Dwight D. Eisenhower

Mitt Romney Being Booed At Utah Republican Event Demonstrates How Loony The GOP Has Become!

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This author, blogger and scholar was not thrilled by Mitt Romney during and after his 2012 Presidential campaign, but there has always been respect for his dignity, principles, and basic virtues.

Romney, like John McCain before him, were Republicans this author would not support, but always felt that they presented basic Republican principles in a respectable manner.

Such is not the case with Donald Trump, but it is now clear that the Republican party of history is dying rapidly.

The bitter attacks on John McCain in his last years in the Senate, and the nasty attacks on Mitt Romney for repudiating Trump and voting to convict him on impeachment charges demonstrated that the Republican Party is much like a Fascist Party, controlled and dominated by a lunatic and maniac who has no regard for American democracy.

For Mitt Romney to be booed at a Utah Republican state party event demonstrates how loony the GOP has become!

By all rights, Donald Trump should be in prison for inciting the January 6, 2021 Capital Insurrection, and yet we have crazy Trump followers in the Congress and the state legislatures who bow to him as if he was Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler.

One does not have to agree with Mitt Romney on issues to feel sad that he is being mistreated for having basic decency and admirable principles, so we are witnessing the destruction of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as John McCain and Mitt Romney!

Presidents Day: A Day To Celebrate And A Day To Mourn, At The Same Time!

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Today is Presidents Day, a holiday to celebrate and commemorate America’s Presidents.

With 45 men having served as President, about one third stand out as accomplished and heroic in many ways.

Another third are clearly less outstanding but yet have virtues and accomplishments.

And the other third have some Presidents who are seen as mediocre, but others who are truly failures and disasters.

And then, there is Donald Trump, who besmirched the office of the Presidency, and for anyone to think that he will rise from the basement, absolute bottom of the list, requires a delusional mind and lack of ethics, morals, and decency!

Even James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, the usual two Presidents who inhabit the basement of the Presidency, by comparison to Donald Trump, they look like wrong headed and weak leaders, but cannot be put in the same category as the 45th President,

who was impeached twice;

failed to win the popular vote in either election he participated in;

failed ever to have a 50 percent public opinion rating at any time in his Presidency;

presided over the greatest loss of life in one year of any President with the COVID-19 Pandemic;

had the most corrupt cabinet and other officials around him;

purposely declared war on democracy, humanity, decency, compassion, and empathy;

promoted racism, nativism, misogyny as a national policy;

stirred up right wing forces that are still a domestic terrorism threat into the long term future;

Stirred a mob to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, threatening his own Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, all members of Congress, and harmed Capitol Hill Police, with a few deaths and over 100 severely injured in the Insurrection;

and has destroyed the party of such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and many others who were governors or senators of a reputable party in past history!

The Most BiPartisan Impeachment Trial In American History

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Donald Trump may have been able to avoid conviction in his second Impeachment Trial yesterday, but it was the most bipartisan impeachment trial in American history, nevertheless.

11 Republican House members moved to impeach Trump for his inciting of the January 6, 2021 Capitol Insurrection, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as the most prominent, and 7 Senate Republicans (Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy, Richard Burr) vote to convict Trump.

The vote of 57-43 to convict was ten votes short of the two thirds required, but if this was a piece of legislation, or an election, a percentage of 57-43 would be seen as a landslide!

Donald Trump has poisoned the Republican Party, and sadly, the state committees in the states where Republicans showed principle, have gone ahead and censured those courageous House and Senate members.

But in the long run of history those 11 House members and 7 Senators will stand tall, and the Republican Party is doomed for its allowing itself to become the party of Trump, and the effort to preserve democracy and the future, if any, of the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike and Reagan, must be waged for the security and safety of the nation in the future!

Donald Trump will go down in the long run as the worst President in American history, lower than James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, because he will be seen as a Fascist authoritarian who endangered the nation, and he will face prosecution as an ordinary citizens for many crimes, including the events of January 6, 2021!

The Battle For The Soul Of The Republican Party Is In Full Swing As Trump Impeachment Trial Begins

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The Republican Party is in its death spiral as the Donald Trump Second Impeachment Trial begins on Tuesday.

