A good man says on the brink of disaster, “I sure hope I am wrong” a bad man says, “I told you so.” America has temporarily dodged the healthcare destruction bullet. Now badly in need of a win, Donald Trump has decided, the increased pollution of the planet will give him a Pyrrhic victory. In exchange for 75, 000 dwindling coal mining jobs, Trump gave artificial hope to a dying industry, while he grinned and preened before the cameras yesterday hyping the return of the coal mining business. Flanked by a bevy of stoic but hardworking coal miners, Trump gave them an approving thumbs up. Unfortunately, the thumbs up were really an affirmation of the impending demise of the industry.
The oxymoronic declaration that “clean coal” will save American jobs, came on the worn heels of a reversal of former President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives. With the stroke of a pen, President Trump set the course of ecology in reverse, circa 1970, when taking a deep breath in Los Angeles and New York City was at best difficult and at worse suicidal. Paraphrasing Robert Duvall from the movie Apocalypse Now, I love the smell of ‘methane’ in the morning.
Barack Obama, despite the obstruction of the anti-science right, did the good thing and joined the world and the scientific community’s effort to save the planet. Big C conservatives constantly talk about the financial burden Democrats will leave their grandchildren. Better the debt be leveraged on the future of a clean sky, rather than burn the mortgage of a condemned planet. Trump reversed plans to control power plant emissions, crippled methane and carbon dioxide regulations that allows pollution by oil and gas drillers to virtually be self-regulated again. All this under the approving eye of coal magnates and industry barons http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-idUSKBN16Z1L6.
Ahhhh for the days of a good man…
With no help from obstructionist Republicans and Democrats hiding in gerrymandered closets, President Obama made sure America took the first steps toward single payer insurance, joined the climate change fight and got America up off the canvas. The saddest part of the changes the current President is making is that they come from a policy free mind. Mr. Trump couldn’t tell you how a piece of coal is mined, even if it were under 45 and 60 kilobars of pressure and heated at 2000 degrees. We had something rare in American history, a diamond in the rough. President Barack Obama, wrote books and read them. He was a first many times over, first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, first President to recognize the rights of LGBTQ community in an Inaugural speech http://www.npr.org/2013/01/21/169920898/obama-the-first-president-to-mention-gay-rights-in-inaugural-address and oh yeah, there was that first Black President thing. He was a good man not a perfect man, as he would tell you himself.
Former President Obama implored his Republican counterparts, to help him help America. He told them, if I am wrong help me. Obama wanted the leaders of both parties to, "go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward."http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35296874/ns/politics-health_care_reform/t/gop-cool-obamas-call-health-talks/
The day after his healthcare initiative failed President Trump talked of implosion and explosion of the system. A bad man could not wait to say, I told you so, “let Obamacare explode, its exploding right now” https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005008006/trump-health-bill-vote.html. Trump considered the vote a test of loyalty to him. Obama considered voting for his bill a test one American’s loyalty to his fellow American. A good man versus a bad man… you decide.
’18 and Change’