Category: Politics

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?

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.

Is Donald Trump the New Hitler?

Trump and HitlerThe similarities between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler are frightening. The United States is not in the same condition as Germany in the 1930s but many people see themselves as victims of a similar plight. They have low paid jobs or no jobs at all while there are wealthy people who are earning fabulous salaries and bonuses. Bernie Sanders has pointed out that the wealth of the richest 1% is greater than the bottom 90%. 

Unlike Senator Sanders, Mr. Trump has rallied his support from those “victims” of illegal immigration from Mexicans who are “all rapists and murderers.” 

Today Mr. Trump has added all Muslims to his list of people to fear.  This methodology was the same used by Hitler in his campaign of hate against Jews in the 1930s.  Perhaps we should blame Sanders for the rise of Trump.

Trump has found minorities to blame for the plight of the poor in America.  Who will be his next group to blame? Will it be Jews or perhaps Asians?

Are Americans “that stupid” to fall for this clap trap?

Where are the sensible GOP candidates for president? Jeb Bush makes mild disavowals as does John Kasich and the others are silent.

Hillary Clinton may believe that the nomination of Donald Trump is her path to the presidency but there is a frightening tide flowing across this nation.

Am I just being hysterical?  The crowds at Trump rallies tell me we do have something to fear.

End the Gun Epidemic in America

New York Times front page editorial, By DEC. 4, 2015 .  The first front page editorial in 95 years.

It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

You Are Not a White Christian? Don’t Plan on Coming to Our Country

Hatred has found its home and it’s right here in the U.S.A. America has a history of discrimination against minorities. Black Africans, Jews, Irish, Italians, Mexicans and it goes on and on. Those people reading this blog in other countries must be wondering what is going on in the country that boasts everyone is welcome.

Now you know truth. If you don’t believe what you are reading here, just consider American behavior as told in the news media. Better yet read a few history books that tell you about our behavior.

As reported in http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/American_Indian_Genocide. This event was enacted in the television history mini-series Centennial.
On November 29, 1864, 700 militia from Colorado and the surrounding territories surrounded a peaceful encampment of so-called “Peace Chiefs,” predominantly from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe, who had been invited to end the “Indian Wars.” Without warning or cause, they opened fire and slaughtered approximately 150 Indians from various “western” tribes. Colonel Chivington and his men cut fetuses out of the women, slaughtered infants by stepping on their heads with their boots, cut the genitals off men and women, and decorated their horses and wagons with scalps, genitalia, and other body parts, before parading through Denver.

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States was the forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.

Today you are arrested and detained for being Black in America.

Is it any wonder that G.O. P. candidates talk about admitting Syrian refugees only if they are Christians. The others talk about developing data bases listing all Muslims and requiring them to wear identification.

They deny that their ideas are the same as Hitler’s Fascist controlled society that believed in a superior race and penalized, imprisoned, and murdered all who do not match their idea of who met the qualifications to be a citizen.

Does this all seem like a replay of Hitler’s Germany? It will be if one of those mad men become president of the United States.

Is the United States Becoming a Nazi Replica?

-Doctor Ben Carson: ‘We should have a database on everybody’

-Donald Trump told NBC News there should be a database of all Muslims.

-Senator Ted Cruz agrees with Donald Trump. He would winnow the field of acceptable refugees down to only Christian Syrians, similar to what Jeb Bush proposes.

-Kasich on Syrian Refugees: ‘We Don’t Know Who They Are, Where They Come From’

-There’s nothing outrageous about barring Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. unless they pass background checks, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on “The Kelly File.”

As reported on CNN
Shockingly, Trump told Yahoo News that he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database, or worse, mandating that they carry special identification cards that note their faith.

The reaction to this idea, fairly or unfairly, by many on social media, was to accuse Trump of wanting to mimic laws that Nazis had imposed on Jews, including requiring them to wear a gold Star of David on their clothes.

After Trump confirmed that he would set up a database for Muslim-Americans, an NBC reporter asked him point blank: “Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews in Nazi Germany?” A clearly annoyed Trump at first refused to respond, but then told the reporter, “You tell me,” and walked away.

The likelihood is that a Republican will be the next president of the United States.

Trump is now reported to have “backed away” from tracking people. Still, the fear factor has taken over this nation.

