough represented by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (she also represents parts of Queens, too). The town hall, taped in the afternoon, ran during Hayes’ usual 8:00 p.m. slot on the left-leaning cable news network popular with “lefties” like me.

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Presidential Girth and Finding a Healthy Weight

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William Howard Taft was our largest president in terms of girth. It is rumored that he once got stuck in the White House bathtub, and if he didn’t, had a larger one installed. Taft’s BMI topped out at 42.3.

Donald Trump’s published weight a year ago was 239. If that’s an accurate weight, then his BMI would have been 29.9. This placed him well below Taft, and trailing other portly U.S. leaders, like Grover Cleveland (34.6), William McKinley (31.1), and Teddy Roosevelt (30.2). Bill Clinton, who it was said by his wife back in 1992 that her husband “loves to eat and he enjoys it,” had a BMI of 28.3 while president. During his first campaign, his weight ballooned 30 pounds, in part due to his penchant for Southern delicacies like ribs, potato salad, and sweet potato pie from Little Rock eateries Sims Bar-B-Q and Tex-Mex dishes made with lots of cheese, from Juanita’s, among others.

Interestingly, since he had his quadruple heart bypass surgery, the 42nd president is now mainly a plant-based vegan. If you’ve seen the former president, he looks great and is likely 30 to 40 pounds lighter than when he left office.

The current president (scowling) and other recent presidents at the George W. Bush funeral.

I am once again limiting my news consumption. Like the last time, I’m tired of the never-ending cycling of themes that have little or nothing to do with my life. Given that these days, journalism seems to be not much more than recycling presidential tweets, I’m really not interested in what these arbiters of truth tell me is “important.”

Not only am I limiting my exposure to the 24/7 news cycle, I’m also being much more intentional about the foods I am eating. As a result, I’ve dropped weight in a Clinton-esque manner. I am now down half of what the former president dropped after leaving office. Oh, I occasionally allow myself to “splurge” a bit, just like I do with political news.

The other day I heard that Mr. Trump was coming up on his annual appointment with his presidential physician. Not surprisingly (if you’ve paid attention to photos and his appearances on television), the president seems to have socked on a few pounds since he assumed his new home on Pennsylvania Avenue.

On Friday, he spent four hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and had a check-up with Dr. Sean P. Conley, his physician. There were another 11 specialists taking part.

Conley put in writing that Trump is “in very good health and I anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his Presidency.” No word what his weight might have been. I’m sure it wasn’t 239 because on Thanksgiving, my weight was 236 and I’m the same height as the president. I’d say his weight’s considerably more than 239 these days, especially if you’ve been privy to a rash of unflattering photos of the prez, often on the golf course: he’s got a gut, and some have described him looking like a “tubby idiot.” That’s probably a little unkind, even if the president rarely shies away from mocking and making unflattering remarks about just about everyone else.

Weighing less than the president these days.

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Hamburgers Aren’t Health Food

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At our house, we don’t serve fast food to our friends. So why should the White House? But these days, all bets are off that you’ll get anything more than a slight upgrade from a McDonald’s Happy Meal when you show up as the guests of honor, like college football players who just won a national title.

Football is a tough sport to play. Regardless of how you feel about the controlled brutality of the game, to attain excellence requires grit, hard work, and perseverance. Even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll “run the table” like the 2018-19 Clemson Tigers football team just did.

I’m sure Clemson’s coach Dabo Swinney had high expectations for his team prior to their first practice this summer. But to finish 15-0, capping one of the greatest seasons in NCAA football history by winning the College Football National Championship when they beat Alabama 44-16, was the stuff of dreams.

So, honoring a team like that would seem to call for something better (and more healthy) than hamburgers from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Oh, I forgot the “many, many French fries,” too. Of course, for a president who has had a longtime affinity for the Golden Arches, as well as Pizza Hut, and KFC fare, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Donald Trump’s actions have long ago moved beyond incredulity.

All the president’s favorite foods. (NY Times video)

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Liar, Liar

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As a child, I was taught that lying is wrong. Of course, many of my elders have invalidated what they said by their actions. However, truth-telling was central during my formative stages. No matter that the former adults in my life have suddenly reneged on everything moral and holy: I remain convinced that duplicity is bad: bad for relationships, bad for organizations, and certainly, bad when you are the president of the United States.

