My Passion and Trump

It has been asked "Who Can Stop Trump [in the Republican field]?" (link below). Answer: No one Anyone who possibly can, in reality, courts the same people with the same policies as he -- hateful, mean, anti-immigrant, anti-gay rights, voter rights suppression of minorities, a bellicose military, police and more without understanding the complexity of any of it. Is this the face of America’s Lady Liberty who welcomes the huddled masses yearning to breathe free to her shore? I think not.

I have chosen, with passion, to be an ally of the poor, of the rejected, of those minorities in our society who need help. Perhaps, I am too passionate, I do not know, but along with helping myself reject a Republican Party that would surely reject me and for all the other reasons I stated, I will support any Democrat who can win because if they win I win, if they win those who need a helping hand win, and immigrants who made and will make our country a beacon of freedom's light win. In the end, our nation wins.

I believe the things I champion are the forces of what is good and right about this nation to, indeed, make this country great again!



DEMOCRATS ARE ON A ROLL. IF WE GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE -- PERSONS OF COLOR, HISPANICS, THE LGBT COMMUNITY, THE ELDERLY AND THE POOR BECAUSE THE DEMOGRAPHICS HAVE CHANGED AND ARE CHANGING STILL THE DEMOCRATS WILL WIN! MOREOVER, IF WE GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT WILL HAVE A FRIENDLY CONGRESS TO FINALLY GET THINGS THIS NATION DESPERATELY NEEDS PASSED! SAVE THE NATION, SAVE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES, AND YES, SAVE THE PLANET GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!

 http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/if-even-donald-trump-can-t-stop-donald-trump-who-n522926

NEVADA CAUCUS

HILLARY WON NEVADA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I know

Hillary is the most capable of all. Sanders is a humorless scold but Hillary I have read is easy to get along with and people who negotiate with her like her. I've been reading the opposite of Sanders. She is my choice and enthusiastically so. I don't care what she has done in the past i.e. speeches, etc. She lives a very expensive life and must make money and speeches is how they do it. Fine. Making money in this culture is NO sin. I think she will take the presidency and make a GREAT president and will care about her legacy. I'm behind her 100%.

If I'm wrong I'm wrong but I don't think I am. We have a long, long, long, way to go and it's really only for delegates. I'll bide my time as if she is nominated -- which I think she will be -- the electoral college is what counts. She I hope has all the far west and the far east with Michigan, VA, maybe NC and HOPEFULLY Ohio will fall her way, Nevada and some others will too. The Republicans are AWFUL, extremist and the US is NOT. So we'll see. I hope I am right and have sometimes decent instincts which I do not always trust but sometimes come out as I thought. Hopefully this will and I do not eat crow as I did in 2002 when I thought Bush was telling the truth about Iraq. It was a lie but who knew? Now I know.

Nevada Town Hall

Call me biased but while both candidates were infinitely better than the circus the Republicans have to offer, I thought Hillary Clinton was MASTERFUL. Her presentation was well thought out, spontaneous and very charismatic. Sanders is as some have called him a scold and humorless. I think that is correct .

Hillary Clinton has the incredible life-long experience in government sitting in the highest forums with the most powerful people in the world and in my opinion it surely does show!
 
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/

AN ORWELIAN RULE

NEVER think there is the reality of a "moderate conservative" anymore. There isn't. There is only an extremist right nearly fascistic conservative. The Republican Party is filled with religious fanatics who want to stuff their ridiculous belief system down our throats and deny all minorities and progressives what should be rightfully ours. Tell these Republicons it ain't gonna happen because we who are progressive with our African American, Latino, Asian, elderly, and disabled allies will not let it happen.

The ONLY way to defeat the sinewy evil in our midst is to GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE as we did for the president. We are the MAJORITY because the demographics have changed and are changing still. That is what terrifies the disloyal mostly white opposition and why they institute laws to suppress the African, American, Latino and Democratic vote. They are either for us or against us. There is NO middle ground anymore.

What the disloyal opposition has done to this president because of his skin color is an embarrassment and SHAMEFUL. I do not know how he endured it for 8 years but I surely am glad he did. He is a decent man who, despite obstructionism, did his damnedest for those who had little power and did his damnedest to keep us safe the best way he knew how after an idiot Republicon in office before him took this nation to war based on lies killing thousands of our best and strongest. He relegated others to life long expensive injury. I do not know how Bush lives with himself. He broke every law of war on the books which makes him a war criminal and should be tried as such. The powerful never have to pay the price of their criminal acts so the price that W. Bush and all Republicons should pay is that Democrats now entirely take over the reins of power in the House, in the Senate and the Presidency.

