Month: March 2021

Presidential Nomination Contest Should Have Representative States In Each Section In First Month Of Primaries

It seems likely that the whole process of nomination of Presidential candidates based on primaries will undergo dramatic change in 2024 and after.

It is time to stop Iowa and New Hampshire from having the first contests, as neither state is at all representative of the nation, as both are primarily white, rural, and small in population.

Diversity is needed, and the larger states in population should have a greater impact than smaller states in timing of primaries.

And caucuses, now in very few states, need to be abandoned completely.

Regional primaries makes the most sense, with the five major regions rotating in order of timing, but other states in each region given the opportunity to join the representative states if they choose, or else have their later primaries after the first five weeks of the primary season.

So we would have the Atlantic Coast be represented by Pennsylvania; the South represented by Florida; the Midwest represented by Wisconsin; the Mountain and Plains area represented by Colorado; and the Pacific Coast represented by Washington State in the first five weeks, with other states in each region able to add on if they wish, or else come after the first five weeks of primaries, starting in Mid March of the Presidential election year.

Florida Has Three Potential Competitors For The Republican Presidential Nomination In 2024!

The “Sunshine” state, Florida, the third largest state in population, has become a notoriously corrupt and incompetent state under Republican leadership when it comes to dealing with the issues that face 22.2 million people, 19 percent of whom are senior citizens.

The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has handled the COVID 19 Pandemic in a terrible fashion, and follows Donald Trump as if he is his son, and some polls show him as the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2024, if Donald Trump does not run. The thought of DeSantis running for President is a literal nightmare, and it is hoped that either Congressman and former Florida Governor Charlie Crist or State Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried could give him a good run for Governor in 2022, and knock him out of office, and end his dreams of the Presidency!

Meanwhile, Florida’s two US Senators—former Governor Rick Scott, and Marco Rubio—both have their eye on the White House as well as DeSantis, so we could see all three state wide Floridians competing against each other for President in 2024!

Trying to assess which of these three contenders is the least horrible is tough, but probably Rubio is the least damaging, as he has not been Governor of the state, as DeSantis and Scott has been, and both have been horrendous in that office!

Time For Washington DC To Become 51st State!

It is long overdue for Washington, DC to become the 51st state, as was attempted by amendment from 1978 to 1985, but falling short by only having 16 states, 22 short of the number needed for ratification.

Now it can be done by vote of Congress, as has happened for every other state, and the only reason it did not occur in the 1978-1985 period was pure racism, because a majority of the federal district are African American citizens, which is a disgraceful excuse, and time to overcome!

If Washington, DC were to become the 51st state, it would likely have two Democratic Senators and one Democratic Congressman, which is why the Republican Party, which was founded on opposition to slavery, but has now become a racist, white supremacist party, opposes it, but also did decades ago for the same reason!

The District of Columbia would be 49th in population; First by Gross Domestic Product per Capita; First by Median Household Income; 34th by Total Domestic Product, and the first new state since Alaska and Hawaii were added to the Union as the 49th and 50th states in January and August 1959.

Both Alaska and Hawaii had much of their population being “minorities”, and it is time to overcome racial issues, and accept that residents in Washington, DC deserve statehood.

The residents are first in educational attainment with nearly 60 percent having a bachelor’s degree; and 34 percent having an advanced degree.

It has the greatest population density, nine times more than New Jersey, which is second, and 11,000 times more dense than Alaska, which has a density of one person per square mile!

And 46 percent of DC residents are white, and more whites have moved into DC in recent decades. And finally, DC residents pay more taxes than 19 states, so they deserve representation!

Biden First Press Conference A Complete Contrast To Donald Trump Attacks And Rants!

President Joe Biden held his first formal Press Conference on Thursday, and it was a home run.

The President showed knowledge, expertise, empathy, confidence, and respect for the news media, totally opposite of Donald Trump who held no press conferences most of the time, and when he did, he showed his authoritarian, Fascist leanings by dividing the nation and attacking the news media as the enemy.

Biden had an air of optimism about the future, and his public opinion ratings are in the low 60s to high 50s, a range of support NEVER reached by Donald Trump!

Biden is ambitious, and hoping to accomplish change on the level of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, and this will require a modification of the present Senate rules, that allow a filibuster without any speaking commitment by those who wish to wage one.

There is a need for direct action on the Southern Border migration, climate change, infrastructure, gun regulation, minimum wage, and voting rights, and Biden is moving toward bold action on these issues, at a time when we have a nearly equally divided House of Representatives, and an evenly divided US Senate, and the future of this nation is at stake.

But the first Biden Press Conference demonstrated that Joe Biden is up to the task, that he has mental agility as compared to the irrational lunacy much of the time during the Trump Presidency!

Donald Trump (Alternative Reality) Defends Rioters in January 6 Capitol Insurrection As No Threat, And “Hugging And Kissing”!

Donald Trump, the former “Insurrectionist in Chief” and would be “Dictator in Chief” is trying to change history, when he said this week that the rioters in the January 6 Capitol Insurrection, which caused the death of Brian Sicknick, two other Capitol officers committing suicide, and more than one hundred injuries to other Capitol Officers, was a “zero threat”, and that his supporters were “hugging and kissing”!

