Category: 2020 Election

How Can Democrat Opponents Beat Trump on Real Issues?

March 10, 2020

I can just imagine what a campaign management meeting must look and sound like today. They must center around one unifying necessity which focuses on one thing: “What wrongdoing can we accuse Trump for that will unite voters to all choose us?”

Bernie Sanders has a history of campaigning, just like that. But his attacks against Mr. Trump are natural. After all, Trump’s a capitalist. To Bernie and all the “Bernie Bro’s,” capitalism is evil and must be eradicated. All of his policy proposals begin with one cornerstone: Socialism.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a history in the presidency — not his own, but being a part of Obama’s eight years at the top. Biden has seen a lot of good and evil in governing (and campaigning) at that level. He’s forced to be careful in his attacks against President Trump regarding economics. Why? Because in his eight years, Biden and Obama promised Americans all the economic benefits they failed to implement, but Trump has in just three years. No matter how loudly Obama and Biden cry that the Trump economy is simply a continuation of THEIR economy, it does not work. It did at first. While the Trump presidency was young, it was easy to state those claims which were believed by many Americans. But as time has rolled on, those economic changes have shown to be direct results of Trump lowering taxes, slashing government regulations, implementing the repatriation of hundreds of billions of corporate profits kept offshore during Obama’s presidency, creating a business environment that has attracted American companies who left the nation while Obama was in the White House to return, expand, and hire more people. More and more people see the truth.

So what arrows can Biden and Sanders put in their quivers that might successfully entice voters to turn their way?

There aren’t very many. Before one gets to face Trump one-on-one, they must get through the other.

Here’s how one pundit put the Democrat plan in place regarding Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Biden:

The “Base”

For three years now, we’ve heard Democrats demean Trump supporters for blindly ignoring all the ills of Donald Trump — most of them personal quirks. Still, they all use a central allegation to undergird everything said about Mr. Trump and his followers: they are all evil. I bet you that Hillary Clinton still to this day regrets ever creating her infamous “basket of deplorables” in which she keeps half of all Donald Trump’s supporters. But that’s the way Democrats roll. Why any politician would in one speech destroy the possible support of half the electorate is beyond me. But Hillary doing that with no thought of any potential backlash is the crux of all Leftist campaign methods.

For two decades, the common thread of Democrats’ political thinking has been to lump everyone in a particular group. That’s called “Identity Politics.” At some point during the Clinton years in the White House, Democrat Party leadership developed that political philosophy. I guess they felt it more comfortable than just to round up those they must attack during each election cycle, put them in one “basket,” and just aim their weapons at the basket. It’s like using a shotgun instead of a rifle. The shotgun shell contains hundreds of small bee bees that scatter in one specific area, (the basket) while a rifle shell contains a single projectile that can hit only one particular spot or target. That wouldn’t work for attempts to get the entire basket with one shot. A shotgun would.

In their basket, they include educated white suburban Americans, blue-collar factory workers, some with advanced education, union members, farmers, Asians, African Americans, immigrants — both legal and illegal, and all those Americans who struggle financially — that includes all on government assistance. Doing so makes the job of speaking directly to their probable voters simple. It has worked well for them for a quarter of a century: until 2016.

2016 was the year that they discovered it is impossible to round up all the Trump supporters like they have Democrat voters in the past. There isn’t a  basket large enough to contain so many. So what the Democrat Party has determined to be the center of their party platform for 2020 is “anything bad about Donald Trump.” And they feel they need nothing more.

To that end, they tried Emoluments violations, Obstruction of Justice, Russia Collusion, Obstruction of Congress, and Abuse of Power. The total of all these investigations and the subsequent impeachment trial of President Trump soaked the nation for three years and at least $75 million. And it cost the American public an unbelievable amount of legislative time and attention. Congress came to a virtual halt in taking up and taking action on meaningful legislation. They did nothing.

Democrats did nothing but continued fruitless attempts with that shotgun to kill the Trump support of those deplorables in Hillary’s basket. Each shot was unsuccessful. All they collectively achieved was to see more and more Democrats leave their party and go elsewhere with their votes — many to the Republican Party. Watching these mass defections has put the DNC and other Democrat leaders in a frenzy to find something — anything — they can use to disenfranchise the Trump base. They’re coming up empty.

The “Democrat” Base

Here’s something that scares Democrat leaders even more than Donald Trump: their base is dwindling in numbers. Many Middle-Class Americans have watched from the sidelines as the Trump changes have resulted in new jobs, dramatically lower unemployment, companies rushing back to the U.S. and expanding existing facilities, hiring new people, creating new corporate divisions and headquarters and handing out some significant bonuses along with salary and benefit increases. For a Middle-Class American family in today’s economy, it’s pretty hard to pass on those excellent opportunities while hating the person and political party that made all these possible: Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

What have Democrat leaders offered to their Base? Higher taxes on American taxpayers as well as crippling tax increases on wealth and job creators. They want to reassess crippling taxes on corporations, increase corporate regulations, formalize open borders, and institute socialized medicine they continually promote as a positive for Americans. Still, it really is an economic death warrant. In other words, Democrats are offering to members of their loyal Base four more years without economic growth, much higher taxes, and fewer jobs.

As smart and forward-thinking as are Democrats, I have been shocked to see the lack of political creativity among the Democrat candidates for President. The lone issues most have embraced are a single-payer healthcare program and free college tuition. Those two would necessitate immediate drastic increased government revenue to pay the bill for all the freebies. And THAT money comes from increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest of Americans. Bernie Sanders put it this way:

Sanders claims it’s a fair trade: taxes for free healthcare. Wow! Everyone can jump on that, right? We’ve all watched as under Obamacare, our health insurance premiums skyrocketed. This happened in spite of the Obama’s promise that, “The average family will see a drop in health insurance premiums of $2500 a year.” Instead, premiums have gone up every year and are, in most cases, double to triple the prices charged for premiums BEFORE Obamacare. And there are still millions who do not have health insurance.

There’s no way for Democrats to get even close in added tax revenue to the amount necessary for Medicare for All premiums. (Remember the Obama promise, “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan.”) The Democrat Base saw and heard that for months about Obamacare, cheered for its roll-out and implementation and have watched for years as healthcare professionals by the thousands are abandoning healthcare practices because they can no longer make the money they made formerly. They typically require at least ten years of medical school before starting their careers. And now the financial benefits are a pittance of their previous levels.

What’s Their Solution?

They still hope to “Dump Trump!” No, there’s not sufficient time now to convince Americans before November that Mr. Trump has committed wrongdoing that arises to the impeachment level. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) admitted that Donald Trump WILL defeat the Democrat opponent who faces him in November. But Democrats will NEVER quit. You can bet impeachment is on the table again now and will continue to be during his second term should he win November 3. If the Democrats hold the House, the “Impeachment twins” — Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler — will with the Intelligence Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee launch a second and more dramatic and much more visible impeachment process against Donald Trump.

Can they run him out of Washington? No one — certainly not me — knows for sure if he has committed any act that is sufficient to rise to the “Bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors” that is required Constitutionally to impeach a president. But if he has and Adam Schiff finds it, look out! He’ll head to Capitol Hill with his dozens of Lamestream media minions and set the world on fire with his vitriol and hatred for Mr. Trump and launch Trump Impeachment Part 2. He can’t wait for the opportunity.

Can Democrats Win the Presidency?

They certainly “Can” win. But it is unlikely they will “Win.” Why? There are two reasons that President Trump should survive all the arrows they shoot at him this year. We’ve seen several attempts already. There are several they have hinted just might be the arrow they need to fire at Mr. Trump that could work. And they are diligently foraging every day for new dirt on the President. Let’s face it: it’s a rarity to find any D.C. politician who does not have some type of dirty laundry they are hiding. Is Mr. Trump one of those? With all he has gone through while still maintaining political credibility seems to have placed him in rare company.

For Democrats, that’s a double “whammy.” First, it proves that Mr. Trump has kept his nose clean. Secondly, it shows to all Americans how Democrats are blinded by their rage and hatred for Donald Trump, so much so that they have allowed themselves to be tricked into the belief that they need to and can get Mr. Trump if they just listen to Democrat political leaders.

They may be right. But I  doubt they will be. There are far too many Americans who have personally drawn a line in the sand and dared Pelosi, Schumer and Nadler to cross it. Those two and other Democrat leaders know that the more people see and hear Donald Trump through mass media, the more those people can relate to him and understand his multiple dilemmas just living his life.

Summary

What’s the “gotcha” that’s hanging out there? It is doubtful Bernie or Biden will have sufficient delegate votes in Milwaukee to win the nomination on the first ballot. The rules then state that ALL committed delegates after that vote are released from their political party obligations for whom he or she must vote. Those delegates are allowed to walk with their uncommitted delegate support. Then what happens?

  • Each delegate will undoubtedly be bombarded with a vast and non-stop vote harassment by party leaders who have caucused for only two candidates: Biden or Sanders. They could throw their support together for either, or they could find a “new” presidential candidate alternative and get them on the next ballot.
  • It’s at this point many think Hillary Clinton just “might” become entangled in the presidential election process one more time. Can she successfully work to pull HER base back together in just a couple of short months? And then there’s the uncertainty of Hillary’s emotional and mental capacities.

Will we see anything like this happen?  Or will Joe or Bernie garner enough support to win the Democrat Party nomination. One thing IS certain though: we’re a long way from knowing who will be on that debate stage representing the Democrat Party in a one-on-one with President and then Candidate Donald Trump.

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Presidential Endorsements: Media Failed Again

March 8, 2020

One would think that the mega-media newspapers in the nation would have every necessary resource from which to draw to give the public educated and accurate predictions of election outcomes. And if you read or listen to them toot their own horns, you know for certain THEY know it all in this political game! But, once again, the Lamestream Media stepped on their dresses with their pre-Super Tuesday endorsements. And they missed miserably.

“It’s too early to say they missed with their endorsements!” No, it’s not: the candidates they endorsed to win have withdrawn from the contest!

Why do newspapers make endorsements at all?

I’ve always thought it’s kind of weird that newspapers endorse candidates. The rest of the time they report the news and maybe print a few opinion pieces, all the time claiming objectivity and neutrality. Then, every few years, they take up at least a full page to explain why they think you should vote for a particular person. Why does anybody do it?

