BEWARE THE IDES OF TRUMP

84 year old Woman who fled Nazi Austria and who denounced Trump is mailed KKK symbol


By Travis Andersen Globe Staff March 18, 2016


An Arlington woman who wrote a letter to the Boston Globe denouncing Donald J. Trump’s initial reluctance to disavow a former Ku Klux Klan leader said she received a copy of the KKK’s symbol in the mail.



Louise Mayerson, 84, who left her native Austria as a child when her family fled the Nazis, said she received an anonymous envelope in the mail shortly after her letter to the editor was published in the Globe in March



In her letter, Mayerson described herself as “an Austrian refugee from the time of Hitler” and said the Republican presidential frontrunner’s “failure to immediately repudiate [former Klan leader David] Duke chilled my blood.”

Days later, Mayerson said, she received an envelop containing a copy of the KKK symbol that featured a square white cross set against a red backdrop. The envelope was postmarked from Boston, she said.

“I believe somebody just read that letter, it touched a nerve, and that’s the way they reacted,” Mayerson said.

Mayerson contacted Arlington police, who are investigating the incident, Chief Frederick Ryan said. He declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.Arlington police have increased patrols on streets in Mayerson’s neighborhood. The department also reported the incident to the town’s Human Rights Commission, which assists hate-crime victims, Ryan said. Mayerson praised police for their response. She lamented the “poisonous atmosphere that has been created” in public discourse that “can lead to some pretty unpleasant things for all of us.”Robert O. Trestan, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, echoed her sentiment.

“The more that hateful and denigrating speech becomes commonplace in the public realm from leaders, the greater the likelihood that people will start acting up, whether it’s harassment via the mail or violence,” he said.

Asked for comment, a Trump spokeswoman did not comment directly on the Arlington incident, but said the candidate has disavowed Duke.

“Mr. Trump has disavowed David Duke, the KKK and all other groups that espouse similar views. He will continue to do so,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks wrote in an e-mail to the Globe.

Mayerson wrote the letter in response to an interview Trump gave to CNN last month when he was asked about Duke, a former Louisiana legislator and vocal supporter of the businessman’s campaign.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke,” Trump told the network. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.”

Trump later said on Twitter, “I disavow.”

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY A DEMOCRAT CAN WIN THE PRESIDENCY AND OVERTURN CONGRESS AND THAT IS TO GET OUT THE VOTE EN MASSE--GET OUT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN VOTE, GET OUT THE HISPANIC VOTE, GET OUT THE ASIAN VOTE AND GET OUT ALL PROGRESSIVES, MODERATES AND LIBERAL VOTE. TRUMP IN FACT COULD WIN. THAT IN AND OF ITSELF SHOULD PROD EVERYONE TO GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!!!

My Political Purchases

Sanders's strategy is to win the western states which he thinks are more progressive than the ones Hillary won last Super Tuesday. The big kahuna, California, of course, is in the mix. Moreover, he says that matching up Donald Trump and him in the general his stats are much better than Hillary's to defeat Trump. I must think about that. I am not sure he is right in that she swept all five contentious states Tuesday including the big one, Ohio.

In truth, I like Bernie Sanders but I cannot manage to whip up enthusiasm for him. My heart is with Hillary who has experience times ten that makes her the most qualified for the presidency. There is no movement in the Democratic Party that is viciously against one candidate or the other ... yet. The wonderful thing about those who are in the Democratic Party is that however it shakes out, and I do think it will happen for Hillary, we can be sure we will have no problem voting for either of the two candidates who may prevail. That is a pretty good place to be. 

Having said that I just purchased a Hillary 3/4 length sleeve T shirt and two bumper stickers. My political radar says those purchases will not be in vain.

Power to the Party

My opinion at this moment in time is that Trump cannot be defeated as the Republican Party's nominee even at the convention. If the convention is brokered denying him the nomination after he has gained so much support I close my eyes and shudder as the power in the Republican Party, weak and ineffective, folds like a paper tiger fearful of the violence that is behind Trump.