DEMOCRATS MUST STAY UNITED and, in my opinion, Hillary, has the experience to assume the presidency. While I like Bernie Sanders he is NOT presidential, I have read difficult with whom to negotiate, has little foreign policy experience and will NEVER mount an effective campaign against RepubliCONS who have the money, influence and know how to defeat him. WE MUST NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN!

HILLARY, SO THE MEDIA SAYS, IS DOWN IN MASSACHUSETTS BY 7. WE AS A PROGRESSIVE STATE SHOULD BE BOTH PRUDENT AND PRAGMATIC. BERNIE SANDERS CANNOT WIN BY ELECTORAL VOTE. RUBIO POSSIBLY WITH A NICKI HALEY TICKET COULD WITH DEFT WIN. BE WISE, MASSACHUSETTS. AN ORWELLIAN RULE: ANY DEMOCRAT IS BETTER THAN ALL REPUBLICANS!!

Another Take on Bernie Sanders

Do I agree with most positions of Bernie Sanders? Of course I do BUT I am worried and, in part, wish Sanders never entered the race. It is appearing Naderesque to me and just may get a Rubio/Haley ticket elected much as Nader did for George Bush in 2000.

Someone on my Facebook page posted this article about Sanders (link below) which I think those who support him should think about. It may surprise you to read much of what the author, Mikey Hirton, thinks about him. According to him Sanders is a humorless uncompromising scold.

I suggest you think twice for whom you vote and you may reject his candidacy which can lose a race Democrats SHOULD win. Read "The Trouble with Bernie" at the link below. And then vote HILLARY in November!

http://lansingcitypulse.com/article-12189-the-trouble-with-bernie.html

My Email to Channel 7 WHDH Boston

Sometimes I am quick to criticize news media -- perhaps too quick. So I thought I will extend compliments when justified as well.

I loved Sarah French and I believe it was Christa Delcamp's coverage of the Kinky Boots engagement of two men. I must admit I did a double take because both Sarah and Christa were as charming and happy for the couple as they would be for a usual public engagement of a heterosexual couple.

We have indeed come a long way and saved many lives in the process. Many gay people have immersed themselves in alcohol or drugs or worse committed suicide once they understood the nature of their immutable orientation.

The efforts that we make to positively reinforce and normalize social reaction to those who were made different means we avoid years perhaps decades of mental anguish and suffering.

I give Channel 7 a round of applause for their broadcast.

YET ANOTHER REASON TO GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS WHO CAN WIN. A REPUBLICAN FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN MERGER OF CHURCH WITH STATE IN THE WHITE HOUSE IS AS UNACCEPTABLE AS IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

GREAT Asean Press Conference

The president gave a FABULOUS press conference (linked below.) He is SO knowledgeable, so smart, so concise that I wish he were in for 8 more years. His historical legacy will be one of greatness in view of the disloyal, mean, sickening, racist boars that he has had to confront.

It is amazing he got through as much as he did. I LOVE you, Mr. President, and your successor (I am hoping Hillary) will carry on your legacy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-scotus-nominee_us_56c39f2be4b0c3c550530723

The Originalist

Academics say Justice Antonin Scalia was an “originalist.” What does it mean to be a Constitutional originalist? It means that one reverts back to the Founders of our 1789 Constitution, a mere 227 years ago to decide cases before the Court today. It means to craft Court Constitutional opinion in the 21st century in accordance with what we think our 18th century Founders thought and wrote. Some call an “originalist” a “strict constructionist” that is an interpreter of the Constitution as the Founders of our nation had written it assuming they were all of one mind on everything and assuming the interpreters now get it right. Our Founders were, as history shows, surely not of one mind on everything. Does anyone think the Founders would have thought the nation might change its social milieu over two centuries?

I have pondered long in my politically formative years about this and came to the conclusion that our Constitution has value because the Founders knew it had to be a flexible document that could change as the social milieu changes. What was appropriate in 1789 can hardly be looked at through the same 21st century lens. It is why, I believe, the Constitution must evolve as the social climate does. Our nation and its Constitution cannot remain static or the culture can never grow and change as science, technology and culture changes it.

In 1789 slavery was a reality, as was segregation. It took a bloody Civil War to end slavery and it took until 1865 to install the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ending its practice. Women were denied the vote until 1920. Black children were treated as inherently unequal until Brown v. Board of Education said they could not be treated as such. Persons of color were not guaranteed an equal vote until the 1965 Civil Rights Act said they must be accorded it. Until the 20th century and a Supreme Court decision of Loving v. Virginia a person of color could not marry a white person even though to marry each other was their choice. These things became possible only because social change ensued and legal enforcement was enacted to guarantee it.

