“As much as I reject Donald Trump as our party leader, he did not create the political culture of the United States on his own.”
–Former Republican presidential candidate and governor of Florida Jeb Bush, in an op-ed published in The Washington Post where he denounces Donald Trump, saying he does not reflect “the principles or inclusive legacy of the Republican Party.” But Bush says that it is President Obama, not Donald Trump, who first escalated the conflict, by abusing his power to push liberal policies over the wishes of the American people.
“Eight years of the divisive tactics of President Obama and his allies have undermined Americans’ faith in politics and government to accomplish anything constructive,” Bush writes. “The president has wielded his power — while often exceeding his authority — to punish his opponents, legislate from the White House and turn agency rulemaking into a weapon for liberal dogma.
“In turn, a few in the Republican Party responded by trying to out-polarize the president, making us seem anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker and anti-common-sense,” Bush continues. “The result has been the vanishing of any semblance of compromise or bipartisanship in our nation’s capital. Simple problems don’t get solved. Speeches happen; the important stuff doesn’t. The failure of elected leaders to break the gridlock in Washington has led to an increasingly divided electorate, which in turn has led to a breakdown in our political system.”
Bush then uses the bulk of the rest of the column to propose conservative ideas meant to solve major issues facing the country. Bush argues that Republicans can win back the White House with “the power of our ideas,” such as term limits, a balanced-budget amendment, line-item-veto authority, a tough approach to terrorism, and promoting free markets. While Bush says he will either vote Libertarian or write someone in for president, he urges House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and the Republican-controlled Congress to serve as a check on the president, regardless of which candidate eventually wins the White House.
Bush also attacks Trump’s “abrasive, Know Nothing-like nativist rhetoric,” calling out the business mogul over his lack of serious policies, his use of Twitter to disparage opponents, and his embrace of tactics that “cynically feed” people’s angst and fear. But he also takes aim at presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, arguing that she would only “continue the disastrous foreign and economic policies of the Obama administration, as well as its hyper-partisanship.”
“She has gone as far as to say Republicans are her “enemy” — a clear sign she doesn’t have any more interest in doing the hard work of forging consensus than her former boss does,” writes Bush in a dig at both Obama and Clinton.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to enforce a policy mandating that U.S. passports list a traveler’s sex as assigned at birth, based on biological characteristics.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. government would recognize only two sexes, effectively erasing transgender identity. The order, which pledged to uphold "the biological reality of sex," directed the State Department to revise its passport policies to "accurately reflect the holder's sex."
Justine Lindsay, the NFL's first out transgender cheerleader, recently revealed that she was fired this year, a decision she alleges was motivated by transphobia and Donald Trump's election as president.
"I was cut because I'm trans," Lindsay said in an Instagram Live with Gaye Magazine. "I don't wanna hear nobody saying, 'She didn't wanna come back.' Why the hell would I not wanna come back to an organization that I've been a part of for three years? That makes no sense to me. So I was cut. I was devastated. It stung. I was hurt."
Lindsay, who made history as the NFL's first transgender cheerleader when she tried out and made the Carolina Panthers's TopCats squad in 2022, told the magazine that her teammates "know the truth" about the decision to cut her from the squad.
The summer of 1985, I turned 16. In Belgium. While I lived primarily in rural, red Florida, summers sometimes had me staying with Dad's family. At the time, my Army father was assigned to the American embassy in Brussels. With $100 in American Express "travelers' cheques," our go-to global currency of the time, it was a thrilling summer.
In Florida, I would've spent those months mopping floors or working the grill at a mall job. Instead, I had urban mass transit and could drink in bars. Granted, my Euro '80s summer was more Depeche Mode than anything as explicit as Call Me By Your Name. Though virginal, at least I passed for something seedier one afternoon.
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