There are a lot of words that bug me. Take, for example, “anyway.” On online Oxford Dictionary has a bit of a problem with this word, providing definitions like “Used to confirm or support a point or idea just mentioned.” The word itself is more of an interjection than anything. You wouldn’t, for example, write, “There isn’t anyway to get this done in time.” “Anyway” does not mean “any way.” That’s all pretty easy to understand in the case of this word. Things get much more difficult with the word “onto.” Oh, how I hate that word!
The word “onto” indicates that two objects meet. “They placed a cup onto a table.” (These is the less common construct, “I’m onto you!” But let us leave that aside.) We use “on to” when “on” is part of a verbal phrase. “After drinking the tea, they moved on to placing the cup onto the kitchen counter.” As you can see, in this form, the “on” really belongs to “moved.” So it would make much more sense to write “movedon to” than “moved onto.” (Obviously, there are cases where this ins’t true, “The cup was moved onto the table.”)
“On to” Is as Good as “Onto”
The problem with all of this is that there is no need for it. It is only fairly recently that “onto” was considered a word. And in England, it is still common for people to use “on to” where we Yankees use “onto.” And since I am always in favor of making writing easier when it comes to these annoying little matters, I see no reason for us not to jettison “onto,” use “on to” all the time, and never again give it a thought. Note that it absolutely doesn’t work the other way around: we can’t always use “onto.”
Back in 1926, Fowler made a great point:
Why Not Get Rid of the “to”?
For example, why not, “They placed a cup on a table.” Is the “to” necessary? No. And there aren’t that many cases where it is. The “to” is kind of a linguistic tic. I doubt if I stopped using it that anyone would notice. But by now, it’s a habit. So I’m just going to get rid of “onto” and leave it at that. I’ll see if I can train myself to get rid of the “to.” One thing’s certain: it will be easier to get rid of the “to” if it isn’t attached to the “on.”
Note that everything I’ve said about “onto” applies to “into.” The problem is that “into” is so much better established that one would end up looking foolish if they wrote, “He slipped it in to his pack.” At the same time, there’s nothing wrong with that. And again, we could instead write, “He slipped it in his pack.” I’ll leave this fight to the more courageous among us. My fight ends (at least for now) with “onto.”
In the current political climate, the biggest threat is to Earth science, which is increasingly devoted to climate change. It may not be a coincidence that conservatives in Congress have been systematically trying cut NASA’s Earth Science budget in favor of planetary exploration, albeit unmanned exploration. They argue that the goal is to refocus NASA on its traditional mission. But that’s a smokescreen, because research in climate science has become a major part of NASA’s mission. They’re really displaying their hostility to research that could undermine the fortunes of their patrons, the fossil fuel industry. If Trump’s call for manned planetary exploration is another puff of that smokescreen, it would hardly be surprising.
Some years ago, a reader rediscovered me. He said that he was glad to see that I had become more serious in my political writing, and noted that before I had written from a “glibertarian” perspective. That was the first time that I’d heard the term used. And I don’t think it was accurate. I think I wrote from a libertarian perspective. With very few exceptions, libertarian thinking is simplistic. That was definitely true of me. But “glibertarian”? I don’t really think so.
Before health reform, 1 out of every 6 Californians was uninsured. By 2016, only 7.4% lacked coverage.
Elizabeth posted a cartoon on my Facebook time line. It is by 
Until Tuesday, President Trump and Stephen K Bannon did a good job of keeping their base happy. They threw out red meat on immigration, ruthlessly attacked the press, cooked up an anti-Barack Obama conspiracy (to replace the birther conspiracy) and continued to talk tough on trade. If his actions and rhetoric horrified all Democrats, most independents, some thinking Republicans and the press, he did not care. Keep the base happy, stick to the nativist, protectionist Bannon hymnal.
Over at The Hill, Naomi Jagoda wrote, 
That we do have evidence of Americans having actual contact with Russians — quite a lot of evidence about quite a lot of Americans in Trump’s orbit — ought to be a clue that “McCarthyism” is not the most apt analogy. Indeed, it is a much closer description for the methods used by Trump himself.
One of the main ways that Obamacare increased insurance coverage was by expanding the Medicaid program to cover millions more low-income Americans. Prior to the health law, the entitlement was restricted to specific groups of low-income Americans (pregnant women, for example, and the blind and disabled).
President Donald Trump’s White House hunkered down unexpectedly Saturday to formulate a response to the president’s bizarre, unhinged tweets that morning accusing former President Barack Obama and members of the Obama administration of illegally “wire tapping” Trump Tower telephones in the weeks before the election. Suspicion quickly mounted that Trump lashed out after reading a Breitbart article, which amplified right-wing radio host Mark Levin’s call for Congress to investigate “Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’” against Trump.