Donald Trump lies incessantly. The Washington Post, one of a host of newspapers that the president includes in his pantheon of “fake news” in a universe framed by obfuscation, compiled this list of “whoppers” told by the president as of the first of June. Anyone with a hold on reality knows that the number has certainly grown substantially over the past seven months.

The lying president.

Last night, I missed his address, which was another opportunity for the president to spread more misinformation about his so-called wall. It’s a shame that the networks allow him to get away with what is the equivalent of Cold War era propaganda. They did go to new lengths to mitigate what they knew would be “political theater.” Continue reading →

Feelings Not Facts

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After a welcome break from tutoring, I was back at for the first time in two weeks. I’m not sure why—maybe it was just that I’d gotten used to having my evenings back and under my own control—but I was exhausted when I rolled up on the cove around 9:45 Wednesday night.

When I get home after 2 ½ hours of trying to get 25 high school-age students to put down their cell phones and do some homework, I’ll often sit-up for an hour or so with a beer (sometimes a snack) and more often than not, I’ll watch The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. Because I tune-in just prior to the 10:00 p.m. segue between hosts and shows, I’ve come to enjoy being there for the “hand-off” that takes place between the brilliant Rachel Maddow and O’Donnell, a savvy political veteran of DC’s internecine combat.

Wednesday night, though, for some odd reason, I switched on CNN. When I am home at night, I rarely miss Ms. Maddow’s special blend of research, commentary, and the way she weaves each evening’s storyline, coaxing viewers along for something other than the usual soundbite journalism that’s all-too-common in this post-factual era.

It’s unfortunate that the only two left-of-center news networks force us to choose: pitting Maddow against Chris Cuomo (over on CNN), and then, O’Donnell goes head-to-head against worthy rival, Don Lemon. What I often end up doing is channel-surfing between networks during commercials, which works at times.

Cuomo, in addition to being a journalist is also a licensed attorney. He draws on that  legal background to “make his case” in whatever story he’s covering on a given night. Wednesday night, it was President Trump, and how the Orange Menace opts for feelings over facts, time-and-time-again. This is nothing new to anyone who doesn’t source their information solely from TrumpTV (better know as, Fox News). But for the Kool-Aid crowd of Trump toadies, this is an interesting flip-flop. Continue reading →

Who is Wise?

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Being wise was once considered a good thing. Wisdom is much more than simply “knowing a lot.” Some think that having “the ability to make sound judgments and choices based on experience” is another way of delineating who is wise and who is not.

Intelligence is more than a mere accumulation of facts. Gathering information is a good starting point. But what to do with that mountain of data? In most faith traditions, wisdom is lauded. Proverbs, a book in the Christian Bible, considers wisdom something that originates with God.

Socrates was wise.

I have been interested in the life of the mind for a long time. My quest to learn, often as an autodidact, dates back to a time in my early 30s when I realized I wasn’t that “sharp.” I began one summer to read. I’ve read voraciously ever since then.

During a key period in my life beginning in 2006, I had the good fortune to go to work for a brilliant man. Bryant Hoffman was also a good man: kind and thoughtful, too. He became an important figure in my life. He had his Ph.D. in English and had been a former college dean. He always deflected when I’d talk about this. He’d say, in he self-deprecating way that having an advanced degree didn’t make one deep, or particularly smart. In his case, I’d disagree. I had to work to keep up with things he’d toss off, facts about literary figures and Irish poets. He’d do this as naturally as most of us breathe. Continue reading →

Doomed to Repitition

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I’m a bit early on my post that touches on Veterans Day. For most, I think it’s become just another holiday on the calendar that some don’t have to go to work for.

Time as a unit of measure marches on. This passage—known to those who study it as “history”—is too often ignored. Worse, men (and women) who ought to know better, dismiss it as mere dates, names, and numbers.

We know the quote, attributed to George Santayana, about ignoring our past. People love to quote it, and yet, those very same people—often learned and well-educated in a formal sense—rarely take the time to read and ruminate on the foundation that our nation, our ideals, and our form of government rests upon.

Books like this one expand our understanding of the past.

I spent a portion of October reading a splendid book about the 1960s. Southern historian Frye Galliard’s, A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost, offers an expansive unfolding of the time and key figures and events that framed one of our country’s most significant, and equally tumultuous decades. It took Galliard, a gifted historian nearly 700 pages to create this historical snapshot. He easily could have gone on I’m sure, but even at that length, the book is longer than most people are willing to sit with, even something so significant. It’s really too bad because I thought it was readable in a way that longer, historical tomes are often, not.

