Monday, December 30, 2019

Democrats need to fight Fire with Fire.

The current (and past) incarnation of the Republican Party (Cult of Trump) will use virtually any tactics to secure victory.
Democrats need to fight fire with fire against them in 2020 in every local, state, and national race.
Republicans are placing Anti Impeachment Ads in districts of House Centrist Democrats that voted to impeach Donald Trump.
Democrats need to, in addition to the ads showing their advantage on issues like health care, broadcast pro-impeachment ads depicting Individual One’s betrayal of his oath of office in vulnerable Republican seats.
Republicans say that Trump won an electoral college “landslide.” Democrats need to continually remind people that Trump lost the popular vote by three million votes, a greater margin than any United States President. He owed his Electoral College squeaker to a 110,000 vote spread in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that will not be there again.
Republicans say that the “Stable Genius” is responsible for the state of the economy.
Democrats need to counter that this economic expansion started under the Obama Administration and average stock levels and employment gains were better under the Democratic Administration.
Democrats also need to show that their programs, not the Trumpists, will better provide opportunity, move the country forward, clean the environment, rebuild infrastructure, increase the number of those with health insurance, invest in schools and children, raise wages, and reduce income inequality.
Republicans are relying on their base turning out to carry the 2016 KKK-endorsed candidate to another electoral college victory.
Democrats need to take advantage of the opportunity Trump’s, Moscow Mitch’s, and their cultist, divisive, obstructive, scientifically ignorant apostates present to them by persuadingpeople of all stripes (regardless of race, religion, party affiliation, or social class)  and all regions (rural, urban, and suburb) that the Democratic program is best for the country.
Republicans are content with having an impeached, sexist, lying (over 15,000 and rising), racist, and thieving, unindicted co-conspirator as their nominee again in 2020.
Democrats, like former President Obama, have stated, need to get over this fixation with purity tests and “tearing down the system” and pick the best appealing candidate with the most electable progressive program to beat Donald Trump.
It is possible that Donald Trump could win reelection with a larger popular vote loss than in 2016.
Democrats, if they want to defeat Trump, retake the Senate, hold the House, and prevail in the majority of state and local races in 2020, need to wake up and fight fire with fire.


https://blogforarizona.net/democrats-need-to-fight-fire-with-fire/

Sunday, December 29, 2019

In terms of the current Democratic Presidential Candidates, I like Amy Klobachur and Michael Bennet and am sorry most of the Governors are out. Cory Booker has an impressive resume and is very charismatic but there is something about him that screams phony. Julian Castro has a great resume and presence as well but he made the mistake (for me anyway) of saying he would decriminalize illegal border entries and for going after Biden in a stupid way at one of the debates.

It is just amazing that outside of Biden, the ones with the most executive experience (Inslee, Bullock, Hickenlooper, Patrick, Booker, Castro, and Bloomberg) have either dropped out or not caught on.

Where are the Presidents statements expressing support for the Jewish Community during Hanukkah attacks by Domestic Terrorists?

There have been nine domestic terrorist attacks against New York Jewish residents during Hanukkah over the last eight days.
The latest tragedy occurred on December 28 when a suspect walked into a local Rabbi’s home and started stabbing people in attendance for the last day of Hanukkah.
These attacks coincide with a marked increase in Anti-Semitic incidents in this country and around the world over the last several years including the horrific synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and the recent attack at a Jewish market in Jersey City.
Local New York officials like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have been quick to express support to the Jewish Community and condemn these domestic terrorist attacks.
So have dignitaries in Israel like its President and Prime Minister.
Where are the statements of support for the Jewish Community and condemnation of the attacks from the President of the United States?
The American People should not have to hear statements of remorse and support from the Prime Minister of Israel before the President of the United States. 
Being totally self-absorbed on his impeachment predicament, Mr. Trump is so preoccupied with ridiculing (mostly via tweet) the people he sees as going after him, that he has forgotten that one of his roles as Chief Executive is to comfort by conveying sympathy for the victims and assuring their families and friends that justice will be served and this cancer of hate will never eclipse the American ideal.
Mr. Trump should take some time from his holiday schedule and be the Healer in Chief rather than focusing only on himself.
He needs to start healing the divisions that he himself has helped to foster.



https://blogforarizona.net/where-are-the-presidents-statements-expressing-support-for-the-jewish-community-during-hanukkah-attacks-by-domestic-terrorists/?fbclid=IwAR0IFWPV2cO2BSwRc1_4ro5NSc9GTFjDPPnTlIcB46aKQeIdcS4OTxM6lO4

Editorial Cartoons of the week from Blog For Arizona

https://blogforarizona.net/cartoon-of-the-week-308/

Friday, December 27, 2019

Idea for 2020: Be part of the Civic Process. Democracy and Republics can not exist or thrive without the participation of a well informed populace.