Again, "conservatives" are belching ecstasies as to Scalia's "greatness." Justice Antonin Scalia, I aver, was not great. He was devastating to the poor, devastating to persons of color, devastating to a group that was trying over centuries to claw its way out of segregated schools, lunch counters and into what should have been their right to begin with – the voting booth. He regressed cultural advancement, he regressed the rights of persons of color, the powerless, gays and those who had to live in a cultural jail cell of prohibitive edict but he aggrandized most especially the mega rich with the nearly universally abhorred Citizen's United decision. He would have, if he could have, denied millions health care, doomed them to perpetual illness and most probably death. He would have if he could have denied millions more their right to marry whom they choose because of the ascribed status of sexual orientation. Surely, the Founders, 18th century men, could not have understood the essence of sexual orientation. If Antonin Scalia had lived he would have relegated women to back alley abortionist butchers of long ago. Yes, there is a place for the Federal government to act when equal justice for the powerless is denied. It took the 1929 Great Depression for FDR to see that path and create the New Deal. Yes, we have come a long way since then.

I feel empathy for his family’s loss but I rate Antonin Scalia as one of the worst justices in American history and I am thankful his viewpoint is gone. I hope no one like he is nominated by a President, God forbid, Cruz, Trump, Rubio or Bush. It is why now with purpose those who care about human rights and those who have been crushed for generations by a cruel and extreme Scalia Court but liberated by an Obama presidency get out the Democratic vote! Now we MUST as progressives be vigilant and NOT surrender our passion but increase it. Scalia and the so called “conservatives” on this Court took this nation and relegated it to a swamp of malevolence. Am I angry? YES, of course, I am and so should everyone else be who calls themselves progressive and humane!

Did Antonin Scalia and those of his ideological bent ever think what it might be like to walk in a poor persons’ shoes and to walk out of the door of one’s home a person of color or a gay person? Answer: No. That is why I am adamant, that is why I am passionate and that is why I am desperate to keep the presidency in Democratic hands while fighting furiously to try to take back the Senate as well!

NOW MORE THAN EVER GET OUT THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS. TRULY YOUR LIFE IS AT STAKE!

Passionately Vociferous

At first I thought, perhaps, I appeared too cavalier in my reaction to Scalia's death. Then I thought about how many minorities over whom he ran roughshod, I thought about their neutering the 1965 Civil Rights Act making voting difficult for minorities, then I thought about affirmative action being gutted as SCOTUS said we are living in a "post racial society" -- OH YEAH sure, then finally I remember Scalia, Thomas and Alito boycotting the president's State of the Union Address.

I thought these so called "conservative" SCOTUS did not care one whit about insulting the president not respecting him enough to attend, how much they hurt persons of color, how much they hurt the fabric of our nation that took centuries to change and now I say, perhaps, I was not passionately vociferous enough!

"Bewildered by 2016 race, George W. Bush returns to the trail to boost Jeb"

Now THAT'S going to help -- NOT! (link to the story below)

George W. Bush was the perpetrator of an illegal and immoral war on Iraq, a nation that did nothing to us. Through this war his order murdered hundreds of thousands (the number of Iraqis killed is still unknown,) wounded millions some sustaining life-long injury, created over a million refugees and still counting, was responsible for an explosive and fractured Middle East still exploding, and created the suffering of millions because of the ad infinitum religious civil wars Iraq engendered. There now is a permanent US military presence of eternal war there. Richard Engel, the expert journalist on the Middle East, in his new book "Then All Hell Broke Loose--Two Decades in the Middle East" reports much of the Middle East chaos was prompted by the US and other western power interference in Middle East affairs over decades of which there can be no historical doubt.

George W. Bush made illegal and immoral war, ordered torture and god knows how many other war crime atrocities. If the media does not highlight this inept man of low intellect who never should have been president and who committed war crimes galore than they are as complicit in the crimes as are the perpetrators.

Nuremberg, remember that? What was that all about anyway?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bewildered-by-2016-race-george-w-bush-returns-to-the-trail-to-boost-jeb/2016/02/12/49cf7242-d1a6-11e5-abc9-ea152f0b9561_story.html

YET ANOTHER REASON REPUBLICAN MUST NEVER BE ELECTED TO ANY HIGH OFFICE MUCH LESS THE PRESIDENCY!

Cruz Control -- worth watching

Rachel Maddow, yet again did a great job with her show tonight.  She had on a segment about Ted Cruz and just who the loathsome Cretans are who support him.  More has to be exposed more frequently about his anti-Semitism, white supremacist and the homophobic would-be murderers-of-gays who will vote for him and whose support he will not disavow. 

