Trump's Border Shutdown Threat

Explain why the US Government under Donald Trump would curtail aid to the  Central American governments which need economic help to assist citizens in need?

"The two senior staffers, appearing separately on Sunday morning talk shows, also reiterated the administration’s intention to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance — including programs designed to curb gang violence — to the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador."

What is the foreign policy logic?

If Trump & Company say that they don't want to support dictatorial rulers in some of those countries, though they want to help the citizens, one might develop an understanding.

However, to cut off funds willy-nilly makes no sense because that undermines the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which our nation and We the People are signatories.

The Trump actions, independent from Congressional oversight and under the rule of law will probably be determined by the court to be illegal as with over half of this President's executive orders.

The root cause of economic and political collapse that hurt citizens in Central America are from American corporations exploiting the people for cheap food and in the case of Guatemala, US Corporations in concert with the US government overthrew a democratically elected President for a dictator. Yes, it is America's fault in large part.

Simple-minded foreign policy actions by Trump is for his simple-minded followers. The results will be damage to our country in measurable terms in a very short time.

"Trump White House doubles down on threat to close U.S.-Mexico border
Politicians react to Trump's border threat and aid cut 

After President Trump threatened to close the southern border and cut aid to Central American countries, politicians gave their thoughts on the border fight. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) 

By Joel Achenbach ,
David J. Lynch and
Mary Beth Sheridan March 31 at 2:25 PM 

It would take “something dramatic” in the coming days to persuade President Trump not to close the U.S.-Mexico border, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the president’s threat “certainly isn’t a bluff.”" 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-white-house-doubles-down-on-threat-to-close-us-mexico-border/2019/03/31/bd2e070a-53c9-11e9-9136-f8e636f1f6df_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f3bff11bd126&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1

KFGO.com

Democrats Committing Political Suicide

If you read my book, How to Select an American President by James A. George and James A. Rodger (c) 2017 Archway Publishing, you will know immediately why I say the Democrats are committing political suicide. Stop being lazy and stupid.

First, if the Democrats post a superior candidate with the best resume and character, they would gain an advantage against Republicans. Second, if the Democrats settle in on a viable platform backed by a Presidential candidate with an aligned manifesto, they increase their chances more.

Trump is a deficient character and might even face impeachment, leaving the Republican Party exposed and ripe for defeat. The only thing missing for the Democrats is a winning candidate.

Review the list of possibilities.

Announced campaigns

Sen. Cory Booker
AGE: 49
STATE: New Jersey
KNOWN FOR: Booker, who boasts a Twitter following of more than 4 million people, gained national recognition during his tenure as Newark's mayor, at times answering pleas to shovel residents out after major snowstorms.

An African-American big-city East-coast mayor with excellent academic and professional credentials. Do your homework, he's a good candidate.

Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro
AGE: 44
STATE: Texas
KNOWN FOR: The son of a Chicana activist, Castro served as mayor of San Antonio in 2009, focusing on education initiatives. Castro is currently the only Latino in the 2020 field, but whether he will be the only Texan will depend on former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke's decision about making his own bid.

A Latino big city mayor from Texas with impeccable academic credentials and federal government experience. He's better than Booker and surely better than Beto.

Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney
AGE: 55
STATE: Maryland
KNOWN FOR: A self-made businessman, Delaney at one point was the youngest CEO on the New York Stock Exchange. Delaney has been running the longest -- he declared his candidacy in July 2017 -- but is still working to gain name recognition.

Qualified but wrong for now.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
AGE: 37
STATE: Hawaii
KNOWN FOR: Gabbard is the first American Samoan and the first Hindu member of Congress, and brings her experience as an Iraq War veteran to the House Armed Services Committee. But she will have to overcome obstacles both old and new, including recent internal campaign turmoil and her controversial secret meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017.

Unqualified.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
AGE: 52
STATE: New York
KNOWN FOR: Gillibrand campaigned as a child with her grandmother Dorthea Noonan, a longtime president of the Albany Democratic Women's Club. The New York Democrat called for former Sen. Al Franken to resign and has acknowledged her increasingly progressive stances on immigration and gun reform running counter to previous positions she held running for the House.

Gillibrand is a political blueblood from New York. Her credentials are impeccable. She should be on top but isn't.

Sen. Kamala Harris
AGE: 54
STATE: California
KNOWN FOR: Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants and grew up attending both a Baptist church and a Hindu temple. Her progressive stances supporting Medicare-for-all and marijuana legalization could clash with her law and order history as a former California state attorney general, including her previous support of reporting arrested undocumented juveniles to ICE.