Recommended Books of the Year 2019: A great way to spend your Visa and Amazon Gift Cards

Robert Bartholomew and Anja Reumschussel: American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants

Tim Marshall: The Age of Walls

Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (Politics and Culture) 1st Edition by William Galston

The Government-Citizen Disconnect Paperback  by Suzanne Mettler



Thomas Friedman: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why we need a Green Revolution and How it Can Renew America Release 2.0

Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison by David Wootton


Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash over the New Deal by Eric Rauchway


Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts by Jill Abramson

The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy by Michael Mann

It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism by Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann

A Foreign Policy for the Left by Michael Walzer

The Mueller Report:

Why Learn History (When It's Already on your I Phone) by Sam Wineburg


Douglas Brinkley American Moonshot: John Kennedy and The Great Space Race

Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital by Kimberly Clausing

Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America by Jared Cohen


It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

1984 by George Orwell

All the King’s Men by Robert Warren Penn

All the Presidents Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein


The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood


Michael Lewis The Fifth Risk

Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein: The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality

War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943–1945 (FDR at War) by Nigel Hamilton

The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America by Jim Sciutto

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade

Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation  by John Meacham and Tim McGraw

Jim Acosta: The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America

Vicky Ward: Kushner Inc

Margaret McMillian’s 1919: Six Months that Changed the World
David Andelman’s A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.
David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace
David Fromkin’s In the Time of the Americans

The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America
 by Daniel Okrent

Space, Centennial, Hawaii, Texas and the Source by James Michener

It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics by David Faris

Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands by Robert Satloff

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols

The New Silk Road by Peter Frankopan

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney

Behold, America: The Entangled History of "America First" and "the American Dream" by Sarah Churchwell


Naomi Klein: On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal


El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America by Carrie Gibson


Richard Stengel: Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It

Giles Milton: Paradise Lost Smyrna 1922 The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance

Raymond Sontag: A Broken World 1919 to 1939


David Gergen: Eyewitness to Power

Impeachment: An American History by Jon Mecham, Peter Baker, Timothy Naftali, and Jeffrey Engel.

Desk 88: Eight Progressive Senators who Changed America by Sherrod Brown.

Andrew Yang: The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

The Impeachment Report: There are two versions with different commentaries: One with attorney Alan Dershowitz and the other with Historian Jon Meacham.














Monday, December 23, 2019

Is Donald Trump “Tilting at Windmills?”

Does Donald Trump think he is Don Quixote?
In one of the first epic novels in Human Civilization, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Miguel Cervantes, the title character attacks 30 to 40  windmills, thinking they are all dangerous giants.

Don Quixote is injured in the attack and believes that the giants, thanks to the power of a magician, became windmills.
The phrase “tilting at windmills” which means “to attack imaginary enemies”  is based on this episode in the Cervantes epic.
Donald Trump, the stable genius, seems to be, as evidenced by his rehashing of the threat wind power poses, seems to be “tilting at windmills.”

“You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know….”It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly — very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous — if you’re into this — tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. You talk about the carbon footprint — fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything — right?”Speaking to the Turning Points Conference on December 21, 2019, Mr. Trump said that:

Mr. Trump’s comments over the last weekend are depicted below: 
Earlier in the year, he claimed that windmills and wind turbines drastically drove down property values (like the ones by his resort in Scottland where he lost a lawsuit attempting to stop their construction,) cause cancer, kill many birds, and is unreliable when the wind does not blow.
Suffice it to say, these claims (on property pricescancer, and unreliability) like the other 15,000 “misstatements” Mr. Trump has made, have been largely debunked.
The only claim that has a degree of merit is the death of birds. Many birds have died (about 234,000)  by flying into wind turbines but there have been measures adopted to protect as many as possible. People should also consider that just under six hundred million birds die by flying into large buildings like Trump Tower.
Unlike dirty offshore oil drilling and coal mining which Mr. Trump repeatedly praises, wind power is:
  • A clean form of energy.
  • Becoming less expensive.
  • A job-creating industry in the United States. The Department of Energy has stated that wind power-related jobs are one of the highest growing energy occupations in the country.
It is time this country had a President that believes in science and investing in the renewable energy infrastructure of the future.  This nation does not need a Chief Executive that “tilts at the windmills.”



