I think it would be useful to know what Pompeo did on his official trip to Central America shortly after Trump appointed him as Secretary of State. He went to the countries from which so many scared-for-their-lives people have since been and are still fleeing. Was his official trip to those countries, in the true Trumpian style, official but off-the-record? Did he meet with fascists and tyrants and assorted sociopaths in power while there? What was discussed? The American press really did not cover much about this trip except to mention in briefly before they got distracted by whatever Trump did that day to get attention. Or was the press even there? You know, the Trump administration doesn’t like the press much, especially in the Oval Office when Russians are visiting or on official trips abroad.
Month: September 2021
Should there be standards?
In the United States we currently have 435 people in the House of Representatives and 100 people in the Senate. Is it too much to expect that there should be standards for that group of 535 people who go to Washington DC ostensibly to work for the 320 plus millions of Americans?
The reality is that there really are no standards for this group of people who make laws for us, who are supposed to help us when it is needed, protect us, and improve our lives and standard of living. At least that is what I think they should be doing. If they are not doing these things, what are they doing in Washington DC? Why are they there? Why did they want to go there?
Instead, what we have is candidates running for public offices who are not vetted. They run for local, state and federal elected positions. Anyone can run and be elected into this small group of people that are elevated into the important position of being public servants and work for the people they represent. There are no guidelines, no restrictions, no norms or standards for these people who are entrusted to work for the people.
More often than not, we have candidates appearing out of the blue who want to run for office. They have posters printed and posted. They have television and radio ads. They get their names out there and that’s about it. We really know nothing about them because they do not share anything about themselves, why they want to be public servants, what their personal goals and aspirations are, what motivates them to seek public office. We don’t know any of this about any of them until after they take office and then we see what they actually do.
It started long before, but especially since the tea party take over of the Republican Party that happened in 2010 and which has since morphed into the party of Trump and White Supremacy Nationalism, a lot of our elected representatives at all levels of government have been groomed and trained by special interest groups with big budgets to do all this political work. The Koch brothers, with their money, have engineered the conversion of the training of lawyers in particular in some universities to produce a cadre of workers who have been steeped in the libertarian indoctrination that suits the Koch brothers and their objectives. The Koch brothers also, for years, have financed conservative/libertarian “think tanks” that crank out workers who push the libertarian/conservative agenda in all areas of life and affect all Americans. These think tanks have created such organizations as ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, that conveniently is a group dedicated to writing legislation at the state level that further promotes and advances the Koch brothers agenda for what they want to do business-wise and to reduce regulation on their businesses and reduce their taxes and maximize their profits and income in the process. ALEC has made legislating easy for these elected officials they have groomed and helped put into public offices because it has supplanted them doing any legislative work for themselves. They simply take what is offered them from ALEC. Legislation, in states with a heavy Koch political presence is written by ALEC, taken by the elected officials they work with at the local level and made into law. Easy peasy.
There is no way that anyone or any other organization except for maybe Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates could compete with the Koch brothers in creating any kind of a political response to all of the organizing that the Koch brothers have been doing for all these decades and that are now really paying off for them. No one else except for just a few individuals has the vast sums of money that would be needed to finance their own branch of politics devoted exclusively to achieving their own economic and political goals as the Koch brothers have done.
On the local and state levels where there has been outreach and grooming done by Koch brother affiliates it may not be that the groomed candidate has gone through the formal Koch brother institutional “education” process that produces libertarian lawyers. I believe this activity has probably occurred in all 50 states at all levels of political activity. The Koch brothers have the unlimited financial resources to make sure that all the bases are covered. The candidates at local levels of government may simply be people chosen for grooming because they fit a certain malleable profile that would make them good workers for the libertarian agenda and are therefore selected for grooming on that basis. The education and indoctrination can occur later after establishing them in office to complete the process of establishing their loyalties and indoctination.
So, often we have candidates running for election and we know nothing about them except their names and party affiliation. They may provide a pithy statement to voters in the voters pamphlet but are usually completely unvetted by the press or the voters. As a rule, they most certainly do not usually discuss their reasons for running for office, what motivates them or why they want to work for “the people”. And there are no standards, guidelines or expectations.
That is how we end up with people being put into elected offices at all levels of government who say and do things that are appalling, revolting, and that demonstrate unfitness for holding any office. They take positions that attack and scapegoat groups of Americans: LGBTQ, Blacks, Women, Latinos, Immigrants, College Students, Democratic Voters.
