Joseph McCarthy

Rand Paul Attacks On Bernie Sanders As Future Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, And Pol Pot Is Outrageous And Preposterous!

Ronald 69 Comments

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has not been doing well in polls, fund raising, or in the two Republican Presidential debates held so far.

As a result of his failures, and the complete disaster that his libertarianism represents to any intelligent person, Paul has gone on the attack against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is doing very well in public opinion polls, particularly among millennials, despite his “Democratic Socialist” advocacy.

Paul has said that Sanders would bring dictatorship and a mass genocide to the world, similar to Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung of China, and Pol Pot of Cambodia, a totally outrageous and preposterous assertion.

One would think that Bernie Sanders is somehow dangerous, when he is not one bit dangerous, while Rand Paul’s vacant libertarian Ayn Rand philosophy of selfishness, greed, and lack of concern for the poor and disabled is the true sickness and evil in political discourse!

Paul is doing what Donald Trump is doing, asserting that Socialism in the American variety is the same as Comunism, as the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, demonstrating that neither Paul nor Trump have a clue as to the massive differences between American Socialism and Communism, as practiced in totalitarian dictatorships.

The fact that Sanders is advocating Scandinavian style Socialism (Norway, Sweden, Denmark), and that the New Deal of FDR, the Great Society of LBJ, and Barack Obama’s reforms represent similar ideals and goals is made out to be something to panic over, when we have been living with “Socialism” for a century, and not many Americans, even those who say they hate Socialism, are about to give up the benefits and successes of the New Deal and Great Society, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, labor reforms, consumer reforms, and environmental reforms!

To label Sanders a dangerous Communist reminds us of the Joseph McCarthy era, already being started on right wing talk radio and Fox News Channel, and the American people should not allow themselves to be subjected to such hysteria and mass panic, when there is not an iota of truth to the allegations of the right wing, and the libertarians, led by a failing Presidential candidate, Rand Paul!

Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, Donald Trump—The Art Of Demagoguery!

Ronald Leave a comment

It is now clear that we have in our midst a true demagogue—a person who appeals to the insecurity and disillusionment of many Americans about the direction of their nation in domestic and foreign policy.

We have had this before, and it always ends in disaster and loss of reputation, without accomplishing anything beneficial in the short run or the long run.

We had Senator Huey Long of Louisiana in the early 1930s, who gained a following of millions, talked about “Every Man A King” in the midst of the Great Depression. He ended up being assassinated in 1935 while seeking the Presidency. This is covered in Chapter 7 of my forthcoming book, “Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama”, from Rowman Littlefield, to be published and available on August 15.

We had Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin in the early 1950s, when there was the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union, exploited as an issue, causing the destruction of the lives and reputations of millions of Americans without any justification. It ended up with the collapse and repudiation of the Red Scare, and the early death of McCarthy from alcoholism.

We had Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who divided the nation over racial integration and civil rights, and won five states in the Electoral College in the Presidential Election of 1968, and then was shot and paralyzed for life during the Presidential Election campaign of 1972. This tragedy, ironically, led to a reformed Wallace who changed his view on civil rights as a result of his own handicapped condition as a result of the assassination attempt. I cover this in Chapter 11 of my forthcoming book on August 15, which I have listed the title and publisher two paragraphs above this one.

Now we have Donald Trump, who is promoting racism and nativism, and since he is super wealthy, his ability to influence the public view is, in many ways, more dangerous than any of the above demagogues.

Just as with the others, Trump will fail in the long run, but will be very dangerous in the short run. Let us hope that his demise will not be brought about in the fashion that occurred for Huey Long and George Wallace! We wish him good health and long life, but want him out of the political fray, because he has nothing positive to offer America, just negativism and division!

The Clown Bus Group Of Republican Presidential Contenders, Part III: The US Senate

Ronald 4 Comments

In two earlier entries, we have discussed five “losers”, who were or are Republican Governors, but are not to be seen seriously as qualified to be President for various reasons; and three non office holders who think their medical and business careers make them Presidential material, but only in their deluded minds.

In Part III today, we will look at four figures who have served in the US Senate, three still there, and one who left nearly a decade ago.

First, we have Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a look alike for Joseph McCarthy, the old Communist witch hunter of the 1950s. Cruz had no problem shutting down the government in 2013, and continues to call for every part of ObamaCare to be repealed, despite the fact that Texas has more people who have no health care, including Medicaid. Cruz is a very evil man; a very nasty man; a very dangerous man to give executive power to; a man who thinks he is extremely brilliant, simply based on his Princeton and Harvard Law School degrees; a Senator disliked by just about all of his Republican colleagues; a man who would divide America and the Republican Party with his destructive Tea Party extremism.