Is it possible that those who make up the Republican Party can be so Ku Klux Klan-like extremist and gain credence?  We must rely on a Democratic Party that is infinitely more knowledgeable and humane by far than most who call themselves Republican.  The Republican Party as it exists in our time is an embarrassment to those who would call themselves civilized! Those who compose it are cruel, inhumane, often hateful white supremacists and nativists.  I post the link to Rachel's show that exposed the shame of our nation.

2/12/16

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

Ted Cruz draws support from America's darkest fringe Rachel Maddow reports on an assortment of bigots who have coalesced in their support for Senator Ted Cruz for the Republican presidential nomination - an association he does not discourage.

Brace Yourself For The Return Of South Carolina's Notoriously Awful Politics -- Hold onto your hats

[Sam Stein Article linked below my comment]

Surprise, since the king of dirty tricksters, Republican Lee Atwater, became the dirty trickster supreme lord and master on high, Republicons, including but not limited to the famous or infamous Karl Rove from team W. Bush, these immoral hacks have helped Republicons en mass get elected to high office because the anti-human message they carried were fillet mignon to many of the voracious Republicon hungry masses. In short, they did not care if the lies they spread against Democrats and Republicons alike, were, in fact, lies the Republicons of the electorate loved the cruel message of the Party and their mantra: get elected any way possible are the rules of the game.

Lee Atwater died of brain cancer but it is said before his death he asked God for the remission of his sins. So, in Republicon land you may sin, have a come to Jesus moment, and all is forgiven.

Democrats are not excepted from mendacious tactics of electoral immorality but Republicons, as I see it, take it to a new high. So as the article by Sam Stein below states or as Betty Davis stated in her famous film "All About Eve" "Hold on to your hats it's going to be a bumpy ride!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/south-carolina-primary-dirty-politics-ted-cruz_us_56bd027de4b08ffac1248215

GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE AND VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT WHO CAN WIN!

Trump Terrifying -- By Ezra Klein

On Monday, Donald Trump held a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he merrily repeated a woman in the crowd who called Ted Cruz a pussy. Twenty-four hours later Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary in a landslide.

I'm not here to clutch my pearls over Trump's vulgarity; what was telling, rather, was the immaturity of the moment, the glee Trump took in his "she-said-it-I-didn't" game. The media, which has grown used to covering Trump as a sideshow, delighted in the moment along with him — it was funny, and it meant clicks, takes, traffic. But it was more than that. It was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president showing off the demagogue's instinct for amplifying the angriest voice in the mob.

It is undeniably enjoyable watching Trump. He's red-faced, discursive, funny, angry, strange, unpredictable, and real. He speaks without filter and tweets with reckless abandon. The Donald Trump phenomenon is a riotous union of candidate ego and voter id. America's most skilled political entertainer is putting on the greatest show we've ever seen.

It's so fun to watch that it's easy to lose sight of how terrifying it really is.

Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory. He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he's a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he's also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it's hard to know if he even realizes he's lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.

Trump is in serious contention to win the Republican presidential nomination. His triumph in a general election is unlikely but it is far from impossible. He's not a joke and he's not a clown. He's a man who could soon be making decisions of war and peace, who would decide which regulations are enforced and which are lifted, who would be responsible for nominating Supreme Court Justices and representing America in the community of nations. This is not political entertainment. This is politics.

Trump's path to power has been unnerving. His business is licensing out his own name as a symbol of opulence. He has endured bankruptcies and scandal by bragging his way out of them. He rose to prominence in the Republican Party as a leader of the birther movement. He climbed to the top of the polls in this election by calling Mexicans rapists and killers. He defended a poor debate performance by accusing Megyn Kelly of being on her period. He responded to rival Ted Cruz's surge by calling for a travel ban on Muslims. When two of his supporters attacked a homeless man and said they did it because "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported," he brushed off complaints that he's inspiring violence by saying his supporters are "very passionate."

Behind Trump's success is an unerring instinct for harnessing anger, resentment, and fear. His view of the economy is entirely zero-sum — for Americans to win, others must lose. "We're going to make America great again," he said in his New Hampshire victory speech, "but we're going to do it the old fashioned way. We're going to beat China, Japan, beat Mexico at trade. We're going to beat all of these countries that are taking so much of our money away from us on a daily basis. It's not going to happen anymore."

Trump answers America's rage with more rage. As the journalist Molly Ball observed, "All the other candidates say 'Americans are angry, and I understand.' Trump says, 'I’M angry.'" Trump doesn't offer solutions so much as he offers villains. His message isn't so much that he'll help you as he'll hurt them.

Trump's other gift — the one that gets less attention, but is perhaps more important — is his complete lack of shame. It's easy to underestimate how important shame is in American politics. But shame is our most powerful restraint on politicians who would find success through demagoguery. Most people feel shame when they're exposed as liars, when they're seen as uninformed, when their behavior is thought cruel, when respected figures in their party condemn their actions, when experts dismiss their proposals, when they are mocked and booed and protested.

