Month: April 2019

More Presidential Contenders In 2020 Than In 2016: All Time High

Ronald 9 Comments

America is about to witness the largest number of Presidential contenders in its history, as up to 26 Democrats are getting ready to compete in the first two Town Hall debates—on June 26 and 27 in Miami and July 30 and 31 in Detroit.

This includes Senators, Governors, Congressmen and women, Mayors, and businessmen and women, including seven Senators, four Governors, six Congressmen and women, four Mayors, a former Vice President, three businessmen and women, and a former state representative. Some of these are former governors, members of the House of Representatives, and former Mayors.

The Republican Party had set the all time record of 17 contenders in 2016, and it led, sadly, to Donald Trump winning their nomination and the White House.

This number of 26 is pure insanity, and needs to be cut down dramatically, and assuredly, public opinion polls, financial support, and staff growth will quickly eliminate many once the first two debate dates are done, as comparisons on issues and personality, and the likelihood of mistakes and blunders will narrow the field.

Expect that at most ten contenders might survive to the point of the Iowa Caucuses, the New Hampshire Primary, the Nevada Caucuses, and the South Carolina Primary, all taking place in February 2020, before the massive Super Tuesday on March 3, when 12 states, including California, Texas, Massachusetts and Virginia have their primaries.

If one had to guess now who will be the final ten, they would be in the estimate of this blogger the following alphabetically: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

If that is the final ten, it would include the former Vice President, six Senators, two Mayors, and one Congressman. It would also include four women, one Latino, one mixed race, one African American, four white Anglo men, three white Anglo women, and one gay male and one Jewish male.

Donald Trump: From Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy Henchman To Stephen Miller, Trump Henchman

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Donald Trump learned how to be mean, nasty, unprincipled, vain, and obnoxious, along with many other adjectives, from Roy Cohn, Jewish born aide and henchman to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, during the second Red Scare, also known as “McCarthyism”.

Cohn was a wretched human excuse for a being, who set out to destroy many people’s lives and fortunes with accusations of being “Red” and “Pinko”, and he went on beyond McCarthy’s downfall and death, to represent Organized Crime figures, and persecute gays while himself being a closeted gay man.

Cohn met the young Donald Trump, and taught him well, and although Cohn has been dead since 1986, his impact on Trump was massive.

Now Donald Trump has a new young Jewish born henchman, Stephen Miller, age 33, who has disgusted all decent Americans by his hardline prejudice and promotion of an intolerant attitude toward any immigrants. Miller is now the survivor in the battle over an ever tougher immigration policy, including the separation of children from their parents, and declaring the borders closed to all who wish asylum, undermining the history of the United States as a place of tolerance and acceptance of refugees.

Trump has adopted Miller as his Cohn, and now has created a new crisis of ever more hardline attitudes and policies, which are an abuse of executive power, and puts America into the camp of tyrants such as Benito Mussolini, Juan Peron, and even Adolf Hitler.

The only thing that could be worse is to have mass loss of life of these women and children and also male immigrants. Already there have been a few, and who can say that it will not happen, since Donald Trump is totally out of control and has no regard for how human beings are treated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.

Even when Japanese Americans were put into internment camps in World War II, the families were not split up, as happened and is now to continue with the new maniacal attitude of Donald Trump.

This is just another of many reasons why action must be taken against the tyrant in the White House, who will stop at nothing to gain absolute power, and has threatened he will not leave if he loses the Presidential Election of 2020.

American Jews Do NOT Have Dual Loyalties

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American Jews do NOT have dual loyalties.

We are Americans first, not Israelis.

As an American Jew, I do not allow Israel or its leaders to influence my own views on that nation, and its relationship with the American government, and the whole Middle East cauldron.

And we can disagree with the Israeli government leaders and policies, as much as we can disagree with the American government leaders and policies.

So Benjamin Netanyahu is not our leader in the sense of support, anymore than Donald Trump is.

We can support the survival of Israel, and the advancement of America without supporting specific government leaders in both nations.