The rise (and hopefully ultimate fall) of Trump is reminiscent to me of the rise to power of the Nazi state. One by one responsible power brokers in Germany at that fateful time caved and through the Enabling Act in response to the Reichstag fire (lit surreptitiously by Nazis themselves but blamed on Communists and, of course, Jews,) gave the elected Chancellor Hitler all the power that he needed to assume totalitarian control. The Nazi rallies at Nuremberg foretold the portents of doom.

Trump's rallies show us in living color the violent nature of their supporters' essence and the encouraging remarks by Trump himself who easily admits if he is challenged "rioting will break out" show his tolerance of it.

It is up to ALL of us to stand with those in the Republican Party who have the power to challenge the delegate count which ultimately selects the nominee. In this case, unknowing by most, the Party has enormous power to choose the nominee. Whether they have the will use it is surely up for conjecture. I personally doubt that they will.

A Lesson for All Time

Renée Graham's excellent Globe editorial "Anti-Trump protesters are Patriots" see link here or below is one to which I wholeheartedly agree. Not only is it not treasonous to oppose the likes of the egomaniac racist Trump it is OBLIGATORY and patriotic to vociferously oppose him.

I am reminded of the great Spencer Tracy in his brilliant performance of an Allied tribunal judge, Dan Haywood, in "Judgment at Nuremberg" which centered on the trial of Nazi judges guilty of war crimes. Burt Lancaster plays Ernst Janning, a former German judge of some intellectual heft and moral compass before the rise of Nazism. He realizes his egregious crimes during the Nazi period sentencing the innocent to imprisonment and even death. He is seemingly the only former Nazi of conscience. He asks to see Spencer Tracy at the end of the film and says:

"The reason I asked you to come. Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. YOU must believe it, YOU MUST believe it."

Judge Haywood says "It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."

The film speaks of conscience and of personal guilt. It speaks of one man's obligation to protest and refuse to commit inhumane acts of bigotry and monstrous acts of inhumanity. Nuremberg is not just applicable for that era but for all eras and man's duty not to commit unconscionable acts against the powerless in the name of the state.

The protesters at Trump rallies are doing just that and my heart is with them as they do a moral good and make judgment at Nuremberg and its lessons a lesson for all time for all men.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/03/16/anti-trump-protesters-are-patriots/AYf5RW9hzpJB0UnqJTDMgI/story.html#comments

Youtube: Chomsky on What if Trump Wins?

What if Trump wins? --


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVqO3r3ugVo

OH HAPPY DAY

HOLY GOD I JUST FOUND OUT AS I TURNED ON THE TV NEWS THAT HILLARY DID SWEEP!! SHE GOT MISSOURI. I WAS RIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE. OH HAPPY HAPPY DAY.

Spread the Word

I am forwarding the links below. Hillary did better it the Super Tuesday Democratic primary than I ever could have hoped. I understand all may not feel as I do about taking the presidency by a Democrat who can win but in case you do I send what I was sent below from Secretary Hillary Clinton's campaign. If you want to contribute to a Democrat who can win go to HillaryClinton.com to do so or you have the option of going to the links below.

Donald Trump must NEVER come even NEAR the oval office. The consequences of a Trump presidency would be national suicide. A nation is not a business. It is composed of all of us who must work together with those nations around the globe without Trumpian bluster and shoot-from-the-hip rude madness. Nation states who are our allies will be alienated and those who are our adversaries will not submit to his authoritarian dictates. Our nuclear world demands prudence and careful analysis for which Trump has NO ability nor the temperament.

I urge you to be smart and to be pragmatic for you, your children, your children's children, and for all of us. The stakes are enormous. I share what the Clinton campaign sent to me. Scroll below.

Thanks for sharing why you’re a Democrat. It’s important that we spread the word about how Democrats are moving our country forward, and sharing your story is a huge part of that.

Another way to help get the word out is through social media. When you share official Democratic Party news, you’re helping our candidates reach the widest audience possible.

Follow the Democratic Party on Facebook
Follow @TheDemocrats on Twitter
Follow The Democrats on Pinterest

Thanks for helping spread the word.