Trump doesn't. He has the reality television star's ability to operate entirely without shame, and that permits him to operate entirely without restraint. It is the single scariest facet of his personality. It is the one that allows him to go where others won't, to say what others can't, to do what others wouldn't.

Trump lives by the reality-television trope that he's not here to make friends. But the reason reality-television villains always say they're not there to make friends is because it sets them apart, makes them unpredictable and fun to watch. "I'm not here to make friends" is another way of saying "I'm not bound by the social conventions of normal people." The rest of us are here to make friends, and it makes us boring, gentle, kind.

This, more than his ideology, is why Trump genuinely scares me. There are places where I think Trump's instincts are an improvement on the Republican field. He seems more dovish than neoconservatives like Marco Rubio, and less dismissive of the social safety net than libertarians like Rand Paul. But those candidates are checked by institutions and incentives that hold no sway over Trump; his temperament is so immature, his narcissism so clear, his political base so unique, his reactions so strange, that I honestly have no idea what he would do — or what he wouldn't do.

When MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asked Trump about his affection for Vladimir Putin, who "kills journalists, political opponents and invades countries," Trump replied, "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country." Later, he clarified that he doesn't actually condone killing journalists, but, he warned the crowd, "I do hate them."

It's a lie that if you put a frog into a pot of water and slowly turn up the heat the frog will simply boil, but it's a fact that if you put the American political system in a room with Trump for long enough we slowly lose track of how noxious he is, or we at least run out of ways to keep repeating it.

But tonight is a night to repeat it. There is something scary in Donald Trump. We should fear his rise.

I WON'T GO THERE

A Trump win would be disastrous for this nation not only dividing it domestically but having devastating effects internationally especially in the Arab world.  This nation is NOT the only powerful "exceptional" nation in the world -- far from it.  Other nations will not give one poop as to what a President Trump bombastically screams especially in the Middle East -- perpetual and eternal war will be reality. 

Adding to the horror of it Europe has far right wing nationalists parties which have been on the fringe post WWII but are gaining traction with Middle East refugees fleeing in droves to it and with a US Trump win the nationalist right wing will gain more credence there.  If WWII is an example of just how death wielding Europe CAN be if wingnut extremists take power then in the 21st century, if that happens, I cringe at the possibility.

This time the world is a nuclear powered one with not only Europe having nukes but Pakistan, Israel and, if the Iran deal is foiled, Iran will have them too.  Add to that North Korea and the insane Kim Jong Un, who is a force that could become out of control, salivating at exploding a nuclear bomb especially on the US Pacific shore.  THAT spells doom. 

Reality check: Total votes cast:  Democrats - 227,543; Republican Trump, Kasich and Cruz -- 164,646; Republican top five 221,606. Democrats with persons of color and the Hispanic vote have the distinct majority. 

Meanwhile, climate change is real and our planet is melting add to that a Fukishima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and if god forbid these nuclear powered nations decide to push the buttons ..... well, I won't go there.

Preliminary Thoughts -- the NH primary

A Republican CANNOT be allowed within 10 feet of the oval office and maybe not even that close. A nationalist extremist right wing demagogue Trump will kill this nation with us in it.  He is divisive in the extreme.  That is a given.

I am on board with anyone who has a "D" after his/her name!! In truth I love both of our smart very smart candidates Bernie and Hillary. Bernie waged an amazing campaign and deserves our profound congratulations.

The American people will speak and I will listen and support a humane president, a Democrat, who will walk into the oval again!

Bernie waged an amazing campaign.  His win in NH I took for granted.  If he keeps up the pace around the nation, he will add one more supporter to his list .... ME!

Stupid Marco Roboto

I feel a bit bad about entitling the email "Stupid Marco Roboto" as it does sound a bit childish BUT when the egregious statements of an inexperienced no no show from the Senate, Marco Rubio, is running for the presidency and, perish the thought, may even be in contention, though I doubt it, I must resort to childish epithets. Rubio's repetitive talking points he states over and over again about the Obama presidency are inane ... no a better word ... they are STUPID.  We LIKE what the president did and thought he was very serious!

The facts he says we do not take seriously we DO take seriously and we like them.  Who does not like not being kicked off health care for a preexisting condition?  Who does not like 15 million Americans who did not have health care now do have it?   Who does not like extending marriage to everyone discriminating against no one?  Who does not like the regulation of Wall Street by Dodd Frank after the Great Recession perpetrated by mostly Republicons nearly collapsed the economy?  Who does not like a stimulus reducing unemployment to under 5%.