With only 5 Republican Senators supporting the move toward an impeachment trial; with only 10 Republican House members voting for the impeachment trial; with only 11 Republican House members supporting the action to take away the committee memberships of QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it is clear that the battle for the soul of the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and Reagan is in full swing.

Will the Republican Party allow Donald Trump to remain their “God”, their “Savior”, and continue to promote conspiracy theories, hate, nativism, racism, anti semitism, Islamophobia, and misogyny?

Will they follow the lead of Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Liz Cheney, Larry Hogan, Adam Kinzinger and other mainstream conservatives?

Or will they follow the lead of Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and others who promoted insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021?

We saw the disintegration of the Whig Party in 1854, with its replacement being the Republican Party, and we may be seeing the same situation as we had then in the 2020s, as the “Trump” wing of the party is a disaster that never ends!

Past Bipartisan Actions: Can This Happen Again As Joe Biden Hopes For, Or Is This A Mirage?

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In the past, despite political party conflict on beliefs and principles, we saw bipartisan actions and crossing party lines to accomplish major goals.

Here are four examples of such situations since World War II where a President of one party and a Congressional leader of the opposition party cooperated, and brought along other votes from their party to back the President of the opposition party.

When Democratic President Harry Truman was in office, and the Cold War with the Soviet Union was evolving, Truman was able to gain key Republican support from the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 80th Congress, Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, for the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in 1947-1948.

When Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in office, he was able to work cooperatively with the Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress from 1955-1961 on many matters. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, both from Texas, worked across the party lines in many situations, particularly on the first Civil Rights Acts (1957 and 1960) since Reconstruction after the Civil War.

When Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson was in office, he was able to gain support of Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois on gaining necessary support on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Medicare passage in 1965.

When Republican President Ronald Reagan was in office, he was able to come to an agreement with Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill to protect Social Security long term by a bipartisan agreement in 1983.

Since the 1990s and the hardline partisanship of the Republican Party and then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the Republican Revolution of 1994, we have seen unwillingness by that party to have any willingness to cross party lines, and his early efforts were also pursued by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell right up to the present!

So President Elect Joe Biden’s publicly expressed hopes for bipartisan actions in these disastrous times to be accomplished, is it a mirage? We shall find out soon!

Republican Party Digging Its Grave, With Only About Ten Percent Acknowledging Joe Biden Victory

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The Republican Party is digging its own grave, with their reprehensible behavior, with only ten percent, or approximately 27 out of about 250 members of the party in Congress, acknowledging Joe Biden’s overwhelming victory in the Presidential Election of 2020.

The Republican Party refusal to stand up to Donald Trump and his childish temper tantrum behavior is going to reverberate on them in the future, as droves of voters abandon the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, as they become a more extremist right wing group of lunatics!

Twelve US Senators and 15 House members have publicly accepted that the election is over, with the Senators being the following:

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Susan Collins of Maine
Mitt Romney of Utah
Ben Sasse of Nebraska
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania
Marco Rubio of Florida
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
Deb Fischer of Nebraska
Shelley Moore Capito Of West Virginia
Jerry Moran of Kansas
James Risch of Idaho

The two most notable Congressmen are Will Hurd of Texas, who is retiring from Congress, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who is notable for speaking out against Trump before the election.

Additionally, three Senators have indicated that they will accept Joe Biden as legitimate, when the Electoral College declares him the winner, with those three Senators being Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

The rest of the Republicans are “Missing in Action”, failing to do their job, and refusing to show proper respect and acceptance of the person elected by a margin of 7 million popular votes, and for that, they will be condemned in history!

Happy 96th Birthday, President Jimmy Carter! You Will Rise In Historical Reputation In The Future!

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Today is the 96th Birthday of former President Jimmy Carter, the longest lived American President, who surpassed Herbert Hoover in retirement years in 2012.

He and his wife and Vice President Walter Mondale will, God Willing, celebrate 40 years in retirement on January 20, 2021, when we will see the likely inauguration of a man just as decent and humane as Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden!