Some major newspapers have ended the practice. David Haynes of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explained why his paper stopped endorsing candidates: “It really boils down to this notion of independence. We work very hard each day to provide a balance of views on our pages and on our website increasingly and mobile devices as well. And we work hard to be open-minded and approach issues that we’re going to editorialize on independently. We pull good ideas from both major schools of political thought, and we’re pragmatic. We back ideas we think will work. Ideology is really immaterial.
 So then, we do all that for 364 days of the year and turn around and choose sides in a bitter partisan election? I think that tends to undermine this whole idea of independence, and it really undermines this idea of being an honest broker of opinion. Again, that forum, that’s our real mission. The editorial is a part of that.”

He is on to something; distrust of the media is at an all-time high in the United States. One 2018 study found that many of those surveyed blamed bias. You can’t help but wonder if part of that is because newspapers waste their credibility by endorsing a candidate with one hand and then claiming not to be biased in their reporting with the other.

Newspaper endorsements have been a “big deal” for a long time. That has never interpreted into election success, however.

Remember Gretchen Carlson, former morning co-host of Fox and Friends on the FOX News channel? She piped in on this years ago and her words still ring true:

Maybe Readers Feel Newspapers no Longer Report the News

For the last 100 years or so the opinion and editorial sections of every major newspaper have been completely separate entities. The people who decide who to endorse report to different people than do the journalists who write the news. The journalists often don’t know who is getting endorsed until you do.

However, despite those who adamantly justify endorsements by their papers (on which many of those explainers write opinions and endorsements), many people still fail to grasp this fact. The mass belief by the public of this misunderstanding is why USA Today doesn’t endorse anybody — at least they did not UNTIL 2016 when they endorsed Hillary Clinton. Maybe that endorsement was just of “whoever ran against Donald Trump.”

Rather than speculate at the reasoning for newspaper endorsements, I find it easier to simply analyze those who are the pundits who MAKE these endorsements. Most often they are editors, columnists from the paper, and sometimes even publishers who weigh-in. Americans are not so vapid to the political persuasions of those who opine their politics through editorial endorsements — and ALL endorsements are editorial, opinion-based declarations.

Case in point: The Shreveport TIMES is owned by Gannett — a newspaper mega-conglomerate. Shreveport nestled in the pines of northwest Louisiana is a largely conservative community. Louisiana has for a longtime been a red state — especially the northern parts of the state. One would think that the newspaper of a city and sector of a Southern state that bleeds bright red would make an endorsement based on what the paper knows is the choice of the majority of its subscribers. I do not remember a state or national election in the last decade in which The Shreveport TIMES endorsed a Republican. By the way, not a single editor in the paper is from this area and all in their other writings lean left.

I for decades have tried to understand the reasoning for doing so. Maybe Gannett doesn’t care about the leanings of a majority in the Shreveport market. Or maybe they don’t know the leanings in the market! One would think it would be certain suicide for a newspaper to do such over and over with no concern for the newspaper’s subscribers’ opinions regarding any endorsement.

Maybe that’s why the paid circulation of the paper has reportedly dwindled to 50% of its former self. Of course, they maintain it’s because of online instant news access.

Do you want a look at the newspaper endorsements for 2020  presidential candidates before Super Tuesday?

Did you notice the New York Times endorsements? They endorsed two candidates, which has never been done before. Those two, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, certainly knew that endorsement was probably the kiss of death.

But it’s not just the Big Apple paper. Look at those from other major markets that jumped out picking winners and losers: The Charlotte Post and Boston Herald endorsed Michael Bloomberg. The Boston Globe endorsed hometown Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Klobuchar wiped up on endorsements. In addition to the co-endorsement from the New York Times with Elizabeth Warren, She knocked home runs with the nod from the Las Vegas Sun, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, and Seattle Times. Mayor Pete racked up the endorsements of El Paso Times and Orlando Sentinel.

It may have been because of his extreme socialistic views, but Bernie Sanders received an endorsement from just one large newspaper, The San Francisco Bay Guardian.

None of these endorsements made a difference — at least not in the Super Tuesday primaries.

So why do you think voters ditched the ideas and choices of the nation’s leading newspapers and voted for the only real moderate in the field while spurning the nomination of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist? I can certainly answer that question, and I will. But, understand, what I’m about to say is pure speculation. Granted I have significant data to prove it. But of late, data and evidence in America don’t seem to be very valuable.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out to you that in the 2016 election, of the top 25 polling news sources, only one — just one — correctly predicted Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election. And it was NOT a bastion of big time news organizations. It does not have correspondents covering the international major cities or even U.S. major cities. In fact, it’s not even a newspaper. It’s a university journalism department: that of University of Southern California — the only one who predicted a Trump 2016 victory.

Summary

Here’s the problem that newspapers today face regarding whether or not to make endorsements for presidential candidates. Even though most editorial page editors insist an endorsement is NOT a recommendation for readers to vote for that candidate, most readers don’t believe that. Most of those readers feel that’s exactly what the paper is doing! If that’s not the purpose, what could their purpose be?

In my humble opinion, there’s only one other option: newspaper editors are a dying breed — leftovers from a news era in which newspapers really did reflect the senses of those in their respective communities. There was no internet, no social media, no news but theirs and that from the three television broadcast networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC.

I remember a day not too long ago when every morning, my Jack Russell couldn’t wait for me to open the front door and run to the street with me to fetch our daily newspaper. That was less than a decade ago. By the same time each day that my dog and I formerly made the paper trek, today I’ve already read the morning news from about 20 different online news sources, including that from the three local network television stations and our local news radio station, all online. And I can say I have NO clue who our newspaper endorsed in our November governor’s race nor the mayoral race either. I really don’t care. I’m not one who has ever put much stock in the opinions of editors. I’ve always felt my opinion was just about as valid as theirs. But I had one thing they never had and never will: my perspective. 

After the Super Tuesday endorsement gaffes made by so many newspapers around the nation, I wonder if they’ll back out of the endorsement game for November? Surely they’ve learned they’re going to be wrong at least half the time and hack-off the readers they still have half the time by endorsing. Why not just let their readers (who all have high-speed internet and social media accounts) make their voting decisions based on the facts their paper publishes regarding each candidate in each important race? 

They can’t do that. After all, Americans are generally too lazy to find out on their own who the best candidates are for specific offices. That’s why we have CNN, MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Whoopi Goldberg. We need somebody — ANYBODY — to tell us what to think!

Geriatrics to Face Off For Spot Against Trump

March 4, 2020

It doesn’t matter now of whom you are speaking. The only youth in the presidential race of late were Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Although Tulsi Gabbard is technically in the race, no one has seen or heard from her in a month or so. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are leaving Super Tuesday as the likely torchbearers for the Democrat Party. The two will duke it out to determine which will take-on that “other” Geriatric candidate in November: Donald Trump. The odd man out  is former NYC Michael Bloomberg. Two months ago, who thought the three oldest guys in the race would be the final three, Sanders, Biden, and Trump. Trump is 73, Biden is 77, and Bernie is 78. Trump’s the baby!

Going into Super Tuesday with 14 states holding primaries on the same day, it looked as if Sen. Bernie Sanders was a sure bet to come out on top. After all, Joe Biden appeared to have died a slow death out on the campaign trail over the last 90 days. His gaffes are epic. He often forgot in which town or city he was, claimed 150 million people were killed by guns, called the day “Super Thursday,” and Chris Wallace of FOX News “Chuck.” And the list of Biden’s missteps are legend. What happened?

Biden’s decisive victory in South Carolina seemed to turn the tide of political ebb and flow the former Vice President’s way. The two largest Super Tuesday states, Texas and California split between the pair: Biden won Texas and California went to Sanders. But Biden has wiped up so far. Sanders notched victories in Vermont, Utah and Colorado. Biden picked up Virginia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maine, Minnesota and Massachusetts.

The shocker of the day was Joe Biden who staged a massive comeback after what looked like six months of walking a campaign plank. Some say it was his huge win South Carolina, some say it was a mysterious “whisper” from Barack Obama who reached out to Klobuchar and Mayor Pete suggesting that to unite the Party, they should drop out after the South Carolina Biden blowout. Britt Hume was so shocked the only word he could think of that would paint the picture of the Biden slaughter was “organic.” No matter what it is termed, the day was a great day for Biden.

Super Tuesday is undoubtedly a huge day, but it’s just the beginning. It’s called “Super” because of the 14 state-primaries held on this one day. But there are quite a few primaries to come before the Milwaukee Democrat Party convention in July. Here’s which primaries are remaining:

Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Washington, Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Marian, Wyoming, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Kansas, Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota.

There’s no doubt Bernie and Joe are still standing in the ring wanting a shot at Trump. Mini-Mike is hanging on, too: at least for the moment. We’ve seen Sanders as a scrapper for sometime. Biden seemed to slow a bit during the past months and seemed to have lost some fire. Bloomberg? Who knows.

But as we put Super Tuesday in our rearview mirror remember this: the heavy favorite to win the Democrat Party nomination was (until recently) former Vice President Joe Biden. Don’t consider him out by any measure: he’s still in. But don’t forget what he’s capable of and those things we’ll certainly see and hear from him as long as he’s breathing:

Uncle Joe: that one uncle everyone seems to hide from at family reunions!

He may be our next President…

Ready For Super Tuesday?

March 2, 2020

Just imagine how much money has been poured into the States holding Democrat primaries today across the nation. Remember this: former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a presidential candidate has not been on the ballot in any of the primaries conducted this year. However, while he sat on the sidelines waiting for Super Tuesday, Bloomberg has spent several hundred million dollars in advertising and staffing in the Super Tuesday primary states.

We’ve all heard stories and discussions about Super Tuesday. For that matter, we hear those same conversations every four years. But most Americans are unaware of its purposes, how it is structured, and how its results impact the upcoming federal election. Don’t fret: as usual, TruthNewsNetwork has the answers to any of your Super Tuesday questions. We’ll give you those and explain its structure and what its impact will be regarding the November election.

What It Is

Super Tuesday is the date during the presidential primary when the largest number of states hold primaries or caucuses. In some years, such as 2008, this means that nearly half of the union holds their contests on the same day. The name isn’t meant to assign a positive connotation to the date. It simply serves to indicate the sheer number of states voting that day. While the term has been used since at least 1976, the first modern Super Tuesday happened in 1988, a result of Democrats attempting to concentrate several Southern primaries on the same date. In doing so, candidates could nationalize their messages, focusing on the issues that were important for a larger swath of Americans, rather than just those important to early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

What’s Super Tuesday’s significance?

