Author: coastcontact

I am a somewhat cranky but mostly optimistic 65 plus who refuses to give up on this maddening world. The purpose of this BLOG is to express my feelings, thoughts.

2016 Politics Starts at the Rose Parade on January 1

What a campaign year it will be! The politically passionate started by dragging politics into an event that tries to avoid race, religion, and politics. They just couldn’t stop those passions for even 2 ½ hours.

After the last float left the Rose Parade’s starting line, a skywriting plane soared overhead.  Attendees pointed and laughed at the plane’s message: “America is great. Trump is disgusting. Iowans dump Trump.”

Trump is Disgusting at Rose Parade

Not to be outdone supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders followed behind the last float at the Rose Parade, carrying banners and shouting “Feel the Bern!”

Bernie Sanders Rose Parade Banner

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year Our Wish for You in 2016

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.

May the problems you had, forget your home address! 

In simple words …………

May 2016 be the best year of your life!!

Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1919

Theodore Roosevelt‘In the first  place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good  faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be  treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to  discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or  origin.

But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the  English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is  a loyalty to the American people.’ Theodore Roosevelt  1919

He advocated the compulsory learning of English by every naturalized citizen. “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country,” he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. “English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools.”

He also insisted, on more than one occasion, that America has no room for what he called “fifty-fifty allegiance.” In a speech made in 1917 he said, “It is our boast that we admit the immigrant to full fellowship and equality with the native-born. In return we demand that he shall share our undivided allegiance to the one flag which floats over all of us.” This information from Urban Legends

The MatzoBall Is the Season’s Hottest Not-Christmas Party

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, all the chosen were dancing—and looking for a spouse …

By , BusinessWeek, December 17, 2015 — 11:14 AM PST

Matzoball Martini

God’s callings are mysterious. Sometimes he asks you to free your people from slavery and walk through a sea. Sometimes he commands you to kill your son. Sometimes he tells you to gather your people in a darkly lit club, pump up the jams, and get them wasted.

“I’m in the business of making Jewish babies,” says Andy Rudnick, founder of the MatzoBall, a series of Christmas Eve parties for Jewish singles. “I’m a key factor in stopping the assimilation effect.” The first MatzoBall was held in 1987 in Boston. This year there will be 18 parties across the country, with a total of about 25,000 people paying $30 to $50 at the door. Rudnick says that once he started throwing parties, he never went home alone on a Christmas Eve. “Never. Never. That would be like owning a restaurant and not eating.” Now 51, he met his wife, Catherine, at a MatzoBall in 1997.

There had long been gatherings for the People Chosen to Have Nothing to Do on Christmas Eve, but they typically involved name tags, bar mitzvah bands, and synagogue community rooms. Rudnick figured that cool clubs would be happy to give him their space on a night they were closed. “I said, ‘Let’s deliver the hottest nightclub in a given city that happens to be all Jews,’ ” he explains. He was ruthless about keeping out “nebs,” or nebbishy guys he feared would kill the vibe, and still keeps older folks away by creating “MatzoBall Plus” events for people older than 35. The parties have been such a success that about 20 percent of the clubgoers aren’t Jewish. In Boston last year, Rudnick set up a private room for New England Patriot and famous Jewish sports legend Julian Edelman. The wide receiver was joined by regular MatzoBall attendee Rob Gronkowski, a gentile teammate. “He just loves the Jewish girls,” Rudnick says.

The party’s success begat imitators, leading to the great MatzoBall wars of the mid-’90s. Promoting became Rudnick’s full-time job, supplanting his earlier career in real estate. He battled other Jewish get-togethers by giving out free tickets while chasing away rival promoters who would hand out fliers to people in line for his events. He called himself the Jew Who Stole Christmas, taking on competing parties such as Washington’s Gefilte Fish Gala, Chicago’s Rockmitzvah, Seattle’s Latkepalooza, Tampa’s Vodka Latke, and the multicity Heebonism, which, at one gathering in Palm Springs, Calif., featured Jewish porn stars and strip dreidel.

Rudnick expanded to a monthly schedule, including a June Schmooze Cruise, which had a Clio-winning print ad: Moses stands in front of the Red Sea holding a staff and says, “This time, we have a boat.” He had a quarterly magazine, the Jewish Professional. (His girlfriend at the time was often the cover model.) Rudnick even started a video dating service—1-900-36-YENTA. He scaled back the business in 1997, when he started making more money selling the now-banned diet drug fen-phen, which led him to open a chain of nine plastic surgery centers. He had to sell his Sleek Medical Spas in 2012 when he found himself overleveraged.

