War Of 1812

The Ten Greatest Political Villains Of 2022! And An Addendum!

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Yesterday, I published a post on the ten greatest Political Heroes of 2022.

So now, it is time to indicate who I believe are the ten greatest Political Villains of 2022!

In no special order, I would list the following:

Republican House Minority Leader, possibly Speaker of the House (hopefully not), Kevin McCarthy of California, who time again and again showed he had no spine, being a supplicant to Donald Trump, and demonstrating no principle or ethics in his crazed desire to be Speaker, two heartbeats away from the Presidency. The thought of him being that close in the line of succession is horrifying, not that there are very good alternatives!

Election Denier, and symbol with clenched fist, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who promoted sedition and treason! He faces reelection in 2024 and should be soundly defeated!

Election Denier and most obnoxious Senator (with other competitors), Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who this author and blogger thought in 2016 was the most dangerous Republican running for President, even more than Donald Trump! He faces reelection in 2024 and should be soundly defeated!

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a man who once had some intelligence, but after Arizona Senator John McCain died, has become a total Donald Trump sycophant!

Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a very unstable and unpricipled excuse for a human being, who, somehow, was able to defeat one of the best US Senators of modern times, Russ Feingold, in 2010 and 2016, and then a very talented Lieutenant Governor, African American Mandela Barnes in 2022. Johnson is one of the worst figures in Senate history!

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, an obnoxious and unprincipled man who, sadly, is likely to become House Judiciary Committee Chairman in the 118th Congress in 2023!

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who won his third term as Governor in 2022, despite his horrendous policies and lack of compassion, and is likely to pursue a Presidential candidacy for 2024!

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who won a vast reelection victory in 2022, and is seen as the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024, despite his intolerant and authoritarian bent, and his high level of arrogance and cockiness, on a multitude of issues. These include the COVID 19 Pandemic; Gay and Transgender Rights; Racial and Religious Minorities; interference in the teaching of History and Literature, and Manipulating School Boards and Libraries; and extreme Gerrymandering of Congressional Districts, which took away two African American seats, and gave the Republicans the control of the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress!

Arizona Republican Gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, who used the same tactic as Donald Trump, promoting the “Big Lie” about her defeat in the recent elections in her state. She has just been repudiated in court in her attempt to reverse a clearcut victory by her opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Good riddance to the most obnoxious woman imaginable!

Finally, on this list, former President Donald Trump, the most dangerous and worst US President in American history, twice impeached, and a close ally of totalitarian dictators around the world, willing to overthrow the US Constitution, rule of law, and American democracy. He needs to be prevented from running again for President, and indictment and conviction on the four charges brought against him by the January 6 House Committee is essential, to prevent any future tyrant from taking the kind of actions that this most evil man took! He harmed so many Americans during his term, as well as having the responsibility for the deaths, destruction and violence, in the worst attack on the US Capitol since the War of 1812!

And now an Addendum:

The Supreme Court has become a disgraceful, power hungry, extremist right wing organization!

Chief Justice John Roberts has lost his desired reputation as the leader of his Court, and in particular, Clarence Thomas (appointed by George H. W. Bush) and Samuel Alito (appointed by George W. Bush) have been totally out of control, and both will go down as two of the very worst Supreme Court Justices in American history! The names and reputations of both Bush Presidencies are permanently besmirched as a result!

A Contrast In Two Republican Women: Day Of Reckoning Tuesday For Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin!

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Two Republican women politicians face the voters this coming Tuesday.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney, whose father is former Vice President Dick Cheney, faces what seems like a certain defeat for her statewide Congressional seat in Wyoming, as Harriet Hageman, endorsed by Donald Trump, is up to 30 points ahead in various polls.

This author and blogger does not agree with Liz Cheney on just about anything, except her courageous, principled stand against Donald Trump and his incitment of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection, the most dangerous threat to American government institutions since the War of 1812.

She has worked as co-chair, with another Republican, Congressman Adam Kinzinger, on the January 6 House Committee, and has endured vicious attacks and repudiation by her Republican House colleagues.