The desecration at the US Capitol is also overlooked by a man who clearly is the most dangerous person to American democracy, and now faces legal actions on many fronts. Trump also had nothing to say about the threat to former Vice President Mike Pence, who the rioters were chanting that he should be hanged, and a noose was present outside the US Capitol!

Trump is poisoning the Republican Party, and his loyal followers still represent a threat in the coming years, and one can sadly expect other violence and destruction being perpetrated by his Fascist supporters, who are white supremacists, racists, nativists, antisemites, and a threat to civil order as domestic terrorists!

Donald Trump needs to be held accountable in a court of law for his massive crimes against women; his promotion of violence and bloodshed among his crazy followers; and his economic crimes!

Georgia And The Outrageous “Jim Crow” Voting Limitations Against African Americans

The state of Georgia once had a forward looking, decent Governor named Jimmy Carter, a half century ago.

The state of Georgia has, at present, two decent US Senators in Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.

But it also has a corrupt, racist Republican state government, which has now passed outrageous “Jim Crow” voting limitations against African Americans, and without shame.

And as the legislation was signed, a Democratic legislator was arrested for simply knocking on the door of the office in which corrupt Governor Brian Kemp was in process of signing the legislation, which includes making it a crime for anyone to offer food or water to anyone waiting online, often for hours in hot weather, or simply elderly and needing food or water, as they wait to cast their vote in the elections.

This new legislation allows the state government to ignore election results, and declare the losers the winners of the election.

This is unadulterated racism, white supremacy, and Fascism, and will be appealed, and MUST be rejected and declared unconstitutional!

No decent person would support such a restriction on voting in a democracy, and it makes it more urgent that the Democratic Congress pass H.R 1 and H.R. 4, to guarantee voting rights to all Americans and flexibility in voting regulations!

The Dozen “Best” Democratic Senators In The 117th Congress in 2021

Yesterday, the issue of the dozen worst Republican Senators was discussed, so today, let’s look at who this author and blogger thinks are the dozen best Democratic Senators out of the 50 in the 117th Congress.

They are listed in alphabetical order by state:

Chris Murphy of Connecticut

Mazie Hirono of Hawaii

Tammy Duckworth of Illinois

Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

Ed Markey of Massachusetts

Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

Cory Booker of New Jersey

Chuck Schumer of New York

Sherrod Brown of Ohio

Ron Wyden of Oregon

Jeff Merkley of Oregon

Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

The Worst Of The Worst: the Dozen Most Disgraceful, Reprehensible Republican Senators In 2021

The Republicans in the US Senate are overall the worst scoundrels in Republican Party history, with this present group mostly lacking in courage and principles, and have shown willingness to follow Donald Trump and his promotion of Fascist authoritarianism!

Following is a list of the double worst Republican Senators out of the 50 presently serving in that body, in state alphabetical order:

Tom Cotton of Arkansas

Rick Scott of Florida

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

Rand Paul of Kentucky

John Kennedy of Louisiana

Josh Hawley of Missouri

James Inhofe of Oklahoma

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee

Ted Cruz of Texas

Mike Lee of Utah

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin

Gun Massacres Keep On Raising Death Count, And Senate Does Nothing!

America is in the midst of another Gun Massacre Crisis, and the death count is rising, and the US Senate does nothing!

The US Senate has become the burial grounds of any hope to protect Americans from gun violence, and it has twice happened in the last week, in Atlanta, Georgia and Boulder, Colorado.

But it has also happened in the Sandy Hook Massacre of 2012 in Connecticut; in the Parkland, Florida Massacre in 2018; in the Charleston Church Massacre in South Carolina in 2015; in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Synagogue Massacre in 2018; the Orlando, Florida gay nightclub shooting in 2016; and the list goes on and on and on!

Only America has this level of gun violence, and no ability to pass ANY legislation to regulate sales or prevent combat weapons from being sold, which is only designed to cause mass loss of life by crazed gunmen!

This is exasperating, and somehow, there has to be an epiphany, so that America is not the only nation that allows mass killing of their own citizens!

Joe Biden Planning Massive Support For Middle Class And Working Class At Expense Of Wealthy: Long Overdue!

President Joe Biden is planning a massive commitment of support for the struggling middle and working class, which have been overlooked much too often by Republican Presidents since Ronald Reagan.

Massive tax cuts under Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have made the wealthy ever more obscenely wealthy, and it is time for them to show “patriotism” and give back some of their massive increase in wealth, which would actually have very little effect on their “bottom line”, as taking some wealth will not prevent the gaining of new wealth, as the rich never end up in financial difficulties.

But they owe their success to unfair advantages over the past 40 years, and it is time for paying up for the massive infusion of wealth by paying a small percentage of their wealth to support equity and fairness to the heart of the economy—-the middle and working class Americans who have done without much or any improvement in their economic status since 1981!

The sudden massive increase in wealth by the super wealthy in the past year of COVID 19 makes clear the need for taxing these multi billionaires, and it should not be opposed by any of them who have a decent bone in their bodies, and if they do not, tough, and time for paying up!