He’s still in the medical business—Rudnick sells a health-care credit card—but he’s back to expanding MatzoBall and working to bring Jews together throughout the year. He’s about to release a dating app to compete with JDate, called MatzoMatch. Instead of using Facebook profiles, the app will connect to LinkedIn accounts and allow users to sort potential dates by college or industry. There will also be a matchmaking service for a fee, just like in the old country.

Rudnick is also starting a series of Jewish after-work networking events around the country, called MatzoMingles, and organizing a group trip to Israel next year. And for the second year, he’s selling a block of 200 rooms at Miami’s Fontainebleau hotel for a package that includes a Christmas Eve party at the nightclub LIV and a pool party the next day. Some of the attendees, he was surprised to learn last year, were the children of couples who met at MatzoBalls. Including, to his even greater surprise, his 16-year-old, 5-foot-8-inch identical twin daughters, who’d somehow sneaked into the club. “I didn’t know until I saw pictures of the MatzoBall,” he says. “They shouldn’t have been there.”

The Fear Factor and Its Consequences

Presidential Candidates and the Press are promoting fear to advance their agendas.

The fear factor has infiltrated America. Turn on any news program and there is an item about Muslims and radical jihad. The fear factor is taking over our sense of judgement. GOP presidential candidates and the press are enhancing and thriving on the fear. Cable news stations have found this topic as a subject that keeps the viewers tuned in and that means more advertisers and more revenue that leads to more profit.  The presidential candidates want to convey the idea that they are tough so they talk up their willingness to confront ISIS and Al-Qaeda. At the same time those candidates tell us that President Obama is not doing enough to destroy that enemy. He has no strategy and really doesn’t want to confront ISIS is their argument.

Watching Fox News Sunday today it was Juan Williams, the in-house moderate, who asked which presidential candidate was prepared to send an American army into Syria and Iraq. Williams asked what would any of those candidates for president do that is different than the actions being taken by Obama. The studio went quiet. No one had a response to Williams’ question.

Both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have based their campaigns on fear and hate. Trump lays out the scenarios and Cruz simply campaigns on the same ideas. They are the leading candidates in most state and national polls and that is the frightening fact.

If we are to take them at their word all illegal aliens would be deported to their country of origin regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. Many of those people own homes, hold jobs, and have been part of American society for decades. Muslims would be subject to invasion of their privacy and monitored as potential terrorists even though they are citizens by birth. Birth citizenship would be denied if Trump had his way.

You may say I am putting words into Trump’s mouth but he has insisted that he was more like FDR now than any leader since, according to his statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. This appearance on that MSNBC program is great for increasing that cable station’s viewership and revenue.

Barracks at Manzanar

Barracks at Manzanar, where about 10,000 Japanese Americans were interned, as seen in 1942.(Los Angeles Times)

Seventy-three years ago, during World War II, the United States government forcibly removed 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and confined them in detention camps. Loyal citizens lost their property and liberty, based solely on their ancestry. The Korematsu decision validated that action: Relying on a deeply flawed evidentiary record — which included blatant racial animus, hyperbolized threats and misrepresentations by government lawyers — the Supreme Court ruled that the need to protect against the threat of espionage outweighed individual rights. -Los Angeles Times December 18, 2015

One of the comments posted on line about this story is a stunner. “WHAT NOBODY is speaking or writing about is that the Japanese incarceration was done for THEIR OWN GOOD AND BENEFIT. It was to keep them safe from harm of being murdered. Had any been murdered there would have been NO JURY that would have convicted the killer. In fact he may have been glorified. You just aren’t old enough if you know nothing about that and those days.”

The stories told by those held in those camps tell of lack of food, lack of sanitary facilities, and other deprivations. Those people were rounded up in days and put into the camps. Their homes and businesses were confiscated.

The leading GOP candidate for president, Donald Trump, has suggested the federal government create a data base of all Muslims and perhaps have them carry identification cards. Is the next step internment camps for Muslims?

Trump’s ability to attract large crowds at his campaign stops is a frightening message. Watching The Sound of Music (the Von Trapps fled Austria as the Nazis rose to power) sends the message that good people will rise above the messages of hate.

The GOP Debate of December 15, 2015

While the debate was not a major change event I predict the further decline of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina in the polls. The discussion on foreign affairs was beyond their understanding as reflected in their answers.

There were at least two answers at last night’s GOP debate that should disqualify these candidates as contenders for the presidency. Their supporters will overlook the remarks as if they had no consequence.

1. Chris Christy said he would enforce a no fly zone over Syria and would shoot down Russian aircraft that would challenge that enforcement even if it meant World War 3. In other words he would take the United States into war over Syria that could bring on worldwide devastation.

