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As sure as death & taxes, the Trump Party means to steal today’s election.

From Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to Wisconsin/Michigan/Pennsylvania/North Carolina/Florida 2016, we’ve seen it all before.  Here are some sure signals:

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts’ crowd pleasing production of Agatha Christie’s beloved 1934 Murder on the Orient Express is a highly entertaining combination of murder, mystery, mirth and morality. Stage and screen stalwart Tony Amendola steps into the spats-covered shoes of Christie’s character Hercule Poirot, the quirky Belgian detective previously portrayed by Albert Finney and Kenneth Branagh (sporting the world’s worst mustache) in star-studded 1974 and 2017 movie versions of Christie’s bestseller, and by Alfred Molina and renowned Poirot portrayer David Suchet in 2001 and 2010 TV versions of Orient Express. The iteration currently on the boards is the West Coast premiere of the first stage rendition of Christie’s novel, written by Ken Ludwig (whose comedic Lend Me a Tenor has also been performed at La Mirada’s beautiful venue).

The election will be a moment of truth for the country, and then what?

erhaps enough Americans in enough numbers in enough places have woken up to the wildfires consuming our country. Perhaps these woke Americans will throw some water on the fires in the November 6 election. Perhaps an emerging American majority will slow the Republican burn of American idealism, decency, and justice. Perhaps an emerging American majority will elect enough new Democrats to prod old Democrats out of their lazy collusion with burning the country down. Perhaps.

Some are inclined to recognize that Trumpies are dwelling in an alternative universe in which neither climate collapse nor nuclear apocalypse is a concern but terrifying wild hoards of Muslim Hondurans are skipping and dancing into the Fatherland armed with gang symbols, deadly rocks, and socialistic tendencies.

Others are alert to the fact that the so-called “mainstream” — the viewpoint of pro-status-quo, anti-improvement institutions — is also fabricated in a wishful dream factory. As exhibit one, I offer: Veterans Day.

A Bravura, Colossal Opera of Activism

To support his musical habit and pay the bills, for 20 years among other day jobs composer Philip Glass was a cab driver in New York City. But being a hack finally paid off in 1980 as the Glass ceiling was shattered when Satyagraha burst upon the Schouwburg’s stage in Rotterdam, Holland.

There’s a tendency to look down on opera as a centuries’ old art form that’s an outdated medium for old maids, stuffed shirts and all-around fuddy-duddies. But Glass’ revolutionary Satyagraha gives the lie to that clichéd canard. Through mesmerizing music, magisterial stagemanship, surreal scenery, radical politics and more, this three-act, three-hour-plus operatic extravaganza about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s (tenor Sean Panikkar, Pennsylvania-born son of immigrants from Sri Lanka) struggle for social justice is a tour-de-force. 

In 1939 the luxury liner St. Louis brought 937 desperate, mostly Jewish refugees to Miami. They were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. They had already been turned away by Cuba.

Amidst a Red Wave of "nationalist" hate, American "conservatives" screamed that these people were poor, didn't speak English and would take away our precious resources.

So Franklin Roosevelt did not let them into the United States. The ship was sent back to Europe. Nearly every Jew on it perished in Hitler's concentration and death camps.

Throughout Germany, Poland and everywhere else Hitler spread his hate, fascists were marching into synagogues like the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, gunning down Jews.

Today a caravan of desperate refugees is making its way from central America. They are fleeing a slaughterhouse of fascist murder and violence, as well as desperate poverty imposed by the relentless exploitation of imperial corporations.

Candidates have their campaigns energized by Trump, but it may be for good or bad. Some candidates would like to accept his endorsement softly, but that is not possible. Trump’s endorsements may harm their chance of election because:

·       He and the Republican leaders still want to rescind or weaken the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare). They have no viable replacement. ACA is becoming more popular as more people benefit from it.

·       He wants to reduce the benefits from Social Security and Medicare, which is financed solely by FICA Withholding Tax on the workers first $118,500 of earned income.

·       He is a racist and bigot, being against people of color, Hispanics, Muslim, LGBTs; and now apparently Jews, evidence, his inappropriate response following the mega bombing and the mass murders in Pittsburgh.

·       He is a consummate liar.

A Republican lobbyist and a young right-wing activist with a history of dubious Tweets apparently are behind a bizarre scheme to smear Special Counsel Robert Mueller with false sexual-harassment allegations. Mueller reportedly has asked the FBI to investigate the scheme, and one report refers to its perpetrators -- Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl -- as "pro-Trump conspiracy theorists."

The Precautionary Principle: "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage to environmental or human health, exploitation by any corporate or personal entity that could damage the environment or the health of humans must be delayed until there is absolute scientific certainty that damage can be totally averted.”

"Altruism is a great evil...while selfishness is a virtue." -- Ayn Rand, atheist author of Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead andThe Virtue of Selfishness whose books were the inspiration for the American libertarian movement.

Migrant caravan 1,000 miles from US border poses NO threat

he actual news, as of October 28, was that the migrant caravan of mostly Honduran asylum-seekers posed NO imminent threat to the US. Even Mexico doesn’t treat the caravan as a threat. The caravan is traveling through southern Mexico. The caravan is more than 1,000 miles from the US border’s nearest point. Nobody knows how many people are in the caravan, estimated at 7,000 at its peak. Currently the caravan is shrinking, with estimates running around 3,500. Some Hondurans have decided to go home. An estimated 1,700 have applied for asylum in Mexico. By all reliable reports, the caravan has been peaceful and has been peaceably received by Mexicans along its route. The only unusual thing about this caravan was its initial size, and now that, too, is unremarkable.