John Funiciello

For the most part, the president has used the same techniques for “governing” as he did to win the Republican primary elections: He used name-calling and base language to whittle down his opponents in the field, all the while steering clear of laying out any positive programs or policies to address the real ills that the country faces.

Trump and his friends and colleagues in Corporate America do not want anything to interfere with their quest for profits. It's not surprising, since the only god Trump recognizes is mammon, the god of money. He has lived for it and he knows nothing else, and it is why he has no capacity for empathy or sympathy with the people of the long march or the poor in his own country.

This president has no capacity to understand that the world, in a global economy, works differently from real estate predators in New York City, where his bravado and braggadocio count for a “good deal.” It doesn't work in the real world, but Trump and his minions in the administration do not seem to realize any of that, and the Republican congress has been convinced or intimidated into complying with the wishes of a know-nothing, as he struts around on the world stage, a pale imitation of Benito Mussolini in the 1920s.

'National security' is used to make the people fearful, to make them bend to the demands of unstable leaders and to make them pliable and pacified. It’s an old story that needs to be changed.

For most of the history of America, the elite have been in charge, but rarely has the electorate had a chance to see on paper that what they have been taught and led to believe is not the way it is. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is largely a myth and democracy is a fleeting thing in this nation.

If American citizens need any reassurance that, all by himself, Trump has made the U.S. the laughing stock of the world, they can read or watch any account of his time at the General Assembly's podium. He was shocked by the reaction of his narcissistic recounting of his greatness, because in his own mind, there never has been anyone as great as he believes himself to be.

It has been pointed out over many years, there is so much to learn about the millions of plant and animal species, so many of which hold the key to cures for illnesses and disease, that it should be a crime that the habitats are being destroyed before we know the importance of them to all humanity.