Category: Government

The Ostrich Wins – America Looses!

Is this the end of the American Republic? Too many Americans have chosen to hide their heads in the sand. Too many have chosen to cover their ears. The very last thing they want to hear is testimony from John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo or anyone else. Like any ostrich, the truth might hurt.

Donald Trump faced charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Sadly the Senate has decided that while his actions were inappropriate they do not rise to removal from office.

Donald Trump contends that the second article to the Constitution gives him power to do whatever he wants. The Republican controlled Senate agrees. They choose to ignore his high crimes and misdemeanors. This leaves us with a toothless congress.

If he wins a second term as president will he attempt to overturn the constitution? Could he run for a third term as president? Who would stop him?

Text of the 22nd Amendment. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.”

I am really frightened. We appear to be following the gullible in places like 1930 Germany, today’s Russia, Philippines, Venezuela, and Turkey.

Impeachment trial of the president could lead to an Unexpected Outcome

Trump angry over impeachment inquiry

John Bolton just tore up the impeachment script.

The NYT on Sunday night reported that JOHN BOLTON has written in a draft of his book that President DONALD TRUMP ordered aid to Ukraine held until it investigated the Bidens — reminds the United States Senate and the American people of a reality that was, until now, easy to forget: BOLTON is going to tell his story, it’s just a question of what medium it appears in first — a book, a television segment or a sworn testimony.

According to CNN Senator Mitt Romney is saying that more Republicans are likely to vote for witnesses.

Once Witnesses are called to testify in the impeachment trial the Trump defense will be difficult to make.

Holding an overwhelming GOP majority in the Senate, Trump believes he will be acquitted.  It might be a stretch to expect Trump to be removed from office but compelling testimony will be difficult for senators to ignore.

Is Judaism a religion or a nationality-or is it both?

 

This question is debated by both Jews and non-Jews.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion.  The last thing we need is the United States government defining any religion.  In fact the first words of the first amendment to the constitution are “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

President Donald Trump reportedly plans to sign an executive order that would classify Judaism as a race or nationality instead of just a religion.

His action will put a target on every Jews in America. Hitler would be delighted.

Three administration officials told The New York Times that the order would threaten to withhold federal funding for colleges and universities that fail to combat discrimination on their campuses.

The loudest critics of the measure are Jews themselves, many of whom said that referring to Judaism as a nationality would only further fuel anti-Semitism.

The move appears to be targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which encourages various forms of boycott against Israel for what it deems violations of international law. The group, which has become popular on college campuses, holds annual events like “Israeli Apartheid Week” to push for Palestinian rights.

Many American Jews are worried Trump’s reported decision to define Judaism as a nationality and not just a religion would do far more harm than good. I’m one of them.

I have known a few people who are converts to Judaism. One comes to mind who is proud of her Scottish heritage. Based upon her last name I suspect she converted when she married a Jew. I’m guessing she will resent this action.

Trump probably believes he will win more Jewish support in the November election by issuing this order. I doubt that will be the case. 

I hope the ACLU files a suit against this action.

Constitutional Grounds For Presidential Impeachment

You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand this report.  If you read articles on the internet, on this blog or on Facebook you will understand this report.

 

REPORT BY THE MAJORITY STAFF OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

This report was issued on December 7, 2019

The House Judiciary Committee released a report on Saturday that aims to define what the framers of the Constitution meant by an impeachable offense, issuing the document just days before the Democratic-led committee is expected to approve articles of impeachment against President Trump.

Following is the primary paragraphs of the report.

Conclusions regarding the nature of impeachable offenses. In sum, history teaches that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” referred mainly to acts committed by public officials, using their power or privileges, that inflicted grave harm on our political order. Such great and dangerous offenses included treason, bribery, serious abuse of power, betrayal of the national interest through foreign entanglements, and corruption of office and elections. They were unified by a clear theme: officials who abused, abandoned, or sought personal benefit from their public trust — and who threatened the rule of law if left in power faced impeachment. Each of these acts, moreover, should be plainly wrong to reasonable officials and persons of honor. When a political official uses political power in ways that substantially harm our political system, Congress can strip them of that power.

Within these parameters, and guided by fidelity to the Constitution, the House must judge whether the President’s misconduct is grave enough to require impeachment. That step must never be taken lightly. It is a momentous act, justified only when the President’s full course of conduct, assessed without favor or prejudice, is seriously incompatible with either the constitutional form and principles of our government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the presidential office. But when that high standard is met, the Constitution calls the House to action — and the House, in turn, must rise to the occasion. In such cases, a decision not to impeach can harm democracy and set an ominous precedent.

Why should Donald Trump be Re-elected?

Consider for a moment that the president is not impeached. In that situation the question is why should he be re-elected?

He says he has accomplished more in 2 ½ years than any president in history. But the reality is that beyond the prospering economy what has he accomplished?

Mexico was going to pay for a wall long our southern border. The money to build that wall is being diverted from needed military projects.

North Korea has not stopped its development of nuclear weapons and the missile systems to strike the United States.

We abandoned the Iran nuclear agreement without a replacement agreement.  Has this action made us or the rest of the world safer?

He said he’d bring hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs back to the United States. That did not happen.

He promised to put forth a better health plan than Obamacare. That did not happen.

He has tried to stop California’s car emissions regulations. Those regulations are now in place in 13 states.  Why would he want to permit pollution?

He has folded his arms as mass shooting have become more prevalent than ever before.

He promised to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. That did not happen.