2. Donald Trump was asked “What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?” by Hugh Hewitt. Trump clearly did not understand the question because he launched into a diatribe into about he would have handled Syria and the Middle East.

Hewitt: “Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Sen. Rubio after that and ask him.” Trump: “I think – I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

Senator Rubio new exactly what the question was about and informed everyone on the stage and in the audience.

 

I know that Rand Paul was out of step with the rest of the candidates but his answers were the best thought out.

The debate was primarily about hate and fear and who could best address those issues.  The candidates offered nothing positive.

There was No One Left

Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a German anti-Nazi theologian[1] and Lutheran pastor. He is best known for his statement, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist …… and there was no one left to speak for me.”

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

 Donald Trump spreads the same kind of intolerance. First it was the Mexicans now it’s the Muslims. Who will be next?

Will you speak out?

Let’s Have a Vigil

candle light vigil My local newspaper, Los Angeles Daily News, offered its support for the families of the 14 people killed in San Bernardino. Among their words were “deeply disturbing and dispiriting” events in San Bernardino. Were any solutions or new ideas on preventing mass killings offered? No!

We have a serious problem in America and their response is “our thoughts and prayers are with the San Bernardino victims.”  It’s the easy access to weapons that demands attention.  There is at least one weapon for every man, woman, and child in the United States.  Those weapons are owned by only 30% of the population.  In other words a minority of the population holds the rest of us hostage to a law that harms everyone.  Meaningless vigils of prayers, flowers and candles do nothing to stop the carnage.  Weapon control laws will be a step towards reduced violence.

Our weak willed congress has been bought by gun manufacturers and the NRA. What has made America great is leaders who can provide direction in challenging times. No one is in sight that offers that leadership.

Fear Mongers are Prevailing

I just posted a defense for minorities in the United States on December 1 and now two Muslims, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik have killed 14 people and wounded another 21 people. We don’t know their specific motive but it’s obvious that hate was part of their motivation to kill.

We have to control ourselves in not saying that all Muslims are killers. If it had been two Jews or two Mexicans we might have said it’s those minorities. “We can’t trust them” or words to that effect.

It was Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were the perpetrators of the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Two White men who were Christian. We do not believe that all Christians are inherently bad. So why should we believe all Muslims are bad?

Bad people everywhere does not justifying painting a brush that all Muslims are bad. That’s hard to do when there have been too many attacks in the past few weeks and many more during the past year.

I understand taking precautions in admitting Muslims into the United States. Donald Trump’s idea of denying Muslims into the United States plays into the jihadist call for a war on the West. Trump is playing on fear. That fear is driving many to buy weapons that won’t stop the mass killing.

I have no solutions. We must hope that the grown-ups speak out loudly against the fear mongers who seem to believe that a war will solve this challenge.

America’s 20 richest people have more money than these 152 million people

This article appeared on End Of The American Dream and MarketWatch.

“America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit in one Gulfstream G650 jet — are now worth $732 billion, which means they have more wealth than the 152 million people who make up the least wealthy 50% of U.S. households, according to a report released Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies. What’s more, the “Forbes 400” wealthiest individuals in the U.S. now have a net worth of $2.34 trillion.”

So when Bernie Sanders says almost the very same thing you think “Well he is running for president and this is his hook.”

I ask you now what do you think?

Just yesterday the Los Angeles Times posted the following:

“The nation’s income gap increased 10% over the past 20 years, and roughly twice that rate for people in their prime earning years, according to a new study.

The income gap swelled 21% for those between the ages of 35 to 44, and 17.6% for people aged 45 to 54, according to the analysis by financial website Bankrate.com. The study analyzed the period from 1992 to 2012.

The study is the latest to highlight rising income inequality, and is troubling because it shows the dichotomy worsening for people in their key earnings years.

“The prime earning years for most people — when they’re in their 30s and 40s — are also the most important when it comes to setting up a future position on the wealth spectrum,” according to the study. “While some are quickly advancing toward becoming rich, others are just as quickly falling behind.”

According to the study, the income gap is widest among people 65 and older, although it grew only 3%, the slowest rate for any age group over the last 20 years.

Citing data from the Census Bureau, the bottom fifth of U.S. households earn an annual average of $11,490, the study said.

The next fifth take in $29,696. The middle tier earns $51,179 and the next group takes home $82,098. The top fifth earns $181,905, and the top 5% earns $318,052.”

The problem is that neither Hillary Clinton nor any of the GOP presidential candidates have even opened a dialog on this issue.

Thus even though there is more than enough data, none of the leading candidates want to face the unpleasant reality that the average American family is growing poorer.

Why should you vote in a presidential race when your needs are not even part of the discussion? Wait, there is one candidate who has brought this topic to the forefront.