Super Tuesday is significant because of the likelihood that the day’s winner will become their respective party’s nominee. Candidates are forced to campaign on the issues that affect larger and more diverse groups of people, rather than just rural white voters. Nearly every single year, the primary fight is essentially over once Super Tuesday is finished because of the number of delegates up for grabs that day. This may be especially true in 2020.

When did Super Tuesday start?

Super Tuesday was created by Democrats after 20 years of Republican occupants of the White House, sparing one term for Jimmy Carter. They hoped that holding so many votes on one day would enable the Democrats to nominate someone moderate and electable, unlike Walter Mondale four years prior. Having so many Southern states vote at once backfired for the Democrats on the first Super Tuesday, when Al Gore and Jesse Jackson split the party along racial lines. Michael Dukakis went on to become the nominee, losing spectacularly to George H.W. Bush in the general election.

The strategy did eventually work with the election of Bill Clinton. Before winning the general election in part due to several vital Southern states, Clinton swept the primaries, indicating the importance of those contests. Since then, Southern white Democrats are rarer, and Black voters, who make up large portions of the Democratic electorate, have been given more influence in some Southern states.

What states have elections on Super Tuesday?

Super Tuesday has often been called the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Primary because of its concentration on Southern states. In 2016, 12 states held their primary elections on this day. Every cycle, the states that vote are slightly different, causing a difference in the amount of delegates candidates can secure on that day in each cycle. The following 14 states have decided to have their primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.

The most notable moves of the day are that of California and Texas. California, as the most populous state, changed the way candidates campaign in advance of Super Tuesday. The state has hundreds of delegates available and is considered far more diverse than some of the traditional Super Tuesday states. Some Democrats believe that California is more accurately representative of the primary electorate of the Democratic party. The story is similar for Texas, the second-most populous state, with a large Latin community. It is unclear how the addition of California and Texas will affect the primaries, but it is sure to make the stakes on Super Tuesday even higher.

Super Tuesday has been an essential indicator of not only who will win each party’s nomination, but who could win the presidency. Although voter turnout can vary between the primary and general elections, having an exceptional Super Tuesday performance can give us a clue into who the next President of the United States may be. With the addition of populous states like California and Texas, that could be even more true in 2020.

Super Tuesday 2020 Expectations

Following a commanding win Saturday in South Carolina, former Vice President Joe Biden suggested Sunday that he’s willing to battle through a contested convention should Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) enter the nominating event with a plurality but not the majority of delegates needed to seal the nomination. The campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts signaled Sunday that she, too, plans to fight for the nomination through the convention even if she does not comes out of the primaries with the most delegates. Those remarks come after Sanders said at a debate last month that whoever has the most delegates entering the convention, even if it is not a majority, should be the nominee. Rivals had called that a reversal of his position in 2016 when he ran against that year’s eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton.

As it stands, Sanders leads Biden by just four delegates in the latest NBC News projection. Further back is former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor and now a former Presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg — who dropped out of the race on Sunday night — and Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) dropped out of the race yesterday. There’s also billionaire former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is appearing on the ballot for the first time in the Super Tuesday contests.

A total of 1,991 delegates are needed to clinch the nomination. Should that number not be met ahead of this summer’s convention in Milwaukee, delegates could engage in multiple rounds of voting for a nominee — a process that could lead to a candidate with fewer delegates than the incoming leader becoming the nominee.

Former VP JoeBiden said he would fight for the nomination even if he enters the convention in second place. “Yes. I mean, look, the rules have been set. And I find a lot of folks in Bernie’s operation are now saying that whoever goes in with the most delegates, even if they’re not close or there’s a distance from the 19-plus-hundred that we need, that that’s — they should be declared the winner,” Biden said. “I wonder where that view was when he was challenging Hillary after she went in with a commanding lead.” “Look, you don’t change the rules in the middle of a game,” he continued. “And I’m not at all certain that we’re … going to win with Bernie ahead. I hope that’s not the case. I hope I’m ahead. But we will see. But I think you play by the rules.”

What about the “others?”

Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau wrote in a memo that after Super Tuesday, her campaign believes “no candidate will likely have a path to the majority of delegates needed to win an outright claim to the Democratic nomination.”

“In the road to the nomination, the Wisconsin primary is halftime, and the convention in Milwaukee is the final play,” he said. “Our grassroots campaign is built to compete in every state and territory and ultimately prevail at the national convention in Milwaukee.”

Late last week, Bloomberg told NBC News‘ Kasie Hunt that he would stay in the race “right to the bitter end” as long as he’s got a chance at winning the nomination. Bloomberg said that if Sanders hits the delegate threshold to secure a majority ahead of the convention, he will not continue his presidential bid. If Sanders amasses only a plurality, however, he will keep pressing forward, Bloomberg said.

The winner according to “Conventional Wisdom.”

Four months ago, that would have been Joe Biden. A week ago, it would have almost certainly been Sen. Bernie Sanders. Going into Super Tuesday, many feel Bernie Sanders will finish the day with a strong lead heading toward  Milwaukee’s convention this Summer. But as we all know, in elections, who will win the nomination of the Democrat Party is far from being decided.

One thing to note is the answer to a question that is being repeatedly asked: What happens to the votes already cast in primaries for Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete Buttigieg now that both have dropped out of the race. While some states allow absentee voters to change their choice by requesting a new ballot or by turning in their old ballot at a polling place for a new one, early voters in Super Tuesday states who chose Buttigieg or Klobuchar – or billionaire Tom Steyer or any of the other candidates who have suspended their campaigns – are out of luck.

It’s because of those delegates that are already committed to Mayor Pete and Sen. Klobuchar that currently are meaningless. They are now lost in the race for the nomination. Those who would have cast their votes for either of these two will now have to choose another candidate.

Democrat Party Panic

Democrats are nervously eyeing the primaries so far that have given Sanders a lead going into Super Tuesday that will be hard to overcome. Let’s be honest: no matter what we have heard, Democrat Party leaders say again and again when asked that whoever wins the most delegates will be the candidate the Party backs in the election against Donald Trump. Democrats feel that Bernie Sanders, if nominated, cannot win the General Election facing Donald Trump. So here’s what many feel is their plan:

  • Sen. Klobuchar and Mayor Pete each have thrown their support to Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination. Though their delegates will NOT move to either of the two, their endorsements will give Biden a strong nudge.
  • The Party will, in the next days, push hard for the moderate Joe Biden to find a path to pass the socialist Bernie Sanders.
  • But here’s the “big banana” for the Democrats: Mayor Michael Bloomberg with his millions of dollars certainly has the financial staying-power to hang in there through the Democrat Convention. Democrat leaders will, in unity, push Bloomberg to bow out of the race and throw his support (and money) behind the former Vice President. Most think Bloomberg’s concept of buying the race will fail. Bloomberg and Biden are now the only two moderate candidates remaining and need to join forces to push past Bernie Sanders. But there may be a twist in this. See below in our summary.

Summary

Playing the game of politics at this level is very expensive and is almost always more a popularity contest more than just an election. It certainly takes lots of money.

Putting that money behind a popular candidate usually gives that candidate a considerable edge. But 2020 has an enigma: Bernie Sanders. There is no question the socialist has great appeal for a large group of young Americans. Many do not understand his political ideas could easily result in economic calamity in the U.S. The certain destruction of capitalism — which is the cornerstone of the U.S. unmatched leadership in the world — will devastate every aspect of economic life in America and all it touches. Socialism’s magnet for voters? “Free everything!”

So what will happen? How will this play out? And will Super Tuesday play a significant role? Want a prediction?

Bloomberg will have at best a mediocre Super Tuesday in capturing Democrat delegate votes. If that happens, it will undoubtedly take support away from Biden and give Sanders an edge in the delegate count. The Democrat Party will have to kick into high gear to keep a moderate candidate in the running. Why? If Sanders wins the Democrat Party nomination, the Democrat Party is DONE!

Bernie Sanders is not even a Democrat!

I predict a deal will be cut quickly after Super Tuesday between Biden and Bloomberg. That deal will put both together as a team to beat Sanders for the nomination for President: one will run as President and the other as Vice President. That could be determined in Milwaukee.

I know that’s a far-fetched concept. However, to me, that seems at this point to be the only way Democrats can keep a socialist off their 2020 ticket, which would create an impossible task for the party in November: to beat Donald Trump and win back the White House.

If that happens, once again, Bernie Sanders will be on the receiving end of the political power of the Democrat Party and not in a good way. The party took the 2016 nomination from Bernie for Hillary Clinton. It looks to me that the table is set for a similar result this year.

I can see just one possible spoiler should Dems take that approach once more. Bernie has a substantial base of support. Bernie would be tempted to test that support, wondering if it would be sufficient for him to mount a run as an Independent in the November race.

Should that develop, Democrats will go crazy with rage! These Democrats remember when this scenario happened to Republicans in 1992. Ross Perot ran as an Independent against Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush who sought a second White House term. Perot was a conservative and garnered 19% of the vote, most of which came from Republicans. That 19% put Clinton in the White House and kept Bush 41’s second term as president.

So what else might happen? Bernie got a vacation home as a compromise in 2016 for what happened to him with the superdelegate debacle initiated by the Democrat Party to send Hillary to what they all thought was at least four years in the White House. There’s no telling what Bernie might get from the Party this time!

To a guy who has never held a real private sector job before becoming Mayor of a Burlington, Vermont, who knows what his price would be for his second bribe from the DNC.

One more quick thought: Mayor Pete on Sunday received a call from Barack Obama. Mr. Obama “advised” the Mayor to withdraw, telling Pete he ran a valiant race but should consider dropping out to strengthen the moderate Democrats bid to beat Bernie Sanders. I would not be surprised if Michael Bloomberg receives a similar call as did the Mayor!

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A “Sacrificial Lamb” in 2020?

February 26, 2020

In the mid to late 1960s, Top 40 radio nationally was lead by a Shreveport, Louisiana morning show DJ named Larry Ryan. His show dominated local and even national Top 40 ratings. His station, KEEL, was at the top of national Top 40 stations beside significant market stations like WLS in Chicago, WRKO in Boston, KIIS in Los Angeles, and WABC in New York. Ryan was an icon. And, as icons go, Larry Ryan decided to leave KEEL and bought his own radio station. That left a massive hole in the programming lineup at KEEL. Who would General Manager Billy Wilson bring to Shreveport to replace this giant?

There are two schools of thought for such a replacement. One is to find the best radio personality in the nation with which to replace Ryan. The second is to acknowledge how great Ryan was and recognize that no one could replace him at the same level. Wilson chose the latter and hired a no-name disc jockey that was mediocre at best. He lasted for about six months.