https://blogforarizona.net/is-donald-trump-tilting-at-windmills/

Friday, December 20, 2019

Moscow Mitch, Call the Witnesses.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Schumer called it yesterday after Political Prince of Darkness-Enemy of the People-Obstructionist in Chief-Senate Majority Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell remained steadfast in his refusal to call additional witnesses to the upcoming Senate Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump.
Speaking yesterday (December 19, 2019) after Mr. McConnell on the Senate Floor, Senator Schumer commented that McConnell:
“Is plotting the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment trial in modern history…..He (McConnell) did not advance an argument in defense of the president’s conduct on the merits…. a damning reflection on the state of the president’s defense……Is the president’s case so weak that none of the president’s men can defend him under oath? If the House’s case is so weak, why is Leader McConnell so afraid of witnesses and documents?” 
At her weekly press conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quipped that:
“Our founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected that there could be a rogue president,” she said. “I don’t think they suspected that we could have a rogue President and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time.”
Later, at the Democratic Presidential Debate in Los Angeles, Senator Amy Klobuchar gave the best reason of all the candidates to call the witnesses, stating to the audience that:
“And I would make this case. As we face this trial in the Senate if the president claims that he is so innocent, then why doesn’t he have all the president’s men testify? If President Trump thinks that he should not be impeached, he should be not scared to put forward his own witnesses.”
Pelosi, Klobuchar, and Schumer are right. If the President is innocent and Republicans have nothing to fear, why is the Administration actively preventing all of the remaining first-hand witnesses to testify? Why are Republicans like Moscow Mitch so reluctant to call these very same people who can definitively say whether or not the President committed impeachable acts?
The answer is fairly obvious: Republicans already know what the answers from these witnesses will be and are eager to fast forward an impeachment “show trial” where the guilty man is not removed from office and hope the Trumpist cult base does not pause to think why these people would not voluntarily want to testify for their Duce…President.
Well, that strategy may work for Republicans in safe Senate seats but not for those conservative incumbents facing reelection in Maine (Susan Collins,) Colorado (Cory Gardner,) Iowa (Joni Ernst,) North Carolina (Thom Tillis,) and Arizona (Martha McSally). It may also backfire on the overconfident Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky as well.
That strategy may work for the people susceptible to the rantings of the Demagogic-Liar in Chief-Head Charlatan but not the majority of the country that believes in Democracy and the separation of powers in a Republic.
It is time for the Political Prince of Darkness-Enemy of the People-Obstructionist in Chief-Moscow Mitch McConnell to put the country’s interests above his own and Individual One’s.
Moscow Mitch, Call the Witnesses.



https://blogforarizona.net/moscow-mitch-call-the-witnesses/?fbclid=IwAR2pJVdv2H9eTijczqi_Agy-6wxSBNuDhU7Ezt1ukzvrZereMW8cUQ6fQiQ

Idea of the Week: Call the Witnesses Moscow Mitch

Idea of the Week: Transitioning Economy

Andrew Yang is right: This country and others need to do a better job helping people transition from one economic dynamic to another. Maybe each country needs a Secretary or Minister for Innovation/Transition.

A lot of misery has been wrought because people have been caught in limbo when industries (and regions) die and new ones emerge.

Public Servants need to do better in this regard.

Documentary to Watch for in January: Hedrick Smith's The Democracy Rebellion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeq_qfeEPk&fbclid=IwAR3MLJAYm0jIjMstQj14tpAFrEcV9D93LlMY6usAkDUTrliaQ3jZkPZjLVQ

Book of the Week

Andrew Yang: The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

Editorial Cartoons for 12/20/19


It is great the economy is doing well at a macro level. People who worry this will help Trump should pay attention to history. The economy was doing well under the Clinton/Gore Administration. Was there a President Gore? The economy that Trump is taking credit as his own was pretty much there under Obama. People in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin did not see it that way and we got Trump.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Indisputable fact: Donald Trump is Scum.

