Ebola Update October 28, 2014 WAZE I’m probably the last one to know this — I don’t drive much — but waze is a great app that takes current traffic conditions into account in routing you to your destination. Check it out. EBOLA The death toll among American citizens — zero until recently — has now climbed to still zero. The nightmare continues — as does the criticism. Who can focus on anything else when everywhere you turn in America no one is dying from Ebola? Why put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure to get the economy where it should be and wages rising across the board . . . why impose the universal background checks on guns that even 73% of NRA members favor . . . when we could all be dead in a few weeks anyway? Today’s post is late because my Internet went down last night (and my Acela to Washington Saturday took three hours and twenty-two minutes because our infrastructure is crumbling), so I’ll keep this short. But when I hear on CBS This Morning how Democratic candidates are having to run away from the President’s record (because the other side has done such an effective job of making people think it’s bad — Mitch McConnell says that “by any standard” the President has been “a disaster” for the country), it makes me a little nuts. The President’s record — achieved in the face of unprecedented obstruction — includes an averted depression, a rescued automobile industry, a stabilized housing market, a dramatically reduced deficit, the National Debt shrinking relative to the economy, a strong dollar, 55 consecutive months of private-sector job growth, unemployment below 6% two years sooner than Mitt pledged he would get it there, record-low mortgage rates, a credit-card bill of rights, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that’s already helped consumers recoup billions, health care security for all who might ever develop a “pre-existing condition,” the lowest health-care inflation in decades, more affordable college loans, huge progress toward energy independence, record-high corporate profits, a nearly tripled Dow, replenished 401k’s . . . and that’s just the kitchen-table economic stuff. And the only reason it’s not much better still is the Republican refusal to allow a hike in the minimum wage . . . passage of the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill . . . and passage of the American Jobs Act (to rebuild our infrastructure) . . . all three of which economists confirm would boost our economy for everyone. And their refusal to allow refinancing of federal student loans at today’s low rates (as homeowners refinance mortgages), which would provide yet another nice little boost. A boosted economy, needless to say, means, also, higher wages, higher profits, and greater prosperity. The Republican agenda these past six years has been to block — and then vote 52 times to repeal — access to affordable health care . . . reject federal dollars to expand Medicaid . . . block investments in infrastructure . . . shut down the government . . . make it harder for people to vote (decried now even by a famously conservative judge who once ruled in their favor) . . . and block the right of women and their doctors to make reproductive health care decisions without government interference and mandated vaginal probes. But we can change all that Tuesday.