Then we have Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is the son of former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian champion. The two Pauls have a lot of young people who seem to adore them, as they both hate government, and both are isolationists in foreign policy. Rand Paul is an optometrist, who set up his own association, rather than go through the national organization, and it makes one wonder as to his true skill as an eye doctor. He has blundered on so many issues, and does not come across as very bright; has shown lack of concern for the poor in his own state; has made statements against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as being enforceable; has led filibusters in the Senate that have made one wonder about his ability to get along with others; but at the same time, has shown concern about privacy rights and the issue of minor drug offenses that has imprisoned so many young people, many of them African American. So despite his faults, he has some redeeming values, but he is not highly regarded by the Republican establishment, and to believe a libertarian will be nominated and elected President requires hallucinations by those who imagine such an event happening.

Then we have South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who is the major “hawk” in the Senate, along with his good friend, Arizona Senator John McCain. There is not a war or country that Graham and McCain do not wish to intervene in, and both are diametrically the opposite of Rand Paul on foreign policy. While Graham has some more humane views on some issues domestically, he has no real support that could win him the nomination for the Presidency, and many hold it against him that when in the House of Representatives, he led the move toward impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998.

And then we have former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who lost his Senate seat in 2006 by a landslide; who won the Iowa Caucuses in 2012; but who is a right wing extremist on social issues, and is committed to disobey a Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, which is pending, if he becomes President. Santorum is infamous for outrageous, narrow minded views, as he is the favorite of the Religious Right, and his social views would take back America to many decades earlier. His chances of being the nominee are the lowest of these four Senators, all of whom are embarrassments to the historical traditions of the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower!

So we have covered now 12 of 16 potential Republican nominees, and further analysis of the four remaining candidates—one Senator, one former Governor, and two sitting Governors—will be forthcoming soon.

Five Years Of “ObamaCare” Successes, And Ted Cruz Is Now Applying To Be Covered!

Ronald Leave a comment

It has been five years since “ObamaCare” became law, and it has been a massive success in so many ways!

And to top it off, its biggest critic, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the first announced Republican Presidential candidate, despite saying his goal is to repeal “every word” of the legislation, is now going on “ObamaCare” since his wife will be taking a leave of absence from her Wall Street job as he runs for President! This mirrors the complete hypocrisy of Cruz, all Republicans, and the conservative think tanks who have bitterly opposed the law since Day One.

President Barack Obama pointed out this week that “ObamaCare” is the Republican and conservative (Heritage Foundation) plan of 1993, in opposition to Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton’s more expansive health care plan. Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, the Republican leaders, who became, respectively, the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader after the midterm Congressional elections of 1994, endorsed the plan, and Mitt Romney adopted the basics of it when he brought about “RomneyCare” in Massachusetts in 2006. And yet, he refused to endorse “ObamaCare” despite the many similarities to his own state plan, and claimed it was not designed for national adoption, and only good in his state, total hypocrisy, which marked his constantly shifting and lying Presidential campaign in 2012!

The Affordable Care Act, the official name for “ObamaCare”, has done the following over the past five years:

130 million Americans cannot be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

76 million Americans with private medical plans have received expanded access to free preventative services.

16.4 million Americans have gained health care coverage since the law passed, people who never had such coverage before now.

11.7 million people have signed up for Health Insurance Marketplace Plans in 2015.

9.4 million senior citizens have saved more than $11.5 billion on prescription drug costs since 2010.

5.7 million young adults under 26 have been able to have health care coverage under their parents’ plans.

And now, Ted Cruz and his family can be covered under a plan he has tried to destroy, and is still committed to destroying if he becomes President.

But that is not going to happen, as Ted Cruz is a Joseph McCarthy look alike and as much of a “bomb thrower” as the infamous leader of the “Red Scare” of the 1950s was, and has cost the government and taxpayers a loss of $24 million in the forced government shutdown in late 2011, a totally reckless act!

This man comes across as a total lunatic, and his dad is more extreme than him, the worst example of an nutty right wing Christian evangelical demagogue, who preaches hate and division, rather than the true teachings of Jesus Christ.

And the fact that Cruz had a captive audience of students at Liberty University, who were forced to attend his Presidential announcement, or be forced to pay $10 to the university, is totally mind boggling!

The true nature of Ted Cruz is shown by his willingness to accept “ObamaCare” while trying to smother it for the past five years, not caring about the health care and lives of millions of Americans!

Ronald Reagan: The Unvarnished Truth! Myth Versus Reality!

Ronald 2 Comments

Ronald Reagan is treated as a saint by the conservative movement and the Republican Party, as a man and a President who could do no wrong, but the truth is otherwise.

Of course, no President and no human being is perfect, and all commit mistakes or show lack of sensitivity, but the point is that the 40th President’s image and historical record needs to come down to earth, on this, the 104th anniversary of his birth, and a quarter century after his leaving office.

So what should Americans and others know about Ronald Reagan, that is not general knowledge?

