Joe Biden is the Democratic Party front runner. I wonder why?

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 4, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Joe Biden is trying to run for president on the coat tails of President Obama. His primary argument is that Obama pushed the country along in a moderate way. There were no extreme actions taken.

Biden’s argument should be examined. I argue that Barack Obama did take extreme actions. Some of those decisions were serious mistakes.

Obama’s signature accomplishment was health care insurance. The action he took was a benefit to America that will remembered as consequential as Social Security and Medicare. That is the Affordable Care Act. Called Obamacare by those who opposed it, that law has provided health care to 11.8 million people. While the coverage is not a perfect solution to affordable health care, it did take a big step forward to address the high cost of healthcare. Unfortunately many people are dropping out of the plan due to high deductibles. The GOP efforts to end Obamacare have continued to this day. Repeal and replace has been a mantra of the Republican Party. Even if the law is repealed, health care coverage will be an enduring reality for all Americans.

Unfortunately Obama did not lead a fight for raising the minimum wage from the current paltry $7.25 an hour, gun safety (Isn’t the killing by military weapons a national emergency?), for infrastructure projects, for fighting homelessness, for job training for those who lost their job due to automation. American manufacturing jobs have declined by 5 million since the 1980s and left many communities devastated. I could list many other things that should have been on his agenda.

Sadly Obama’s foreign affairs successes were few. The single outstanding action was 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that did nothing to stop their development of ballistic missiles and their spread of terrorism throughout the middle east.

Stupidly the U.S, blundered into a war in Iraq in 2003. The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq began in December 2007 and was completed by December 2011. But the total withdrawal was a mistake and an American-led intervention in Iraq started on June 15, 2014, when President Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched to the region, in response to offensives by ISIS and its affiliates.

On August 20, 2012 President Obama told a group of reporters the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria would cross his “red line.” A year later, almost to the day, Syrian forces killed more than 1,400 people with sarin gas, a particularly horrifying chemical weapon that can cause paralysis, convulsions, or death. But no action was taken. Instead he agreed to a deal with Russia to remove and destroy 600 metric tons of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

So the question is what part of the Obama legacy does Joe Biden want to pursue? What is the Biden agenda? Hopefully the September and October debates will provide some clarity.

I hate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu

I am Jewish but not a Zionist. I grew up in Philadelphia. During the Vietnam War I was stationed in Thailand. I was in the Air Force working in a supply station. My father and his brother both fought in World War II. So our family is loyal to this country. As best as I can determine everyone in my family is a Democrat.

The State of Israel was recognized by Democratic President Harry Truman in 1948. Democratic President John F. Kennedy in 1962 sold Israel a major weapon system, the Hawk anti-aircraft missile.

Tropes questioning the loyalty of Jews has been a historic reality. It wasn’t just Hitler and the Nazis. Jews in the Jewish Diaspora were accused of dual loyalty by the Romans in the 1st century.

Donald Trump’s accusations against American Jews is just another example of the same anti-Semitic words of others who hate Jews for no other reason than they need a foil or fear of everyone who is not a white Christian.

Benjamin Netenyahu played into Donald Trump’s hands for political reasons. His decision to bar two congresswomen from Israel will harm American Jews. For me, Israel is no friend to American Jews or Jews anywhere else in the world. The crowd that chanted “Jews will not replace us” at a neo-Nazis rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia now have one more reason to parade and attack Jews.

David Bancroft

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.

White Supremacist need to know – U.S. White population is in Decline

The new census projections indicate that, for youth under 18–the post-millennial population–minorities will outnumber whites in 2020.

This is scary stuff for racists and bigots.

Donald Trump and the white supremacists are trying their very best to sustain the white population as the majority group in the United States. That is the reason the U.S. government has developed new regulations for green card holders. The idea is to encourage immigrants to leave this country and discourage anyone else, except perhaps the wealthy, to attempt entrance.  The KKK couldn’t be happier.

The problem for the white supremacists is they are too late in their efforts. As reported by Brookings Institute, the U.S. Census Bureau 2018 statistics show “that for the first time there are more children who are minorities than who are white, at every age from zero to nine.”

The Bureau projects that by 2045 the White population will be less than 50% of the total.

Donald trump will employ the fear factor, “they are coming and I can stop them”, and it will play well in mid-western states that have small minority populations in the 2020 election. But the Census Bureau prediction for 2045 means that White people will not have the power they have today. And “That’s the way it is!”

Is there something wrong with us?

This column by Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times points out that ownership of guns does not necessarily lead  to mass shootings but sadly does not diagnose the reason for our national acceptance of repeated massacres.

“Canada has mental illness, the internet and violent video games, too — the same video games, in the same language — and its rate of gun violence is far lower.”

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-08-06/is-there-something-wrong-with-us-new-story

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.

How about a 16,700-square-foot mansion in Pacific Palisades?

Legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard is looking to knock out a hefty sale in Pacific Palisades, where his home of nearly 50 years is for sale at a whopping $51.995 million. Covering nearly two park-like acres in the Riviera neighborhood, the estate weighs in with a 16,700-square-foot mansion, a two-story guesthouse, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a putting green.  The house has seven bedrooms and a theater.

Maybe you could rent the guesthouse to defray the maintenance of the estate or perhaps cover the cost of a live-in maid.  What do I know?  My house is less than 2,000 square feet.