In my view, all workers should have the opportunity to join unions, and those unions should play a major role in representing us in the workplace and in the public square. Men and women died for the right to form unions, to strike, to bargain collectively. We need unions now to become the inspiring force and to play the vital roles in our democracy that they did during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. We need unions to become associations that workers want to proudly join.

We will dearly miss his courage, his wisdom and his judgment. He never shrunk from duty; he always spoke his mind on the great issues of the day; he embraced the difficult challenges facing our nation. He sought bipartisan solutions.

Paul Manafort, prior to being hired by President Trump as his campaign manager in 2016, was the campaign strategist and lobbyist for Victor Yanukovich, the former President of the Ukraine for about ten years from 2004 through 2014.

Trump aligned gubernatorial candidates in Georgia, Minnesota, and Kansas upended more conventional Republican candidates. It’s unclear that these candidates will win in November, but it is clear that Trump is enormously popular among Republican voters, and if you’re an elected or campaigning Republican candidate, you cross him at your peril.

Today’s (8/13/18) New York Times has an excellent piece on the impacts to date of the Trump corporate tax cuts: share buy backs leading to higher stock prices for investors, no increases in spending on plant and equipment, no increase in worker’s real wages and a very large increase in the national debt.

From 1980 to 2016, income inequality has steadily increased in the United States, but not in Western Europe.

Gustavo Arrellano has an interesting opinion piece in today’s Los Angeles Times arguing for parents’ ability to vote in local elections, regardless of their immigration status.

California has reduced its uninsured rates from 17% to about 6.8% due to the Affordable Care Act. About 40% of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Covered California or Medi-Cal, so we need to improve enrollment in both programs, this paper looks at Covered California. Less than half (400,000) of those eligible for Covered California are eligible for premium assistance and more than half (550,000) are not.

There are three dimensions of the homeless problem: lack of supportive housing units, lack of supportive services, and lack of affordable housing generally.

Covered California released its preliminary premiums for 2019. All existing plans have stayed in the market. Overall, their premiums will increase by 8.7%. Without the changes promoted by the Trump Administration to eliminate the “individual responsibility” (individual mandate) requirement, their premiums would have increased by roughly 5%.

President Trump is doing long-term lasting damage to the American economy on three fronts – trade, tariffs and immigration.

On his return from Helsinki, I was expecting President Trump to be perp-walked into Riker’s Island, placed in solitary, and denied all but bread and water and then water boarded by the CIA ‘til he confessed.

It’s hard to believe that in a few days President Trump and Chairman Kim will sit down to start talks on ending the Korean War – a war that ended 65 years ago. How time flies!

Fifty years ago I was in law school preparing for and taking first year exams. I was walking to breakfast in an underground tunnel when a young guy from maintenance approached to tell me Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed during the night.

I found an antidote to all the hate emanating from and around and about our President in the “Book of Joy”. These are interviews with the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The Governor’s May Revise Budget reports $8 billion in additional revenues over three years. He proposes to pay down debt, to put funds in the state’s Rainy Day fund to offset revenue losses in the next recession and to make one-time expenditures on needed infrastructure improvements.

The June 5, 2018 ballot is important for two reasons: first, the top two finishers will be on the November ballot; second, the Propositions will be decided by those who vote in June. Please vote on June 5 or before if by mail.

One step forward and two giant steps back. President Trump has made a huge mistake in withdrawing from the multi-party nuclear agreement with Iran. His motivation apparently is to please the Israeli and Saudi governments of President Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and possibly salve his own wounded and over-sized ego. There is no Plan B.

So far, President Trump has not yet met an agreement that he does not dislike: NATO, NAFTA, the UN, TPP, Climate Change, Iran and Cuba. He now has trusted enablers around him: Bolton, Pompeo, and Pruitt to execute his desires, and he has exorcised those such as Tillerson, McMaster (and probably soon Kelly) whom he perceives have stood in his way. Let’s see what he can do.