Harris has much of what it takes, though lacks federal government bureaucracy management experience. Her maturity and character give her an edge.  She should be on the ticket.

Former Gov. John Hickenlooper
AGE: 67
STATE: Colorado
KNOWN FOR: As the head of Colorado from 2011 to 2019, Hickenlooper helped steer the state through several tragedies, including the 2012 shooting in a movie theater in Aurora that left 12 people dead and catastrophic wildfires and floods in 2013. Before his two terms as governor, he served as Denver's mayor for eight years, after opening a large brewpub there in 1988 that went on to help reinvigorate the LoDo area of Denver.

Nope.

Gov. Jay Inslee
AGE: 68
STATE: Washington
KNOWN FOR: Inslee, who has held elected office for much of the last three decades, has been an outspoken progressive executive since he became governor in 2013. He has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump, including suing the President after he tried to ban immigration from several Muslim-majority countries. Now, Inslee is running as the climate change candidate.

Washington Gov.: Not a moment for climate 'timidity' 13:55

Nope.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar
AGE: 58
STATE: Minnesota
KNOWN FOR: Klobuchar announced her run outdoors as it snowed, which she tied to her commitment to a "homegrown" campaign with "grit." The Minnesota moderate is looking to work across the aisle and win back fellow working class midwesterners.

Amy Klobuchar officially announces 2020 run 01:40

Klobuchar is a worthy candidate. Second string.

Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke
AGE: 46
STATE: Texas
KNOWN FOR: O'Rourke, a rising star in the Democratic Party, ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in 2018 while serving his third term in the House. With roots in El Paso, O'Rourke gained national attention during his Senate race when a video of him answering a question about NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem went viral. He made an off-the-cuff riff about the civil rights movement as he defended players for making their case "nonviolently, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching."

Unqualified noisemaker. If this is the best Dems can do, then they are finished.

Sen. Bernie Sanders
AGE: 77
STATE: Vermont
KNOWN FOR: Sanders' democratic socialist platform gained significant traction during the 2016 primaries when the independent senator who caucuses with Democrats ran against Hillary Clinton. His policy agenda includes various progressive proposals, many of which have been embraced by the Democratic Party, like expanding health care, broadening the social safety net and making higher education free.

Too old. Never qualified. He ruined Hillaries chances for slam dunk. He is not a Democrat.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren
AGE: 69
STATE: Massachusetts
KNOWN FOR: Warren was appointed as assistant to President Barack Obama and special adviser to the Treasury secretary in order to launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She was also appointed to a congressional oversight panel overseeing the $700 billion Trouble Assets Relief Program that was passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

She could be on a ticket but is better in the Senate.

Spiritual author Marianne Williamson
AGE: 66
STATE: Texas
KNOWN FOR: Williamson is best known for being a spiritual counselor to Oprah Winfrey and has written several best-selling books, including her debut "A Return to Love." She is calling for "a moral and spiritual awakening in the country" with her campaign.

Where's Oprah. If the Dems wanted a win, they should have recruited Oprah.

Businessman Andrew Yang
AGE: 44
STATE: New York
KNOWN FOR: Yang is an entrepreneur who launched Venture for America, a fellowship program that aims to connect recent grads with startups. He wants to give all Americans a universal basic income of $1,000 per month to address economic inequality.

Nope

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg
AGE: 37
STATE: Indiana
KNOWN FOR: Known locally in South Bend, Indiana, as "Mayor Pete," Buttigieg served as a naval officer in Afghanistan. Buttigieg, though a long shot, would be the youngest and first openly gay president if elected.

Nope

Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam
AGE: 44
STATE: Florida
KNOWN FOR: Messam launched an exploratory committee in mid-March 2019. The child of Jamaican immigrants, Messam is a first-generation American who holds progressive views on immigration, guns and the environment. He was part of a group that sued the state of Florida in 2018 over a law that restricted his ability to create municipal gun regulations after he wanted a new amphitheater in his city to be a "gun-free venue."

Nope

Former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams
Nope

Sen. Michael Bennet
Nope

Former Vice President Joe Biden
Too old and too late.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock
Nope

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
Nope

Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel
Nope

Former Secretary of State John Kerry
Would have been could have been.