Wilson, when Ryan left, knew who he wanted to be the ultimate replacement at KEEL. When he fired the no-name guy, he brought in “his” guy: Jeff Edman. Edman was a storied morning show host at a small station in a small town. But he was okay. He went on air and, everyone in that market thought, “Finally, KEEL has someone as good as Larry.”

Wilson knew that it did not matter who followed Ryan; they would fail because of the constant comparisons with Ryan. The guy between Ryan and Edman was KEEL’s “sacrificial lamb.”

“How does that story fit anything in my life today?” you ask. This is an essential topic for today, and you’re going to have to buckle in with me. Instead of looking at everything at sea level, let’s go up to the 10,000-foot level.

The 2020 Election from 10,000 Feet

Who will be the next “new” President? Will that happen in 2020 or 2024?

In my life, I remember no previous election environment with even remote similarities to this one. The differences between both major parties are miles apart from each other. Like never before, I see very little — if any — consensus between Republicans and Democrats on any level.

In the American political system, there have always been party philosophical differences. But parties almost always find ways to work together for the good of the nation. Americans do not see that willingness from either party in 2020.

Donald Trump will surely represent the GOP in November. But who will represent the Democrat Party is far from determination. From the start of this campaign season, former VP Joe Biden was the odds-on favorite if he ran. When he formally announced his run, most were confident he would dominate other Democrat candidates. And, for a while, he did. That favor among fellow Democrats began to slip away slowly and continues to this day.

Enter Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, a consummate Socialist (who many say is a Communist), has become the only real threat to a Biden run against Trump in November. Sanders is so far left and has so much history as a real Socialist; his garnering enough support even to win Democrats’ nomination is tough, but then there’s the general election.

As of this date, Sanders has momentum. If he can hold that and build the consensus for a White House bid as a Democrat, a generation of young Americans who have been immersed in Socialist propaganda at our education institutions would be elated. But, unfortunately for Sanders, Democrats have closed their circle around the former VP and are throwing every shred of bad “Bernie News” they can uncover against Sanders to keep Biden at the forefront. It will be tough for him to get the majority of Democrat Party delegates to support him in Milwaukee at the Democrat Convention.

What will happen if Bernie cannot get a Democrat convention delegate majority, nor can Joe or any other candidate?

If that should happen on the first nominating ballot, all Democrat delegates are automatically released from their candidate obligation. They can then support any candidate they choose. Someone — may be another candidate currently in the race or even one who is not presently running — can put their name forward, hoping to pull enough of those “de-committed” delegates to their side sufficient in number to win the nomination.

Who could that person be that could pull enough of those de-committed delegates to win a majority of delegate votes to win the 2020 presidential nomination?

Enter: a sacrificial lamb.

Take the “Hit”

Here’s the Democrats’ problem: Who can beat Donald Trump in 2020? Go back up to the 10,000-foot level for a moment and consider who is out there that has a real shot at beating the President. If one puts aside a personal preference for a specific candidate and objectively believes who could defeat Mr. Trump, the choices are slim — and there may not be a candidate who can score that victory. Don’t think for one minute that Democrat Party leaders have for quite some time considered that possibility. Pelosi and Schumer and other Party leaders have a plan — a plan that might contain a sacrificial lamb. Let’s think this through:

  • Biden nor Sanders can score a majority of Democrat delegates on the first ballot at the convention in Milwaukee;
  • Committed delegates are then free to support whomever they choose;
  • Who in the current field has voter support even close to the sufficiency necessary to win the nomination, let alone defeat Donald Trump?
  • Who could be a possible candidate outside the shortlist of Democrats who would and who could bring Dems their November 3rd victory?
  • What are Democrats to do?

The Choices

Three names come to mind who might be able to pull off a victory: Michael Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama.

Michael Bloomberg. “Mini-Mike,” as President Trump has labeled the candidate, certainly has the bank sufficient to support the cost of a national campaign. But the former mayor made a poor showing in the Las Vegas debate — so bad that he may not be able to recover. Democrats as a whole do not know the former New York City Mayor. Is there time to educate voters about his positions on the issues that have been burning the electorate during this entire campaign period? If there is sufficient time for that, does he have adequate winning ideas to beat President Trump?

When one considers the formative accomplishments of this President — especially in economic benefits for Americans from every economic category — a candidate who is so weak at “selling” ideas to Americans in just a few months is an unlikely winner. And Bloomberg, while filthy rich, is not a proficient salesperson. He’s terrible. Mr. Bloomberg is undoubtedly destined to continue his life of wealth and eliteness, but not at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Hillary Clinton. OMG! Hasn’t the nation had enough? We won’t go into her political history. Everyone knows it from top to bottom. Her political history that is “known” in public is one thing. But her political history that is “unknown” is another.

There are far too many stories floating around about Hillary’s efforts to sow seeds sufficient to beat Mr. Trump in 2016. It’s unlikely she can successfully address and resolve those before November. Her post-election loss tour in which she incessantly blamed Donald Trump and the FBI, and the CIA, and President Obama, and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, were her attempts to regain some credibility. She too desperately sought support for her claims that the presidency was stolen from her.

She never received the support that she sought.

Add to that the fact that there may be some legal difficulties ahead for Ms. Clinton and her husband. There appears to have been wrongdoing at the Clinton Foundation, acceptance of foreign financial assistance for her 2016 campaign, and even possible criminal charges for mishandling of confidential and classified information and documents during the Mueller Probe.

That cloud of doubt over her is significant. It cannot be dismissed as some short-term hiccup. People could go to jail for that wrongdoing.

Michelle Obama. The former First Lady is the darling of the Left. She has shunned any aggressive political actions since leaving the White House with her husband, but she still dips her toes into the political fray from time to time. Many Americans — not just African Americans — like her a lot.

She has, on numerous occasions in public, rejected any idea of her running for the presidency. She blames the pressure, the grind, the lack of privacy, and the toll it takes on a family as reason enough for her to stay out of politics.

Many, however, think she is the perfect person going forward to carry the banner of the “traditional” Democrat Party. Never mind that she is as far left thinking as is her husband. Never mind that her stances on abortion, taxes, marriage, same-sex marriage, healthcare, and the economy mirror those of her husband.

But does America want Barack Obama Part 2?

What If…

Let’s play the game “What If?”

What if…

  • Democrat Party leadership feels like none of the current candidates nor anyone who might be able to steal a nomination in a brokered convention could defeat Donald Trump in November?
  • Democrat party leadership determined it is in the best interest of their party to swallow hard, continue to do their best through November at assisting whichever candidate finds their way to the top of a ticket, and take it in the chin November 3 and lose?
  • Do they launch a plan in which 2020’s election win is sacrificed for the benefit of a diamond of a candidate for 2024?

That would mean whoever ended up carrying the Democrat banner in November would be just an interim candidate laying some groundwork for 2024. That person would be the Dems “sacrificial lamb.”

Just like that DJ who replaced Larry Ryan at KEEL was from the beginning to be nothing more than a place holder while the dust settled in Top 40 radio, that interim person could be the same thing for Democrats: a sacrificial lamb.

In politics, a sacrificial lamb candidate is a candidate chosen to contest an election even though he or she has little chance of victory. The political party thus appoints the person as a sort of “sacrifice” to the stronger opponent.

Fielding a sacrificial lamb candidate can serve as an opportunity for the party to be more creative in choosing a candidate than would generally be considered acceptable in a closely contested race. Alan Keyes and Geraldine A. Ferraro are examples in American politics. In 1956, Adlai Stevenson was considered a sacrificial lamb candidate for president against Dwight Eisenhower. In 2004, Howard Mills was considered a sacrificial lamb candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York against Chuck Schumer. 2020 Democrats may pick someone to run against Mr. Trump to fill the spot on the 2020 presidential ballot, knowing they have not shot to win.

If that should be the case, you can bet Democrats are already on the prowl for 2024. And I’ll bet not only are they on the prowl, but I am also confident they have their candidate. Who could that be?

That’s a great question. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is and will be too young to run. Hillary will be just a bad 2016 memory. Michael Bloomberg will have moved to some European country he bought like Luxembourg, Lichenstein, or some other. Joe Biden will be looking for his hairpiece!

Who’s left? Michelle Obama.

For what the Democrats want to accomplish long term, they need a candidate who the nation knows about but doesn’t “know” personally — one that already has star power and street credibility. Michelle Obama checks all the boxes: African American, female, experienced, well-known and respected, politically savvy, from the Midwest, and has the last name “Obama.”

Why wouldn’t they make her the 2020 sacrificial lamb? They cannot afford to waste her and lose her value to their party and their cause. She fits the slot far better than any other on the political scene today.

I’m confident Mayor Pete, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar would disagree with these thoughts. Face it: no one in national politics wants to be just an afterthought. But none of these have a shot at the presidency this year: a “decent” chance.

I don’t think anyone has a clear path to that in the Democrat Party. But I’m satisfied for 2024, you’ll begin to see some Michelle Obama yard signs and posters about the time Donald Trump takes his second oath of office. Democrats could probably forget about their pending whooping in November at the hands of “The Donald!”

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I’m Tired of Socialism Already, Bernie Boy!

February 25, 2020

The poison word we hear every third sentence or so: “Socialism!” I have something for all of you to drill-down into: if you think you’re tired of it now, wait until November 2nd! Bernie Sanders, with the extras thrown in: AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and a host of others, are feeding the media daily soundbites regarding Socialism.

If you’d like to get nauseated, just Google “Bernie Sanders and Socialism.” I just looked at the first page of Google’s search tool: 15 out of 15 are about Bernie Sanders and Socialism. If you’re tired of nausea regarding discussions, news reports, and speeches, either find a way to slip into an eight-month coma or find a way to deal with it. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

We’ve published here at TruthNewsNetwork three Socialism articles in the last year. We did so to try and give folks a basic understanding of what it is. But the noise continues. And here’s why:

“Free Stuff!” Every adult in the U.S. understands that nothing is free — someone pays the price for it. Whether it’s a Mom and Dad, a university subsidy of a scholarship, or a government handout, someone pays. But we have one entire generation who “hears” that but certainly does not “understand” that.

For that reason, it is imperative that we somehow create a method to teach those from within those two generations exactly what Socialism is, how it functions, and in it who wins and loses. But here’s the problem: it’s annoying to discuss!