Tomorrow will be Veteran’s Day. This weekend, our ahistorical president, oblivious and ignorant to the symbolism and significance of the ending of World War I, performed like a petulant adult-child. This Orange Menace, who occupies our presidency, exhibited a truculence that was disrespectful to the country of France, his hosts, and he also was a sorry surrogate for Americans who remember the events of that horrible war, even if it was experienced during a long-ago history class in school. The president also demonstrated total disdain for the solemnity of Armistice Day, nor the memories of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in a war where more than 16 million soldiers and civilians perished. It’s quite likely he didn’t even know what Armistice Day is. Continue reading →

Moving Past the Midterm

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I am a progressive, politically. I’m fine with the label, “radical,” also. There’s a tie-in to the late historian, Howard Zinn on the latter point. Zinn was a man who I admired and I’m glad Mark and got to hear him speak at Bates College one year during his Wheaton years, when he was home for Thanksgiving.

Tuesday’s election results are being interpreted in a myriad manner of ways. Much of the parsing of the final tallies of voter’s choices land along a narrow ideological divide. While certainly someone who can be called a “partisan,” Ari Melber’s trenchant analysis on MSNBC nailed it, IMHO. Spin it however you want: it was a historic night!

Tuesday was a historic night for Democrats.

For those deniers of “blue waves” or believers who thought Beto might win in Texas, a state redder than a ripe tomato, Wednesday morning delivered disappointment. If you were hoping for something less—simply restoring some check on the Orange-Menace-in-Chief—then you might be okay with the outcome. Of course, being the narcissist that he is, The Trumpinator made his push for Republicans what some were calling “a referendum.” As he told one reporter, “In a sense, I am on the ticket,” said The Donald following one of his rallies.

Sharice Davids, left, celebrates with mother, Tuesday night. (Jim Lo Scalzo photo)

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When Presidents Can’t Hear

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Our demagogue-in-chief has landed in Pittsburgh, despite being asked by leaders of both the city and Jewish communities to stay away. He refused to heed their request.

My late son, Mark Baumer, said everything that needed to be said about our president, the day before he would be killed along a highway in rural Florida. I don’t have anything to add because Mark nailed it in foreshadowing who Trump would turn out to be as a leader, the day that our president was being sworn-in as the 45th president of the United States. To say he’s been divisive is understatement at its best.

I quote:

“We now officially have a president,” said Mark, “that does not believe in climate change. He wants the world to burn so he can profit. We have a president who hates women, who discriminates against women, who physically abuses women. We have a president who hates minorities, who wants to make minorities suffer. we have a president who hates disabled people, who doesn’t want to help people when they are in need. All he wants to do is profit. If you support this man, you do not support human life on this planet, plain and simple. You do not support the future of earth as a planet…”

I was reminded of this today, thinking about Textron coming to Maine, and this kind piece written by Steve Ahlquist the day after Mark was killed.

Rest in Power, Mark Baumer!

Medicare (for all)

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We are slightly more than two weeks ‘til the midterms. Will the Democrats gain the House (and Senate), or will the Kavanaugh nomination drive Republicans to the polls in higher than usual numbers? Then, there are the myriad of issues sliding past the lips of candidates. One of them I’ve heard and care about is the term “Medicare for all.”

Despite continued opposition from almost every candidate on the right, Democrats recognize that voters do favor something more radical than President Obama’s plan for health insurance. While “Obamacare” is far from the ideal, all “the party of no” can come up with is continued cuts to Medicaid and even the specter that they’ll at some point gut Medicare.

If you look at polling, the landscape clearly shows that more than half of the country (and 70 percent of those polled who vote Democrat) want some form of single-payer healthcare, which is what Medicare is. More than half of America’s doctors also favor it. So why won’t our elected leaders do something about it?

I’ve written about passing my insurance exam and being licensed as a life/health agent in Maine. Last fall, I passed my CMS certification to sell Medicare. My first year representing Medicare Advantage plans found my sales to be minimal. But I was happy that I got to make this step forward as an agent. What I learned is that most people age 65 (or heading there fast) know little or nothing about Medicare. Worse, they don’t know how to maximize their healthcare benefit options. Continue reading →