The Trump Administration has alienated many of our most important and long standing allies in Europe, has further destabilized the Middle East and has cozied up to dictators in Russia and North Korea. The President has ruined long-standing trade relationships and alliances and weakened important advances in international law, such as the Climate Change Agreement and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreements with Russia and Iran. It will take some time and much effort for the next President to repair the damages he has wrought in such a short time in office.

Labor and capital are two sides of the same coin – a productive economy or a failed economy. Right now trade unions represent only 10% of American workers, down from over 1/3rd in the 50’s, and only about 6% of private sector employees. The union movement is weak, as we have entered a new Gilded Age of great and rising inequality in our society. We need to rebuild it.

When the next President takes office in 2021, the US economy, the federal budget and the vulnerable people and regions of America could be in dire straits. We know that the US will be running annual budget deficits of $1 trillion or more. We may be in a recession, its length or depth unknown; we don’t know whether it will hit the financial markets, the housing markets, manufacturing, agriculture energy or the service sector or all of the above. We may still be in a trade war with China, hiking the costs of many consumer goods by 15-25%. The lower income half of all Americans have still not fully recovered economically from the Great Recession, and younger generations are mired in student debt and unable to afford their first family home. The depth of economic distress in regions like the Appalachians and the Mississippi Delta may be continuing unabated or worsening. Manufacturing may still be in recession, and American farmers may still be in dire straits due to the trade war with China. Our allies and trusted trading partners may be few and highly alienated. Our trade deficit may be large and growing. Alternatively, the trade war may be over and the economy could be improving; let’s hope for the latter, but at least contemplate and be prepared for the former.

Immigrants built our nation; they contribute enormously to our economic successes. They are young, hard working, entrepreneurial, talented and immensely grateful for the opportunities to live in the US. They bring great value to our nation ranging from our nation’s farms to Silicon Valley.

President Trump has made his tough stance on legal immigration and undocumented immigrants the hallmark of his administration from his first speech calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murders, through the caged and separated children at the border to the most recent refusal to acknowledge citizenship for the children born abroad to naturalized citizen American service persons and diplomats who are serving their nation overseas. His get tough at the border policies have for the most part been failing and the numbers of people seeking asylum and being detained at the Southern US border have been increasing to their highest levels since 2000 on his watch.

The US Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 decision in late June, 2019 that extreme partisan gerrymandering is a “political question” to be resolved in Congress, state legislatures, state courts or state ballot initiatives, in other words anywhere but not in the federal courts.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump, there will be much to clean up.

I think what makes me angriest about President Donald Trump are his racism, his conscious and consistent cruelty and his anti-immigrant crusades.

Yes, we are headed for a recession, it’s a natural part of the business cycle, and we’ve been growing our way out of the Great Recession for the past 10 years. When will it hit us? No one really knows, the best guesses are some time in the next two years, more likely towards the end of next year although some commentators think we may already be there. The economic indicators suggest that the manufacturing sector is already in a mild recession.

US health spending per capita is twice that of virtually every other developed nation. Health costs are a function of price multiplied by use (utilization). Our use of health care services is on the low side as compared to most other nations, while our prices are on the very high side. To top it off, we don't get very good (in fact comparatively poor) outcomes on a range of health indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.

Employment-based health insurance covers about half of all working age Californians. It has been steadily declining in relative importance for the past 40 years. During that time, many more Californians became uninsured, and the Medi-Cal program enrollment grew. Recently under the ACA, mid sized and large employers were required to offer coverage of the ten essential health benefits to their full time employees. Low, moderate and middle income uninsured employees were offered coverage through Medicaid (MediCal) and the Exchanges (Covered California) respectively depending on their income. Uninsurance rates were cut in half in California.

Douglass was born a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; he was often badly beaten and semi-starved by cruel slave owners, their overseers and slave breakers. In an extraordinary odyssey, he became the pre-eminent African American speaker and leader, writer, editor and newspaper publisher in the twenty years of lead up to the Civil War and during its turbulent aftermath. During his long life of activism he faced every issue from racism and political corruption to misogyny and nativism to a retrograde Supreme Court, which we all must now confront and combat yet again in the administration of President Trump.

“Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf(ves).”

The Trump re-election campaign is underway, and he wants to ensure that his loyalists are in charge of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Witness the rapid rise and fall of Representative Ratcliffe from Texas to replace Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats who has minced no words in describing Russian efforts to interfere in US elections.

Today, President Trump tweeted a 10% tariff on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods. So that likely increases the prices you will pay for most I-phones, clothes, shoes and kids toys by 10%.

In the heat of the Presidential candidates’ debate, crucial misinformation is inadvertently conveyed; some because the candidates don’t fully understand their own plans or those of their rivals, and some because they seek to elevate their own plans and dismiss their rivals.

Senator Bernie Sanders epitomizes the “Medicare for All” proposal. Vice President Joe Biden is the chief proponent of building on the Affordable Care Act. These are two very different ways to get to universal coverage with very important policy differences that merit serious thought and rational debate.

Senator Kamala Harris has outlined her own health plan for all Americans. Like Senator Bernie Sanders, she covers everyone. Like Senator Sanders she offers comprehensive benefits. Like Senator Sanders, she eliminates copays and deductibles, and premiums. She departs from Senator Sanders on three issues: the role of private insurance, the financing and the length of transition.

The debate between Senator Harris and Vice President Biden on school busing evokes memories from my past.

Here we are celebrating the extraordinary American moon landing achievement of 1969. It was also the time of great advances in civil rights, in health coverage for seniors, the disabled and the poor, and of a nation divided by the Vietnam War and the end of legal segregation – the American version of apartheid.