Let’s try something different. We found a comprehensive yet amazingly inclusive video explaining Socialism and giving really good analogies for those who don’t know about Socialism (other than a professor or teacher saying so) and provides today real-world examples to explain. And it’s only a five-minute video.

Here’s what we’ll do: watch the video (or listen to the audio version) here. I promise that between now and November 3, somebody is going to get in your face screaming about the wonder that Socialism is and that the “World will end in twelve years if we don’t ditch Capitalism and replace it with Socialism!” The problem is, if you have Millennials in your family you show it to, they’re going to get angry because when they see the video, they’ll realize that “if something’s too good to be true, it always is NOT true.”

The truth hurts sometimes.

Take a look: It’s five minutes of truth that make Socialism easy to understand and puts it in comparison to Capitalism. We’ll get together right after this for some final thoughts:

If you’d like to download and copy this video to share, here’s the link with which you can do so: https://youtu.be/Fdfru9NHGvE

Summary

Let’s be clear: all of these Millenials that are supporting Sanders and his policies have NEVER heard the truth of Socialism. Our educators at the high school and college levels have been for two generations of our young been teaching our youth the evils of Capitalism espousing the fairness and equality that mysteriously appears with Socialism. However, there is NO fairness and quality that comes with Socialism.

We’re not going to do the “company story” about Socialism for you. You’ve heard it again and again. And you’ll hear it again and again through the November 3 election! I’m tired…and I know you are too.

Here are my thoughts on our political and economic system: Capitalism works better than any other system in World history. Socialism doesn’t! Facts without any question prove it.

Quick: name three countries in World history that were socialistic that survived and thrived. I’m waiting…

There aren’t any! No socialistic nation has ever been successful. Why? Because they all eventually run out of spending other people’s money!

Just a short word and video for you today. They’re important. Download that video and keep it handy. You might want to share it too. Feel free to do that.

We’ll get back on all the other “stuff” tomorrow: One day at a time!

“Russia, Russia, Russia” Again!

February 24, 2020
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Intelligence officials have warned lawmakers that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election campaign to help President Trump get reelected, according to three officials familiar with the closed-door briefing.

The officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said Thursday that the briefing last week focused on Russia’s efforts to influence the 2020 election and sow discord in the American electorate. The intelligence warning was first reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

A senior administration official told the Associated Press that the news infuriated Trump, who complained that Democrats would use the information against him. Throughout his presidency, Trump has dismissed the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s 2016 election interference as a conspiracy to undermine his victory. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting.

A day after the Feb. 13 briefing to the House committee, Trump berated the then-director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, and he announced this week that Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist would replace Maguire.

Moscow denied any meddling. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that the allegations are “paranoid reports that, unfortunately, there will be more and more of as we get closer to the elections [in the U.S.]. Of course, they have nothing to do with the truth.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted, “American voters should decide American elections — not Vladimir Putin.” She added that all members of Congress “should condemn the President’s reported efforts to dismiss threats to the integrity of our democracy & to politicize our intel community.”

Wait: there’s more Russian U.S. election interference underway at the same time!

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday, Feb. 21, acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials briefed him about Russian attempts to interfere in the Democratic primary race to help his campaign, reported the Washington Post.

According to the Post, President Donald Trump and congressional lawmakers have also been informed of the Russian attempts. Sanders, in a statement to the press, disavowed the alleged interference from Kremlin to help him win the 2020 election.

“I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said. “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president, I will make sure that you do.”

“In 2016, Russia used internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters,” he added.

Uh Oh! Bernie has made one fatal mistake: he has burst into a significant lead in the Democrat push to win the White House. And Bernie’s not the hand-picked Democrat the Democrat Party machine has chosen to assume the role of the “next” Barack Obama.

So what happens now that has happened? The Russians always get involved in whatever election is coming up!

What Happened?

The same thing that happens every four years! There is plenty of history to support the theory of Democrat Party leadership, pulling out the stops to use everything in their arsenal to beat whoever is their “chief election nemesis of the day.” They used it in 2016. They didn’t win the White House for Hillary, but their efforts resulted in a three-year, $40 million investigation of President Trump’s campaign because “sources said” Trump was colluding with Vladimir. He wasn’t. Trump won.

Are they at it again, or is Russia a real election-tampering threat?

Let’s break that down:

  • “Intelligence sources” briefed members of Intelligence committees on methods that Russia used to throw the 2016 election to Trump. That’s according to Democrats who were in the room when those briefings were held.
  • Democrat after Democrat and even some Republicans stated again and again, “There is uncontroverted proof that Russia attempted to impact the 2016 election.”
  • Interim Attorney General Rod Rosenstein informed Congress and the world after a DOJ investigation that “any outside election influence impacted not a single vote in 2016 by Russia or anyone else.”

Wait a minute! Everybody declared emphatically that the Russians elected Mr. Trump. And evidence they have proved the Russian meddling gave Trump the win.

What did they do? What did their efforts change? How many votes were impacted? How did Russians change those votes?

I’ll venture a guess: Russian influence in the 2016 election was two-fold: buying Facebook ads that ran pro-Trump online ads. They, too, bought Facebook anti-Hillary ads to denigrate the former Secretary of State. Those ads influenced 63 million voters to choose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

IT DID NOT HAPPEN!

I have asked and asked for this: If there have been attempts by Russia or any other foreign country to impact the results of our elections directly, Americans should have those facts presented to us. That the intelligence agencies feel it is their job to deal with that information — if it ever happened secretly. It’s disingenuous for them to “say” something’s right and not “prove” it’s right to Americans.

Until they present evidence proving otherwise, I don’t believe any election hacking has taken place.

How would that actually play out anyway? Remember this: there is no national U.S. network system in which federal elections are handled. Election voting is dealt with in total by the individual states. That means there are systems for each of the 50 states, one for Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and several territories. Each is separate with no internet connections and no way to coordinate in any way. Voting methods and even types of voting machines vary from state to state. If Russia was successful at getting into a voting machine, it not being connected to all other machines would fail any election hacking attempt.

But there IS election coordination. Where does it originate and who is responsible? Who stands to gain if it is even possible to change outcomes of federal elections?

The “Rest of the Story”

Anytime in politics, you question sources and methods for controversies, you can find the answers fairly easily. Do so from the bottom up. “Hmmm. What does that mean?”

Assume for a moment Russia really wishes to impact U.S. elections. “If” they are doing so, they must have a purpose and also the desired result. The first thought of most Americans is, “They want Donald Trump to win because he will go easier on Russia than any other candidate.”

In 2016, almost every Democrat preached that Putin was helping Trump beat Hillary because he was in Putin’s pocket. Their conspiracy has been soundly debunked. No other American President has been tougher on Putin and Russia than has Trump — economically and politically. Think about it: Trump rebuilt the U.S. military putting it back in the #1 international spot. Putin certainly wouldn’t want that to happen. He and Russia would have been far better with Hillary at the helm. She would have continued Obama’s track of “defanging” our military.

For the 2020 election, would Putin build a platform under Bernie Sanders? That seems more likely than a platform for Trump for the same reasons as that 2016 picture we just looked at — not because Bernie would do Russia any good but because Trump who is so tough on Russia would be unable to do anything further to hurt Russia.

Conclusion: other than the same social media ad campaigns by Russia in 2016’s election, Russia’s not helping Bernie OR Donald in 2020!

Facts

With both conspiracy theories in the American marketplace at the same time, what is happening regarding election interference by Russia? Russia doesn’t care. They want confusion in the electorate that causes distrust in the U.S. election system. Think about it: if the Russians can cause Americans to no longer trust the fidelity of the election system, Americans will always question if who in the White House was truly elected.

“Trust in Leadership” is something Putin never experienced from the Russian people. He knows how tough it is to govern with that cloud of doubt always overhead. He licks his chops to think of the chaos in our Republic that Americans just thought we controlled. Anytime we think there’s cheating in a U.S. election, Russia wins.

The bottom-line in all this is we don’t know if any nation is after our election process other than for typical reasons that have existed for decades. Nor do we know who is doing it if it’s happening.

There’s only one unanswered question in this puzzle: Why then would these stories be leaked in 2016 and 2020 if there’s no real opportunity for anyone to hack our election system?

Answer: someone DOES stand to win, and win big, no matter who wins or who loses the 2020 presidential election: The U.S. Mainstream Media!

The “Chaos” Culprits

Who needs chaos in elections as much as the Media? Look at what happened before, during, and since the 2016 election of Donald Trump. The Lamestream Media have had a field day in the news. Hardly a day goes by in which they are not lambasting President Trump or someone in his administration. There is a “Trump story of the day.” And those stories are always negative.

What could be better for the Media than to have the ability to sow seeds of contempt to drive a wedge of political divisiveness between conservatives and liberals? That gives mediocre networks and newspapers fuel for stories that might return to them whatever glory in reporting they had before Obama came to D.C. THEY HAVE NO CREDIBILITY!

We previously revealed the private news website operated by a group of major liberal news journalists that can be accessed by only other journalists. They have coordinated news stories. An everyday leaked tidbit of Russia news each day locks-in readers, listeners, and viewers. With that comes ratings that consistently surpass any they had in the past.

What’s their objective? MONEY! But not only money — control of what people think about the U.S. political system. 

That may be the most critical result of all. Think about it: if the Media can convince a majority of the population something that is NOT true IS true, it makes it easier to sell to that public that something is evil. Those conspiracy thoughts grow. And with that growing audience comes the windfalls of larger audiences along with money, respect, and power over Americans.

“Information begats Power.”

Hitler knew that, Stalin knew that, Mussolini knew that, Mao knew that, Democrats KNOW that, and Vladimir Putin certainly KNOWS that.

I’ll end with this: do you know who in the United States (besides media moguls) knows that? Donald Trump. And he knows how to use it to his benefit.

Am I the only one to ever consider this scenario as “the” obvious explanation for why U.S. intelligence specialists would, in the same week, report to the President that Russia was tampering with the 2020 election for HIS benefit and then tell Bernie Sanders the Russians were tampering on HIS behalf?

Puzzle it through: it certainly makes 2+2=4, in this case, a plausible conclusion!

 

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February 19 Democrat Debate Bullet Points

February 23, 2020

Wednesday February 20 saw the remaining Democrats running for President who qualified to debate in Las Vegas for the final Dem debate of 2020. It was a raucus affair that at time was laughable, at times contentious, but from start to finish put the impossible policy promises of the Democrat Party on full display.

It was billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s first debate in the 2020 campaign. And if I had to pick a loser of the night, it was “Mini Mike” as President Trump has tagged him.