He has made a mess of the illegal immigration problem at our southern border.

He lowered taxes that primarily helped businesses and the rich.

Unemployment is at the lowest its been since the 1960s. It is unclear whether that was luck or the result of an action taken by the Trump administration.

It is obvious that his moral compass is from that of the evangelical Christians that appear to turn a blind eye to his behavior.

The Democratic Party candidate will have to point all this out in a way that will change the minds of independents and the conservative Republicans. That will not be an easy task.

The Failure of Government Leaders

Secret British government documents have warned of serious disruptions across the country in the event that the U.K. leaves the European Union without a trade deal on October 31, according to a report. Still the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is determined to take the U.K. out of the E.U. even without a trade deal.

There have been 12 mass shootings in the United States in 2019 and another 19 occurred in 2018. Donald Trump, despite the shootings continues to side with the NRA telling the public that those shootings are the result of mental illness and video games. Mental illness and Video games in Canada and Europe is just not the same – right.

Rising temperatures are a fact around the world but many government leaders deny there is a problem.

Mass migration are now a fact. People are trying to leave the poor countries of Africa and taking inflatable rafts to reach the southern countries of Europe. The poor of central Americans countries are joining caravans to reach the United States. This is not a new phenomenon. Historically migrations have been a fact. The United States population is the result of migration from other countries from its founding (remember the Mayflower?)

Homelessness is on the rise. Based on national reports, it’s estimated that no less than 150 million people, or about 2 percent of the world’s population, are homeless. However, about 1.6 billion, more than 20 percent of the world’s population, may lack adequate housing.

Where are national leaders to address these issues? They are absent. Local and immediate politics drives their decisions. Who is to blame? We all are. Majorities keep re-electing those same clueless people for another term in office.

The Man of Hate

Read from a teleprompter were words written by his staff to convey an idea that  he doesn’t really believe but he hopes will mollify those who are horrified by current events. That is what Donald Trump did on Monday, August 5, 2019.

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” the president said, reading from a script that scrolled on a teleprompter in front of him. He added, “Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside — so destructive — and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion and love.”

Does anyone believe he really cares? I don’t.

This is the man, after the Charlottesville attack said there are “very fine people on both sides.”

After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida Trump said ‘we will act.’ The president hosted a discussion at the White House about school shootings. Several students from the school recalled the shooting that they survived. No new laws were even proposed. Trump did nothing and voiced his support for the second amendment.

We will see Donald Trump visiting El Paso and Toledo (oops, I mean Dayton) offering words of prayer, condolences, and telling us that we are all united against hate. His speech writers are very good.

He will return after the next shooting and all of those that will follow.

America is one of 6 countries that make up more than half of gun deaths worldwide

This is not a national emergency or is it?

                                                 We love our guns!

They haven’t buried the three who died in Gilroy California and now there has been another shooting. The latest in Southaven Mississippi. Oh, it was only two people you could say. Most people probably won’t give this killing a second thought. The reason is obvious. The frequency of gun killing happens so often that it has become routine. Just last week a deranged man killed four people in the San Fernando Valley.

Out of the world’s 251,000 gun deaths every year, there’s a group of six countries that make up more than half of those deaths — and the United States is in it, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

For comparison, the US’s rate of 10.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people was much higher than Switzerland’s rate of 2.8, Canada’s 2.1, Germany’s 0.9, the United Kingdom’s 0.3, and Japan’s 0.2.

The United States has the highest number of civilian owned firearms of any other country. Thanks to the Second amendment to the Constitution we can all own almost any weapon we want. You have to be tested for competency before you are granted a automobile driver’s license but there is no test requirements to own a firearm.

The National Firearms Association (NRA) is more about keeping the laws as they currently exist than training people in the use of weapons.

This situation is unlikely to change.

The Robert Mueller Hearing

It just didn’t turn out as the Democrats had hoped. Robert Mueller gave a halting testimony that made me feel he was not prepared to sit before two congressional committees.

Yes, Mueller told the morning committee that his investigation did not exonerate the president and he told the afternoon committee they did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.

However, there was little emphasis on the fact that there had been Russian interference in the 2016 election and that it is likely to occur in 2020.

Congress needs to create laws that will discipline Americans who bring or use information from other countries into our election system. That should be called treason punishable by long prison terms.

Donald Trump openly invited Wikileaks and Russia to provide information against his opponents. That should be called treason. If those kinds of laws are not put into place we will see this happen again in 2020 and beyond. Robert Mueller warned of Russian interference in the 2020 election.

“Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”

When Donald Trump implied in a series of tweets that some Democratic Party congresswomen weren’t born in America and sarcastically suggested, “they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi responded saying “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”

While all of the women Trump attacked do hold left wing views, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley are natural-born US citizens, while Omar was born in Somalia and immigrated to the US when she was young. Omar became a citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old, according to the New York Times.

New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Luján, the assistant speaker of the House, echoed Pelosi’s sentiments on Twitter Sunday: “A racist tweet from a racist president.”

Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign is really about making White Christian America the only group that matters and if you are not part of that group you are not welcome in the United States.

To reinforce his position for re-election Trump is using the most horrifying aspects of politics – Fear!  He rallies his base by telling them that he alone can protect them from the killers, rapists, gangs, and drug dealers that are primarily in minority communities.

Unfortunately many people who do not follow day-to-day politics will also respond to Trump’s rhetoric and vote for his re-election.  The Democrats are not united in their views on America’s future and that too will be a plus for a second term for Donald Trump.