Is it too much to ask that the 535 people who represent us in Congress actually represent us, the people, and do what is best for us, the people? Is it too much for us to ask and expect that the people who work for the people as our elected representatives to not bring their animosities, hatred, prejudices, to work with them and try to foist all of those damaged goods onto all of the rest of us? Is it too much to ask that our elected officials stop working for special interests?
Not only do we as Americans need to step up to the plate and accept our responsibilities of properly vetting and insisting on candidates openly and fully disclosing their reasons for running, their political goals and objectives and making themselves available to the voters until the voters themselves are satisfied that they have a fully vetted person before them before they actually vote for that person.
It is also crucially and increasingly important that people running for public office as elected officials know that their service will only be for a short period of time, that they should not expect to make a career out of it and not have the expectation that they will enjoy and profit from an indefinite tenure and nearly permanent incumbency.
We live in a country of 320 plus million people. We should have only the best and the brightest working for us and entrusted to make our lives better. The time of elected representatives going into politics as a career move or because they expect to make a lot of money in it needs to end.
We need to:
1. Vet all candidates for office and make sure they discuss and disclose their political views and goals and if they cannot or will not do that they should be rejected early in the process.
2. No longer accept political domination by groups such as the tea party that works for and are financed so heavily and indoctrinated by special interest money. The tea party and the Koch brothers being prime examples.
3. We have the human resources that would allow for us to continually refresh and replace our politically elected officials on a regular, term-limited basis with vibrant fresh new public servants who should be charged with creating law that is responsible, meets the needs of the people and continually improves or at least maintains a good quality of life for the majority of our citizens.
Is that asking too much?
Moscow Mitch’s biggest cash cow!
The people of Kentucky should ask Moscow Mitch how much money he’s going to be making on his part in setting up the Kremlin West in Kentucky. Okay, yes, I’m exercising whimsical thinking here, but, the Russians could use Moscow Mitch’s BFF Oleg Derapaska’s, the Russian oligarch that MM was generous enough to help lift sanctions on, aluminum plant in Kentucky as a base of operations to attack America and its allies right here on American soil. How much money will Moscow Mitch make in the deal? Will that be his biggest cash cow?
For voting purposes: (R) by a name means
Hey y’all. When you go to vote, to make it easier just remember, if there’s a (R) by the name that means Republican, or Russian (same thing). If you don’t believe me, just ask Moscow Mitch or Leningrad Lindsey. I’m sure they’ll tell you “Da, dahling!”
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Night 2 of the Detroit debates
I thought the second night of Democratic debates in Detroit was pretty great. We are lucky to have so many good people with great ideas running for this nomination. IMO all of them with a few exceptions would be great as president. But it will only end up being one person nominated. Whoever ends up being the democratic nominee deserves our full support and the full support of all of the other candidates as well. And, if the nominee would be open to using the best ideas from all of these candidates we would have a master plan for government that would really turn things around and truly deliver on the greatness that this country could achieve. If we could combine all of the best ideas together to come up with a grand game plan for change and renewal in America this is what I would draw from last night’s exchange:
But first, on a different note I bring up an issue that is not being addressed by some of the candidates. All of the candidates who want to work with the ACA to make it better and make it work are not addressing one important issue. The Supreme Court ruled against making people pay the individual mandate since the law was changed to not enforce it after all. Isn’t the individual mandate absolutely essential to pay for the ACA? If people do not pay into the individual mandate, how is the program going to be paid for? The candidates who are against Medicare for All and want to make the ACA better, (Biden and Bennet), are not addressing how they would pay for it if the individual mandate essentially no longer exists. How are they going to make a program that cannot pay for itself better and work?
Julian’s plan for comprehensive immigration policy, I think, is the best plan for that issue.
Jay Inslee’s plan for combatting climate change is the best plan to try to save the planet.
Tulsi’s desire to get us out of regime change wars and redirect all of that money into programs here at home to improve the quality of life for all Americans is necessary.
Cory’s ideas for racial healing are probably the most astute and would yield the best results.
Kamala would restore the Department of Justice back to a Department of Justice that functions, is fair, plays by the rules established in the Constitution, and once again observes and stands for law and order.
Bill DeBlasio hits the nail on the head about taxes and social justice. He and Elizabeth Warren have the best ideas on taxation and if we could combine their ideas we would have a winning economic plan.