In his political career, Individual One-the 2016 Popular Vote Loser-the 2016 KKK Endorsed Candidate-The Liar in Chief (over 15,000 and rising) has made comments that would have been political death for most other politicians.
He accused President Obama of not being an American citizen and claimed to have sent investigators to Hawaii to find the truth. Guess they lost their way to Trump Tower to report back.
He chastised John McCain for being a Prisoner of War.
He has made fun of people with disabilities.
He attacked the Gold Star Families of fallen military heroes.
He said there were good people among the bigots at Charlottesville.
He used a charitable foundation he created to pay his own bills.
He betrayed his oath of office by putting his electoral fortunes ahead of the nations.
He attacked a 16-year-old Environmental Activist (Greta Thunberg) because she was selected as the Time Person of the Year over him.
Last night (December 18, 2019), Mr. Trump attacked Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and her late husband, John, after her vote for both Articles of Impeachment at a campaign rally in Michigan. He drew some groans (and pathetic cheers) from the audience when he implied former Representative Dingell (a veteran and the longest-serving Congressman in history) was in Hell.
While saying she had not talked to Mr. Trump about that rally comment, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in justifying his “approach” on Good Morning America today (12/19/19) that the President is a “counterpuncher” and he was”riffing with the crowd.”
There is no justification for Mr. Trump’s comments attacking the dead and a grieving widow.
There is no justification for Mr. Trump’s other pitiful insults and acts towards others over the years.
There is certainly no justification for Individual One to violate his oath of office.
People need to face this indisputable fact: Donald Trump is scum.
Hopefully either the Republican Senators realize this in January 2020 or the people do in greater numbers (especially Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina) next November.



https://blogforarizona.net/people-need-to-face-this-indisputable-fact-donald-trump-is-scum/?fbclid=IwAR2D6aXN4J_q2lVJ-Sw31T8CFhghYB2tmYm7UeXY_mg2CHEG_cYpifQuemY

Like all of Mr. Trumps deals, His Executive Order Combatting Anti Semitism is high on Hype but short on Effect.

Attacks against Jews have been increasing over the last several years. So have attacks on Muslims.
Anti-Semitic attacks and harassment climbed 13% in 2018, including countries (like the United States where the Pittsburgh and New Jersey shootings occurred, Britain, France, and Germany) where intolerance towards Jews was thought to have virtually vanished.
Anti-Muslim attacks and harassment have also skyrocketed. There were 500 attacks on the Moslem Community from January to May 2019. That far exceeds the immediate post 9/11 period.
The words and deeds of the President of the United States have encouraged it.
This is the President (who remember was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan in 2016) that used Anti Semitic tropes of dual loyalty and greed to tell differing Jewish audiences that they should vote for him because he:
  • Backed their Prime Minister in Israel.
  • Will not tax them and take away their wealth like the Democrats, especially Elizabeth Warren would.
  • Said Jewish Democrats were disloyal to Jews and Israel.
This is the President that used an Anti-Semitic ad against Hillary Clinton and a closing campaign commercial with Anti-Jewish overtones.
This is the President that said there were fine people on both sides of the Charlottesville Anti Semitic and Anti Immigrant rallies.
This is the President that has striven to ban Muslims from entering the United States.
What Mr. Trump did do was issue an Executive Order last week that orders colleges to combat Anti Semitic discrimination or face withdrawal of federal education funding.
The order, which does have bipartisan support and appears to be mostly a rehashing of an Obama Era policy, has several drawbacks. They are:
  • It will not stem Anti Semitic Violence: The criminals that attack Jews or Jewish property on or off college campuses will not be intimidated by this Executive Order.
  • It does nothing to protect Muslims, many of whom are Semites.
  • The classification of Jews as a distinct nationality appears to draw on more Anti-Semitic tropes (like those in the Nuremberg Laws) labeling Jews as one of “The Other.”
  • Restricts peaceful freedom of speech activities from groups that oppose Israelis settlement policies.
This Executive Order appears to be nothing more than an attempt to appease pro-Right Wing Pro-Settlement Israelis factions like the Presidents Son in Law Jared Kushner and Evangelicals Mr. Trump needs to turn out in 2020.
Like all of Mr. Trump’s deals, His Executive Order combatting Anti Semitism is high on hype but short on effect.
The left-leaning Jewish support organization J Street issued a statement on December 11 that relayed:
“This executive order, like the stalled congressional legislation it is based on, appears designed less to combat anti-Semitism than to have a chilling effect on free speech and to crack down on campus critics of Israel. J Street is committed to fighting all forms of anti-Semitism — and we feel it is misguided and harmful for the White House to unilaterally declare a broad range of nonviolent campus criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitic, especially at a time when the prime driver of anti-Semitism in this country is the xenophobic, white nationalist far-right.”
 “Kenneth S. Stern, the expert who drafted the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by this executive order, has publicly opposed its application to college campuses. In opposing the legislation that forms the basis for this executive order, Stern wrote in The New York Times that ‘If this bill becomes law…students and faculty members will be scared into silence, and administrators will err on the side of suppressing or censuring speech.”
 “It is particularly outrageous and absurd for President Trump to pretend to care about anti-Semitism during the same week in which he once again publicly spouted anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and money. The same right-wing groups who turn a blind eye to the president’s hateful rhetoric have promoted this executive order as part of a cynical push to turn the issue of anti-Semitism into a partisan political weapon, instead of seriously combating it in all its forms.”
 Arizona Educator, Activist, Retired Attorney, and Constitutional Scholar Ruth Davis offered her views on Trump’s Executive Order:
“The German Nazis are the ones who popularized the notion that Jews were another “nationality” than other Germans. In many circles the same thinking had existed since the Middle Ages in Europe: for example, my paternal ancestors were never considered Polish although they lived in Poland for centuries. As Jews, they couldn’t “be Polish” by law. Because of their Biblical “nationhood” (based on religion), they could not be Polish citizens. The same was true in much of Europe when countries were defined not only by physical borders but by the religion of the majority of those people who lived there and had ancestral roots there. Judaism, in the modern world, is a religion, not a national identity, ESPECIALLY in the United States. I am an American, and no other nation defines my nationality. Why has it taken until now for the GOVERNMENT of the US to propose to protect us as a nation rather than a religion? Why not use the category we have always had as a protected class to protect us now? Why? Because this “reclassification” is another way to set us apart from our fellow Americans and underscore our perceived “difference” from the Christian majority. To what purpose? I am terrified to find out. I am a “real” American, equal with and identical to my Irish friends, my Italian friends, etc. Remember “separation of church and state”? Here’s why it’s an important concept. Right here. To me, this “nationality” label is exactly the opposite of what my America stands for…it’s chilling to say the least, and directly from Hitler’s playbook.”
Executive Orders designed to please the son in law and evangelical fanatics is not good policy.
Embracing tribalism and enabling intolerance and violent hatred towards others because they are different is not what this country is supposed to be about.
Mr. Trump would do well and turn a new leaf in the time he has left in office to heal and bring people together by embracing policies that bring people together and fostering a culture of inclusion rather than division.



