Handicapping the Field - Joe Biden

Now that the debates are here, I thought I would produce a series of posts that look at that Democrats applying for the nomination and try to summarize the outlook.  I am not going to predict the winner; that would be naive.  However, I am going to opine on who has the better paths to win.  Of course I am not going to go through all of the candidates because that would take longer than some will be in the race.  However, I will take a look at some that I think will last the longest.  First up, Joe Biden.

Biden is the front runner for a number of reasons - the most obvious is name recognition.  Everyone knows Biden's name because he has been around forever and his most recent gig was vice president for Barack Obama.  I remember that because Biden won't let anyone forget it.  He is always name dropping "Barack" anytime he gets a chance.  I am surprised that he doesn't call him "Barry" at this point.

Advantages:  In addition to name recognition, Biden has the advantage of having the image of bringing normalcy back to the White House.  He is genuinely a nice guy and is a safe, moderate pick for people who have political fatigue. He also has the DNC stamp of approval because he is the darling of the establishment.  That means he will be protected to a certain extent by the mainstream media and will have built-in surrogates every hour on CNN and MSNBC.

Disadvantages:  Nice guys finish last - particularly in this country. Four years, ago at this point in the election process, Jeb Bush was the huge front runner for the Republicans.  He was also a nice guy.

More specifically, Biden doesn't have anything new to offer.  His platform so far is that Donald Trump is a bad guy and that he is no Donald Trump.  The policies that he has hinted at seem to be retreads of old policies that he and Barry put together.  That isn't going to fly with the party that falls in love as opposed to one that falls in line.

Being the establishment darling and moderate will ensure he will get no support from a faction of the party. He is seen by some as the Hilary of 2020 and that leaves a bad taste for those that feel like Bernie Sanders got hosed.

Biden is also a gaffe machine.  He will, undoubtedly, say some things that he should not.

He is also dealing with old baggage.  He has been on the wrong side of things that have the woke Democrats up in arms.  He wasn't very accommodating to Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. In addition, he earned a reputation of being pretty handsy.  He was also an architect of the controversial Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 which has earned the ire of the African American community.

In addition, Biden has to carry the baggage of being an old white guy.  In this election season, it is perfectly acceptable to hold age, race, and sex against an individual as long as it is elderly, male, and white.  That isn't to say that white males haven't had a power lock on positions of political power that must be addressed; I am merely speaking of how it will affect individuals in this particular election - for right or for wrong.

Outlook: Although Biden looks strong in the polls now, like Jeb Bush did, it is a long shot in my mind that he can take this LONG campaign wire to wire.  People have short attention spans and they are going to jump to the next shiny thing sooner or later because they get bored easily. The front runner is the big target and Biden will take a beating from other Dems and Trump.

Biden's only hope is to parlay political fatigue, establishment coddling, and his "nice guy-ness" to the nomination.  He must hope that a lot of people will latch on to him and tune out of the election process due to fatigue.  If the establishment dems and media come to his defense like they have so far when he is attacked, that will help establish him as a sympathetic candidate and also allow him to hold on to freshness.

Is Trump Framing Iran for Oil Tanker Attacks in the Strait of Hormuz?

Normally we would consider it unthinkable to believe a US president could be behind the oil tanker attacks that took place in the Strait of Hormuz last week. However, there is nothing normal about the current president.  As we have seen many times since the inauguration, President Donald Trump is blazing a trail of unorthodoxy - and that is being generous with the magnitude and ethics of his approach to government.

Don't get me wrong; I am not saying that Trump is behind the attacks.  However, unfortunately I simply can't rule it out.

The US was first out of the blocks to blame Iran for the attacks.  It may be that Iran IS responsible, but the quick leap to judgment would make any reasonable person suspicious.  The US states, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that they have enough evidence to convict, but so far all we have seen is a grainy image of what appears to be an Iranian boat removing something off a ship - the US claims it is an unexploded mine.  Maybe it is.  However, the US has used grainy footage before to justify military force, and it blew up in their face . . . so to speak (see War: Iraq).

Great Britain and Saudi Arabia were also quick to join the US in blaming Iraq.  Iraq denies responsibility and the European Union and Japan have stated that they haven't seen enough evidence to draw any conclusions.