Let’s take a look at the leading confrontations between candidates on the night. My use of the word “confrontation” is actually an insult to the word. A “verbal slugfest” is far more appropriate. They went nuts on each other!

Buttigieg vs. Klobuchar

Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who finished second and third in the New Hampshire primary, respectively, sparred throughout the night. Klobuchar was asked by moderator Vanessa Hauc how she planned to protect the DREAMers, and she responded that her plan was “to beat Donald Trump.”

Buttigieg countered, saying that Klobuchar needed to own her votes, and said that she voted to confirm the head of the Trump administration’s Customs and Border Protection who was one of the architects of the family separation policy, and that she voted to make English the national language. He then argued he had expertise fighting for immigrants as mayor of South Bend, and ended his answer in Spanish. Klobuchar fired back, “I’m sorry not everyone can be so perfect as you. Let me tell you what it’s like in the arena.”

She said that she has opposed two-thirds of Trump’s nominated judges and said the official she confirmed was supported by another Democrat in the room and was “highly recommended by the Obama Administration.” She added she did not support “one bit” of those “draconian” policies and would repeal them in her first 100 days. She also added that she worked on multiple immigration reform bills in the Senate.“You’ve not been in the arena doing that work, you’ve memorized talking points,” she said to Buttigieg. He responded that he has plenty of experience even though he’s never worked in Washington, and added that he’s used to “senators telling mayors that they don’t matter.”

Sanders defends himself on socialism

When asked about a recent NBC News/Wall Street poll showing that two-thirds of all voters were uncomfortable with a socialist candidate, Sanders responded by asking “what was the result of that poll,” pointing out that it also showed him in the lead.

Sanders said that America already is a socialist society, but that it’s only for the very rich and the poor are forced to deal with “rugged individualism.”“I believe in Democratic socialism for working people not billionaires,” Sanders said.

Bloomberg pushed back, saying Sanders is the “best known socialist” in the country, but also is a millionaire with three houses. Bloomberg did say that taxes should be raised on the rich and that he did that when he was mayor. Biden weighed in and said work needs to be rewarded and not just wealth. He said that the tax rate should be 28% for corporate America and added that the middle class is getting killed and the poor have no way of moving up.

Buttigieg was also asked about his previous praise of Sanders, and if he was now out of touch with other Millennials who accept Sanders’ version of socialism. Buttigieg said that he respects Sanders but was critical of the Vermont senator’s proposed healthcare plan that he said would raise taxes of anyone making over $29,000. Sanders countered saying that people will not have to pay premiums, deductibles or co-pays.

Bloomberg faces attacks over harassment allegations and NDAs

Michael Bloomberg was asked about how multiple former employees have said his company is a hostile workplace for women and the former mayor himself has admitted to making sexually explicit remarks. “Should Democrats expect better from the nominee?” he was asked by moderator Hallie Jackson.

Bloomberg has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace. The Washington Post reported, citing witness interviews and court appearances, multiple instances of offensive and sexists comments made by Bloomberg toward women in the workplace. Bloomberg denied the majority of the allegations, which go back decades, in depositions cited by the Post.

When asked, about these allegations during the debate, Bloomberg responded that he “has no tolerance for the kind of behavior that the #MeToo movement has exposed” and highlighted the fact that his foundation is run by a woman and he has a long career of employing women.

Warren swiftly jumped on the report. “I hope you heard what his defense was,” she said. “I’ve been nice to some women.” The Massachusetts senator then mentioned the fact that multiple former Bloomberg employees have signed Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) after working for him, a tactic used by many powerful men who were exposed during the #MeToo movement. Then Warren asked Bloomberg if he would release those employees from their NDAs, and allow them to speak freely about their experiences if they wish too. Bloomberg responded that he had a “few” NDAs that didn’t accuse him of doing anything, except perhaps “disliking a joke [he] told.” Warren repeatedly asked Bloomberg how many NDAs there were, and he didn’t respond. She pressed him once again to release those women from their NDAs tonight, and he responded that those NDAs were an agreement made between two parties that wanted to keep the issue quiet, so he would keep it quiet.

Warren responded that it’s rather a situation of women being “muzzled” by the NDAs, and said the issue was not just an issue of Bloomberg’s “character” but is also an issue of electability. “We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many NDAs and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women who say they have been harassed,” she said.

Biden jumped in, and supported Warren by demanding Bloomberg release the women from their NDAs. He said it’s actually not an issue of women wanting the issue to remain private, but rather being paid by Bloomberg’s attorney to sign the NDA.

Bloomberg responded that he’s not going to “end the agreements because they were made consensually and they have every right to expect they will stay private.” “If they want to release it, then they should be able to release it,” Biden fired back.

Bloomberg responds to questions on “stop-and-frisk”

When asked about the 2015 audio that resurfaced of Bloomberg saying most murder suspects in New York fit the same M.O. “male minorities, 16 to 25,” Bloomberg during the debate continued to apologize for the way the controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy “turned out.”

He said that his goal was to lower the murder rate, and that since there were 650 murders a year, he wanted to make sure people had the right to live. Bloomberg said he thought stop-and-frisk would help curtail the killings.

“It got out control, and when we discovered, I discovered, that we were doing many, many, too many stop and frisks, we cut 95% of it,” Bloomberg said. He added that the crime rate did go down, but that they could not go out and stop people indiscriminately. Biden said that the reason stop-and-frisks slowed down was because then-President Barack Obama sent moderators there that said the practice must stop and that at the time, Bloomberg didn’t agree.

But in fact, the practice was scaled back after a federal judge in 2013 ruled stop-and-frisk violated the constitution, calling it “a form of racial profiling.” The NYPD in turn mandated that police officers have a justified reason to make a stop.

On stage, Bloomberg responded and said that he has apologized and that criminal justice as a whole needs to be fixed. “If we took everybody off this panel that was wrong about criminal justice at some time in their careers there would be nobody else up here,” Bloomberg said.

Warren noted that Bloomberg has only apologized for how stop-and-frisk “turned out” and not what it was designed to do in the first place.

“It targeted black and brown men from the beginning,” Warren said of the policy that disproportionately affected Black and Latino men. “The apology has to start with the intent of the plan as it was put together.”

Buttigieg and Sanders spar on electability

The former South Bend, IN mayor and New Hampshire senator were neck-and-neck in the first two primaries, and at the debate, they were quick to make the case that the other would be the wrong candidate for the Democratic Party. Buttigieg argued that many Americans don’t see themselves fitting into the party of Bloomberg or Sanders, and cautioned against polarizing the party in either the progressive or moderate direction, presenting himself as the alternative.

”Let’s put forward somebody who actually lives and works in a middle class neighborhood,” he said. “Let’s put forward somebody who is actually a Democrat,” he added, a clear jab at Sanders who was registered as an Independent until he ran in the 2016 primary.

Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg Have Heated Exchange Over the Working Class

“We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down, and another candidate who wants to buy this party out,” he said, situating himself as the option in between Sanders and Bloomberg.

Sanders responded that he speaks to the “pain” of the “neglected working class,” arguing that Buttigieg “got the wrong word” when the former mayor called him “polarizing.”

Sanders said he aims to give a voice to people who are tired of growing economic inequality, and said “maybe it’s time for the working class of this country to have some power in this country, rather than your billionaire campaign.” Buttigieg accepts donations from billionaires, while Sanders does not.

The two went back and forth about who cared more about the working class, and Buttigieg brought up Sanders’ current tension with Nevada’s Culinary Union. The union has said it received threatening messages from Sanders supporters after announcing its opposition to Medicare for All.

Health care gets more debate time

Like clockwork, the crucial Democratic issue of healthcare came up early on in the debate.

Sen. Sanders was asked by Chuck Todd, “There are some Democrats that like you a lot but worry that this plan, Medicare for All goes too far and takes away private insurance. Are they right?”

“No,” Sanders predictably responded. “For 100 years, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama, this country has been talking about the need to guarantee healthcare for all people.”

He argued that despite spending twice as much as any other major country on Earth, millions remain uninsured. Sanders then addressed the Nevada’s Culinary Workers Union, that has openly opposed Medicare for All. “I will never sign a bill that will reduce the healthcare benefits they have. We will only expand it for them, for every union in America, and for the working class of this country.”

Warren then attacked Buttigieg, saying his plan would leave millions unable to afford their healthcare. “It’s not a plan, it’s PowerPoint.” She then turned to Klobuchar, saying that her health care plan is only “two paragraphs” and likened it to a “Post-it.”

Buttigeg and Klobuchar were swift to defend their plans. Buttigieg said his plan would insure all Americans without kicking them off their insurances, and then hit back against Sanders: “This idea that the union members don’t know what’s good for them is the exact kind of condescension and arrogance that makes people skeptical of the policies we’ve been putting forward.” Klobuchar argued that her public option would reduce premiums for 12 million people and expand coverage for a similar number. “It is a significant thing. It is what Barack Obama wanted to do from the very beginning,” she said.

Biden, who famously helped Obama whip votes for Obamacare in Congress, argued that he was “the only one who got anything done on healthcare.” When discussing healthcare, Warren returned to her message that she’s the candidate who “has a plan for that.” First, the Massachusetts senator criticized Buttigieg’s healthcare plan, arguing it only puts caps on premiums leaving the rest of a healthcare cost up to the American family.

Bloomberg then turned to the issue of healthcare, and said that he supported Obamacare back when he was mayor of New York City, but felt it did not go far enough. He added that “the first thing we need to do is get back the White House.” Biden pushed back against Bloomberg’s characterization of his position, pointing out the fact that in 2010 he called Obama a “disgrace” that would do “absolutely nothing to fix the big healthcare problems.”

Candidates go at Bloomberg early

Candidates wasted no time going at Bloomberg over his policies as Mayor of New York City and allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace.

In his opening remarks, Sanders criticized Bloomberg for the impact the controversial policy widely known as “stop-and frisk” had on the Black and Latino community. Bloomberg responded by saying that there is no chance that Sanders can beat President Donald Trump in a general election.

“I don’t think there’s any chance whatsoever that Sanders can win, and if he goes and is the candidate, we will have Donald Trump for another four years and we can’t stand that,” Bloomberg said.

Warren was equally critical and said Bloomberg is a “billionaire who calls women broads and horse-face lesbians.” She said Democrats will not win if a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, harassing women and supporting racist policies.

“I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is but understand this, Democrats takes a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another,” Warren said.