The Better Angels of Our Nature

In 1968 I thought a candidate like the segregationist George Wallace was frightening but I knew he would never be president and he wasn't. He was, though actually paralyzed by an attempted assassin's bullet that relegated him to a wheelchair all of his life.  The violence of the sentiment George Wallace engendered was epic.  The fact he did not win reflected that as much as race played a part in American politics it was not the only part and as Anne Frank said of her time I said in mine:  -- in my heart I believed Americans were basically good.

 

It is sometimes said that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.  When a nation belches forth a candidate, like Trump who, despite his denying the essential violence of his campaign, serves to divide and not to unite then the dark history of another era shows its possibility again.  Trump pits race against race, men against women, religion against religion, and nativist nationalism against the policies of inclusion.  He is playing with dynamite and the explosive fuse is ready to be lit as minorities will not sit quietly by while they are attacked.  Trump pits African Americans, Hispanics and other peoples of color, and religion as well as sexual orientated minorities against its majorities of white Christian men.  Soon the Republican Party will become the Party of Christian whites no others need apply.  The danger is obvious.

 

The forces of the right share a proclivity for violence because their message is one of hate and hate knows no promotional restraint. The right wing extremist can do anything he wants, including violence to secure often poorly thought out crackpot policies with a plethora of lies supporting their advocacy.  The extremist right will gladly commit violent acts even murder to get what it wants. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was an example extraordinaire of that and there are many more.  McVeigh brought down the federal building of that city while it housed a nursery school and killed 168 innocent human beings including children. The extremists of the right even the populist right like those who support Trump are incredibly violent and will stop at nothing to advance the cause of an anti-federal government and a white power nativitist agenda.  It is why Trump could not vociferously and immediately deny the support of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. He gets their votes.

 

The left, especially decades ago, has shown its violence too BUT the philosophic underpinning of the left is one of racial inclusion and not exclusion. The two sides are mortal adversaries.  I stand with those who are for inclusion and not exclusion of the “other” because I know what it is like for one to feel excluded and not a part of the society in which one lives.  I stand for justice and fairness for the minority and the oppressed. It is why I could never be a member of a Party that wants to reject human beings and not accept them, often because of the color of their skin, their religion or the person whom they choose to love and with whom they want to share a life. The right wing is simplistic and authoritarian in its understanding of issues that require not simplicity but the complexity of questioning and thoughtful analysis.

 

I say walk in another oppressed man's shoes and maybe history, with the repulsive Donald Trump heading for bone chilling victories, will not repeat itself and doom us all to eternal domestic conflict, war and international violence.  The only one who can stop him is you.  I believe we are a better nation than those who support Trump and one which shows, as Lincoln said, “the better angels of our nature.”  I believe in my heart Americans are still basically good.  Truly, the fate of nothing less than western civilization depends that we are.

After all these years--an email to the principal of Catholic Memorial

Mr. Folan: At a basketball game these know nothings from Catholic Memorial again chant a centuries old accusation against Jews? This is UNACCEPTABLE behavior which in other times culminated in the Holocaust and the killing of the six million. It deserves more than a mere apology. Those who stated "The Jews Killed Jesus" should be found out and made to extend a PUBLIC apology themselves and not through just you. Moreover, some who instigated it should be threatened with suspension.

Further, a lecture should be given as to the religious and historical etiology of those hurtful words and in emphasis they should be told of the Vatican's removal of that malevolent thought from Catholic teaching. High school students need to be taught!

SHAME ON those who uttered those dastardly words and shame on the hierarchy of Catholic Memorial for its tepid response. Antisemitism is alive and well after all these years and should be vociferously and adamantly criticized with penalties paid when it is!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2016/03/12/catholic-memorial-students-chant-anti-semitic-taunts-game/k2MjTP1NydoIntdhAZ6noO/story.html

Pulling away from hate

After the violence I see at Trump rallies and Trump lying about all he sees and all he says to encourage it, I am taking time off from this political sewer of insanity. I simply cannot watch the nation being surreptitiously taken down a path to hell.