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe
Nope

Rep. Seth Moulton
Nope

Rep. Tim Ryan
Nope

Rep. Eric Swalwell
Decided not to run, too bad.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (took himself out of consideration on March 7, 2019)
AGE: 66
STATE: Ohio
KNOWN FOR: A liberal populist, Brown won three terms in Ohio, a state that has been trending Republican in recent years. Brown would've offered Democrats a candidate who could reconnect with voters in the Midwest. Before deciding not to run, he had embarked on a "listening tour" that included stops in the four key early voting states in the 2020 primary.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (took himself out of consideration on March 5, 2019)

Sherrod and Harris is the winning ticket.

AGE: 77
STATE: New York
KNOWN FOR: Bloomberg hinted at a run for months before deciding against it. He had portrayed himself as a moderate against progressive projects such as Medicare-for-all but with extensive experience and campaign funds to put toward key Democratic issues such as climate change and gun control.
Nope

Former Attorney General Eric Holder (took himself out of consideration on March 4, 2019)
AGE: 68
STATE: New York
KNOWN FOR: Holder served as President Barack Obama's attorney general until 2015. Holder had told several Democrats -- and "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert -- that he was "interested" in pursuing the nomination, but ultimately he opted not to launch a campaign.

Nope

Sen. Jeff Merkley (took himself out of consideration on March 5, 2019)
AGE: 62
STATE: Oregon
KNOWN FOR: Merkley, the junior senator from Oregon, has focused on holding the Trump administration accountable on immigration policy, specifically family separations at the southern border. He opted in March to devote himself to his Senate re-election campaign over the next two years.
Dropped out

Former congressional candidate Richard Ojeda
AGE: 48
STATE: West Virginia (dropped out January 25, 2019)
KNOWN FOR: A former Army paratrooper, Ojeda served for 24 years, earning the rank of major and serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A 2016 Trump voter, he focused on school finance reform and issues facing the middle class before dropping out of the race in late January.
Nope

Viewers Like You

I received this email today from FOX.

It means the consolidation of media power into fewer hands. Will it mean any change for Fox News management and political policy and orientation? TBD.

"Hello,

As you may have heard, 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company have completed a corporate transaction. As a result, FOX News is now part of the newly formed Fox Corporation. For important updates about Profile following the recent corporate transaction, please review the information below or visit here.

Profile

FOX will continue to manage your Profile across certain FOX and Disney properties, during a period of transition, including, for example, FOX NOW and FXNOW. As before, once you create a Profile on any of those properties, you will not need to re-register your Profile. And, if you have an existing Profile, you can continue to use it across those properties while we transition.

Privacy Policy

The privacy policy that applies to the use of your personal information collected through FOX News and FOX Nation has been updated. Your privacy is important to us; to view the updated privacy policy for FOX News, please visit here, and for FOX Nation, please visit here.

Thank you,

The Fox News Team"

Via Email to James George

"Disney Closes $71.3 Billion Fox Deal, Creating Global Content Powerhouse
9:02 PM PDT 3/19/2019 by Georg Szalai , Paul Bond

Credit: The Walt Disney Company
Walt Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger and mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Wall Street and other experts have lauded the strategic benefits for Disney, but also highlighted the cost of launching a streaming service later this year, which will be a drag on earnings.
The Walt Disney Co. has closed its $71.3 billion acquisition of large parts of 21st Century Fox, expanding its global reach and content portfolio ahead of the planned launch of its own video streaming service.

With the mega-deal, Disney, led by chairman and CEO Bob Iger, is adding the Fox film and TV studio, the FX networks, National Geographic, Indian TV giant Star India and Fox's 30 percent stake in streaming service Hulu to its portfolio. The additional Hulu portion takes Disney's stake in the streamer to 60 percent (with Comcast owning 30 percent, and AT&T's Warner Media 10 percent).

Using fiscal-year 2017 data, Disney said in a regulatory filing that the new assets could quickly add about $19.3 billion in annual revenue and $1.6 billion in net income. In that fiscal year, Disney reported $55.1 billion in revenue and $9.4 billion in net income.

Disney has promised $2 billion in cost savings from the Fox takeover, with some in the industry expecting between 4,000-10,000 layoffs."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-closes-fox-deal-creating-global-content-powerhouse-1174498

Censor Donald Trump

Does Donald Trump speak for you? The answer is that a President speaks for the nation, like it or not.

Trump's inflammatory and inappropriate remarks are shots fired around the world, heard and hurt by everyone.

He is a misogynist, racist, bigot, a white supremacist nationalist groping the American flag, like it or not.

His disdain for democratic pluralism and the rule of law is unconscionable
and unConstitutional much of the time.