For Donald Trump to say otherwise, as he did before the Republican Jewish Coalition last weekend, is an outrage.

Two thirds of American Jews are Democrats, and most of them do not support the right wing policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.

All that Trump does by suggesting dual loyalties is to encourage antisemitism, and to promote anti Israel sentiments.

American Jews will be in the front line of criticism of extremist right wing policies by Netanyahu, as they are of extremist right wing policies by Trump.

Donald Trump Says America Is Full, No Room For Immigrants: A Denial Of The American Dream And Tradition

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Donald Trump says that America is full, has no room for immigrants.

This is a denial of the American dream and American tradition.

America is, and always has been, a land of immigrants from Alexander Hamilton and many others in the late 18th century onward.

America has not been just a place for migration by well to do and successful people, but also for poor, deprived, and personally threatened by their religion, their culture, their nationality, and other personal characteristics, who came here and succeeded and contributed to the American future.

America is the last and best hope for people oppressed and denied their basic human rights and the possibility of advancement and success where they migrated from.

The Statue of Liberty is the symbol of what America is all about, and if not for the open hand, many people living in America today would not be here, since we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants, except for native Americans who go back many millenniums and had their basic human rights denied to them by people from other continents and nationalities who came here.

Donald Trump would not be here if his grandfather had not migrated from Germany, and we NEED immigrants to enrich and contribute to the American future, and this includes mothers and children escaping from poverty, violence, and oppression, as our ancestors were when they came here.

So the answer to Donald Trump is to reject his racism, nativism, xenophobia, and white supremacist beliefs by removing him and his ilk from office, either by Congressional action or by the vote of the masses of Americans who repudiate his hatred and evil nature in the Presidential Election of 2020 19 months from now, and then prosecute him for his crimes against humanity.

National Security Endangered At White House And Mar A Lago By Lax Donald Trump Attitude On Danger Of Russian And Chinese Espionage

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We have a President in office now who is very lax and loose about national security, with growing evidence that there are people at the White House who are gaining security clearances over the objections of security experts, all due to Donald Trump using his expansive executive authority to order it, including for his son in law Jared Kushner, and his daughter Ivanka Trump.

Additionally, security is very lax at the President’s Palm Beach County, Florida home, Mar A Lago, since people pay to be members of that resort, and the Secret Service has no latitude over who can be allowed on the property.

So it is now believed that Russian and Chinese espionage may be going on, after the arrest of a Chinese woman with connections to the Chinese security services, and wandering on the property with thumb drives and other intelligence gathering devices.

And all that Donald Trump says is that the incident is a “fluke”, which is a very troubling comment, and makes one wonder if our President is truly concerned about dangers to our nation by his flippant attitude on security.

The Potential Exists For A Latino Presidential Dynasty Long Term With The Castro Brothers, Julian And Joaquin

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With the potential that former San Antonio Mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro might end up as the Democratic Presidential nominee in the Presidential Election of 2020, we could witness a new long term Presidential dynasty.

Castro is a very impressive and intelligent Presidential candidate, and being from Texas, he and his identical twin brother, Congressman Joaquin Castro, could have a revolutionary effect on Texas and American politics.

His brother is expected to announce for the Texas Senate seat of Republican John Cornyn, with a good chance to win, and if both brothers are on the election ballot in 2020 in Texas, it could make Texas go Blue, and that would insure a Democratic victory.

And once Julian would be President, and him being only 46, months younger than Bill Clinton, making Castro the third youngest President, and second youngest elected President, with the potential to be President until he was 54, what would prevent a Senator Joaquin Castro, at age 54, after eight years in the Senate from the second largest state, from deciding to try to succeed his brother?

This could be the Latino version of the plan to have Robert F. Kennedy or Ted Kennedy becoming President to fulfill the family hope of a Kennedy dynasty.

And with Latinos being the largest minority in America, with two thirds of all Hispanics being Mexican, it is appropriate to say it is time for a Latino President, now that we have had an African American President, Barack Obama.