He asks who thinks Barack Obama was not serious I have to respond who thought he wasn't?  Rubio, you are NOT running against Barack Obama, though I wish that were possible. 

Marco Rubio, you are a light weight.  Please, do not celebrate NOT coming in first like you celebrated in Iowa coming in third.  You look stupid!

GET OUT THE VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT WHO CAN WIN.  WE KNOW HILLARY CLINTON CAN WIN.  GET OUT THE VOTE FOR HER!

GO SEE IT AND FORWARD--LETTER FROM MICHAEL MOORE

On the most important week of Michael Moore's life, the introduction on various media of his new (and many say BEST) film, he contracted pneumonia and ended up in the ICU.  He's home recuperating and had to cancel all his appearances.  Here is the letter to me and to all on his list of friends/fans.  Since I am still mourning the loss of George Carlin, Carl Sagan and Howard Zinn, I ask you to do for me as he asks in the letter below.
 
MY NEW LETTER: "Sidelined by a visit to the ICU, I could use your help" - Please read & Share! http://michaelmoore.com/WhereToInvadeNextArmy/

Friends,

Thank you to all who have written to me about my stay this past week in the intensive care unit. Unfortunately, as you may have heard, I came down with pneumonia. Truth be told, it was pretty serious, and other complications arose. But then, five days later, I was still alive — thanks to a combination of Directors Guild insurance, two I-V drips of alleged legal drugs, and a hospital TV that only got FOX News. I was released on my own recognizance, which I tried to explain may not be the best idea. I am now at home resting and binging on the Real Housewives of The Walking Dead. All my appearances this week and last week supporting the release of my brand new movie, “Where To Invade Next” (Conan, Bill Maher, Charlie Rose, NPR, etc.), plus a special primary eve screening tonight in New Hampshire, were and are cancelled.

Needless to say, I’m pretty devastated. This film means a lot to me. To be sidelined – I can’t fly, I can’t travel, I can’t leave the house – in this, the most important week before it comes out… well, you can imagine what I’m going through. Trying to get back to just breathing is enough of a burden. To think that my film may now not reach the audience I made it for, let’s just say that doesn’t help the healing process.

Many of you have asked if there’s anything you can do to help me. I have thought about it – and, yes, actually, there is something you could do to help me.

I need you to be part of a quickly cobbled-together “army” of grassroots “ambassadors” who can do the work I was going to do this week to let people know abut the movie and convince as many as possible to go see it. I realize you haven’t seen “Where To Invade Next”, so I’m asking you to do this based upon my past work and your hope that I’ve made a compelling film that might affect change in this country, that will inspire people to think about things in a different way. I believe that’s exactly what I’ve done, and many who’ve seen it agree (LINK). I also believe this movie can have a huge impact on the elections this year. It’s won a bunch of film festival prizes, it’s made the Oscars shortlist, and some have called it my best film ever. Possibly, just possibly.

But forget all that. Here’s what I will tell you: You are going to be seriously f***ed up by this film. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. It will truly make your head spin for two hours while you “laugh AND cry — in the same exact moment,” as an audience member said to the cameras on the way out of the movie’s premiere.

Last week, laying in the hospital, I watched one Presidential candidate attack the candidate from Vermont for his ideas being “unrealistic,” “pie in the sky,” and “ideas that sound good on paper, but aren’t going to happen.” The truth is, all these great “ideas” – free universal health care, free university, free day care, taxing and policing hedge fund millionaires – have already happened in nearly every other industrialized country in the world! And I have the evidence – and the film — to prove it! Throughout “Where To Invade Next”, I invade a whole bunch of nefarious countries, from Slovenia to Germany to France to Norway, and pry loose from them the tools they’ve been using to make their countries happy, shiny places. My goal: to show millions of Americans what these countries have been hiding from us so we can catch up and be #1 again! Remember “WE’RE #1!!”? Don’t you miss being #1 and waving those big foam #1 fingers at patriotic rallies? In my invasions, I don’t use any weapons, and no one gets droned. I show how to actually make all universities free (and great); how to give all workers five to eight weeks PAID vacation (which increases productivity and betters the economy); how simple and easy it is to give mothers (or fathers) up to a year of PAID maternity leave (which in turn benefits the company overall); how in the societies where woman have achieved true equality and power, everything just seems to get better for everyone; how to reduce the crime rate by ending the war on drugs and having a humane prison system (our recidivism rate is as high as 80%; theirs is 20%); how the economy bounces back faster and is safer when bankers are put in prison; how students in countries without standardized tests and needless homework perform better than our students (and that countries which have more arts and music in their schools do better in math and science)… and on and on and on. By the end of the movie, you’ll want to go live in one of those countries. But instead, I’ll show you how we can make all of that happen right here in the USA, right now.

