Tonight, not long removed from the longest government shutdown in United States history and 10 days out from yet another federal closure, Donald Trump gave the second State of the Union of his presidency.
The speech itself lasted roughly an hour and a half and was originally planned to spark a bipartisan tone given the partisanship that has so far emanated as a result of the Trump administration.
In some cases, Trump did strike a bipartisan tone when speaking of his desire to fund childhood cancer research in hopes of putting an end to the deadly disease. Likewise he also spoke of his hopes to end new HIV transmissions by 2030 which on he surface seems like something politicians on both sides of the aisle can get behind. The irony though of this goal first are the proposed changes most recently brought on during his administration to Medicare Part D benefits something HIV/AIDS experts warn could be a detriment for patients to start anti-retroviral therapy, or ART. Second, the Trump administration’s growing hostilities towards the LGBTQ community and whether or not the President is going to take a serious, noteworthy effort to help gay and bisexual men especially who make up roughly 70 percent of the HIV/AIDS population combat the disease.
It also may have been a surprise to some but Trump didn’t announce any plan to declare a state of emergency to build his nonsensical border wall. That’s not to say though he didn’t offer his base plenty of red meat to chew on, especially when it came to immigration.
El Paso turned from one of the most dangerous to “one of our safest cities” after a border barrier was built.
At this point Trump is going to do whatever he has to do to push his xenophobic monument which includes declaring a national emergency. However in addition to this Trump will continue to try and dictate the immigration narrative by attempting the win the court of public opinion by spreading his own brand of fake news on issue. This includes saying El Paso is now one of the United States’ “safest cities” after a border barrier was built.
For this, El Paso was never one of the United States’ most dangerous cities to begin with. According to the New York Times, crime had already been on the decline in cities across America and in 2008, before any kind of fencing or barrier was installed in El Paso, that city had the second-lowest violent crime rate among more than 20 similarly sized urban areas. In 2010 after barriers were put in place El Paso maintained their position.
El Paso though is probably an easy target for Trump considering the Texas city borders Juarez, one of the more violent urban areas in the World and may be an assumed example to push by border wall supporters.
Mr. Trump said the “socialist policies” of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela have ruined his nation.
Aside from maybe Anarchism, Socialism has to be one of the most misunderstood and misdefined ideologies. Under most circumstances individuals are completely thrown off by governments past and present claiming to be socialist. In these cases governments may refer to their State or Party as socialist in order to gain working support from the left. It was a tactic used by Adolf Hitler when he created the National Socialists (socialism has nothing to do with Nazism and to claim as such is asinine) and the same tactic used when dictatorships in Africa may use the term democratic within their country’s title to give the impression that the government was democratically elected.
When it comes to Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro has been anything but socialist. Marduro is a State Socialist (which is really an oxymoron in and of itself) or Leninist who in theory really has more things in common with a capitalist dictatorship than true socialism.
Socialism in short advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the workers. In a lot of sense it goes hand-in-hand with anarchy in terms of the abolishment of hierarchy and social class something that most definitely hasn’t been implemented by the Maduro regime.
At this point I just with the United States government was upfront with their true intentions in Venezuela. It’s not about the people of Venezuela or the harsh authoritarian government of Maduro. It’s about installing what’s essentially a puppet government to establish better influence among the that Country’s vast oil reserves.
Trump calls for a federal anti-abortion legislation
After efforts to loosen abortion restrictions in New York and Virginia were highlighted last week Trump called for federal anti-abortion legislation calling on lawmakers to “work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.” Trump also added “let reaffirm a fundamental truth: All children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”
Again the irony when bringing God into the discussion considering Trump himself said he’s never asked for ‘forgiveness’. How he won over the evangelical vote is beyond me. They’re either incredibly stupid or completely sold themselves out.
Anyways, Trump much like the other anti-choice crowd out there seems to have a one track mind when it comes to the abortion issue. The legislation that got so much attention last week, New York’s Reproductive Health Act, allows abortions after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or there is a risk to the mother’s health. This in turn would be a huge for pregnant women who are either too ill to travel long distances to have the procedure done or handcuffed with thousands of dollars worth of medical bills.
Of course though, Donald Trump and much of the right continue to be very apathetic towards people on the outside of the womb.