Carter has been much attacked unjustly, and not appreciated for his amazing environmentalism; the creation of three Cabinet agencies (Education, Health and Human Services, Energy); the Egyptian Israeli Peace Treaty at Camp David, which has held for more than 40 years; the Panama Canal Treaty; and his amazing Post Presidential career of good deeds, including the building of housing for Habitat for Humanity, but also his Carter Center fighting against disease, insuring fair elections in other nations, and promoting peace and democracy around the world.

Carter will rise in ratings of scholars once he passes from the scene, just as Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower did in the years after their deaths, as often, Presidents are not appreciated in their lifetimes, with the best example being Abraham Lincoln!

Let us hope that Carter reaches the age of 100 four years from now with his bride Rosalynn by his side, and Walter Mondale too!

It Is Official: The Republican Party Has Become A Cult Around A Strong Arm Authoritarian Out To Destroy American Democracy!

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The Republican National Convention began today during the daytime hours, and Donald Trump and Mike Pence were renominated for President and Vice President of the United States.

Donald Trump avoided tradition and spoke for an hour, ranting and raving against his “enemies”, reminding those who know history of Adolf Hitler at his Nuremberg rallies.

We are witnessing the Republican Party officeholders swearing their loyalty to a man who has lied 20,000 times in office; has promoted racism, nativism, misogyny, white supremacy; has become a friend of authoritarians and alienated democratic nations; has undermined the judiciary, intelligence agencies, the foreign policy apparatus, and attacked the news media as “the enemy of the people”; has bullied and attacked all of his critics incessantly; has undermined our environment and civil liberties; has refused to take strong action against the CoronaVirus Pandemic; has shown no sense of compassion, empathy, decency or dignity in any form; and a legion of others sins and shortcomings that has never been matched by any previous President in more than two centuries of American history!

The party of such Presidential luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush has been shamed by Donald Trump!

The party of such Congressional luminaries as Charles Sumner, Robert LaFollette, Sr., George Norris, Arthur Vandenberg, and Everett Dirksen has been embarrassed by the weak kneed refusal of today’s Republican members of Congress to show some backbone to Donald Trump!

Face the facts: the Republican Party has become a cult, and is unlikely to come back into respectability, even after Donald Trump leaves the scene, as he has done so much damage and harm, that the Republican Party name may very well go into oblivion!

Presidential Debates Are Worthless, Unless Donald Trump Agrees To Two Conditions: Taxes Revealed, And Fact Checker For Trump Lies!

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There is no point to Joe Biden agreeing to debate with Donald Trump, unless Trump agrees to reveal his tax records, as Joe Biden has done, AND it is also agreed that there will be a fact checking team approved by both candidates to be hired by the non partisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

That team would report with ten minutes left in the debate any misleading statements, phony numbers, or outright lies uttered by either candidate.

Trump lies as he breathes, as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times said last month, and Biden should not allow that to go unanswered by a fact checking team at the debate.

Since Biden is comfortably ahead in all polls, he gains nothing by debates, and by refusing to debate, will infuriate Trump, who will go even more looney.

Trump knows he is losing, and Joe Biden should just continue to make public statements before small audiences with proper distancing. Biden is being helped by various Republican groups who are dedicated to Trump’s defeat as the only way to revive the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Joe Biden has been right since January on the CoronaVirus Pandemic, and should make the effort to win as many states as possible, but the debates make no sense at this point, unless Trump agrees to the two conditions mentioned above, which will not occur!

The Unpredictable Supreme Court Due To Republican “Maverick” Appointments

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The history of the Supreme Court since 1953 has been one of unpredictability, due to Republican “Maverick” Appointments, who surprise conservatives who thought having a Republican President insured their narrow minded views of the Constitution and the law.

America has been fortunate that every Republican President from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump has made an appointment that surprised the nation, and promoted social progress long term.

Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren and Associate Justice William Brennan.

Richard Nixon appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger and Associate Justice Harry Blackmun.

Gerald Ford appointed Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.

Ronald Reagan appointed Associate Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy.

George H. W. Bush appointed Associate Justice David Souter.

George W. Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts.

Donald Trump appointed Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch.

So ten appointments in the past two thirds of a century have made a dramatic difference in so many ways, including racial integration, school prayer, abortion rights, ObamaCare, gay rights, and other significant areas.