The process of investigating and proceeding in the justice system is slow and deliberate.

To this citizen, the elected representatives of both parties are incompetent in dealing with a tyrannical and corrupt President.

The question remains, how citizens can force their government to impeach and censor the man who has wrecked the nation with chaos?

Deplorable

Technologarchy

Technologarchy is a powerful construct of technology corporations and their intellectual property that generates vast wealth for capitalist owners while introducing products, services, and infrastructure that have immense control over people. Ironically, many technology products and services empower individuals. However, personal dependence on them and their providers undermine individual freedom and authority in the aggregate.

For instance, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook are notable entities.

Who are their masters? Corporations are the masters, and the entrepreneur founders often retain control.

"Bill Gates founded Microsoft and helped make it one of the most profitable companies in the world. He has since stepped aside from the day-to-day running to focus on his philanthropic work." 

Steve Jobs founded Apple but after his death, "Arthur Levinson is the chairman of the board of Apple, the current CEO of Calico, and the single-largest individual shareholder with 1.1 million shares as of Aug. 3, 2018."

"Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin (Russian: Серге́й Миха́йлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur. Together with Larry Page, he co-founded Google. Brin is the president of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc."

"Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his Harvard dorm room and has become one of the most famous businessmen in the world. 

The founder and "face" of Facebook indirectly holds around 11.92 million Class A Facebook shares through a series of funds, according to the company's SEC filing on August 30, 2018. Zuckerberg also owns a whopping 392.71 million Class B shares per the company's April 13, 2018 proxy statement. Control over nearly 78.9% of the Class B shares gives Zuckerberg 53.3% voting rights in the company. On July 25, 2018, Zuckerberg sold 240,000 shares of Facebook common stock. The stocks sold at an average price of $216.71, for a total transaction of just over $52 million."

However, computer and communications companies aren't the only technologarchs. Included in my definition and vision are all of the Aerospace and Defense Contractors and all of the "Big Oil" corporations as more instances.

In the aggregate, they are our masters.

Image: techeu

Unsaid

It is a little late to welcome people to the twenty-first century since we're nearly twenty years into it, except there a new arrivals every day.

'Newbies' are crying and crawling their way into a time of great division between educated persons and those who are not, between self-sustainable individuals and communities and those that are not.

Many twenty-first century people have become more educated and intelligent as a result. Talk of the 'digital divide' began at the end of the last century. That is when society began to separate further between being information literate and those who are not.

As computer technology and its application became more mainstream among developed cultures, information science became more of a requirement and necessity than an option.

Not being able to use a computer and communications technology is akin to being illiterate, meaning unable to read and write. It means being obsolete and a burden to society except for providing manual and menial labor.

While technology enabled people to advance, the rest fall behind and without assistance, they become 'failed human beings.'

Failed human beings are those who are unsustainable or without self-sustainment. Among them are people who live within access to support resources if and when the governing class decides to help them.

Others are those who are stranded in locations that are resource-deficient and therefore, unsustainable. Exacerbating that is population size, where the sheer numbers make matters worse. Add to that deficient and uncaring governance and there are mass casualties, calamity, and chaos.

The planet is approaching eight billion inhabitants in which only forty percent are categorized as belonging to fee-states. Even so, nation-states such as the US teeter between being a democracy and an oligarchy. Freedom and liberty are fragile and scarce qualities.

The information age in which I was born a newbie saw the first computers, and I was among the first to have computer technology-generated work. I traveled the world sharing what I learned and wrote papers and books about it.


Information equals data facts and their meaning.

Knowledge equals information and application in context.

Wisdom is gained from practical application and success.


Around each of those ideas is a science to explain and manage it.

I live in a nation where the government is intended to be a pluralistic democratic republic in which is representative of the citizens through a system of hierarchical authority beginning with local communities that are enveloped by state governments, and the federal government with districts.

The Constitution that embodies laws and regulations encourages separation between religion and government whereby it signed onto the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That declaration protects all human inhabitants and their inalienable rights even if they live without government protection. It also protects against persecution for individual beliefs that include religious faiths.

However, all religions tend to espouse superiority by their 'god's.' Therein lies a conflict.

The truth is that religions and governments are human inventions. Religions include elaborate mythology and stories to help people understand and embrace the rules of governance that apply to their follower and constituents.

As populations advanced in acquiring knowledge including science, the fabrications of humans found in religious documentation became less believable as facts and more being folklore and metaphoric, suggesting a likeness or analogy. The Bibles, old and new testaments include storytelling that is unsubstantiated by science.

