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Donald Trump Is A Traitor To America, And Promoting Terrorism By White Nationalists And White Supremacists!

Ronald 12 Comments

It is not a pleasure for this blogger and author to write that President Donald Trump is a traitor to America, having worked with the Russians in 2016 to defeat Hillary Clinton, as made clear in the Mueller Report in 2019, and the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee Report a month ago! So he is as much of a traitor, if not more, than Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution, and some are already calling him “Benedict Donald”!

But also, Donald Trump is a terrorist, inciting and promoting attacks by white nationalists and white supremacists, with such despicable followers of those philosophies murdering people in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon just in the past few days, and Trump today defending the young man who came across state lines, driven by his mother, and killing two and wounding one in Kenosha!

Trump is attempting to promote a racial war, and caravans of white power people, young toughs who see Trump as their leader, have been looking for trouble and violence, ironically, recently, in mostly white cities (Portland, Seattle, Kenosha) where most demonstrators for Black Lives Matter are WHITES, with some now becoming victims!

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Joe Biden is promoting reconciliation, and blaming Trump rightfully for claiming that only he, Trump, can overcome so called racial violence and crime, when it has been incited by his supporters going after those who protest police brutality, with most victims being whites!

Black Lives Matter protesters do not bring firearms to their demonstrations, only white supremacists and white vigilantes, encouraged by Trump.

Crime in America had reached a 50 year low before Trump took office, and much of that crime that has occurred now is due to these right wing hatemongers, as well as the human suffering going on in the midst of the Second Great Depression and CoronaVirus Pandemic, along with the growing level of police misconduct against African Americans.

It is amazing that the young man who murdered in Kenosha was not stopped by police for having a firearm being wielded by him, and try to imagine an African American man in the same circumstance!

Trump is sowing chaos in order to try to gain white suburbia and women by fear, but it will not succeed. He even tried to defend today the young man who killed two in Kenosha!

The time of George Wallace in 1968 is back, but it seems clear that Joe Biden will overcome the hate and the chaos, and is still far ahead in public opinion polls, even after the Republican National Convention.

Donald Trump will have to be held to account once he leaves office, as he is the most lawbreaking President in American history by far, much more than Richard Nixon, who looks by comparison to be a “choir boy”!

Fascism Is On The Horizon If Donald Trump Is Reelected: Warning Of Author Sinclair Lewis In His Work “It Can’t Happen Here” In 1935

Ronald 18 Comments

In 1935, Novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote a prophetic novel, “It Can’t Happen Here”, stating that what was happening in Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, could happen in the United States. Lewis wrote that it would be “clothed in a flag and carrying a Bible!”

This was way before the horrors of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany reached their peaks over the next decade, but already enough evidence of the dangers of the manipulation of minds with emotional rhetoric dividing groups in a society, based upon race, ethnicity, religion, and national origins.

Lewis was warning about the potential dangers represented by Huey Long of Louisiana, who was assassinated months later in 1935, with the story of his assassination covered in my book “Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama” (Rowman Littlefield Publishers 2015, Paperback Edition 2017).

It could also be applied later, in the 1950s, to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin; to third party Presidential candidate George Wallace of Alabama in 1968; and to President Donald Trump.

Only Trump, with his Fascist appeal, backed up by military, police and evangelical support, and rallies to appeal to those who are racist oriented, and also nativists, white supremacists at Charlottesville, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and misogynistic, is a clear and present danger, as he is the President of the United States.

He has stoked Fascist appeals as a manipulative method for the past five years since he announced his candidacy in 2015, and has set out to destroy all traditions and norms!

A lot of intelligent people, including those I know or knew, and also a lot of not so bright people who have emotional attachment to Donald Trump, since they are ignorant and share his horrific beliefs, have rallied around him.

And yet, many conservatives and Republicans who really care about our Constitution and rule of law, and the perpetuation of our democracy, are alarmed by Trump’s constant attack on “Fake Media”.