Klobuchar said she welcomed Bloomberg to the stage because she didn’t want him to hide behind his ads and was critical of the memo from his campaign that said certain candidates should get out of his way.

Bloomberg defended himself and said that he is not only the best candidate to beat Trump but would also be best equipped to run the country given his experience as Mayor of New York.

Summary

The bottom line to the final all-Democrat debate is who was the winner: President Donald Trump. All that Democrats have accomplished in each of their debates is to expose how incapable is the Democrat Party to give its candidates winning policies to sell to the American people. On top of that, we have a slate of candidates whose unified winning methodology is to denigrate as much as possible everything this administration has accomplished, extolling the personal evils of President Trump, and promising voters trillions of dollars of NEW social programs that are impossible to even implement. If we 100% of every dollar of American income to pay for these social programs Democrats want, there would not only not be money to pay all those, but there would not be enough money remaining to tread water in the pool of the government’s current obligations to just stay even.

It won’t work!

I’ve never before seen such a messed up political party on the brink of a presidential election who has no real plan that can possibly get anyone elected — except the candidate of the OTHER party! The best this party has to offer Americans is a pure socialist that who likes communism, a small-town mayor with virtually no experience running anything, a 30-year career former Senator and two-term Vice President who has only ever “carried the suitcase” for others in Washington. Add to that a woman who has spent her life pretending to be someone else determining who she was in her past based on which group she’s speaking to, a New York billionaire who apparently doesn’t like average Americans, other billionaires, and really doesn’t think much of himself. Then there’s Klobuchar. She actually is the best example of a “Moderate” this party has. But she can never win.

That’s it: there are no more to put in front of us.

No wonder multiple Democrats have stated again and again that unless they can impeach Donald Trump there’s no way they can beat him in the 2020 election.

Bingo! At least there’s one Democrat that gets it.

Dems in Vegas With a Gargantuan Twist!

February 19, 2020

No doubt Michael Bloomberg throwing his hat in the Democrat Party nomination ring has shaken the field of president “wannabes.” The most impactful result of his entry is dollars: Bloomberg as of February 18, 2020, has already spent $417 million of his own money campaigning. Almost all of that has taken the form of television ads. If U.S. voters had anger for the “first” billionaire to run for the White House, they certainly will have grounds for anger for the second such billionaire.

The Marist Poll the morning of the 18th showed Bloomberg has zoomed into second place among the Democrat presidential candidates behind only Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). And he’s done that without being on a single primary ballot so far nor has he participated in a party debate. His position in the poll can only be explained by television ads.

That might change soon: Bloomberg with that poll earned a spot on the Democrat debate stage in Las Vegas. I’m certain he is looking forward to the opportunity to rip into his counterparts. But he should be cautious. Those same election foes will certainly go after the former mayor of New York City for a bevy of inappropriate actions he took as mayor and things he has said that were sexist and racist in interviews. We’ll just see how they treat him and how he responds.

As we see the number of Democrats in the race dwindle through campaign exits, it’s about time for us to take a look at the “unified” Democrat Party list of their policy proposals. Before we do that, let me say that what you are about to see and hear are those things that various candidates have promised to Americans if he or she takes up White House occupancy.

The number of them will startle you: 70. But what will shock you into reality is the projected dollar value they will cost the American taxpayers.

Here’s the list. (You might want something close because you’ll certainly become nauseated)

1. Payment of reparations for slavery

2. A new wealth tax of 3% per year on assets

3. Late-term abortion – up to the moment of birth

4. Restoration of voting rights for released felons

5. Another Impeachment of President Trump

6. Raising the top personal income tax rate to 70% (from the present 37%)

7. Refusal to repudiate anti-Semitism by Democrat members of Congress

8. Free college tuition for all

9. Medicare for all (Note: It’s not really Medicare; it’s Medicaid.)

10. Raising the corporate tax rate to 35% (from the present 21%)

11. Abolition of the Electoral College

12. Amnesty for illegal aliens

13. No gun rights for released felons

14. Capping interest rates on all credit cards

15. Packing the Supreme Court by adding up to four new justices

16. Federal jobs guarantee to everyone

17. A minimum wage of $15 per hour

18. Infanticide: “Make the baby comfortable while deciding whether to kill it.”

19. Impeachment of Justice Kavanaugh

20. Voting rights for felons still incarcerated (including Boston terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev)

21. Citizenship (voting rights) for illegal aliens

22. Voting for 16-year olds

23. Green New Deal including no air travel or cows and one car per family

24. Abolish ICE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

25. Deep cuts to defense spending

26. Abolishing senate filibusters

27. Single-payer government health care for all

28. Federal licensing and control of all large corporations

29. Strict new gun control measures including confiscations

30. Federalizing all voter registration

31. Abolishing or changing the method of representation in the U.S. Senate

32. Ending all private health insurance and health insurance companies

33. Reinstituting the Iran nuclear deal

34. Statehood for DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam: 8 new senators; 14 new electoral votes

35. Tearing down existing walls on our southwest border with Mexico

36. Raising the estate tax rate to 77% (from the present 40%)

37. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord

38. Raising the payroll tax by 2.4 points – equivalent to 15%

39. Means-testing Social Security

40. Taxing capital gains as ordinary income

41. Removing all caps from the payroll tax

42. Taxing unrealized capital gains each year

43. Jailing corporate executives for regulatory violations

44. A cash distribution of $1,000 per month to everyone

45. Forgiveness of all student loan debt – $1.5 trillion

46. Federal payment to teachers of $315 billion over 10 years

47. Outlawing all state right-to-work laws

48. Increase fuel economy standards for all cars

49. Halt all energy leases on federal land

50. Spending $5 trillion (unspecified) to control emissions

51. Opposition to nuclear energy

52. Creation of new Americorps – to plant trees on marginal land

53. Prohibiting the private practice of medicine (Medicare for America bill)

54. Federal licensing of all firearms – must be renewed every 5 years

55. Abolition of payday loans – by mandating ultra-low interest rates

56. Have the USPS (postal service) make low-interest loans to consumers

57. The imposition of a VAT – a value-added tax on the entire U.S. economy

58. Added 7% corporate tax on reported income higher than taxable income

59. Free government-provided health care for all illegal aliens

60. Legalization of recreational marijuana throughout the United States

61. Require companies to obtain equal pay certificate from the US EEOC

62. Dictate national paid leave policy for the entire private sector

63. Mandate federal preclearance for states to pass any new abortion laws

64. Federal taxpayer funding of abortions: the repeal of the “Hyde Amendment”

65. Breakup Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon

66. New exit tax of 40% of assets for any American giving up citizenship

67. The federal government pays all rent for anyone in excess of 30% of income

68. Abolishing all private prison management companies

69. Free child care, pre-school, college and 100% student loan forgiveness

70. New promises are being added each and every week; it is hard to keep up.

What Will All The “Big Three” Above Cost Taxpayers?

Medicare For All:

$32.6 Trillion over 10 years. (From Vermont’s libertarian Policy Center) According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia, doubling federal individual and corporate income tax receipts would not cover the full cost.

The Green New Deal:

The Green New Deal may tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years, concludes American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from 2003 to 2005.

That includes between $8.3 trillion and $12.3 trillion to meet the plan’s call to eliminate carbon emissions from the power and transportation sectors and between $42.8 trillion and $80.6 trillion for its economic agenda including providing jobs and health care for all. (click the link for more details)

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5731829/Ocasio-Cortez-Green-New-Deal-Resolution.pdf

Forgive Student Debt (Federal Only):

Cost $1.6 Trillion Dollars owed by 45 million Americans

PLUS: Free College Tuition will cost $47 billion annually for Federal Government and $23 Billion/year for States

How to pay for it?

The current proposal, which costs $2.2 trillion over 10 years, will be fully paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation similar to what exists in dozens of countries around the world,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. 

The “College for all Plan” outlined a “Robin Hood Tax” that would impose a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% fee on bonds and a 0.005% fee on derivatives.

Bloomberg Brings What to the Table?

The three-time New York City mayor, (he changed the NYC term limit law so he could serve the third term) is reportedly in the top-10 of the wealthiest Americans. He owns Bloomberg Network, a financial news cable network that has been around for a long time. His largess comes from the network, his financial company, and personal investments. By any measure, he’s a wealthy guy.

Bloomberg is best known for his personal controversy. As mayor, he assumed control of the controversial “Stop and Frisk” law in the city that allowed police to stop any person based solely on suspicion and search them based only on their suspicions as well.

The minority communities went crazy! They questioned the practice that had been implemented during the Giuliani Administration. Under Giuliani, there were specific requirements of the police before stopping a person that Bloomberg in his administration ignored. The New York police before Bloomberg annually-averaged 100,000 “Stop and Frisks.” Under Bloomberg’s 12-years as Mayor in which his policy was to authorize police to stop and frisking with no requirement of a “just cause” to do so that existed under Giuliani, that annual number went to 600,000 “Stop and Frisks. The policy was extremely divisive throughout Manhattan at best, viewed as racist at worst.

But that was not the Bloomberg “lightning rod” for which New Yorkers best remember him. He passed a regulation on the size of fountain drinks that could be sold in the Big Apple. That, of course, made national and international headlines.

I remember when that happened and thought, “If customers want a Big Gulp that holds 40 ounces of drink, why don’t they just buy two 20-ounce drinks?”

Regarding other Bloomberg ideas that will soon burst into the 2020 primary discussions, they are extremely leftist and are just shy of being purely socialist. We’ll spare you now, because when “Mini-Mike” hits today’s debate stage in Las Vegas, that old pop song “The Heat is On,” will divulge Bloomberg’s “current” status on issues along with numerous cataloged videos of his past that will show us all his “former” statuses on those same issues.

Summary

The “Mini-Mike” reference for Mr. Bloomberg mentioned above is NOT original: President Trump labeled Bloomberg with that moniker.

I think the Democrat Party field is about to take a big hit: no one has the financial staying-power to take-on the “other” New York billionaire. It’s probably going to come down to Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg.

Each of those has plenty of baggage for President Trump to go after — all sorts of low-hanging fruit. But remember: there’s a Democrat Party Convention between the primaries and November 3. There will only be one Democrat in the field after Milwaukee’s convention.

Do you know what will be the final straw to determine which Dem will face the President? Hillary Clinton! She’s praying for a “brokered” convention.

What does “brokered convention mean?

A brokered convention can occur during a presidential election when a political party fails to choose a nominee on the first round of delegate voting at the party’s nominating convention. Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has a majority of the delegates’ votes, the convention is then considered brokered.