The collision between religious beliefs and modern science and government segregates populations along the lines of education, science, and technology. The clash of faiths among people is senseless, useless, and harmful waste of human intellect that undermines the quest for global security, peace, and harmony.

Today, there is a debate about the effect of humanity on the climate and environment. Those educated in science and technology see the damage and the trend and want to mitigate it. Those who are not, seek to cover up the problem and to decry accountability.

Modern humanity sees the necessity to balance economic, social and environmental responsibilities with the application of knowledge, wisdom, and enabling technology. Lost are the souls who are ill-equipped and unwilling to gain sufficient knowledge and literacy.

Kevin McCarthy on Donald Trump, Betraying the Nation

Joan Walsh, The Nation’s national affairs correspondent, published a story today titled, "Kevin McCarthy Is Inventing Reasons Not to Investigate Trump." She said, "After ceaselessly probing Clinton and Obama non-scandals, the House majority leader has changed his tune."

I want to emphasize the significance of McCarthy's position. He was on ABC News Sunday morning with George Stephanopoulos in which his theme was that Democrats are operating investigations that erode the presumption of innocence.

Here is where we are precise. Many Americans and Democrats witness a host of lies and indications by Donald Trump that points to either his being guilty or requiring investigations. I made a list that began two years ago. Had the Republican-led House Oversight Committee done its job, we Americans would have answered many allegations definitively. Instead, Chairman Nunes and other Republicans didn't embrace their "oversight responsibility" and became advocates for the President instead. That is precisely what Donald Trump wanted his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions to do, compromise his objectivity and become the President's defender.

Those circumstances are dead wrong by Constitutional standard and the rule of law. The President derides the Legislative and Judicial branches of the government and the rule of law making him a target for investigations.

Today, Kevin McCarthy underscored that he is an accessory in the obstruction of justice by failing to embrace his duty and obligation to investigate the President.

The Republican Party in following Donald Trump has set the organization up for decertification as a political party. As a corporate entity, the party has a fiduciary responsibility for vetting candidates and policing the incumbent. Failing to do so, or becoming the President's advocate where the role is to provide oversight undermines the party and its duty.

"Poor, dumb Kevin McCarthy. He would have been House Speaker in 2015, except that, like so many political bumblers, he repeatedly got caught saying the quiet part of his posse’s evil strategery out loud. First, he boasted that thanks to the GOP’s endless and pointless Benghazi investigations, Hillary Clinton’s poll “numbers are dropping” and her campaign for president was stumbling. Mission accomplished! But it sounded pretty bad, even for a Republican. 

In another moment of adorable candor, McCarthy told Speaker Paul Ryan and pals in 2016 that he suspected the Russians were actually paying Donald Trump and Representative Dana Rohrabacher, “swear to God”; Ryan hushed him and insisted that such musings stay in the “family,” but someone in the family leaked the comments. 

Suddenly there was intriguing evidence that the GOP leadership knew about Russian meddling in US politics—which was “listened to and verified by The Washington Post” in 2017, according to the paper—but wouldn’t acknowledge it to the rest of the country.
That was just a passing story, though; the media seemed to find it distasteful that members of the House GOP “family” were betrayed by a leaker, and the shocking revelation dropped out of rotation when it came to Trump-Russia political news. In the end, it all turned out fine for McCarthy: Paul Ryan wound up with the thankless job of Speaker under Trump; the Bakersfield Republican got to be majority leader. Now Ryan’s leaving, with his legacy in ruins, and McCarthy’s been nominated to succeed him. 

Although, now that Democrats have taken the House, he’s likely to stay minority leader—and that’s probably A-OK with McCarthy. He doesn’t really want to be responsible for trying to pass the GOP’s unpopular political agenda, against the backdrop of nonstop Trump scandals, anyway. Would you? 

But now that he’s in the minority, McCarthy has changed his tune on two major issues: on the congressional mandate to investigate wrongdoing in high government places—you know, like Benghazi—and on the problem of Russian interference in American politics. The new House Democratic leadership “is going to focus on…more investigations,” McCarthy warned Fox News on Sunday. “I think America is too great a nation to have such a small agenda.” (I guess America wasn’t great back when McCarthy and friends wasted months on Benghazi.) He dismissed the notion that Michael Cohen’s payments to Trump’s paramours, an apparent campaign-finance violation at minimum, mattered at all. “To go forward and say there’s an impeachable offense because of a campaign finance problem, there’s a lot of members in Congress who would have to leave for that.” (Good to know.) 