Trump calls everyone and everything which opposes his authoritarian bent as unAmerican. He waves the American flag as if he owns patriotism, when it is his critics who are truly patriotic, and care about human rights and freedom.

Donald Trump incites in a crazy manner on Twitter daily, and in the midst of the greatest crises since the Great Depression and World War II, he ignores and refuses to take responsibility for the Second Great Depression and the CoronaVirus Pandemic!

He stokes bloodshed and violence in attacking those who are promoting the need for racial healing, and encourages right wing hoodlums in the streets of Portland, Seattle, Kenosha and elsewhere,

This presents the danger of greater violence in the two months left to the Presidential Election of 2020, and the interim to the next inauguration, and his stated refusal to accept defeat if the election goes against him, an absolutely terrifying scenario!

It would seem that his opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, face constant threats of assassination, and this author of a book on assassinations is truly alarmed that someone who is a Trumpite will attempt to do that!

If Trump is reelected, this nation will be threatened in its basic values in a way never having come to power with Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, or George Wallace, despite these earlier threats in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1960s. It will be an authoritarian dictatorship without any control, a nightmare that will mirror the horrors of Fascist Italy and even Nazi Germany!

As Sinclair Lewis wrote in “It Can’t Happen Here”, it actually “Can Happen Here”!

Democratic Victories In Virginia, New Jersey, And Elsewhere Sign Of Repudiation Of Trump, And Beginning Of Impeachment Move

Ronald 84 Comments

Yesterday was a glorious day for Democrats across the board.

Ralph Northam won the Virginia Governorship, and the Democrats also won the Lieutenant Governorship and State Attorney Generalship, as as well as switch the control of the House Of Delegates in a massive defeat for Republicans. The Lieutenant Governor is Justin Fairfax, first African American in that position in Virginia history.

A transgender woman in Virginia defeated a rabid homophobe for a seat in the House of Delegates. And the boyfriend of a woman murdered on live television in 2015, ran on the gun issue and won a seat in the House of Delegates in her memory. Two Latinas were also elected to the House of Delegates, as well as a Vietnamese Asian American woman for the first time in Virginia.

New Jersey saw the repudiation of Chris Christie’s lieutenant governor, by Democrat Phil Murphy. And an African American woman was elected Lieutenant Governor.

Maine expanded Medicaid over the objections of right wing bully Republican Governor Paul Le Page.

New Hampshire saw Manchester’s Mayoralty fall to the Democratic nominee.

Minneapolis, Minnesota City Council saw the election of a transgender African American woman.

St. Paul, Minnesota and Helena, Montana elected African Americans to the Mayoralty of both cities, a first for both .

Charlotte, North Carolina Mayoralty went to an African American woman.

Two small cities in Georgia elected an African American woman Mayor, and two African American men won that office, one in a city in Georgia, and one in South Carolina.

Hoboken, New Jersey elected a man of the Sikh religion as its Mayor.

A woman was elected Nassau County, New York (on Long Island) County Executive for the first time, and a rare case of a Democrat winning that position.

The State Senate in Washington State went to a Democratic majority, making the entire Pacific Coast “Blue”, in California, Oregon and Hawaii, along with Washington State.

City Mayors, all Democrats, were reelected in New York City, Boston, and Detroit and a lesbian Mayor elected in Seattle, among other places.

Growing numbers of incumbent Republicans are deciding not to run for reelection, creating more open seats and making likelihood of Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives in 2018 much more likely.

Suburban areas across the nation are growing more Democratic on paper, after massive victories all over the nation.

Northern Virginia has become more powerful in numbers and percentage, overcoming southern and western sections of Virginia, making Virginia clearly a Blue State in the future.

With many Republicans now planning to retire, expect more criticism of Donald Trump, and a growing shift toward impeachment of Trump, since retiring politicians have an independence not seen otherwise, so just as John McCain. Jeff Flake. and Bob Corker have come out against Trump, more can be expected in both houses of Congress.