Our nation, once the beacon for the poor, the homeless and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free has become the mirror image of the "Gangs of New York" Scorsese film about vicious and murderous nativisim in the 19th century of our nation and beyond. Trump has roots. The violence then created Tammany Hall of NYC political patronage corruption. The nativism and racist hate spewing from a Republican Party in our time has gone wild and its leader denies it all and will not tell his minions to stop.

The Republican beast is of their own Republican making. Republican power usually controlled the extreme but is powerless in the face of it now. It is bone chilling awful to watch its violence. I must pull back from it all, at least for a time, or it will be to my detriment because I am not a denier of truth but I am one who faces it and this truth pierces my soul.

John 13:34-35 says: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” How wonderful it would be if the fundamentalist extreme of our nation chose that edict from their New Testament diatribes instead of hate!

Anderson Cooper's interview of Trump about Muslim hate

Trump thinks that Muslims hate us and goes on saying pretty much the same thing throughout the interview by Anderson Cooper. Anderson comes back at Trump with not much.

I believe the media fails at its investigative task of speaking truth to power and I wish, at times, I were in the interviewer's seat to have targeted questions posed in response to, in this case, Trump's simpleton beliefs.

How about Anderson suggesting, perhaps, the Muslim world, most especially the oil producing nations, are, in fact, angry with the west and maybe they are angry at western political policy post World War I carving out and forming their nation states, extending into the removal by the CIA of Mosadeq -- a democratically selected and beloved Iranian leader -- and placing the murderous Shah as head of state in Iran.

Finally, Anderson could have asked him if he would not be upset if a powerful nation state with the excuse of "preemptive war" dropped carloads of bombs on his house killing his family, friends and children too just because that nation could while having NO justification for an Iraq war that placed boots on Muslim ground killing thousands, creating millions of refugees and dismembering the Middle East tinderbox all based on a lie. And for what?

Anderson could have suggested it was for oil -- maybe?

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/index.html

The Rise of Trum Authoritarianism

VERY interesting article which I have not finished but want to share. It is chilling for so many of us who are diametrically opposed to a Trumpian value system (if you want to call it values) and have much to lose.

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

Robert Reich video: Donald Trump Isn't a Conservative, He is an Authoritarian

Robert Reisch Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration, Professor at Berkley and brilliant commentator has this to say:

Here or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l96F1JVEm4&ebc=ANyPxKp0GQSFUz6r1eUwrW56pL58U1OV9i6wRCzfWjhIni764nZjfyCRVTxADSbEzsW1IonemnJb1T12uVQsgynhJSaK8gJfOw

Bulls-eye

My cousin wrote to me this below.  I think he hit the bulls-eye:

"Trump's attraction is largely attributable to how both parties have repeatedly attacked the poor and the middle class, emasculating us incrementally; all the while enriching and enshrining into law the continued protections for extreme wealth. SCOTUS and an incompetent Congress (regardless of majority party, it must be noted!) have insured that the top 1/10th of 1% can write their own bills that will be made law, and business can wantonly kill (alà GM) and continually rob and cheat, facing at most a mild slap on the wrist. Companies can run the numbers and decide it is OK to murder because the settlements will be cheaper than fixing the problem. Banks can sell toxic assets to pension plans and the elderly because they can get Moody's to give CDSs sterling ratings. When they get caught, so what! They pay a tiny (by comparison) fine, but at least they got rid of their losses!! Meanwhile, the damage to those who bought those sick investments goes on, and they will never be made whole. But the banks get billions in loans, assured by the government.....that is, BOTH PARTIES,.....that they have no worries because the taxpayer will take care of them always!

I really felt this phrase of Chomsky's was resonate:
"...... is that the hopefulness of the ‘30s and the social struggles and achievements that inspired it have been largely supplanted by fear, despair, and isolation, opening the way to the Trump phenomenon, which should be cause for deep concern."

