Kirk's Politics Blog

PictureKirk Marchand has been involved in politics since he marched up 50th St. in Norfolk Va. in 1964, supporting Republican governor Scranton. He spoke at Norfolk Catholic High School in 1972 in support of George McGovern, and worked for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Since 1985 he has been a middle and high school teacher, and has taught Government from 8th grade Civics through AP Government. While he is a staunch Democrat, he has always encouraged people, especially young people to vote. A general theme of his career is helping people understand the importance of local and state government.

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1/14/2017-

We have six days to go until  Donald Trump is inaugurated as president. He was elected to a small extent by being endorsed by the "Alt-Right", an anti-neocon anti internationalist movement. Some on the Alt-Right are more segregationist and anti immigration, read this interview with Richard Spencer on NPR.  It should be noted that many on the Alt-Right are disappointed (to say the least) about Trump's cabinet picks . Before the election they had their hopes up and a short list . Right after the election they had a lot of expectations expressed at a rally in Washington right after the election. Their reaction now is more muted, considering the number of Wall Street insiders appointed so far.

Trump has two very big political problems based on who voted for him. The biggest surprise in the election was the electoral flip of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It's clear that the margin in those states were former facory workers and their family members who are expecting  a President Trump to "bring back" factories. The problem is that factories built in the last twenty years rely on automation, as expressed in this MIT article.  On listening to interviews with company owners and managers over the last few years it's clear that a factory that used to need 5000 wokers now needs less than 500. At least a quarter of the personnel need to be people with engineering degrees. Another large chunk need to be computer programmers and graphic design professionals. The assembly line worker doesn't really exist anymore. So high school graduates who expect to get assembly line jobs in newly constructed factories will not be able to get them.

Mr. Trump's other political problem is the "wall". He has already made a lot of his supporters mad by going back on forcing Mexico to pay for it, although there was never and will never be a way to get Mexco to pay for it. The idea of not letting people wire money to Mexico is unconstitutional, that point does not even deserve further discussion.  Establshing a tax on wire transfers will be agressively lobbied by Westen Union, and no Republican will vote for anything that can be labelled a tax increase. So there's no way to force Mexico to pay for it.

Another problem is that the tax cuts and infrastucture expenditures he has proposed will cause a massive increase in the deficit. This is according to both conservatives and liberals. We will see how far this gets.

The last point is History. Can anyone tell us the last time there were three presidents in a row who each served two full terms? Give up? It was Jefferson - Madison - Monroe, numbers 3, 4, and 5. How about 4 presidents in a row? Nope, never. More later...............................

Got a response? Send It Here Pithiness will be published!




12/28/2015 -

This election season has been very interesting. The rank and file of the Republican party has completely rejected all career politicians, and this is the most interesting point. Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, none of them have any political experience. And the most popular politicican is the one with the least experience, Ted Cruz.


The catalog of inconsistancies that the Republican voters are not considering is also interesting. On Donald Trump's checklist, there's building a wall along the US Mexico border. Mr. Trump has not given us any practical metod of paying for this wall. In another instance, he suggested that we stop all Musliims from entering the country. What standard is he goijg to use to successfully stop entry? Of course there are Muslims who dress a specific way, but this is not universal.

In a third instance, Mr. Trump told a New Hampshire Fraternal Order of Police rally that he would sign an executive order that would impose the death penalty on people who are convicted of killing a police officer. In the first place, the president can only enforce an executive order if it is within the executive branch of the federal government, or if it is part of executing a law enactted by Congress. In the second place, unless the officer is a federal officer, killing a federal officer is a matter of state law, not federal law.


Despite these blatantly unconstitutional and/ or budget deficit exploding ideas, Mr. Trump seems headed for the Republican nomination for president.



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