Right Wing Extremism

Paul Ryan Boomlet For President Begun By John Boehner: Really?

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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has now been endorsed and promoted to be the Republican Presidential nominee by former Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner does not exactly have great popular support in the Republican Party, and the Tea Party Movement and other right wing extremists do not wish to give Boehner “the time of day”, having, basically, forced him out of the Speakership.

Ryan had said he did not want to be Speaker, but caved in to pressure.  The question is whether he can now be pressured to promote a revolt against front runner Donald Trump.

The Republican establishment wants Ryan to run, feeling that John Kasich has little chance of success in his quest to stop both Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, who no one in the Republican Establishment can tolerate!

If Ryan, who is the presiding officer at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, were to lead a revolt, it will likely cause turmoil on the scale of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, which doomed the chances of the Democrats to elect their nominee, Hubert Humphrey in that election year.

It is clear, as this blogger has stated for awhile, that the Republican Party, as we know it, is done, and that Ryan cannot stop that demise.

If a third party movement starts, it insures that the Democrats and Hillary Clinton will win the Presidency, the Senate, a slight chance to gain the House majority, and transform the Supreme Court, in a truly “wave” election.

And if, somehow, Ryan ends up taking the GOP Presidential nomination, it will bring back memories of the 2012 Presidential election, when Ryan was “conquered” by Vice President Joe Biden in their VP debate.

Yes, Ryan has a handsome face, and youth, but he is also a flawed candidate, which this blogger emphasized four years ago, causing for awhile a major right wing attack on this blogger, including in THE BLAZE, the media creation of talk show host Glenn Beck.  How dare I attack Paul Ryan, showing his many faults and shortcomings!

Also, were Ryan to be the Presidential nominee, it would be only the second time that a sitting member of the House has been the nominee of a major political party for President, with the only  time being Ohio Congressman James A. Garfield, who was elected in 1880, and then, sadly, was mortally wounded by an assassin, Charles J. Guiteau,  which is covered in Chapter 3 of my new book, ASSASSINATIONS, THREATS, AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: FROM ANDREW JACKSON TO BARACK OBAMA (Rowman Littlefield Publishers, August 2015).

So the track record on a Congressman going to the Presidency is not a good marker for success!

2016: Most Dangerous Year Since Richard Nixon Constitutional Crisis In Late 1973 And Until His Resignation In August 1974!

Ronald 3 Comments

Today, March 15, 2016, is the Ides of March–the day Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Roman Republic in 44 BC.

It is also the day that the Republican Party may suffer its death as a serious political party; the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan!

If Donald Trump manages to defeat both Marco Rubio and John Kasich today in Florida and Ohio, then the GOP nomination battle is over, and a true disaster has occurred!

The idea that Ted Cruz would be an acceptable alternative is ridiculous, as his extremist right wing views would, in many ways, be even more dangerous to our nation than even Trump!

Trump is a Fascist demagogue, with no principles, willing to consort with racists, nativists, misogynists, homophobes, and with white trailer trash that represents the worst of America.

Were he to win, we would face a constitutional crisis on the level, and possibly surpassing it, of the Richard Nixon constitutional crisis in late 1973 and until his resignation in August 1974.

Trump would likely be more dangerous than even Nixon, certainly the worst threat to civility and the Bill of Rights since Nixon!

Thankfully, no scenario with the Electoral College can see either Trump or Cruz winning 270 electoral votes, but the nomination of Trump would represent the demise of the GOP, caused by their own right wing turn in the years since Barack Obama won the Presidency, and they have no one to blame for their mess, except themselves!

John Kasich Offers Sanity To The Republican Party, But Other Candidates Need To Drop Out!

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With the second place finish of Ohio Governor John  Kasich in the New Hampshire Republican primary, the Republican Party has been given a lifeline to avoid the total disaster of Donald Trump!

But this requires other candidates to drop out, including Dr. Benjamin Carson, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio in particular, as all have failed to prove they are electable.

Ted Cruz should also drop out, as it is clear legally that he was born in Canada, and cannot, therefore, become President.