It is this anger and relentless frustration which draws people foolishly to the Donald. We, who for so long have been told how we live in the greatest country with the greatest democracy, are absolutely sick of the lies and rapaciousness of our politicians! They, who sit on the hill with a guaranteed and very comfortable paycheck, plus excellent healthcare and the best pensions extant, continue to tell us how they will fix things, just like they have been doing for more than a century. We have been alternatively hammered and lulled: the first is by our increasing tax bill and decreasing services, while the second is the occasional bone of hope we get, such as the affordable care act. The latter are increasingly rare because the wealthy feel these are too costly, therefore our political system must go through these four year gyrations to convince the bulk of the populace that we have the power (HA!) and hope still exists if we just vote the right way!"

Neo Liberalism -- a definition

Here or 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

My Question to an Intellect

When I am politically incredulous about the events of our time I turn to intellectual scholars who know much more than I.  This time I asked MIT Professor Noam Chomsky to provide an explanation to me of the Trumpian phenomena of our time.  He does so.

Yes, it is long but the events surrounding you, me and millions of others in our nation and its impact on the world should spur you to at least read it and stop being put off by intellectual arguments that take a little more time and effort to ingest.  In other words my suggestion: READ IT and learn!  Scroll down if your interest is peaked.



Professor Chomsky, I have been a life long progressive.  What is happening now in this country could not be predicted by many.  Trump does have some populism attached to his core message but the bigotry and the nativist slant reminds me of "Gangs of New York" in its fever pitch.  Can you explain so I can rationally explain this phenomenon.  The rudeness and lewdness of his message is staggering. 

I am ashamed for the world to see this not to mention the danger of it.  He makes ISIS job easy and is exactly what they think the US is all about.  The nation has made mistakes that is for sure but a Trump mistake of this magnitude is unthinkable.

Your views?

Below is something posted in a  discussion on Quora that tries to respond to your question.  You’re right about the danger.  IN fact, the world is looking on with astonishment and trepidation.

NC

Noam Chomsky: Why is Donald Trump having so much success during this election cycle?

Though we do not have detailed data, it appears that Trump is appealing primarily to less educated white sectors of the population, lower middle class and working class, people who are angry, frustrated, frightened, bitter about the fact – and it is a fact – that they have been in many ways cast by the wayside.  The neoliberal programs of the past generation have been harmful to affected populations almost everywhere, sometimes severely so.  Rising global inequality, which has reached extraordinary proportions, is one (and only one) of the many indications.  Oxfam produces annual reports of poverty and inequality.  In 2014, they found that about 90 individuals held half of total world wealth.  In 2015, the number was reduced to 62.  Meanwhile perhaps 5 million children are dying of starvation every year – more than 500 an hour, a tragedy that could easily be remedied by available resources. Among the developed (OECD) societies, inequality is particularly prominent in the Anglophone countries, with the US well in the lead.  Despite its unique advantages, by most measures of poverty and social justice the US ranks with the poorest OECD countries, alongside of Greece, Mexico, Turkey, facts heightened by lavish displays of concentrated wealth.  The disparities have increased since the latest crash, with some 90% of growth going to 1% of the population.  As widely reported, the global rich now live in a different world from the general population.

In the US, the neoliberal programs have led to stagnation or decline for much of the population, undermining of functioning democracy, reduction of benefits and social welfare.  People do not have to read academic studies to know that real wages for male workers are about what they were in the 1960s while wealth has concentrated in very few hands; that corporate strategies have shifted manufacturing abroad; that a considerable majority of the population is virtually disenfranchised in that their representatives disregard their attitudes; and much more.  Years ago, academic studies showed that the socioeconomic profile of abstention in the US matches those sectors in similar countries who vote for laborite or social democratic parties, lacking in our political system, which in some ways still reflects the Civil War.  We also cannot overlook the deeply rooted historical background of white supremacy and racism that has never been overcome, and the increasing atomization of the society that leaves people alone and isolated, feeling helpless against forces that are crushing them.  Under these circumstances it is not hard for demagogues to stir up anger against those who are even more victimized – immigrants, minorities, “welfare cheats” (demonized by Reaganite racist slurs) – and to stimulate highly exaggerated fears of threats ranging from the federal government to Islamic terrorists.