Julian’s speech near the end of the debate got loud applause that almost interfered with what he was saying about the need for impeachment proceedings against Trump to begin immediately. After he said that they should begin immediately and the applause started, he went on to more importantly say words to the effect that “forget about all the political calculations and get impeachment proceedings going. If we don’t do so Trump will be able to say “They didn’t impeach me because I did nothing wrong.” And if the Democrats in the House do bring articles of impeachment to the Senate, we know Trump will be acquitted in the Senate and then we can say we Moscow Mitch did it. But this comment was kind of drowned out by applause and cheering that would have been even louder if they had just waited a few seconds for the rest of the message.
What I would combine with these ideas from last nights’ debate from the previous night would be Mayor Buttigeig’s youth and innovative ideas and his plan to bring back diplomacy in a major way.
Elizabeth Warren’s ideas on economic issues are the most comprehensive. Her ideas on combatting corruption, draining the swamp and prevent it from being re-infested, and rebuilding the middle class while regulating Wall Street are all not just good solid policy positions but essentially to taking back the government for the people and ending the dominance of oligarchy that currently has a strangle hold on our governance.
Bernie’s ideas about inclusion of labor rights and organizations, the minimum wage, college tuition, forgiving college debt, and Medicare for All would go a long way to closing the income inequality that is impoverishing more and more citizens in our country every day and eroding the middle class.
We are very lucky that these people are presenting these powerfully restorative policy ideas and positions. I think any one of these candidates would be great as president. Whoever is the nominee will deserve all of our support. And, hopefully that person will not insist on using his or her own ideas if they are not the best, most effective plans possible but will drawn the best ideas from all of these candidates.
1st night of Democratic Presidential debates in Detroit
Thoughts on the first night of Democratic Presidential Debates in Detroit:
1. All speakers, except for one who waxed poetic and philosophical and seems to be speaking as if she is living in a dream, presented solid, good ideas and were articulate, actually spoke about policy and bills that they have written and or worked on or would put forth if they are elected. It was exciting to see and hear these debaters actually substantively address issues of importance, something that the ridiculous republican roster of debaters in 2015 didn’t actually achieve doing even once.
The only thing that I would like to see the Democrats do differently is to stop the talk about how it’s so important but also how it’s going to be difficult to defeat Trump. I don’t like that type of talk because they give Trump credit that might be due to someone who is not as problematic as Trump is. But they are talking about the most damaged, destructive, and destabilizing person in American politics, ever. Trump is so tainted and corrupt and he is so embroiled in so much litigation and investigation and his administration itself is so blatantly corrupt that if they want to talk about Trump, they should do so in a way that acknowledges this about him and point out what he is doing that is corrupt and wrong and leave it at that. Then they should get back to talking about, what is important, their ideas and what they would do for the country. Trump is being investigated for being an asset of Russia for Pete’s sake. He may have committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including treason, against the country and he very publicly embraces and favors foreign despots over the security agencies in our government that are charged to keep us safe and protect us. Instead of saying how hard it is going to be to defeat Trump, which they all assert must be done, they should point out these facts. Trump and his administration, AG Barr, in particular, are fervently working to try to make the Unitary Executive Theory into a permanent reality and make the presidency into an office that is untouchable and above the law and has no checks and balances. Instead of talking about how hard it is going to be to beat Trump, if they want to talk about Trump, why don’t they talk about Trump’s vision of the presidency and not give him more credit and more power than he actually has because at least for the time being there are still some checks and balances and Trump IS still under investigation on multiple fronts.
2. Bullock thinks nuclear deterrence is good and important and wants to get back to nuclear proliferation.
3. Delaney, $65 million dollars of personal wealth, wants to tinker with raising the capital gains tax a little bit as a way to restore the tanking economy and hands off his and other 1%ers hoarded wealth with any suggestion of minimally taxing it. He says that Elizabeth Warren’s Wealth tax would be litigated forever as being unConstitutional as if that is exactly what he would want. That’s real republican hard core talk if you ask me. Is he sure he’s on the right stage?
4. Ryan, we get it, you want to create and use a new czar for manufacturing and you get some of your facts about Medicare for All wrong when the author of the bill is right there on the same stage and can correct your misperceptions in real time. Smart. The idea of having an agency charged with promoting and developing manufacturing and strengthening labor through Unions is a good one and one that should be fleshed out and become part of government. But, please answer the questions asked and don’t keep coming back to the manufacturing czar idea because we already heard that.