With the rise of radical Islam and the non-stop reports on television we are all observing a frightening rise in those wanting the government to monitor every person’s movement. It is a form of fascism.

I wonder if any of these politicians have read George Orwell’s 1984. In that story the government spies on everyone’s personal life. Televisions are everywhere an each has a camera that watches what you are doing.

The data base idea is the most worrisome idea I have heard. Perhaps we could have the Muslims wear arm bands so they can be easily identified. Does this idea remind you of a past event? Yes! It reminds me of Hitler and the arm bands worn by Jews in Germany and all the places invaded by the Nazis.

The reaction of governors and the Speaker of the House to the situation in Europe is reminiscent of American reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

My reaction is what about other minorities in the United States? Will all of us be subject to data bases?

The only official definition of Fascism comes from Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, in which he outlines three principles of a fascist philosophy. 1.”Everything in the state”. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator. 2.”Nothing outside the state”. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government. 3.”Nothing against the state”. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.

Nazi Germany was extreme Fascism, better examples of fascist countries were Mussolini’s Italy, Iraq, Iran, and many middle eastern countries.

Why Ben Carson has no business near the Oval Office

by Los Angeles Times commentator Doyle McManus, on line and in print November 11, 2015

Ben Carson #2

I don’t really mind that Ben Carson thinks the pyramids in Egypt were used to store grain; that’s a folk belief that’s been around since the Middle Ages. At least he dismisses the theory that the pyramids were built by space aliens.

And I don’t really mind that Carson’s autobiography, by his own admission, isn’t precisely accurate on every detail. He still insists that he tried to kill a classmate with a knife, an unusual claim for a presidential candidate. But even if that story was an exaggeration, it’s harmless myth-making — a dramatization of how low the teenage Carson had sunk before God intervened to shape him up. Barack Obama’s autobiography used creative license to make him sound like a juvenile delinquent, too.

Here’s what I do mind: Even though Carson considers himself brilliant, he doesn’t seem to care much about the actual duties of a president. His speeches, interviews and books betray a shaky grasp of economic and foreign policy, to put it kindly. And when a candidate is tied for first place for the Republican nomination in most polls, that’s no laughing matter.

Case in point: His comments about the federal budget.

Carson has proposed turning the income tax into a 15% flat tax on rich and poor alike — a massive tax cut for the wealthy (and tax increase for the poor) that would reduce federal revenue by more than half a trillion dollars, according to most estimates.

But more than a year after he began running for president, the good doctor still hasn’t explained how he would fill the yawning budget gap his tax cut would produce.

Indeed, this week he appeared to make the problem worse. Previously, Carson said he would cut federal spending by 3% to 4% across the board (except for the military, which he would grow). Now he says the cuts would amount to only 2% or 3% — a more realistic target, but one that would only widen the deficit.

Where are the details? There aren’t any available; none of these plans has been reduced to paper. A Carson spokesman told me that the campaign hopes to release specific proposals by the end of the year.

I don’t envy Carson’s aides; the candidate often sounds confused.

“The lion’s share of the gross domestic output is consumed by the federal government,” he complains in his latest book, “A More Perfect Union.” Actually, no: Federal spending consumes about 20% of GDP while consumer spending takes the true lion’s share: almost 70%.

On the public radio show “Marketplace” last month, Carson was asked whether he would block an increase in the federal debt ceiling. “I would not sign an increased budget,” he replied. No, his interviewer clarified, the question was about debts already incurred, not future spending. Carson still seemed to think they were the same thing. “We’re not raising any spending limits, period,” he said.

His vagueness and apparent lack of understanding on those counts isn’t comical; it’s troubling. Next to Carson, Ronald Reagan was a detail-oriented policy wonk.

Economics isn’t his only blind spot.

In his book, Carson argues that federal judges shouldn’t be allowed to rule on the constitutionality of state ballot initiatives like California’s Proposition 8, which the Supreme Court overturned in 2013.

“Having a ballot referendum on an important issue is a farce if a federal judge can throw out the results,” he writes. He suggests, as a remedy to this problem, that Congress simply impeach any judge who “ignores the will of the people.” So much for the Constitution.

Carson thinks the U.S. military should be taking the lead in ground combat against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. “I would commit everything to eliminating them [Islamic State] right now,” he said. That’s a controversial position, but a defensible one. Here’s where Carson goes off course: He argues that U.S. forces shouldn’t be bound by the laws of war.