And the man who once worried that Trump and Rohrabacher were being paid by Russia downplayed reports that up to 16 members of Trump’s campaign team interacted with Russians, spinning ludicrously, “If you’re in an international city, people interact with a lot of individuals.” (That one McCarthy didn’t sound like even he believed.) 

McCarthy is particularly shameless, but he is, sadly, not alone. Former GOP elder statesman turned grumpy partisan Orrin Hatch, the Utah senator, dismissed the last week of awful legal news for Trump by claiming “Democrats will do anything to hurt this president.” Informed that the Cohen collusion charges were coming from the Southern District of New York, run by a Trump appointee, Hatch snarled at CNN’s Manu Raju, “Okay, but I don’t care; all I can say is he’s doing a good job as president.” 

This is likely to be the default of most Republicans, from transactional partisan lightweights like McCarthy to purported former statesmen like Hatch. What do Democrats do in response? I think they can duck the media’s push to make them immediately commit to impeachment—which the media would then trash as partisan and impossible—the way incoming House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler chair did on Sunday: by committing to thoroughgoing investigations and to following them where they lead. Nadler acknowledged the problem of bringing impeachment charges when Republicans are stonewalling, but here’s the way he laid out the challenge so far:
We have to find out exactly what was going on. We have to look at these crimes, and what did the president know and when did he know about these crimes? You have to look at the Russian interference with the campaign, and what did the president know about that, and to what extent did he cooperate with that, if he did? 

We have to look at his business dealings and his lying about that. We have to look at the fact that he surrounded himself with crooks. His campaign manager, his deputy campaign manager, his national security adviser, all of them, and a host, a bunch of other people, they all were meeting with the Russians. They all expressed interest in meeting again. 

None of them reported it to the proper authorities. They have all been indicted for one crime or another. The president created his own swamp and brought it to the White House. These are all very serious things. 

And we have to get to the bottom of this, find out what all the facts are, we and the special counsel, and then make decisions. 

Meanwhile, Democrats must not cave to growing media and GOP insistence that House impeachment moves must be bipartisan. Given the statements of McCarthy and Hatch in the wake of all of the wrongdoing exposed last week, that would be letting Republicans hold them hostage. Even Jennifer Rubin, a former conservative who now mostly sides with Democrats, now argues that impeachment “must be a truly bipartisan action.” But given the corruption of her former party, it may never be one (which Rubin acknowledges, making her most recent column one of her most disappointing since circa 2012). The self-important James Comey insists Democrats should avoid impeachment and allow Trump to be rejected by a decisive majority of voters in 2020 (which might have occurred in the last election without Comey’s unfortunate anti-Clinton intervention in October 2016). 

In fact, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive; an impeachment indictment in the House, even if rejected by the Senate, could nonetheless lay the groundwork for the American people to have the facts at hand to overwhelmingly reject Trump at the polls in 2020. 

But Democrats have to take their responsibility to investigate—and if necessary, to impeach—very seriously, even if Republicans continue to shame themselves by defending Trump. The largest voter cohort since World War II turned out in last month’s midterms. The 8 million more Democrats among them did not do so to allow their party to be held hostage by corrupt Republicans like McCarthy and Hatch. That’s been their game for the last 20 years, at least. 

“The GOP is born anew each morning,” the blogger Digby joked darkly on Monday. The Democratic class of 2019 must have a much, much longer view. 

https://www.thenation.com/article/kevin-mccarthy-donald-trump-gop-congress/

Image: The Nation

Pondering Pelosi

"We're either a 'team' or we're not," admonished Nancy Pelosi, speaking to fellow Democrats. She was talking about the necessity for her party to adopt a common approach to pursuing the party platform in legislation.

Republicans will use tactics to undermine continuity in the pursuit by waving "candy" to attract special interests that suck some into compromising their integrity that is deviating from Democratic values.

The trouble is that the Democrats have failed to formally reconcile the desires of the House of Representatives majority to produce a revised Democratic Platform for all of the constituents at home to comprehend.

Otherwise, Speaker Pelosi must legislate on the fly, dragging people along, where she and the leaders embrace a body of wisdom, some of which may be obsolete.

That is the point of my new book that I want so much for you to read for free. I will email A President's Manifesto by James A. George (c) 2019 All Rights Reserved. The book explains political party platforms and presidential candidate manifestos in copious detail.

Email requests: jimgeorgeauthorarchway@gmail.com