As California Governor and as President, the issue of mental illness was dealt with by cutting spending, and throwing mental patients onto the streets of America, creating a great increase in homeless population.

As head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Reagan cooperated with the House Unamerican Activities Committee investigation of Communists; worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare; and was an FBI informant for J. Edgar Hoover, all to protect his own image and security as he had been a strong liberal Democrat, and supporter of the New Deal.

Reagan sold illegal arms to Iran, what became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal, as he worked to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, despite Congressional admonitions banning such activities.

Reagan backed the apartheid government of South Africa, despite its horrific violation of human rights, and vetoed a sanctions law, which was passed over his veto in 1986.

Reagan’s Presidency saw the greatest amount of scandals of all sizes, only surpassed by the administrations of Richard Nixon, Ulysses S. Grant, and Warren G. Harding in overall malfeasance.

Reagan’s record on the environment is regarded by scholars as the absolute worst of all Presidents since 1900, and a big letdown after Jimmy Carter, who had one of the top three performances on that issue in American history.

Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis until 1987, and ridiculed the “gay plague”, only taking any interest when young hemophiliac Ryan White, and actor Rock Hudson, were revealed to have the disease in 1985.

Reagan supported backing the groups which fought Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, including such future terrorists as Osama Bin Laden; and also gave support to Saddam Hussein of Iraq in war with Iran, while still supplying arms to Iran.

The high ethical and moral standard said to be part of Reagan’s persona has now been revealed to be inappropriate, as he has been shown to have cheated on his first wife, Jane Wyman, and to have had affairs with dozens of actresses, including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Doris Day, among many others.

For a man who professed “family values”, Reagan and his wife Nancy ignored their children, Patti and Ron, Jr; and hardly saw their grandchild from Reagan stepson Michael; and hardly ever attended church services, although flirting with the Christian Coalition and Moral Majority of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

So the truth about Ronald Reagan is far from the myth that has been promoted!

The Promotion Of Fear And Panic A Typical Republican Response To Any Issue Or Problem!

Ronald 8 Comments

The Midterm Elections of 2014 might be decided not on the issues, but on the promotion of fear and panic, being utilized to scare voters!

It is not a new tactic by the Republican Party, but rather an old strategy used in the past.

Leave it to the GOP to use fear of “Socialism”, “Progressivism”, “Liberalism”, distorting all three terms as against America, as a way to prevent political, social, and economic reform that takes power away from the wealthy and the corporations!

The Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, as promoted by Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, and other demagogues, had a deleterious effect on people’s lives, and victimized many innocent people.

Fear and panic were used by Presidents, including Richard Nixon and George W. Bush to promote war in Vietnam and in Iraq!

The Republican Party has abandoned its original support of African American civil rights, and has now promoted racism to attract uneducated and poor and lower middle class whites to vote against their own economic interests.

Now fear and panic are being used because of the Ebola Crisis to convince people to vote Republican, despite the fact that the GOP has done nothing positive in any form, and has set out to obstruct everything that Barack Obama has tried to do, with him succeeding in many initiatives despite constant attack and criticism and attempts to block progress.

If the Republicans succeed in convincing the American people to go nuts over Ebola, when the flu and pneumonia causes 50,000 deaths a year without fear and panic; and if 11,000 people a year killed by firearms annually is not seen as a crisis; then the American people will get what they deserve—incompetent, corrupt, and uncaring government, which will work to undermine all of the progress of the New Deal and Great Society for the past 80 years!

Have We Gone From Speaker John Boehner To Speaker Ted Cruz?

Ronald 2 Comments

The Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives have made life miserable for Speaker of the House John Boehner, blocking actions he has wished to take over the past two years, and now again, they are blocking any action on the immigration crisis of Central American women and children at the US-Mexico border!

Instead, the Tea Party Republicans are stalling any action, on the advice and prodding of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, which is privately infuriating Boehner and mainstream conservatives in the GOP!

So, apparently, for the first time in American history, a lunatic right winger in the Senate, and his name is NOT Joseph McCarthy, is undermining his own party in the lower chamber, while laying waste to doing as much damage as possible to the Senate, and its GOP leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky!

So civil war is occurring, and it is causing disrespect for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, and it is hard to imagine the scenario in January 2015, if the GOP keeps the House of Representatives and gains control of the US Senate!

The odds of a Speaker Boehner are dwindling rapidly, and we could end up with a Tea Party Ted Cruz backed Republican as Speaker of the House, so new Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California had better pay heed!

Eric Cantor Not Only Congressional Leader Defeated For Re-election

Ronald Leave a comment

The defeat of Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader in his Congressional primary in Virginia by David Brat, was stunning and shocking, but not the first time that a Congressional leader was defeated for renomination or reelection.