Were this to occur, it would leave the race as three men–Donald Trump, Kasich and Jeb Bush, and that would be good for the party, and would insure that Trump would not be the GOP nominee for President.

Whether one agrees or not with any of the candidates, it is clear that Kasich more so, Bush less so, would, ultimately have the best opportunity to keep the Republican party viable in the future, as both would promote mainstream conservatism, instead of the right wing extremism promoted by other candidates.

The spotlight, whatever happens with others dropping out of the race, will be on Kasich, and it would seem his chances of ending up as the GOP nominee have been greatly improved, as the Ohio Governor now seems very electable!

Major Blunders: Bill Clinton’s Denunciation Of Bernie Sanders, And Madeleine Albright And Gloria Steinem Critical Of Young Women Who Support Bernie Sanders Over Hillary Clinton

Ronald 20 Comments

The Democratic Presidential campaign is getting extremely heated, but the Hillary Clinton campaign is making major blunders that could reverberate on her chances to be the nominee of the party long term.

Husband Bill Clinton unleashing a denunciation of Bernie Sanders is totally unwise, and reminds us of how he helped to ruin his wife’s candidacy in 2008, when he bitterly engaged in what many thought was racism in his attacks on Barack Obama.

The best thing Bill Clinton could do is SHUT UP, and stay out of the campaign, and let his wife fight her own battles, as his involvement is counterproductive.

But also, the decision of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a Hillary Clinton rally; and of feminist icon Gloria Steinem on Bill Maher’s show, to be critical of young women who are flocking to Bernie Sanders’s campaign, is also extremely counterproductive, as no young woman or young man or anyone has an obligation to support Hillary because she is a woman!

All these new developments are doing is make the chance 0f unity of Democrats for the Fall campaign far less likely, and the end result could be the Democrats could lose the national election to the Republicans, and condemn America to a right wing extremist government, that will have the ability to transform the Supreme Court to the far right, and lose a generation or more of reasonable constitutional law!

Republican Implosion: 1912, 1964, 2016—Each 52 Years Apart After Lincoln And First Republican Victory In 1860!

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The Republican Party was born in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery, and also included abolitionists, those who wanted the end of slavery, in its membership.

Six years later, the Republicans won the majority of the Congress,and in a four way Presidential face, Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency with less than 40 percent of the total national vote.

Within  six weeks of the Presidential inauguration, the Civil War had begun.

For the next half century, the Republicans dominated national politics, winning control of the Presidency for 44 of 52 years (with only Democrat Grover Cleveland winning two nonconsecutive terms in 1884 and 1892), and usually held the Congressional majority with a few exceptions.

But then in 1912, 52 years after the Republicans became the national majority, the party had a “civil war” between President William Howard Taft and his predecessor in the White House, Theodore Roosevelt, leading to the formation of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party, and TR ending up second and Taft third in popular and electoral votes.  Democrat Woodrow Wilson became President, and promoted a great era of reform, known as the New Freedom, and also adopted TR’s reform platform, known as the New Nationalism.

Despite many shortcomings of Wilson, the domestic reform programs was the greatest in substance in American history.

The Republicans returned to national power in the Presidential Election of 1920 and kept it until Herbert Hoover and the coming of the Great Depression, and Franklin D. Roosevelt then brought Democratic dominance in 1932 and after, with his New Deal, a much greater reform period than that under Wilson.

The Republican Party was only able to win back Congressional majorities in the midterm election of 1946 and again in the Presidential Election of 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower won the Presidency, but two years later, the Democrats regained the majority in both houses for the next quarter century.

The more conservative wing of the GOP lost their chance to gain a Presidential nomination when Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon won the nominations for President from 1940-1960, but the conservatives overcame the Eastern Establishment, as it was known, and soared to the Presidential nomination with right wing Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, 52 years after 1912.

