Posted onLeave a commenton For voting purposes: (R) by a name means
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.
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.
Posted on Leave a comment on 1st night of Democratic Presidential debates in Detroit
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.
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.
Posted on Leave a comment on Follow the con
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.
Posted on Leave a comment on President and adviser, who does what?
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.
Posted on Leave a comment on The appropriate and necessary thing to do
When Trump is out of office the United States and our allies need to convene a second set of Nuremberg Trials to prosecute all of the crimes that were committed and are still be committed by Trump and his entire administration and extend it even further to include the Republican leadership of obstruction, especially McConnell, and his stacking of the judiciary with unqualified, controversial, reactionary, conflicted, unendorsed, politically motivated and partisan jurists. Those jurists should undergo a review by the National Bar Association and other legal bodies as to their appropriateness to sit on the bench and in cases where they are found to be inappropriately placed, they should be removed from those lifetime positions on the court.
We have 2, or arguably 3, systems of justice in the United States.There’s one for the rich, powerful and priviledged. High ranking government officials and members of Congress piggyback onto this system which was created mainly to cater to the needs of the CEOs, billionaires, the moneyed class. This is the justice system that is serviced by the Supreme Court and by the DOJ under Barr. Let’s just call it what it is, the justice system of the priviledged and powerful.Then there is the justice system for the rest of us, the 98% of ordinary Americans who are expected to follow laws and who are held accountable to the laws of the land. It actually metes out justice and is based on law and order. Then, arguably there is the justice system of extreme justice that is the system for marginalized minorities. It especially targets Blacks, Hispanics, and the poor. It often delivers extremely harsh punishment for minor crimes and infractions and is the justice system that is responsible for creating the largest incarcerated population in the world.Wouldn’t it be nice if we could pare our 3-tiered justice system down to one system that neither caters to the already priviledged or unjustly imprisons innocent people and simply applies the same law and order to everyone? And to have a Supreme Court that works for the people, all the people? Wouldn’t that be nice?
Posted on Leave a comment on Justice in the United States of America
thoughtprivacyandliberty.com 