So, what do you think? Can you be a virtual ambassador for “Where To Invade Next”? I know you can’t go on “Good Morning America” for me, but there are a few easy things you could do right now from your computer or mobile device.

Here’s how you can help “Where To Invade Next:” 

First, go see it! Text some friends right now and say, “hey, let’s go see this Friday night!” Commit now to go to a theater that’s playing it this coming weekend. It’s opening in every major and mini-major city in the country. If you live in a place the size of Binghamton, NY, or Grand Rapids, MI, then they’re going to be playing “Where To Invade Next.” The final list of theaters will be out later tomorrow, but here’s a partial one for now (LINK).

Right now, you can TWEET the following: “.@MMFlint’s 1st film in 6 years is coming out and he needs our help with #WhereToInvadeNext! Read & RT! http://michaelmoore.com/WhereToInvadeNextArmy/“

Right now, you can FACEBOOK the following: “Michael Moore’s 1st film in 6 years is coming out and he needs our help with #WhereToInvadeNext! Read & Share! http://michaelmoore.com/WhereToInvadeNextArmy/“

At the bottom of this letter is the hi-res version of the film’s poster! Feel free to send it around, post it on your social media, download it and print up some flyers, or use it graphically any way that you want.
 
Send the trailer to everyone on your contact list: (https://youtube.com/watch?v=r4JJvfrkH3M)

Over the next few days I’ll send you other things you can do, like organizing screening parties for this weekend, sending me photos from your theater that I can post, and sharing with your friends exclusive clips from the film which I’ll send you.

If a few thousand of you suddenly became champions and ambassadors for “Where To Invade Next”, then maybe we can pull this off. I certainly would be forever in your debt. Thanks for being there for me.

All my best,
Michael

P.S. – Please forward this letter to everyone! Or share it on Facebook. Here’s the hi-res poster:

5 Myths (And One Big Truth) About Hillary's 2002 Iraq War Vote

Hillary will get my vote because  she is the MOST qualified for the job bar none. The others and, yes, including Sanders, are minor league compared to her and the Republicons are in a league of their own -- called the STUPID league!  See article below.

Jeffrey Marburg-Goodman.

Although Hillary Clinton has many advantages in the current Presidential campaign (advantages of policy, programs, and, yes, personality) surely her greatest strength vis-à-vis her principal primary opponent is in the area of foreign and global policy--including matters of war and peace, global development and economics, our war against terrorism, and even climate change and preserving the environment. This writer believes that the success of the next President in dealing with these issues will define her or his legacy; indeed the survival of the human race may well turn on how these issues are handled over the next eight years.

In the face of Secretary Clinton's undisputed strength in these areas, when Bernie Sanders is asked how his experience measures up to hers in the "Commander In Chief" category, he invariably comes up with a single Talking Point.

Unfortunately that Talking Point, presented in Bernie's shallow vernacular, simply isn't true. It usually goes something like this:

The key foreign policy vote in modern American history was the 2002 vote as to whether we should go into Iraq. I made the decision not to go to war. Hillary Clinton on the other hand, voted for the war...

Like many simplistic and "sound bite" arguments of the modern era, and of Sanders in particular, the argument that Hillary Clinton supported the war George W. Bush prosecuted in Iraq is nonsense. This falsehood can be broken down into five sub-myths.

Myth #1: The 2002 Congressional Resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq, on which Hillary Clinton and a large majority of U.S. Senators voted yes, gave George W. Bush "carte blanche" to pursue war against Saddam Hussein.

False! In fact exactly the opposite is true: While that Resolution did indeed authorize President Bush, under strict requirements of the 1973 War Powers Act, to use force, Section 3(b) of the Act also required that sanctions or diplomacy be fully employed before force was used, i.e. force was to be used only as "necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq," and to do so only upon the President certifying to Congress that "diplomatic or other peaceful means" would be insufficient to defang Saddam.

Despite those legal conditions, the following year we were at war--and millions of us were astonished that the Bush Administration, running roughshod over Congress's requirements, hadn't given more time for U.N. inspectors to complete their job of searching for weapons of mass destruction.

Myth #2: By voting for the 2002 Congressional Resolution which authorized (but was also designed to limit) George Bush's power to wage war in Iraq, Hillary Clinton cannot be considered a "progressive" Democrat.

False! On October 11, 2002, Clinton joined a strong majority of Democrats, including liberal and left-center Democrats like Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and Joe Biden, in voting in favor of the Resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. Later on, Clinton came to deeply regret giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the Resolution, and she has plainly admitted her mistake. Yet it is a "mistake" which many other senators of conscience made with her; if Clinton bears any blame for the resulting war, it is because she placed too much reliance on legislation that was actually designed to check a president's war-making ability but instead inadvertently gave that president cover to run roughshod over the interests of both Congress and the public at large.