But now we had “civil war” again, as Eastern Establishment Republicans who had competed against Goldwater, including most notably Nelson Rockfeeller, refused to support Goldwater in 1964, and some just sat on their hands, while others backed Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.  This led to a massive defeat for the GOP in 1964, and LBJ went on to a landslide victory and the promotion of the Democratic Party’s Great Society.

The battle for the future began when Ronald Reagan sought the Presidency against incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976, but going on to triumph in 1980, creating what conservatives considered a “Golden Age”.  However, after Reagan, the Establishment returned with President George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, President George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney from 1988 to 2012.

As the GOP became ever more conservative and right wing extremist, and was hijacked by the Tea Party Movement after 2009, the party has reached a point where the Establishment, including some of the 2016 Presidential candidates, but also much of Republicans Congressional leadership, was seen as unacceptable, and we have now witnessed a rebellion against “office holders”, and the rise of Donald Trump, Dr. Benjamin Cason, and Carly Fiorina.

It seems as if the GOP is on the way to another “civil war” 52 years after 1964, wh8ich could be the final implosion of the Republican Party as we know it, and lead to a massive Democratic victory, including the possibility yet again of a third age of reform, spurred on in the past by Wilson and LBJ, and maybe now, either Hillary Clinton, or who can say, maybe even Bernie Sanders!

Crazy, Out Of Control Donald Trump Or Right Wing Extremist Ted Cruz: Is This What The Republican Party Will Offer In 2016?

Ronald 6 Comments

Billionaire Donald Trump has his biggest lead in polls yet with the latest poll showing him with 36 percent, a 20 point lead over Texas Senator Ted Cruz, with both of them being very scary and terrifying, at the thought of either being the Republican Presidential nominee!

Cruz is rapidly rising, despite his extremist right wing views, and the fact that almost no Republican Senator likes or respects him, making it clear that he would have very little support from his own colleagues, were he to be elected President.  He consorts with hate mongers and right wing extremists of all kinds, and makes no apologies for it.  He is a loose cannon, and again, reminds us so much of his look alike, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, of the infamous Red Scare of the 195os!

And then there is Donald Trump, who is crazy, out of control, and has attacked, insulted, and vilified just about everyone, and yet keeps public support in the polls!

What is the list of who Donald Trump has attacked, insulted, and vilified?  It includes the following:

Mexicans and Hispanics

African Americans

Muslims

Refugees

Immigrants

Women

Jews

The Disabled

Journalism in general

New York Times

Washington Post

Fellow Republican candidates for the Presidency—Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, Scott Walker,George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, John Kasich

Senator John McCain and former Governor Mitt Romney, past Presidential candidates

Former President George W. Bush

Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton

And the list goes on and on and on, and yet Trump has large audiences hanging on every word and insult, as if the nation has gone totally insane, at least based on his audiences and poll ratings!

Is America about to nominate a “Reality Star” of tremendous egotism and arrogance and narcissism, or a Senator who is disliked by everyone and is much further to the extreme Right than any candidate in the race?  And could either Trump or Cruz actually defeat Hillary Clinton eleven months from now?

If so, America is doomed for the long term future in domestic and foreign policy!

1968 Political Turmoil Over Vietnam Now Being Repeated Over Middle East Terrorism Threat In 2016

Ronald 10 Comments

In 1968, the nation was bitterly divided over the war in Vietnam, and a major Presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, became a victim of the turmoil over that, but also of the Middle East conflict, with the Six Day War of 1967 provoking the assassination of RFK by a Palestinian Arab immigrant, who happened to be Christian, but is often perceived as the beginning of the issue of Middle East terrorism come to America’s home front.

After the Paris terror attack by ISIL (ISIS), it is clear that we are going to become a major target for similar kinds of attacks in public places, and also, it has often been wonderment that we have not had suicide bombers in this country, and it is likely we will experience that as well.

The danger is that fear and reality will lead America to elect an extremist right wing candidate, such as Donald Trump or Ted Cruz to the Presidency, which would undermine American democracy and our basic civil liberties.