After that, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse-trading— delegate vote trading—and additional re-votes. In this circumstance, all regular delegates are “released” and are able to switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that this extra privilege extended to the delegates will result in a re-vote yielding a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

The Hillary camp prays that if, for instance, neither Bernie or Mike on the first ballot receives enough votes to claim a victory. Every delegate would then be released from their primary or caucus vote obligation. Hillary Clinton would then allow herself to be nominated. Her hope would be that enough of the delegates that were previously committed to Bernie or Mike would switch to vote for her in sufficient numbers to give her the Democrat Party nomination to run again for President.

“If” that scenario should happen, and “if” Hillary were able to pull an upset victory to take on Donald Trump for a second time, I will be torn. I’d find myself in something of a conundrum: part of me would love to see Hillary struggle to present substance sufficient for Americans to vote for her instead of President Trump. As proficient with language as she is would not be sufficient, in my opinion.

The other part of me would be disappointed. I’d like to see just once two New York billionaires going one-on-one with a pending knock out in the wind.

If Americans think Donald Trump is a bit caustic in his speech now, wait until Bloomberg who has a similar background turns-on HIS caustic speech. “Mini-Mike” in that scenario may find himself on his back on the debate stage with a 6-3 Queens billionaire on his chest!

I’ve thought it over: I’d hate to see a grown man knock-out a woman on national television. It should be “Donald v. Mike” in the ring!

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Socialism is Coming: Better Hide!

February 12, 2020

In 1936, when Franklin Roosevelt sought reelection to the presidency, some of his critics labeled him a “socialist.” The charge was so bombastic that FDR’s White House moved quickly to rebut it, labeling it an accusation “which no patriotic, honorable, decent citizen would purposefully inject into American affairs.”

That was then. Today, in America, for the first time in nearly a century, socialism is not a dirty word, or a nasty label, for many people. On the contrary. President Obama, with a minimum of controversy, reopened relations with the socialist regime in Cuba, demanding almost no concessions in exchange for becoming the first U.S. president in 88 years to visit the island. On the eve of the president’s arrival, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that Cuba — together with China — was committed to the “irreversibility of socialism.”

Meanwhile, the overwhelming and improbable support among America’s youth for the 78-year-old Bernie Sanders — a self-described democratic socialist who once proudly defended communist dictatorships across the world — is the latest example of historical illiteracy that treats socialism as a benign economic system that is more equitable and fair than capitalism. A Pew poll shows a staggering 69 percent of voters under 30 expressing a willingness to vote for a socialist for president of the United States. Look at his lead in Democrat Party polls as the 2020 primary season ramps up.  A more recent YouGov survey found that voters under 30 actually have a higher opinion of socialism than they do of capitalism.

“For older people, socialism is associated with communism and the Soviet Union and the Cold War,” says Michelle Diggles, a senior policy analyst at Third Way, a liberal D.C. think tank. “The oldest millennials were 8 years old when the Berlin Wall fell. They have never known a world where the Soviet Union exists. … The connotations associated with the word ‘socialism’ just don’t exist with millennials.”

Watching the false hope of socialism be resurrected in the midst of the ignorance of basic 20th-century history is particularly threatening. Young people today are really not taught about “all” of World history — just the portions today’s socialist teachers and professors care to discuss as “relevant” and “appropriate” for America’s young learners. All teachers nor all professors are socialists. But it’s tough to find a high school in a U.S. major city or a university today in which a majority of teachers and professors do not support Socialism.

Today, 20 percent of the world’s population continues to live under communist regimes, in China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and North Korea. These countries are some of the worst violators of human rights in history. China operates its own “gulag” system of labor camps for political prisoners. Cuba’s leaders routinely throw their opponents in prison, despite Raúl Castro’s misleading comments at his news conference with Obama during Obama’s visit. There remain more than 50 political prisoners in Cuba, which the new President still denies.

Father of Communism: Karl Marx

Maybe we should have seen this loss of historical memory coming nearly 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps we should have heard the alarm bells of a 2011 Newsweek survey that reported 73 percent of Americans “couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War” in response to a question taken from the official test for U.S. citizenship. Ignorance of socialism and America’s decadeslong struggle against it has become the norm, and the data suggest this norm will only harden as a generation of Americans pass away and national memory fades.

For a generation with no memory of bomb shelter drills or sledgehammers smashing the Berlin Wall to pieces, the sad reality of life under socialist rule has been forgotten, and the lessons of the Cold War have been relegated to the “ash heap of history” alongside communism. Instead, the concept of socialism has often been confused with liberalism. Socialism seems like a fine idea that means a more socially equitable society for everyone—free health care and free education for starters. Socialism conjures the image of a place like Sweden and Denmark, which contrary to popular belief, are not socialist systems at all. In fact, the Danish Prime Minster responded to claims by Senator Bernie Sanders that the Scandinavian countries were socialist by saying: “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”

Socialism is not roads, welfare, and free education. Socialism has always had a more ominous goal and shares close historical and ideological connections with more reviled terms: Marxism and communism. Karl Marx took socialism to what he viewed as its natural conclusion: The “abolition of private property.” It’s horrifying to those of us who remember the slide from Socialism into Communism by those countries in Eastern Europe. Soviet Russia during the cold war killed untold numbers of its own citizens as part of its former socialist then Communist hard-nose governing.

As we face the 2020 election and Democrats are scrambling on the campaign trail to chase the elusive Democrat nomination to run against President Trump, the elusive pipe dream of the utopia of Socialism is the “promise of the day.” All but two of the Democrat candidates have left the door open to running in the general election as a “democratic socialist” candidate — whatever that means. And they all promise Medicare for all, free college, the Green New Deal, and other socialist ideas that are as practical and real as are the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. It’s bad enough that these candidates — who are almost all in the federal government already — are actually promoting this “totalitarian lite” economic system to Americans. But millions of Millenials actually believe the government can underwrite $100 Trillion + of “extra” money to underwrite the socialist Manifesto! They sell it as “equality, fairness, and America’s wealth spread equally rather than being held by 5% of the nation’s population.”

Class warfare is a long-running theme in socialism, even in this country. American socialist (and failed presidential candidate) Eugene Debs promised a world where “no man will work to make a profit for another.” Even earlier, French socialist Jean Jaurès lamented: “All this misery, all this injustice, and disorder, results from the fact that one class monopolizes the means of production and of life, and imposes its laws on another class and on society as a whole.” Jaurés said that to equalize things, “to break down the supremacy of one class,” the ultimate “aim of socialism, whether collectivist or communist, is to transform the capitalist property into social property.”

The process of transforming “capitalist property”— that is, something legitimately purchased, inherited or otherwise earned — into “social property” for everyone is when socialism becomes dramatically scary. This promise of redistribution always involves winners and losers picked by the government. What if one has acquired the property by purchase or inheritance and does not wish it to become “social property?” Well, then the government might have to step in and take it.

The loss of private property — which guarantees one’s independent livelihood — will result in the abolishment of one’s ability to exercise free speech. What if the owner of some capitalist property taken by the government dares to protest its seizure? That sort of dissent must be stifled to maintain order, so free speech is replaced by government-sanctioned propaganda. Unpopular opinions are shamed, and those expressing them are barred from discussions or seminars, columns or talk shows — even colleges and universities.

How do we know? Because we’ve seen it happen time and again. One hundred + years ago, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia showed the danger of combining socialist ideas with totalitarian violence, which created modern totalitarian communism. It was Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin who expressed a sort of unifying theory, finally installing Marx’s goals. “In striving for socialism,” Lenin said in 1917, “we are convinced it will develop into communism.” The result in more than 40 national experiments since then has been either totalitarian dictatorship or economic collapse, costing some 100 million lives before the communist experiment collapsed in Europe and the Soviet Union.

To be sure, not everyone in these societies was a loser, which gets at one of the great paradoxes of all socialist systems: the extreme inequality that allows a cabal of party members to control the political and economic power in a country while ignoring an overwhelming majority of the citizens. Only socialist countries have achieved the distinction of launching rockets into outer space while millions of their citizens starve to death in famine. Now that’s inequality!

The Center for Global Policy at George Mason University has recorded an interesting historical development. Its Political Instability Task Force plotted a chart showing the percentage of countries in which mass killings were occurring from the end of World War II until the present day. For most of the second half of the 20th century, that percentage increased steadily. Then, in the early 1990s, a huge drop occurred, and in the last decade, we have seen the lowest percentage of countries on Earth with ongoing mass killings ever recorded. What happened in the early 1990s? The Cold War ended and millions were freed from behind communist walls and secret police holding cells. This was also when our millennial generation was born.

There is a very wide generation gap in today’s socialist comeback. Nate Silver points out that while polling shows a plurality of voters under 30 supporting socialism, that figure drops to a mere 15 percent among those over 65. The reason for this is not difficult to see. It reflects a difference in personal experience.

Millennials either missed the Cold War entirely or were young children in its final years, with little or no concept of the triumph of liberty achieved with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). They do not understand the menace that socialism — combined with power — posed to the people it enslaved and to the free nations that it threatened. The violence and brutality of the communist regimes of the past mean nothing to Millenials, just lines in the history book somewhere between the Spanish-American War and 9/11.

It’s more personal for older Americans. Perhaps some of their friends or neighbors — or they themselves — arrived in this country just ahead of Soviet tanks that were rolling into their homeland. Perhaps they remember the stories of citizens of these supposed utopian socialist prison states arrested, “disappeared,” tortured, or shot simply for trying to cross a border. Perhaps they remembered cowering under their school desks during drills in case of a nuclear attack, planned in communist Russia and launched from communist Cuba.

This is the context young American voters should know as they prepare to cast their vote this year — many of them for the first time. We should all remember the power of words and ideologies, and how debunked ideas can flourish again as memories of their failure fade. We cannot forget the lessons of history. All of us, but especially the youngest among us who will have to live in that world for the longest, should make this election about the future by rejecting the ugly, violent legacy of socialism’s past.

And we Moms and Dads — and Grandparents too — should make certain our kids and grandkids KNOW the differences between capitalism, socialism, and communism, and not just the good of each. Take some time and visit with them giving examples of each, both pluses and minuses.

Millennials may be torn a hundred different ways with distractions of unimaginable kinds to us, but we cannot afford for their children to live through a generation of more lies and mischaracterizations of capitalism, socialism, and communism. Not knowing something doesn’t make somebody stupid. No knowing something for certain and NOT getting the truth about it means somebody is stupid.

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