Myth #3: At the time of her vote, Clinton was very supportive of going to war in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

False! While Clinton quickly turned against the war, another piece of "lost history" is the deep concern she expressed at the very time of her vote in the fall of 2002. Given the Resolution's several prerequisites to waging war, Clinton's vote was for a Resolution that was also supposed to restrain the President's ability to wage war, and her 2002 floor speech leading up to consideration of the Resolution made this clear:

My vote is not a vote for any new doctrine of preemption or for unilateralism or for the arrogance of American power or purpose, all of which carry grave dangers for our Nation, the rule of international law, and the peace and security of people throughout the world.

These words presaged the doctrine of "smart power" Clinton later espoused as Secretary of State. Her vision is neither interventionist on the one hand nor hesitant and supine on the other, but rather something in between: a belief that the United States is the indispensable leader--in a troubled world where such leadership matters--but a belief still grounded in reality, the limits of American power and, perhaps most significantly, the importance of collaboration with like-minded actors who can be found in every corner of the globe. Meanwhile, as Clinton has said many times, then as now, armed intervention is only to be used as a last resort.

Myth #4: At the time of the 2002 vote, the "architecture" of George Bush's Presidency was well understood, including a philosophy and history of carrying out pre-emptive wars.

False! In 2002, Clinton palpably feared a precipitous rush to war, but was willing to trust a leader who at the time was only in the second year of his presidency, having just suffered the most calamitous attack on the homeland since Pearl Harbor--and, notably, whose only international venture up until then was a widely applauded campaign to overthrow the Taliban in Al Qaida's sanctuary of Afghanistan. While it was already well known that Bush had neocon advisers like Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, the true extent of their influence had not yet been manifested. (Colin Powell was also an important adviser and George W. was, after all, George H.W. Bush's son.)

Myth #5. Hillary Clinton's vote belies support for an "Imperial Presidency" that brooks no dissent, and disrespects Congress and other partners, foreign or domestic.

False! To the contrary, one of the reasons Hillary Clinton is so well qualified to be president is because she deeply respects the rule of law and, in particular, appropriate Congressional prerogatives and the Constitutional principle of checks and balances. (Indeed, this is precisely why she voted the way she did on the 2002 Iraq Resolution.) In this vein, she is also uniquely capable of reaching across the aisle to forge common-sense solutions, a "progressive who delivers results," as she says.

One big truth: Hillary Clinton possesses another, singular, quality: she has the capacity to learn from the hard lessons that our Iraq adventure taught us, including from the misplaced trust she and others conferred on an Administration that brought so much grief to this country. She has said as much in her memoir, Hard Choices:

As much as I might have wanted to, I could never change my vote on Iraq. But I could try to help us learn the right lessons from that war and apply them to Afghanistan and other challenges where we had fundamental security interests. I was determined to do exactly that when facing future hard choices, with more experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility.

It is clear that Hillary Clinton is a candidate for president who has learned from the lessons of history, and is capable of applying them to the future; in fact this quality is a critical ingredient of great leadership.

The Republicon debate??? Startling incompetency

The Republican "debate" last evening was the MOST RIDICULOUSLY incompetent debate ever held from the moment that candidates did NOT turn up their hearing aids and come to the podium when announced. It was embarrassing and was the most unprofessionally controlled debate I have ever seen.  The candidates were seen by the national audience behind the scenes not knowing what to do when introduced with some candidates skipping over others and Carson and Trump who were just standing there behind the curtain not knowing their name was called. There were empty podiums.  It was embarrassing for ABC and the National Review moderating. A first year Emerson student could have done a better job. I could have done a better job.

It was simply AWFUL and if you did not see it wait until you hear the candidates STUPIDITIES and the all important Superbowl predictions. Rubio, if this is a fair contest, should be the LOSER. He lost it when Christie attacked him and he looked like a deer in the headlights answering with the stock answers he always uses.  He answered another question with a non-sequitur.  Early dementia anyone or simply nervous?  Hand that man a glass of water!

The Republican candidates are all startling incompetent.  The "debates" are content thin.  Hell they are content non-existent.  If the country picks anyone of these incompetent fools president this nation is in DEEP trouble!  The Democrats in their debate look like Ph.D.'s.  The Republicans look like they never receive a high school diploma!

I AM NOT GOING TO END WITH A DIATRIBE ABOUT GETTING OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE.  IT IS OBVIOUS IF YOU WATCHED THE REPUBLICAN SO CALLED DEBATE!