Ironically, the terrorists will have won if we end up going hysterical, and allow the domestic reforms and civil liberties advancements, which have been the hallmark of the past century, to be lost in the desire for security!

Do not be shocked that we might see a real threat to the life of the President or some Presidential candidate over the next year to the election, and it might be from Middle East terrorism, or could be from a right wing National Rifle Association fanatic who decides he must eliminate someone who is seen as the danger to the future of “traditional values” in an America under siege!

The Secret Service needs, immediately, more membership, more training, more preparation for what is likely to come!

The Crisis In The Speakership Of The House Of Representatives: Not A Laughing Matter!

Ronald 126 Comments

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, second in line for the Presidency behind the Vice President of the United States.

Therefore, who is the Speaker of the House is not an idle matter, but of crucial importance, that he or she be a mainstream, responsible public official.

The Republican Party has produced disasters in the Speakership since 1994.

First, we had Newt Gingrich, who had a scandalous private life, and was extremely confrontational in his dealings with President Bill Clinton, and yet, right wing conservatives were unhappy with him, and he resigned after two terms as Speaker, a total of four years.

Then, his theoretical successor, Bob Livingston, was forced to turn down the Speakership, due to his own private life scandals.

Then, Denny Hastert became Speaker, seemed noncontroversial, and in comparison to Gingrich and Livingston, was just that.  But now, years after his decision to leave Congress after the Republicans lost control of the House in 2006, Hastert faces prosecution and is involved in a sex scandal involving when he was a high school wrestling coach 35 years ago.

And then, there was John Boehner, who lasted almost five years, but was under constant attack by the far right Tea Party Movement, and now has decided to resign at the end of October.  Boehner created constant confrontations with Barack Obama, but also, at times, was cordial with limits imposed by his party’s dynamics.

Eric Cantor, who was supposed to be Boehner’s successor, unexpectedly lost his seat in a nomination fight last year, just as he had the chance to become the first Jewish Speaker of the House, and his defeat apparently delayed Boehner’s decision to leave, until now after the Pope has visited the United States, and spoken before the Congress in joint session.  This event brought out the tears so common to Boehner, a devout Catholic.

Now the issue is who should succeed Boehner, two heartbeats away from the Presidency, with new House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy  of California favored even though he has only been in Congress nine years, has sponsored no important legislation, and never would have been in this position had Eric Cantor not been defeated  last year.

McCarthy seems pleasant enough on a personal basis, actually more than Gingrich, Livingston, Hastert, and now Boehner, but will the right wing Tea Party movement be satisfied with him, and will he be responsible enough to conduct himself with a willingness to work with President Obama for the next year?

What if a true right wing extremist ends up as Speaker, with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a possible successor seen as a true extremist and often compared by many to David Duke, the former KKK leader, due to Scalise’s opposition to a Martin Luther King Holiday in Louisiana, one of the last states to adopt it?

America cannot tolerate a right wing extremist to be two heartbeats away from the Presidency, and it can be hoped that, under the present circumstances, Kevin McCarthy become Speaker, but somehow, although unlikely, hope that disillusionment with the Republican control of Congress leads to Democratic control of the House, as well as the Senate, to occur in the 2016 national elections.

Since the House is gerrymandered, giving the GOP control despite more total popular votes for the chamber being Democratic, this seems unlikely, but those who feel it is urgent that the next Democratic President have both chambers of Congress willing to work with him or her, must work very hard to try to elect a Congress controlled by the Democrats!

The Best Republican In 2012: Jon Huntsman! The Best Republican In 2016: John Kasich! But Not An Endorsement!

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There is no debate that former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman was the best Republican in the Presidential campaign of 2012. He had the best credentials, including real foreign policy expertise, and unwillingness to take crazy, extremist stands on issues or to make nutty statements. Of course, it got him nowhere, and he gave up running for President again long ago!

Now in 2016, there is no question that out of a horrible group of potential Republican Presidential candidates that Ohio Governor and former House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich is easily the best potential nominee in 2016.