We should also remember that what we are witnessing is not entirely new.  A decade ago, the distinguished scholar of German history Fritz Stern, writing in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, opened a review of “the descent in Germany from decency to Nazi barbarism” in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs by writing that “Today, I worry about the immediate future of the United States, the country that gave haven to German-speaking refugees in the 1930s,” himself included.  With implications for here and now that no reader can fail to discern, Stern reviewed Hitler’s demonic appeal to his “divine mission” as “Germany’s savior” in a “pseudoreligious transfiguration of politics” adapted to “traditional Christian forms,” ruling a government dedicated to “the basic principles” of the nation, with “Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.” Hitler’s hostility toward the “liberal secular state,” shared by much of the Protestant clergy, drove forward “a historic process in which resentment against a disenchanted secular world found deliverance in the ecstatic escape of unreason.”

That was ten years ago.  The words resonate more ominously today.

It is also useful to compare the current malaise with the Great Depression in the 1930s, which I’m old enough to remember.  Objectively, conditions were far worse than today.  Subjectively, they were quite different, as I could see even from my own extended family, many of them unemployed working class with limited education.  Despite the grim conditions, there was a sense of hopefulness, a belief that we’ll get out of this together.  The labor movement had been virtually crushed by the 1920s, largely by force, but reconstituted in the ‘30s with organization of the CIO and militant labor actions that helped induce a fairly sympathetic administration to institute significant social reforms.  The unions also provided crucial forms of association and interaction, including educational and cultural opportunities.  There were also lively political organizations – Communist, Socialist, others -- participating actively in labor and civil rights actions and general intellectual life in which much of the working class participated.  Business publications warned of “the hazard facing industrialists” in “the rising political power of the masses,” but were powerless to stem the tide, though reaction was building up by the late ‘30s and picked up forcefully when the war ended.  This is not the place to review what has happened since, but one consequence is that the hopefulness of the ‘30s and the social struggles and achievements that inspired it have been largely supplanted by fear, despair, and isolation, opening the way to the Trump phenomenon, which should be cause for deep concern.  Perhaps the most favorable observation that can be made about his candidacy is that Cruz is even more dangerous, and the other likely Republican prospect, Rubio, is hardly less of a threat to the country and the world, at least if he means a word he says.

Professor Chomsky, I have been a life long progressive.  What is happening now in this country could not be predicted by many.  Trump does have some populism attached to his core message but the bigotry and the nativist slant reminds me of "Gangs of New York" in its fever pitch.  Can you explain so I can rationally explain this phenomenon.  The rudeness and lewdness of his message is staggering. 

I am ashamed for the world to see this not to mention the danger of it.  He makes ISIS job easy and is exactly what they think the US is all about.  The nation has made mistakes that is for sure but a Trump mistake of this magnitude is unthinkable.

Your views?

Happily Ever After -- Reasons to Vote for Hillary Clinton

Senator Sanders’s policies concerning at least two major issues are wrong and Secretary Clinton is right.

 

Guns: Senator Sanders voted against the ability to sue gun manufacturers and said the consumer's ability to sue would effectively put the gun manufacturers out of business. Funny, filing a lawsuit for damages against a product a company makes and puts into the stream of commerce to sell does not put other corporations, for example, tobacco companies, out of business.  The tobacco industry has been drowning in lawsuits for a very long time paying out significant damages even in present time and still manages to reap immense profits.

 

The ability to sue is important in a free society and is especially so for gun manufacturers because the product they sell carries the ability to kill with it.  Suing a company for monetary compensation when an injury occurs to those who use that product and for whom the product was designed should be universally accepted.  The gun manufacturers should not be allowed to avoid litigation against them nor enjoy exception from it so that their product’s safety can be assured for those who use it.