The argument for Iran's guilt is based on the position that they would be showing that they are going to be a big player in the  oil trade and no one else will transport oil through the channel if they can help it.  However, if that was the case, denying responsibility would weaken their position.  In addition, one of the tankers was Japanese and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Iran at the time on a diplomatic mission.  It doesn't seem to add up.

Although others have reason to sew discord in the area.  Saudi Arabia has long wanted the US to act against Iran.  They would benefit from the attack being pinned on Iran while tensions gear up between Iran and the US.  That is probably why they were eager to stand with Pompeo when he rushed to judgment to blame Iran.

What would Trump have to gain to frame Iran for the attacks?  First of all, it would help cement his standing with another repressive country, Saudi Arabia. Trump seems to be eager to up his reputation in the Deranged Despot Club (DDC) with Putin and Kim Jong-un.  Trump supports the horrendous war in Yemen waged by the Saudi's that has caused 50,000 deaths and millions in need of aid.  He also backed Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salmon (member in good standing in the DDC)  in his denial of having American resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Trump wants to continue support of the war in Yemen in addition to moving forward on selling arms to Saudi Arabia despite Congress blocking him in bipartisan fashion.  If tension heats up between Iran and the US to the point of military action, then Congress would feel pressure to back off  and allow the arms sale because of Saudi's conflict with Iran would make them an ally in the conflict.

In addition, Trump is feeling the pressure of the election.  Just about every poll picks a number of Democrats defeating Trump in 2020 - even in key states Trump won last time.  With the knowledge that Americans are hesitant to vote an incumbent president out of office in times of war or international conflict, a dust up with Iran couldn't come at a better time.

For some, the thought of Trump being behind the attacks in some way to frame Iran just seems untenable and ridiculous.  However, after two years of the Trump Administration, untenable and ridiculous have proven to be right in his wheel house.  Add National Security Advisor, and White House resident war monger, John Bolton, to the mix and its time to start hugging the national guard members in your family before they deploy.

If He Says It, It Must Be True - Trump's Morally Bankrupt Budget

President Trump's tax cut for the wealthy and corporate America helped raise the deficit and debt to astronomical levels.  So how are we going to pay for it?  According to Trump's budget. We are going to cut Medicare and Medicaid (and decimate the ACA) among other programs that the poor and middle class depend on. By cutting all medical programs, some of us may not survive - literally.

We don't have to be humanists or religious to see that the values of this White House lack in humanity.  The president talked a good game on the campaign trail by saying that he would never cut Medicare or Medicaid and that he stands with the everyday folks in the country as opposed to the wealthy. Talk is cheap, but tax cuts and walls are not.

Trump said that his rich friends wouldn't like his "middle class tax cut."  He was right, THEY LOVED IT.   The middle class?  Not so much.  Now the regular folks are going to have another hardship thanks to the president that was elected because too many people wanted to "really shake things up."  Consider yourselves shook.

Trump's "Promises Kept" Budget. 

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it,

and you will even come to believe it yourself.

--Attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Specialist

So why do so many of us STILL believe him?  My guess is that some of us are already too emotionally invested.  Plus, we generally lack the humility to even consider admitting when we were wrong.  We can't expect our leaders to be better if we as citizens are not wise enough to tell when we are being lied to or if we don't care when it becomes obvious.

Let there be no confusion:  As a country we were wrong.  For some of us, unfortunately we were dead wrong.

"Budgets are moral documents: They signal what and who we prioritize and seek to protect or uplift. As Christians we can disagree on many issues, but it should be hard to argue that there is an overriding call in the Bible to demonstrate a particular concern for the poor and prioritize the welfare of the vulnerable. This is the moral test by which we must evaluate every budget, perhaps most importantly the federal budget. Based on this test, the Trump administration’s proposed budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2020 fail miserably and must be rejected."

--Rev Adam R. Taylor, Executive Director of Sojourners

The House Passes the Voting Rights and Ethics Bill (without one Republican vote)

Rep John Sarbanes of Maryland introduces his voting rights and ethics bill.

The House of Representatives put forth and passed HR 1, the For the People Act of 2019.  It is a voting rights and ethics act designed to eradicate and prevent corruption in elections introduced by Rep John Sarbanes of Md.  Of course, not a single Republican gave it a thumbs up vote.  Do you want to know why?  So do I.