She is a “Profile in Courage”, as is Kinzinger, and they are on the right side of history, against the great evil of MAGA, the right wing Fascist movement led by the most corrupt and dangerous President America has ever experienced!

It seems likely, assuming she loses her Congressional seat, that Liz Cheney will mount a Presidential campaign, if for nothing else, than to split Republican and conservative votes and insure that Donald Trump, or anyone who runs in his place for President as a Trump supporter, is defeated for the Presidency.

The survival of American democracy is at stake with Liz Cheney’s battle against evil!

On the other hand, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s Vice Presidential running mate in the Presidential Election of 2008, is coming out of the “woodwork”, and plaguing us again with her inane, dumb, clueless candidacy for the open House seat in her state, caused by the death of long term Congressman Don Young.

Sarah Palin is part of the extremist right wing, divisive deterioration of the Republican Party in the past quarter century, and as a supporter of Donald Trump, it is hoped she will be repudiated by the voters, as she has nothing positive to offer her state.

If she is elected to the House, she will be an annoying figure such as Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, so hopefully she can be rejected, and returned to private life!

The Danger Of Kevin McCarthy Being Two Heartbeats Away From The Presidency In 2023

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California has engaged in a great coverup regarding the events of January 6, 2021, but we have now learned that he was ready to promote the resignation of Donald Trump, until he changed his mind and caved in to Trump.

McCarthy has led a campaign to defeat Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only Republicans to show courage and join the January 6 House Committee investigating the horrible events of that day.

With the exception of a small group of other House Republicans who joined Cheney and Kinzinger in supporting impeachment of Donald Trump for his rhetoric and actions on January 6, the party has engaged in a coverup.

Kevin McCarthy so desperately wants to be Speaker of the House that he has shown himself to be a coward in promoting the “Big Lie” about his involvement and interaction around the events of that day.

The danger now is that McCarthy, were he to become Speaker of the House, would disgrace that office, as he has no principles, ethics, or morals, and is willing to sell his soul to Donald Trump!

The nightmare scenario about Kevin McCarthy is that if was to become Speaker of the House, he would be two heartbeats away from the Presidency, as under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the only people standing in the way of the Presidency are President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris!

Even worse is the possibility that someone far worse than even McCarthy, such as Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan or others who are equally reprehensible, could become Speaker in place of McCarthy!

It is essential that the Republicans NOT win the majority in the House of Representatives, as that would also mean the end of the investigation into the most dangerous threat to the US Capitol and American government stability since the War of 1812!

Commemoration Of January 6, And Condemnation Of Mike Pence For His Lack Of Appreciation!

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The nation is coming up to the anniversary of the most dangerous attack on the US Capitol since the War of 1812, and the most dangerous threat to our nation’s survival since the Civil War.

The January 6, 2021 Insurrection will be commemorated this coming week by the Congress and the White House, but Donald Trump is planning an event to disrupt and further create instability in order to destroy American democracy.

And former Vice President Mike Pence has shown no apprecation for the sacrifices of US Capitol Police Officers who helped to save his life from likely hanging and death on that horrific day in Washington, DC.

Pence was a total toady on that day, making him the worst Vice President since Spiro Agnew, worse than even Dan Quayle, and on a short list of Vice Presidents who have disgraced the office, including Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun.

For Pence to think he has a real opportunity to be President indicates how seriously morally corrupt he is, or how mentally deranged he is.

Imagine that Pence had to have Dan Quayle convince him to do his duty, and count the legitimate Electoral College votes, when he clearly was morally weak and considering caving in, and being part of the unconstitutional Insurrection to destroy American democracy.

Wyoming And Liz Cheney: Very Important House Race For 2022!

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Who would think that the state of Wyoming, the smallest state in population (less than 600,000), and least densely populated state (although it is 10th largest in land area), would become the center of attention in the upcoming midterm Congressional elections?

