Tom Toles for April 10, 2017

His real plan would be to go back to the pony express and coal fired steam engines.

Getting back to the subject of this comic; “infrastructure” spending isn’t sexy. But it is highly cost-effective. And it is far more than merely roads. It’s water delivery and wastewater systems, the ones that have been ignored for far too long. It’s enhancing mass transit of all kinds. It’s upgrading the electrical grid, the natural gas pipelines, & the air traffic control network. It is building schools or any other type of public building. And it puts people to work who need jobs. If Drumpf proposes these kinds of projects, the Dems should work with him.

But if he tries to force the country backwards into a reliance on old technology (like coal) and away from the tech of the future (like renewable energy), he will have done a grave disservice to the entire nation. The future always belongs to the agile and inventive.

Its funny how every time Obama tried to push infrastructure during his administration, all the Republicans continually refused to support it in any way.

Drumpf can get bigger bribes from the Coal industry then the alt-power people.

TRUMPISTIC WAYS – {a rhyme}

Trumpistic ways don’t well serve our nation, -

- such as: {1} Improving our Infra by privatization

and {2} Green-type Energy’s funding’s starvation

and {3} Continuing the Carbon-Extractors’ predation.

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SMARTER THAN TRUMPIANS – {a rhyme}

Like white-water rapids a-crashing through boulders,

the swirls are too much for a poorly-steered raft

like the raft poorly handled by These office-holders.

We need smarter-than-Trumpians effectively to craft

some ways to cope, -

- to give us some hope

that over the falls we won’t crash

and splattingly bash and smash.

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BOOS to FOX NEWS – {1.20 limerics and a coda/image}

Permit me to gripe and to kvetch:

The news which I every day fetch

makes me want to retch

that red-handed they {catch} ketch

the Foxers continuing to letch

and continuing the truth to stretch.

… Coda:

With Trump it’s okay

that these guys are this way:

http://media.salon.com/2017/04/bill-trump-ailes-620×412.jpg

=========

Infrastructure is for losers. Real Americans have private jets.

Republicans will get their steam driven coal burning engines up and polluting any day now.

AGAIN DEJA VU? – {a rhyme}

Again into déjà vu?

Again we’re in deep doo-doo?

We’ll escalate in Syria too?

And there too, too much to chew?

Boo to the Neo-Con crew.

======

None of his supposed agenda will ever get done with two more wars going on – Syria and N. Korea.

Now, come on, we all know how those miners just love to dig coal all day, breathing coal dust, contracting black lung, being paid slave wages and having to purchase all their needs at the (heavily overpriced) company store. After all, their forebears dug coal all the way back to Adam, right?

Anybody know if Trump has sent Kushner out to buy up a few coal mines on the sly?

Remove old crumbling bridges with Cruise missiles.

Tom Toles forgets that:1. Fixing infrastructure is a campaign promise and 2. The potholes don’t fix themselves3. Libs never complain about potholes or decaying bridges

Tom, we still need roads. And in Michigan we need them BAD !!!

Okay, here’s how I read it: Trump’s infrastructure plan is leading him away from advanced technology, which is the real future. Unfortunately, if Trump turned his roller around, he’d run into and crush the advanced tech. That doesn’t seem like a better approach. Somehow an image of a solar panel and an image of a highway being paved don’t combine into a clear statement of the essential problem here. Try again, Tom. I know you can do it.

Let’s just cut to the chase; Drumpf is a ROYAL pain in the Asphalt!

It seems to me that up to now (overall) the U.S. has moved in the direction of clean power and the Chinese have been known for their high pollution. It would be possible that the trends could be reversed…

Trump’s Infrastructure plans will move us away from Advanced technologies, clean energy and an actual future. He wants to do to our infrastructure what he has done to healthcare.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman: "Even in West Virginia, the typical worker is basically a nurse, not a miner — and that has been true for decades.

So why did that state overwhelmingly support a candidate who won’t bring back any significant number of mining jobs, but quite possibly will destroy healthcare for many — which means jobs lost as well as lives destroyed?

The answer, I’d guess, is that coal isn’t really about coal — it’s a symbol of a social order that is no more; both good things (community) and bad (overt racism). Trump is selling the fantasy that this old order can be restored, with seemingly substantive promises about specific jobs mostly just packaging.

One thought that follows is that Trump may not be as badly hurt by the failure of his promises as one might expect: he can’t deliver coal jobs, but he can deliver punishment to various kinds of others.

When you’re ignorant about science and technology, then, your Infrastructure Agenda is seriously flawed! [ Just look at who got picked to head the DOE and EPA! ]

Meanwhile Germany is going solar, is SHUTTING DOWN one nuke plant per year and has so much power that it is selling ti to other countries. California is going that way as well, solar, wind and the grid gets close to overload because of the renewables. Energy prices are reaching negative cost!!!! But der Drumpfenführer want to use coal.

Trump never had any intention of “restoring coal jobs”, he knew at the time that he would just make a couple of gestures and wash his hands of it.

He also knew he fully intended to gut out the programs the old mining regions depend on.

They voted for it, they’ll get it, in spades.

Trump, so Republican that some Republicans can’t even stand him.

Trump wants to privatize the infrastructure. This means the only things that will be fixed are those that can generate a profit from tolls or taxes. Much of our infrastructure cannot be used for profit, which is why government should NOT be run like a business.

Maybe for once? Let’s give CEO Trump his Golden Parachute! It’ll cost less than his cruise missile “lesson” to Assad!