https://blogforarizona.net/like-all-of-mr-trumps-deals-his-executive-order-combatting-anti-semitism-is-high-on-hype-but-short-on-effect/?fbclid=IwAR2B4HadtkmFj2wwv7BOy_rHzU-oMiqMOB2Jgxy5ECWYmL6e4zaPk_gyycw

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Meet the Republicans that Are for Impeachment.

There is a bipartisan push to impeach and remove Donald Trump from the White House that includes a substantial number of influential current or former Republicans.
Some of these nonmembers of the Cult of Trump have started to form organizations dedicated to Individual One’s removal via impeachment or defeat at the ballot box in 2020.
One new entity, led by conservative heavyweights George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson has formed The Lincoln Project, an organization whose mission is to defeat Donald Trump and elect “patriots” that will not drink the 2016 KKK endorsed Candidates Kool-Aid.
Other Republicans that have voiced support for the impeachment process include:
Unfortunately, all the Republicans that support impeachment (like those listed above), with the exception of now independent Justin Amash and possibly some undeclared Senators like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney) are not in Congress.
Regrettably, it seems the seduction of having power as a legislator, a future in Republican politics, and fear of one’s electoral base are powerful tonics for Republican Representatives and Senators that “Trumps” following the Constitution and doing what is right for the country.
It is time for the people to stop saying that the impeachment process is a Democratic Party only movement.
Clearly, Republicans outside Congress have the courage to defend the Constitution and the good sense to promote reality rather than the alternative fiction residents of the Trump Zone and Fox Island Commentary shows consume.
It is time for Republican members of Congress to show the same courage and do what is right for the country.
Like the moderate Democrats risking their careers in purple or red-leaning districts, it is better to be remembered following your conscience and doing your job than ignoring your responsibilities and allowing the 2016 Popular Vote Loser to run amuck thinking he can do whatever he wants to the detriment of the Republic.
Country Before Party.

Editorial Cartoons for the Week