There is only one statewide At Large House district, with the seat being held by Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Liz Cheney is reliably conservative in voting record on every imaginable issue, and no Democrat is likely to be able to take that seat in the upcoming elections. But it is a Trumpite Republican mindset which is the bigger threat, as Liz Cheney has shown principle by voting to impeach Donald Trump, and has become Vice Chair of the House Select January 6 Committee to investigate the Insurrection that took place, the first time since the War of 1812 that the US Capitol and Washington DC came under attack.

Liz Cheney has lost her third ranking position as the House Republican Conference Chair as of May 2021, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Congressional Republicans have constantly denounced her. The Wyoming Republican Party has voted to censure her for supporting impeachment of Trump and agreeing to be Vice Chair of the investigation of the January 6 Insurrection, and wants her to resign or be defeated in the 2022 state primary.

There are at least six Republicans planning to challenge Cheney in the primary, but Cheney has gained the backing of a number of sitting members of both houses of Congress, as well as some former such individuals.

So the odds are very favorable that Liz Cheney will keep her House seat, and she has hinted at mounting a campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024!

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson Emerges As Unapologetically Racist, A Variation Of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy Sixty Years Ago!

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Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson defeated the superb Senator Russ Feingold for his Senate seat in 2010 and 2016, a shocking state of affairs!

Johnson has embarrassed himself and his state with his outrageous racist and moronic utterances over the past ten years, but now he has gone beyond the pale in trying to claim that the January 6 Capitol Insurrection was really not so, even though five people died, and many Capitol Police were badly injured, in the process of the destruction and desecration in that building, the first time since the War of 1812!

And Johnson defends the white supremacists and racists who stormed the building, and says he would be more worried if Black Lives Matter demonstrators and Antifa, both promoting social justice and opposing Trump Fascism, had been involved in the attack.

Hopefully, Johnson will not run for reelection, but if he does, the motivation must be to remove from the Senate, as he is a total disgrace.

It reminds one of the similar tragedy of anti Communist “witch hunter” Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin defeating the great progressive Republican Senator Robert La Follette Jr, for his Senate seat in 1946, and then unleashing the disgraceful Red Scare, known as McCarthyism from 1950-1954.

And McCarthy’s chief aide, the infamous Roy Cohn, ended up later as an advisor to businessman Donald Trump, so the curse of Roy Cohn stretched from Joseph McCarthy, a true demagogic Fascist, to Donald Trump, another true demagogic Fascist!

A Very Emotional Time With Many Thoughts Which Will Require Time To Process

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The last 48 hours have been the most emotional roller coaster imaginable!

It began with great excitement as Georgia saw the victory of both Democratic Senate candidates, the Reverent Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff, marking the first African American Senator from a Deep South state since Reconstruction, and the first Jewish Senator in the history of the state.

It also meant that the Democrats would control the US Senate under new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and that Joe Biden would be able to have more success with a Congress controlled by his party, even if paper thin control.

But then, we had the first attack on the US Capitol Building, the home of Congress, since the British attacked on August 24, 1814 during the War of 1812, and done by a right wing Fascist terrorist, insurrectionist group of Donald Trump supporters, and egged on by Trump himself, as well as his son, Donald Trump, Jr. and Rudy Giuliani, former NYC Mayor. These three men are guilty of treason and sedition and need to be held accountable!

The Capitol was defiled, and our national security was in danger, and it caused America to be ridiculed in the eyes of the world, which have seen America as the image of democracy being threatened by an egomaniac who wanted absolute power!

So even though at this writing, there are only 13 days to the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the push is on to impeach and remove the President, a second attempt, or to invoke the 25th Amendment, with great pressure being brought on Vice President Mike Pence by Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to prod the Trump Cabinet to join him in taking the Presidency away from Trump, and giving the authority for the remaining days of this term to Mike Pence.

There will be much need to process these events, as the nation and its future remain at risk, as this author and blogger publishes this entry!

America Likely To Lose More In CoronaVirus Pandemic Of 2020 Than All Wars In American History!

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America is about to witness the greatest loss of life in our history in a short time, over the next six months!

The death toll from the CoronaVirus Pandemic is already on the way to being the greatest of any nation in the world, with Donald Trump being responsible for a delay in reaction to the realities of medicine and science!