And for many Republicans who remain, they may prefer Mike Pence in the White House when they are running for reelection, and since Trump shows no loyalties to the party which gave him their nomination, why should they feel an obligation to support him through thick and thin?

Donald Trump And North Korea

Ronald 1 Comment

The latest reports about Donald Trump indicate plans to resolve the North Korean problem in an extreme way that could lead to nuclear war.

One plan is to send nuclear missiles to South Korea, upping the ante of possible nuclear war directly on the population of North Korea, but 25 million South Koreans within range of the North Korean army, the fourth largest military in the world.

Another plan is to remove Kim Jon Un from power altogether.

But while the latter possibility sounds good on the surface, and is comparative to the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 under President Barack Obama’s administration, it is really NOT a similar scenario.

Osama bin Laden was not the leader of a government, an organized state.

Kim Jong Un, as crazy and dangerous as he is, IS the leader of a government, and the possibility of a massive invasion of South Korea, as in the Korean War of 1950-1953 is alarming.

Let us not forget that 33,000 Americans died in the Korean War, and a hundred thousand were wounded, and the war dragged on for three years and one month.

Let us also not forget that officially it is against international law to assassinate foreign leaders, although the United States has done that before, either directly or indirectly, as for instance in Chile in 1973, under Richard Nixon, as just one example.

The thought of the US using nuclear weapons, when the only time it occurred, was against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, is horrifying.

But there is no question of the complexity of the North Korean threat, which experts say within a few years could target Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the state of Hawaii, along with the threat to Japan and South Korea.

The question is whether we have a sane, balanced President to deal with this issue, and there is much doubt and trepidation about that.

April The Month For Many American Wars Beginning, And Now Likelihood Of War Against North Korea Soon

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When one examines American history, if we do not count wars against native Americans; interventions in Latin America; and the Filipino Insurrection from 1899-1902, we have had 12 wars in the nation’s historical experience.

Six of those wars began in April–The Revolutionary War, the Mexican American War, the Civil War, The Spanish American War, the First World War, and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

These events took place in 1775, 1846, 1861, 1898, 1917, and 1965.

Additionally, two wars began in March–the Second World War if one counts the Lend Lease Act of 1941 as the real beginning of naval engagement before Pearl harbor in December; and the Iraq War on March 20, 2003, the 14th anniversary of that tragic war being yesterday.

And also, two wars began in June—the War of 1812 and the Korean War in 1950.

So only two wars did not begin in the Spring months from early March to late June–the Persian Gulf War in January 1991 and the Afghanistan War in October 2001.

There is something about the Spring months, and particularly April, that seems, maybe coincidentally but maybe not, to be the time for wars to commence.

Based on recent warnings from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson while on a trip to Japan South Korea, and China, war could be coming very soon against Kim Jong Un of North Korea, maybe in April or shortly after, as concern about North Korean nuclear development being a growing threat to Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, as well as Hawaii, and also the threat to South Korea and Japan, is alarming.

Los Angeles Minimum Wage To Go To $15 By 2020! Is This The Trend For The Nation?

Ronald 20 Comments

The issue of the minimum wage has been a controversial one for the past decade, with the unwillingness of Congress to raise the minimum wage, which used to be raised automatically, based on the “cost of living” until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Ever since, even despite occasional increases under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the argument has been that raising the minimum wage will cause more unemployment and raise prices for consumers dramatically.

But many say that is not the case, and that it is a situation of a basic human right, the ability to support oneself and one’s family, and that many of the people on the minimum wage are NOT young beginning workers, as claimed by critics, but rather people primarily of color who are single mothers with children.

Now Los Angeles has taken the bull by the horn, and mandated a $15 minimum wage in steps by the year 2020, and a few other localities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, have also raised the minimum wage, although not as high as Los Angeles.

There is a movement nationwide by fast food workers, and retail industry workers, to force an increase by demonstrations, with limited success at this time.

The fact is that IF the minimum wage was always based on the cost of living, the original minimum wage of 25 cents per hour in 1938 would not be about $22.00 an hour, so even what Los Angeles has mandated will happen, does not meet that standard.