5. Hickenlooper may be making some bloopers. And he may be on the wrong side in demonizing social policies that are popular and very well liked, like Medicare for All, free tuition pre K through the first 2 years of college, and the forgiveness of college debt. Hickenlooper’s fear of the term socialism is archaic and not really even appropriate since he is confusing a system of governing with social policy and programs that are tax payer funded and not a system of government to be feared and/or maligned. The social policies that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are putting forth are not radical extreme ideas as Hickenlooper seems to be warning they are. For what, semantics? He wants an intraparty fight over semantics when he seems to be confused about the concept of socialism that doesn’t even really apply here in the first place?
6. I was really impressed with Mayor Buttigeig, especially his statements about war and war powers, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and everywhere else in the Middle East, his thoughtful comments on diplomacy which under George W Bush and Trump has been decimated, and the power of vision for the country and the need for a leader to communicate his/her vision no matter the age. Mayor Buttegieg very thoughtfully expressed a deep understanding of race relations and how to work on improving them which he has had recent experience doing in his own city.
7. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren speak in solid, concrete proposals of policies that would strengthen our county, make us safer, support and bolster the middle class, bring organized labor back into the process, stop the corrupt practices and standard operating procedures that revolve around money in politics and get money out of politics. Bernie and Elizabeth speak to me and articulate best what this country needs to do to dig itself out of the hole it found itself in.
8. Amy Klobuchar has some good ideas and has authored some good and important bipartisan legislation so we know she can work to get consensus to get things done. But with the other centrists who want to work within the present confines of private health insurance in the health care system and an ACE that is and has been under constant attack from the Republican Party and the courts, dismantling it piece by piece, wouldn’t it be best to switch to a system that would not be prone to these constant attacks? The GAO has confirmed that Medicare for All would save trillions of dollars and get costs of health care under control. Why do these centrists not acknowledge that fact? Instead, they sound this scary sounding alarm and false claim that somehow Medicare for All is undoable, extreme and radical when it is none of those things.
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For the safety and security of the country
Dan Coats is going away a week or two after he announced he is going to set up a program to stop cyber interference in our elections. That must have been the last straw for Trump who is now going to replace Coats with some rabid conservative lunatic from Texas. Trump, I’m sure, like McConnell, does not want for there to be any measures taken to protect our elections from foreign, especially Russian cyber attacks. We all know the great things that come out of almost all of Trump appointees. Watch to see what happens to the program to counter foreign cyber interference in our elections under this new dude from Texas. I have a feeling that whatever protection it would have given the country is going to be null and void or disappear completely when this new guy gets in.
Update since I wrote this:
The rabidly conservative kiss ass from Texas withdrew his nomination, and, Mitch McConnell has acquired his new name, Moscow Mitch for all of his intimate relationships and business deals with Putin, the Kremlin, Moscow and the Russian oligarchs, Oleg Dereapaska, in particular.
And, yes, indeed, Dan Coats, whose role in national security has baffled me because of a lot of his actions, or inactions, is gone.
Follow the con
The interesting thing about fascism is that the people who support it do not and will never benefit from it. In fact, they will end up with only regrets about having supported terrible “leaders” whose sole concerns are their own political aspirations and goals.
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President and adviser, who does what?
I know there is no way we would ever be able to know this, but I would be curious to know the rough percentage of snarky Trump tweets that were actually composed by Kelly Ann Conway. They all have her glibness, bitchy tone, and snark, and most of them, some do, but most of them don’t really match Trump’s truly inimitable 4 grade style and lexicon. Isn’t Conway just the greatest presidential adviser ever? We have for the first time in history a president who rules mostly by tweet and he probably doesn’t even do most of them himself.
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The appropriate and necessary thing to do
I am hoping that after Trump is out of office our government will hold Trump, his family including Kushner, AG Barr, and McConnell accountable for their actions while in office. The American people still have not been fully informed of the risks and dangers that this group of people have imposed on the country because of AG Barr’s outright obstruction and abuse/perversion of his office. I am hoping that for once, if the Democrats have the power to do so, they will allow the investigations that were started on behalf of the American people and stopped dead in their tracks prematurely by AG Barr to be fully completed, replete with conclusions and recommendations of legal actions and not waiver in seeing this important follow up through. I am not suggesting this be done because of any accumulation of disgust and anger and frustration that these rogue actors have brought up in me although that is definitely there. I am suggesting and hoping that the Democrats will do the right thing and prosecute the wrongs that have been committed to bring the country back on course after this dangerous deviation. If the Democrats allow political calculations and considerations that may cause the them to waffle and not follow through, it may possibly end up being one of their terminal act of cowardice because a lot of Americans will lose faith in their ability to get important things done.
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thoughtprivacyandliberty.com 