And when one looks at death statistics of all of our wars since 1775, it is truly sobering to realize we are likely to see more loss of life in 2020 than in all of America’s conflicts combined!

Witness the following statistics on deaths in wartime, using the information available from varying sources and in many cases, rounded off as impossible to be precise on figures:

American Revolutionary War 4,435

War Of 1812 2,260

Indian Wars (1817-1898) approx 1,000

Mexican War 1,733

Civil War both Union and Confederate 750,000

Spanish American War 385

Philippine-American War 4,196

World War I 116,000

World War II 405,000

Korean War 54,000

Vietnam War 58,000

Persian Gulf War 383

Iraq War 4,500

Afghanistan War 2,200

This adds up to 1,404,092 as rough figures, so over 1.4 million deaths.

Now we are told by Donald Trump and others, if we are “lucky”, we will lose “only” a range of 100,000 to 240,000 people, meaning greater than all wars except the Civil War and World War II!

But the dire prediction is that America could lose up to 2.2 million people, worst scenario, more than 50 percent higher than all wars combined!

The higher estimated figure would mean about two thirds of one percent of Americans could die in 2020, higher than all wars, except the Civil War, where it is estimated that 2 percent of Americans died.

And realize, this loss of life is within one year, not multiple years of war!

The Civil War created, no joke, a man shortage compared to women that was not overcome until immigration numbers promoted a balance of men and women. Many women never married as a result, and became, instead, teachers, social workers, nurses and other occupations that put them in contact regularly with children, just not their own..

Another statistic is deaths per day in wartime, with the highest estimate being 520 in the Civil War, 297 in World War II, and 279 in World War I. We will sadly surpass these numbers as this pandemic rages!

The “Achilles Heel” Of Ten Presidents: What Harms Their Historical Reputation

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When one studies the Presidency, it always comes down to one issue that can undermine their historical reputation.

So for John Adams, for example, it is the passage and enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

For James Madison, it is the burning of the White House and Capitol Hill in 1814 by the British during the War of 1812.

For Andrew Jackson, it is the forced removal of five Indian tribes to Oklahoma in the 1830s, the so called “Trail of Tears”.

For Franklin Pierce, it is the signing of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854, bringing the nation closer to the Civil War of the future.

For Woodrow Wilson, it is the violation of civil liberties during the First World War, and immediately after, during the Red Scare of 1919-1920.

For Franklin D. Roosevelt, it is the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

For Lyndon B. Johnson, it is the escalation of the Vietnam War in the mid 1960s.

For Richard Nixon, it is the engagement in the Watergate Scandal in the early 1970s.

For George W. Bush, it is the provoking of the Iraq War in 2003 and after.

And for Donald Trump, it is the collusion with the Russian government Vladimir Putin, which is going to bring down his Presidency.

Cabinet Officers And The Presidency

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Continuing our examination of the background of America’s Presidents, we will now look at the Presidency in relation to those who have held Cabinet positions under other Presidents.

So far, we have seen that there were 19 Presidents who served in the House of Representatives, 17 who served as Governors of their states, and 16 who served in the US Senate.

In regards to Cabinet officers a total of 8 Presidents served in a total of three different Cabinet positions.

Six of the 8 served as Secretary of State, including:

Thomas Jefferson under George Washington
James Madison under Thomas Jefferson
James Monroe under James Madison twice with a break of about a year when he served also as Secretary of War during the War of 1812, but then returned to the State Department.
John Quincy Adams under James Monroe
Martin Van Buren under Andrew Jackson
James Buchanan under James K. Polk

James Monroe served for about a year as Secretary of War under James Madison, as stated above, and William Howard Taft served in that position under Theodore Roosevelt..

Finally, Herbert Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge before running for President in 1928. Arguably, Hoover proved to be one of the best Cabinet officers in all of American history, and added great distinction to a Cabinet agency not much thought of as a major position otherwise.

Additionally, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt served as sub cabinet members under William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson respectively, both as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Also, William Howard Taft served as Solicitor General of the United States, the government’s lawyer before the Supreme Court, under President Benjamin Harrison.