“There is no such thing as a politically correct war,” he told Fox News. “If you’re going to have rules for war, you should just have a rule that says ‘no war.’ Other than that, we have to win.”

Carson is, by all accounts, a brilliant surgeon. He’s a splendid motivational speaker and an admirable philanthropist. But he’s not ready to be chief executive of the United States.

In his books, he often mentions incidents in which God intervened in his life. When he neglected to study at Yale, God showed him the answers on a chemistry exam. When he fell asleep while driving home one night, God spared his life. When he used new surgical techniques on children’s brains, God saved some of his patients. And when he was on a safari in Africa, God answered his prayer for plenty of photogenic wildlife.

Now that he’s running for president, Carson sounds as if he’s counting on divine intervention to pull him through again. There can be no doubt about the sincerity of Carson’s Christian faith or his belief in the power of prayer. But voters — even the most devout — deserve more earthly evidence that he’s up to the job.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

GOP Debate #3 – No Clear Winner

A GOP effort to avoid offering solutions to issues.

The debates are becoming somewhat boring. We have all heard the positions of the candidates. For the most part we know who wants to create a flat tax and who wants to protect Social Security. That made the moderator’s job more difficult.

The candidates were asked some questions that were obviously meant to start arguments among them. For the most part that strategy failed. Jeb Bush’s attacks on Marco Rubio were induced by the moderator. The attacks were fended off fairly well by Rubio.

The one significant continuing problem for me was the lack of answers to reasonable questions. The candidates all spoke about the lagging income of the middle class but not one offered even an outline of a solution. There were some who acknowledged the growing college student debt but not one had any solution.

Remarks about the Federal Reserve by Ted Cruze and Rand Paul might have rung a bell with the No-Nothings but seemed obtuse and irrelevant. Inserting politics into the management of our monetary system would likely result in endless Benghazi like hearings conducted by people who have an agenda beyond the management of the nation’s banking system. Somewhat bizarrely, Cruz also appeared to call for a return to the gold standard.

Ted Cruze was a master at avoiding answering the questions put to him.  He attacked the moderators and pointedly guessed that none would be voting in the Republican primaries.  When asked his view on the fact that women on average earn 77% of the pay of men for the same job he went on a spiel about helping the middle class.

I could not identify a winner of this event. Neither Donald Trump nor Ben Carson offered any impressive position or statement that would keep them in the lead in the polling. Jeb Bush, considered the early favorite of the establishment made no statement that pushed him ahead. Carly Fiorina’s idea of a three page tax code was a good sound bite, remember Herman Caine’s 2012 9-9-9 plan, but is obviously an unlikely outcome. The Herman Caine plan was 9 percent “individual flat tax,” a 9 percent “business flat tax,” and a 9 percent sales tax.

I do not anticipate anyone dropping out of the race as a consequence of this debate.

Benghazi Attack will be Part of Republican Play for the White House

The Benghazi investigation committee hearing was a waste of time.

I am no fan of Hillary Clinton. I am also no fan of congressional committees that have a political agenda. Mrs. Clinton was in front of the Benghazi investigation committee but the committee was obviously not ready to hear her testimony. What is the purpose of the committee? We all know that mistakes were made. Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez attempted to learn what was going on at the State Department when the attack occurred but she was timed out and did not obtain a complete statement from Mrs. Clinton.

At the end of this hearing I predict Mrs. Clinton will go on to be a stronger candidate for president. Republican commentators will be flummoxed over the outcome and will try to blame Mrs. Clinton for a lack of detail on the Benghazi attack and how it was poorly handled by the State Department. It was poorly handled. The subsequent lies to the public were stupid and shows that Mrs. Clinton did not know how to explain away the deaths. No one foresaw the loss of life and no one is happy about the outcome.

The Benghazi hearing dragged on for 11 hours. Much of that time was a discussion of Mrs. Clinton’s e-mail and Sydney Blumenthal. Mr. Blumenthal was not a member of any government agency but was/is a private adviser and perhaps a friend of Mrs. Clinton. His connection to the Benghazi attack is nonexistent.

Republicans will use the Benghazi attack as evidence that Mrs. Clinton is not up to the job of president.