Other prominent cases include:

Senator Richard Lugar, former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, of Indiana in 2012 by Richard Mourdock

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota in 2004 by John Thune

House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington State in 1994 by George Nethercutt

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois in 1994 by Michael Flanagan

Congressman Emanuel Celler, House Judiciary Committee Chairman of New York, in 1972 by Elizabeth Holtzman

Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas of Illinois in 1950 by Everett Dirksen

Senator Robert La Follette, Jr of Wisconsin in 1946 by Joseph McCarthy

Notice that ONLY Cantor, Lugar and La Follette, Jr. were Republican officeholders defeated, while the others listed were all Democrats.

So it is newsworthy and highly unusual for Congressional leaders and prominent members to lose reelection!

Ted Cruz Gives Up His Canadian Citizenship! The Question Is Why?

Ronald 3 Comments

Texas Tea Party Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a clearly ambitious seeker of the Presidency in 2016, has given up his dual citizenship as a Canadian citizen.

Born in Canada of a Cuban immigrant father and an American mother, and living in Calgary for his first four years, Cruz has, therefore, repudiated the nation in which he was born!

The question is why, as it is not unusual for someone to be a dual citizen of two nations, and to be proud of where he or she was born, as well as where he or she lives in the present.

It is not as if Canada is an unfriendly nation, or a dictatorship, or that Cruz has bad memories up to age 4 in his homeland.

So it is clear that Cruz is doing this to try to make people forget he was NOT born in the United States, and hopes to bypass questions about his citizenship, and ability to run for President.

It is ironic that Cruz is worried about this, when his supporters claim there is no problem, while at the same time, these same “Birthers” continue to assert that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, despite the newspaper reports of his birth, and his Hawaii birth certificate.

It is not totally clear that Cruz can run, but since his mother is American, it is thought that he can run, based on his mother’s citizenship.

But it all comes down to this: Ted Cruz would give up his soul, if need be, to become President of the United States!

However, Senator Cruz, be assured that even if you, somehow, became the GOP nominee, with your hateful, divisive, despicable views on every subject imaginable, there is no way you are going to win 270 electoral votes, the number needed to become President.

So dream on, but you will remain in the Senate, until, hopefully, San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro, who is Mexican American, runs against you in the midterm elections for Congress in 2018, and retires you from public office as someone who contributes nothing positive to American politics. Rather, you are one of the most divisive characters in American politics since Joseph McCarthy, to whom you have an amazing facial resemblance, as well as personality!

The Coming GOP Battle Between Ted Cruz And Rand Paul: Neither Good For The Republican Party!

Ronald 6 Comments

It is now clear, after the CPAC convention, that the battle for the soul of the Republican Party is, most likely, to be between Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Cruz represents the aggressive, in your face, bombastic image of the Tea Party, while Paul represents the libertarian, isolationist view of the same Tea Party.

Both hate the national government, and both want to cut domestic social spending, and have no desire to deal with the problems of the working class and the poor.

Both want to undermine the GOP establishment, and work against the idea of working with President Obama, and accepting that part of politics is negotiation and compromise.

Both men have very little ability to win a national election, as both are seen as extreme, and unable to take “Blue” states away from the Democrats.

Both appeal to those who want to put America back in the age of laissez faire of the Gilded Age, and want to assist the one percent who have become more wealthy and powerful at the expense of the middle class.

Cruz has a demagogic manner about him, reminding many of Joseph McCarthy in appearance and style, but he is seen as dangerous because despite his egotism, he is clearly very smart. However, he is willing to throw other Republicans “under the bus”, with his working against fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn, and also resisting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as attacking past Republican Presidential nominees Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Cruz has no ethics when it comes to pursuing his own ambitions, and he is extremely vain and arrogant. Imagining him dealing with foreign leaders is an absolute horror!

Paul, on the other hand, supports the idea that businesses should be able to reject customers based on race, being critical of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He is a libertarian like his dad, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and believes that philosophy is realistic in the 21st century. He would love to cut defense spending enough so that we would withdraw from many of our bases around the world , an appealing idea, but not a realistic one. He comes across as more a visionary than Cruz, more pleasant than Cruz, willing to give respect to the elder statesmen of the party, and work with Establishment Republicans in the Senate, while disagreeing with them. He seems, overall, not as bright and ambitious as Cruz is.

Both are horrible choices for President, and both would lose, but the feeling is that Cruz is more of a threat, although the belief is that he would crash and burn, once the election campaign was in full swing. It seems likely that Paul would do better in electoral votes, and would be more liked personally, but still could not win a national election.

The ultimate question is why the Republican Party seems incapable of finding a truly great Presidential candidate, although in the long run, that does not matter as the Electoral College math dooms them in 2016, as long as they continue to alienate many major voting groups.

So the decline of the GOP, by a massive electoral defeat in 2016, seems more likely as the clock ticks toward the election year!