House Of Representatives Presidential Contenders At All Time High

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An astounding reality about the upcoming Presidential Election of 2020 is that we are witnessing an all time high in contenders who are or have been members of the House of Representatives.

In the past, there was an occasional man or woman who was serving in the lower chamber who announced , but tradition is that Governors or Senators, or cabinet officers or military generals would be the nominees.

But now, we have four announced Democratic members of Congress present or past in the race, and two more likely to join the fray.

We have former Congressman John Delaney of Maryland, and former Congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas.

We also have sitting members of the House of Representatives who have begun their campaign, including Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, and Tim Ryan of Ohio.

Still pending and likely to join the fray are Eric Swalwell of California, and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts.

At this point, O’Rourke seems the most serious candidate, but who can say that one of more of the others might not catch fire, and be a serious candidate?

In Defense Of Joe Biden: Some Extremist Progressives Are Trying To Neutralize Him For No Good Reason Other Than His Electability

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Former Vice President Joe Biden is not a perfect person, by any means.

Neither is any other potential Democratic Presidential nominee for 2020.

But Joe Biden is NOT a sexual harasser or a sexual assaulter, and to compare him to our President, or a multitude of other public men who ARE such, is outrageous!

Joe Biden is a decent, honorable, genuine, sincere public servant, who has devoted his entire life to public service, and has had more years and variety of experiences of any modern public figure, more than Lyndon B. Johnson or Henry Clay or Daniel Webster.

Biden has made mistakes in his judgment on legislation, and has, at times, been embarrassing in his public utterances, but he is not mean spirited, not desirous of dividing people, not overly materialistic as most politicians are.

In the mind of this blogger and scholar, he is the man in public life I have most admired for his life story and commitments to the public good, since the death of Hubert H. Humphrey forty one years ago.

He will go down in history as a great United States Senator, a great Vice President, and as a great human being.

And yet, there are those extremists on the left of the Democratic Party who are trying to destroy his reputation, and his potential to be the Democratic nominee for President, even though he is one of the most likely potential nominees who can retire Donald Trump, the extreme opposite of what Biden is and represents.

This should not be allowed to happen, and instead, let the voters decide the future of Joe Biden, not preposterous accusations that have no substance!

April 2, 1917: Woodrow Wilson Asks Congress To Declare War On Germany, Ending US Isolation From World Affairs

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On this day 102 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson transformed America forever, as he went to Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, putting America into the “Great War”, World War I, four days later.

Other than intervention in Latin American affairs, and the gaining of island territories overseas in the late 1890s, the US had avoided foreign controversies, other than Theodore Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for being the mediator bringing about the peace treaty at the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

But from this point on, with the exception of a virulent isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s, which did NOT keep us out of the necessary involvement in World War II, the United States has faced its responsibilities of world leadership since the 1940s, committing to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership and leadership in official ceremonies on April 4, 1949, seventy years ago.

Barack Obama Fortunate For History That He Is Between George W. Bush And Donald Trump In The Order Of Presidents In Office

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In the long run of history, where a President is in the order of attaining the Presidency really matters.

So, for instance, John Adams is between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and while Adams ranks around the middle in ranking of Presidents by historians and political scientists, he is rated much lower than the two Presidents before and after him, who are in the top ten of any listing.

The same goes for William Howard Taft, who is between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom are in the top quarter of Presidents, while Taft is rated in the mid 20s.

And the same is true for George H. W. Bush, who is between Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, both of whom are rated higher than Bush, who is rated in the later teens as President.

On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln comes between the two men usually rated the two worst Presidents, James Buchanan before him and Andrew Johnson after him.

And it is now clear that Barack Obama, rated 11th in one poll, 8th in another poll, and 17th in a third poll, all within the two years he has been out of the Presidency, is fortunate to have George W. Bush, rated in the 30s, and Donald Trump rated either at the bottom under Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, or at most just above them, insuring he will, like Lincoln, always be rated much better.