Here is a summary of the bill (courtesy of Vox):

What this anti-corruption bill aims to do

HR 1 will be formally introduced later today by Pelosi, Sarbanes, and chairs of the committees of jurisdiction for the bill: Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Jerry Nadler (D-NY).

The bill will make its way through their committees in the coming weeks; Sarbanes hopes to have a final floor vote done later this month or early February.

The bill covers three main planks: campaign finance reform, strengthening the government’s ethics laws, and expanding voting rights. Here’s the important part of each section.

Campaign finance

• Public financing of campaigns, powered by small donations. Under Sarbanes’s vision, the federal government would provide a voluntary 6-1 match for candidates for president and Congress, which means for every dollar a candidate raises from small donations, the federal government would match it six times over. The maximum small donation that could be matched would be capped at $200. “If you give $100 to a candidate that’s meeting those requirements, then that candidate would get another $600 coming in behind them,” Sarbanes told Vox this summer. “The evidence and the modeling is that most candidates can do as well or better in terms of the dollars they raise if they step into this new system.”
• Support for a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United.
• Passing the DISCLOSE Act, pushed by Rep. David Cicilline and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, both Democrats from Rhode Island. This would require Super PACs and “dark money” political organizations to make their donors public.
• Passing the Honest Ads Act, championed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Mark Warner (VA) and introduced by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) in the House, which would require Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source of money for political ads on their platforms and share how much money was spent.
• Disclosing any political spending by government contractors and slowing the flow of foreign money into the elections by targeting shell companies.
• Restructuring the Federal Election Commission to have five commissioners instead of the current four, in order to break political gridlock.
• Prohibiting any coordination between candidates and Super PACs.

Ethics

• Requiring the president and vice president to disclose 10 years of his or her tax returns. Candidates for president and vice president must also do the same.
• Stopping members of Congress from using taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment or discrimination cases.
• Giving the Office of Government Ethics the power to do more oversight and enforcement and put in stricter lobbying registration requirements. These include more oversight into foreign agents by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
• Creating a new ethical code for the US Supreme Court, ensuring all branches of government are impacted by the new law.

Voting rights

• Creating new national automatic voter registration that asks voters to opt out, rather than opt in, ensuring more people will be signed up to vote. Early voting, same-day voter registration, and online voter registration would also be promoted.
• Making Election Day a holiday for federal employees and encouraging private sector businesses to do the same, requiring poll workers to provide a week’s notice if poll sites are changed, and making colleges and universities a voter registration agency (in addition to the DMV, etc), among other updates.
• Ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections and prohibiting voter roll purging. The bill would stop the use of non-forwardable mail being used as a way to remove voters from rolls.
• Beefing up elections security, including requiring the director of national intelligence to do regular checks on foreign threats.
• Recruiting and training more poll workers ahead of the 2020 election to cut down on long lines at the polls.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already stated that he won't give this bill even a hearing in the senate.  That means, not only will they not vote on this bill, they won't look at it, try to amend it to suit them, or anything.  

If you are concerned that your Congress isn't concerned about fair and ethical elections for ALL candidates and making it easy and safe for Americans to participate in the elections, you should be.  

Call your senator and get involved.

The NRA Cult and the New Normal

I am sick of seeing this Florida high school shooting tragedy all over the news.  Let's move on!  Why? Because this is our new normal.I have accepted it. The NRA cult has seen to it that guns will forever be available to whoever has a notion to kill.

They claim that it isn't the guns but mental health or Hollywood that is really to blame while not lifting a finger to do anything about those things, either. I think they know better.

No nation on Earth has a shortage of the mentally ill. They all have access to Hollywood's most violent films. Yet, the USA is the only advanced country with this problem.

So, that is it, then. We have cowards in Washington that do not want to stand up to the NRA because they are afraid they will have to get a real job if NRA money defeats them at the polls. Then there is the NRA cult following that parrot their master's mantra while more and more kids get killed.

There is nothing left to argue. If the killing of twenty kids (only six and seven years old) at Sandy Hook is not going to prompt action, another high school shooting will surely not do it. We can just train ourselves to say, "That's a shame," when these things happen from now on - if we try hard enough.

We can know these things for certain:

1. The 2nd Amendment is more important that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
2. People are mentally weak and have higher priorities than the lives of their neighbors or their neighbor's children; and
3. School shootings are the new normal.