 

The Bank bailouts: Senator Sanders voted against the bank bailouts but I think Secretary Clinton voting for it was prescient.  In my opinion, the big banks had to be bailed out.  If the big banks failed it would have had a cascading domino effect creating an economic tsunami both here and around the globe.  A catastrophic Everest-size economic volcanic eruption was at risk and Secretary Clinton knew it.  She was 100% right to vote for the bailout.

 

What, however, SHOULD have occurred and Secretary Clinton, I believe, agrees, is that those at the top of the corporate banking structure needed to be held criminally accountable for those fraudulent acts that cost the middle class so much and gave our nation and the world the Great Recession.  They should have been and should now be criminally prosecuted and, if found guilty, ultimately jailed.  They should NOT have been allowed to accept bonuses and pay raises for their clearly egregious, fraudulent and illegal acts.

 

The bailouts saved this nation a much worse economic fate had the bailouts never occurred.  In my opinion, the biggest banks are, indeed, too big to fail because not saving them would have perpetrated devastating harm upon this nation stretching across the globe accompanied by even more significant jobs losses here and beyond that could have brought this nation and the world to its knees.

 

However, criminal prosecution and jail if convicted for those who perpetrated the immense fraud should have occurred sending a clear message to the powerful hierarchy of Wall Street that they face prosecution and jail time if they do not play by the rules.  I suspect Hillary Clinton agrees.

 

In the end the banks and the Detroit automobile industry were saved by bailouts.  Moreover, the nation was paid back its loans and everyone lived happily ever after -- well not exactly -- BUT the Great Recession surely could have and most probably would have been significantly worse.  I think Secretary Clinton would agree to that as well!

A very humorous and smart Youtube -- "Make your face great again!"

It time for some levity. This Youtube is very clever!

Here or

https://www.facebook.com/FComedyNetwork/videos/1087377837996129/

Short Comment on the Democratic Debate tonight

I am still standing strong with Hillary though I did not catch the debate as I was nursing a migraine probably from the hateful Republicon Party and the thought of it going near the oval office which makes me literally sick.

I did read that Bernie was rather rude. I am NOT surprised. He is as I have read difficult with whom to work and read him described as a scold. He has, it is said a nasty temperament and for the highest office in the land and maybe most powerful in the world that is a deficit.

Of course, next to the disgusting, profane, rude name calling, low blow Republicans and their devastating policy, Republicans should collectively NEVER get near the oval office. The Democratic debates are a genteel tea party (pardon the pun) by comparison.

Bernie, too, is on one speed -- the Wall Street menace. I believe Hillary gets that as well and she gets so much more that is so important for the presidency. Bernie voted against the ability to sue gun manufacturers and said it would effectively put them out of business. Funny, it does not do that to any other corporations simply ask the tobacco companies. They have been significantly sued and still reap a profit. The ability to sue is important as it is an impetus for something so lethal as a gun to be held monetarily accountable for its safety. Moreover, she is especially expert in foreign policy and more. She has the leadership capabilities necessary for the presidency. Sanders lacks that in triplicate.

I'll stick with Hillary Clinton and hope for no more migraine headaches!

GOTV for Hillary who can win and Democrats everywhere.

Nancy Reagan: Chuck Todd's Sacchrine Praise

Yet again, Chuck Todd makes me want to gag as he says Nancy Reagan was "the greatest first lady in American history." Please, he seemed to leave out Eleanor Roosevelt!!!! It was said of Eleanor she was her husband's legs.

Chuck Todd makes me ill with his incorrect analysis of things political and stupid adulation of those oftentimes who do not deserve it. Did Nancy Reagan live up to the hype that is enshrining her effusive in death? Sometimes, perhaps, but there were many critical of her power over her husband. Unlike so many who lop a carload of praise on both of them there is MUCH to criticize from the inaction of the Reagan White House on the AIDS crisis to the illegalities of Iran/Contra which could, and perhaps, should have gotten him impeached.

Simply ask Ron Reagan, Jr. whose politics is 180 degrees different from his parents. It's called being an adult and Ron Reagan, Jr. surely is! Chuck Todd, give Eleanor Roosevelt equal time. Shame on you!