President Obama has proposed a national minimum wage of $9 an hour, a small step forward.

It is clear that no worker, who works full time, should be expected to live in poverty, and if the rest of us must pay a higher price for goods and services, so be it!

The Defeat Of Dennis Kucinich: “Dennis The Menace” At The End Of A Colorful, Controversial Political Career!

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Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the most colorful members of the House of Representatives in the present generation, will be retiring from Congress at the end of 2012, as a result of his overwhelming defeat by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a fellow Democrat, longest serving woman in the House at present, who was forced into a race against Kucinich, due to the loss of two Ohio congressional seats as a result of redistricting.

Kucinich first came to notice as the boy mayor of Cleveland, and the push to recall him in 1979, which failed.

He re-emerged in Congress in the 1996 Congressional elections, and ran for President twice, in 2004 and 2008.

He became the leading critic of the Iraq War and pushed to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.

Everything he ever tried or did ended in failure, but he fought the good fight, and was seen, even by critics, as a man of principle, dedicated to his nation, and beloved by many progressives, even though it was obvious he was the equivalent of Don Quixote.

While in theory he could move to the Seattle, Washington area in the next month, and still qualify for a new Congressional district created by population growth in that state, it might be seen as making him ineligible to keep his Ohio seat for the rest of this year, and being a “carpetbagger”, he might be rejected for that seat if he was to run on such short notice and residency.

Annoying to many, Dennis Kucinich will still go down in history as someone memorable, and not easily forgotten!

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich: “Carpetbagger” In Washington State?

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With reapportionment of seats about to take place in the House Of Representatives, based on the census figures, some states are gaining seats, while others are losing seats.

The Sun Belt is gaining seats, as they have done every decade since the 1950s, while the Frost Belt Northeast and Midwestern states, specifically the large ones, are losing seats.

This leads to some House members being gerrymandered into races against fellow members of the House of the same party, leaving the reality that some will be pushed out of their positions either by primary elections, or by reality setting in that they cannot compete in a primary or election in the new district and have a good chance of victory.

Such a circumstance is now faced by Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the most liberal and most controversial Democrats in Congress.

Kucinich, who was Mayor of Cleveland, acquiring the name “Dennis the Menace”; member of the Cleveland City Council later; and then has been a Congressman from Cleveland for eight terms, is faced with elimination unless he chooses to move somewhere else in another state which is gaining seats.

Kucinich, a national figure because of having competed for the Presidency in 2004 and 2008, was recently in the Seattle area of Washington State, which will gain a seat, trying to measure whether it was a good fit for a Congressional race, with Seattle being a progressive stronghold.

While it is required that a member of the House of Representatives must have a residence in the district he or she represents, in the year of reapportionment, the member can move into the district AFTER he or she has been elected, as often, even for members who keep their congressional seat, the boundaries have changed because of reapportionment, so new housing arrangements must be made, but it can be AFTER being elected to the new district seat.

The question is whether it is proper for Kucinich to do what he plans to do, and the answer is yes!

Why is that? Well, Washington State does not have a residency requirement in the state for someone to run for public office, much like New York State, which has had three non residents or “Carpetbaggers” run for and win a Senate seat–Robert Kennedy in 1964, James Buckley in 1970, and Hillary Clinton in 2000.

While there is no recent case of a “Carpetbagger” Congressman, it is not illegal or a first time situation, and what it all comes down to is that this is based on democracy! What the people of that particular new Congressional district in Seattle want, they are entitled to get. If the case can be made by a native Washingtonian that he or she should be elected over a well known Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, it will rule the day!

The word “Carpetbagger”, originating as a derogatory term in the Reconstruction South, should not be looked at in such a manner, as even most of the so called “Carpetbaggers” in the Southern states, who were Congressmen, Senators, or Governors, actually performed well in office, and the term is therefore just political propaganda to be ignored as a myth of American history!