So, let's get it off the news and turn the station to watch old episodes of Duck Dynasty. God Bless America!

Bill Maher Missed the Plot About Progressive Purity

I am sure that Bill Maher tries to be on the good side of issues, but he seems to not be a deep thinker - only bein able to analyze the top layer. His "New Rules" in his recent show is an example. His thesis was pointing out that the people who refused to vote for Hillary in the election were idiots because Trump is a lot worse - as if anyone didn't know that would be the case before the election.

Relation State endorsed Jill Stein for president. It wasn't because RS believed that Stein had a chance to win. It wasn't that we believed that Hillary was as bad as Trump. Relation State endorsed Stein because what was wrong with Hillary was disqualifying.

What Maher doesn't get is that those with progressive leanings refused to consider the "lesser of evils" mentality in allocating their sacred votes. If we go though our lives making decisions based on the lesser of evils, we will find ourselves never selecting the good.

Not only did progressives not want to vote for the lesser of two evils, they hope that if Trump did win, that perhaps people could see the consequences of their choices. However, they perhaps gave Democrats more credit than they deserved. Hillary and her followers refuse to look in the mirror concerning their failures. Instead they choose to blame FBI Director James Comey, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, and even - if you can believe this, the media. I am not one to defend the media, but my gosh . . .

So yes, Mr. Maher, you are correct. Hillary would have been a better president than Trump. Everyone knew this in advance. However, you have completely missed the plot. There are many progressives who care more about winning the war than they do about winning a battle - even if a battle is very consequential.

The Democrats, using sleazy tactics, were hell bent on coronating a bad candidate that had no message. Those tactics, when exposed, cost a number of DNC employees their jobs and put the DNC, itself, into court. There is no wonder this had a lot to do with disqualifying their party and their candidate in the general election to a lot of people. The lesson learned here is that selecting a president doesn't start in the first week of November; it starts in late winter.

The moral of this little tale is this: If Democrats didn't want a Donald Trump to win the presidency, they shouldn't be hell bent on nominating someone who can't beat him. Mr. Maher, if you could just peel back your sanctimonious onion another layer, you could have easily seen this. Maybe at this point of your life, for a number of reasons, you are not capable of doing that (insert your own pot joke here).

Don't Waste Your Activism!

As I write this, Donald Trump is still a couple of hours away from being sworn in as President of the United States.  While I disagree with a vast majority of the things he seems to stand for, I must say that he is indeed going to be the president of the United States.  He will be the president of ANYONE who is a citizen of the United States, whether you like it or not. That is not my opinion; it is a simple fact.

However, I applaud those who feel compelled to stand up for issues that they believe in.  The March for Women is relevant today because the threat that many people feel from Mr. Trump in the area of women's rights and dignity.  These type of demonstrations, rallies, and protests are as much a part of this country's make-up as the inauguration and the peaceful transfer of power.

I do have to say that if your protest is centered on "Trump is not my president," I believe you are in error. Here is why. For eight years, we had similar reactions from the right.  We had people pushing forward the idea that Barack Obama was not a legitimate president.  It did great damage when a cluster of Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, was meeting at this time eight years ago saying that their number one concern was to make Obama a one-term president.  It was outrageous then, and guess what; it is outrageous now.

Remember this?  Don't sink to this level.

You demonstrate against the legitimacy of the Trump presidency for what purpose?  To send a message?  To who?  Trump doesn't care.  He and his supporters just do their version of the chant student sections at basketball games do in response to criticism of the other side:  "Scoreboard!  Scoreboard!"  That indicates that you can whine or mock all you want to, but it doesn't affect the score of the game.  So I ask those who challenge the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, to what end?

Let me encourage you instead to do this:  Keep fighting, but fight for the right things!  Fight against prejudice.  Fight against social and financial injustice.  Fight for policies that benefit ALL Americans. BUT PLEASE, don't fight against our constitutional system.  Don't be the voice of obstruction no matter the issue.  We had obstructionism far too long and it will never stop if progressives don't take the higher road.

It is now imperative that good Americans not wash our hands of the constitutional system that we have lived under since 1787.  It is our job to hold our politicians' feet to the fire and make sure they work for us - whether that is Donald Trump or the congressman in most remote district in the country. Don't copy the GOP and be the party of "No."  Instead, be the party of "Let's Go!"