Kasich was very late in announcing, doing so only this week, and being ignored in all of the hype about Donald Trump, who has taken all of the oxygen out of the room with his rantings and ravings, and insults against anyone who criticizes him, whether fellow Republican contenders or the news media.

But Kasich is the most experienced of all of the potential GOP nominees, and has avoided coming across as a right wing extremist in his statements. He is clearly a conservative, but considered in the “mainstream”, whatever that means.

No one is saying, certainly not this blogger, that he is about to vote for John Kasich if he was the GOP nominee.

And no one is saying that everything he has said and done is endorsed or acceptable. He has shortcomings as everyone else does, but in comparison, he comes across as the best alternative IF the Republicans were to win the Presidential Election of 2016. His stands on immigration, education, and Medicaid make him better than any alternative the Republicans have.

In many ways, John Kasich is the alternative to Jeb Bush, to whom he has been compared, but has much more experience than Bush has had, and avoids the connection to the Bush name.

And lately, Jeb Bush has been making horrible statements of his views, which seem to be catering to the Tea Party crowd, while Kasich so far is seen as less willing to cater.

Having said that, Kasich has just made some terrible statements about climate change (that nothing should be done as it is God’s will) and about military intervention in the Middle East, making one worry that he could be linking up with the neoconservatives, who took us into the Iraq War, similar in that regard to Jeb Bush.

So again, this is not an endorsement, but simply recognition that were the nation forced to accept a Republican President, John Kasich is the best of a terrible crop of candidates!

24 Years Of Justice Thurgood Marshall; 24 Years Of Justice Clarence Thomas: The Contrast!

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Hard to believe, but it has been 24 years since Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush, with Thomas being chosen to replace the first African American on the Court, Thurgood Marshall, who had been selected 24 years earlier (1967), by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Marshall had made it clear that he wanted to stay on the Court until a Democrat was elected President, but despite his desires, his poor health forced him to resign. Marshall stands out as having been a quality member of the Court, one of the top 15 Supreme Court Justices of the 20th century.

Thomas, the second African American in Court history, would face severe attacks on his competency and on charges by Anita Hill that he had sexually harassed her when she worked for him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the 1980s.

The Thomas nomination became a major controversy, and led to the passage of sexual harassment laws affecting all employees in America, both in government and out of government.

It also led to a bitter and close nomination battle, with Thomas winning his seat on the Court by the closest margin in modern history, 52-48.

It caused Thomas to become embittered, and he has expressed this bitterness toward liberals ever since, and he has pledged he will not leave the Court until he is 86 years of age in 2034, doubling his age of 43 when he came to the Court.

Thomas has made his mission on the Court to oppose civil rights and civil liberties wherever he can, despite the fact that he benefited personally from Affirmative Action, and his race helped him to gain his job, even though his accomplishments were far less than Thurgood Marshall. Many well qualified African Americans were passed over for Thomas, because he was an outlier, a conservative, who did not care about what had happened to people of his race.

So Thomas has been an extreme right winger on the Supreme Court, along with Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, but in many ways more hard right than even them, without the intellectual brilliance of Scalia for much of the time he has been on the Court.

Thomas has almost never asked questions in oral arguments, and his history on the Court is just about the least impressive of all nine Justices.

But at the same time, he has had conflicts of interest that should disqualify his Court membership, and his wife has been a big power player with Right Wing groups that present many conflicts of interest, but no concern or explanation or apology from Justice Thomas, who has no concern as to how he is perceived or reported in the news media.

Thomas has come across as arrogant, but also dense about discrimination against African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, women, gays and lesbians, organized labor, and the environment.

Thomas is seen as certain to work against Affirmative Action, as in several cases in the past, despite the advantages he has had in his own life.

When one compares him to Justice Thurgood Marshall, it is clear that the appointment of Thomas was just about the worst decision President George H. W. Bush made in his term of office.

And if in the afterlife, someone can look down on the world, it would be clear that Justice Marshall, who was known for being blunt, would be furious that Thomas replaced him as the African American member on the Court, with no likelihood of his early departure anytime soon!