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ALPERN AT LARGE - So the House, Senate, and President did what they should have done 6 or more months ago, which is to barf out the Epstein files, let the chaos ensue, and provide closure to the victimized girls and young women who deserved so much better.
Why the Trump Administration, and the Biden Administration for an entire four years before that, didn’t do that speaks to the lack of accountability that’s making Americans of all stripes go berserk.
Much of why we kept hearing Epstein, Epstein, EPSTEIN, Eeeehhhp-steeeein again and again and again clearly had something to do with the:
- Diverting from what may have been the longest shutdown government shutdown in recent history, which resulted in transportation chaos at airports, and many needy Americans enter a realm of avoidable poverty and hunger.
- An awareness that a whole lotta SNAP beneficiaries had no business getting food resources dedicated to the truly legal and needy families it was intended for.
- The shocking revelation that socialism was alive and well in a population fed up with a capitalist system gamed to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
- The forced realization (for those remaining few that didn’t believe the GOP and even Democratic naysayers that the Affordable Care Act wasn’t and isn’t affordable.)
- The unavoidable conclusion that a whole lotta illegal-aliens and/or undocumented-migrants and/or folks-who-ain’t-here-legally were and are getting their health care and other benefits paid for by the taxpayer.
Well, it’s a loooooooooooong time coming, and both the President and the GOP Congressional leaders have egg on their face from their own supporters, but now also the Democratic Party leaders know that the revelations of the late Jeffrey Epstein will backfire on them.
Some think it’s all a big coverup and lie, but President Trump will not be tagged by the released Epstein files…but Hakeem Jeffries, Larry Summers, Andrew of Britain (the man “formerly known as Prince”) have a lot of ‘splaining to do.
Yet for the rest of us who live in the world of grown-up priorities and daily crises, bigger questions arise:
- How do we make housing affordable?
- How do we make energy affordable?
- How do we make water and utilities affordable?
- How do we make health care affordable?
- How do we make food affordable?
- How do we make home/condo/apartment construction affordable?
- How do we make running a business affordable?
- How do we make college, and even a K-12 education, affordable?
- How do we make raising a child affordable?
- How do we make retirement affordable?
Inquiring minds really, really, reeeeeeeeally want to know, and even the President’s own supporters are just DONE with the honeymoon period for this President, and want less politics, world conflicts, and legal soap operas…
…and more affordability as the cost of living goes up by far faster than wages ever possibly could.
So the Epstein thing is hopefully done, and both sides of the political aisle will play “gotcha” with both facts and insinuation.
But what we REALLY want are fixes to affordability that have not arrived, and for which their lack of arrival booted the Biden Administration out of the White House and threatens to destroy the Trump Administration that followed.
We just can’t afford to wait any longer to confront and tackle the affordability conundrums we want Washington, D.C. to work on, mitigate, and maybe fix.
We can’t afford any more waiting!
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
