Month: June 2021

Joe Biden Restores NATO And G-7 Nations’ Faith On Reliability Of America, After Donald Trump Disaster!

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President Joe Biden is committed to restoring the NATO alliance and the confidence of the G-7 Nations as he has meetings and events for the next week, culminating in the summit with Vladimir Putin of Russia in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday June 16.

Biden has known Putin for a long time, and is willing to confront him, and make certain that Putin understands his resolve to do everything to undermine Putin’s determination to restore the old Soviet Union and restrict human rights in Russia and threaten Eastern Europe.

Tough talk will help, but there is no way to know if NATO, the G 7 and Joe Biden can work against the authoritarian nature of Putin with any possibility of success. The kowtowing of Donald Trump to Putin in his four years in the White House was very destructive on relations between the US and Russia.

In many ways, Putin could be more dangerous and threatening, than any Soviet leader after Joseph Stalin, including Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev in particular!

“Reconciliation” May Be Only Way To Gain Any Biden Agenda, But It Is Limited Tactic With Senate Realities

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“Reconciliation”, a tactic permitted by the Senate parliamentarian, to allow some bills to pass if 51 votes are gained, has led to the passage of the COVID 19 relief legislation in March, and it may be that it will be utilized to gain the passage of the Infrastructure bill, which has been unable to gain Republican support over the past two months of negotiation.

This Congress is the 4th time we have had an evenly divided US Senate, after the 47th Congress (1881-1883); the 83rd Congress (1953-1955); and the 107th Congress (2001-2003).

The tactic can be used only sparingly, but whether it can be employed for a multitude of other Joe Biden initiatives, including on voting rights, criminal justice reform, and health care and education advancements is doubtful.

There is the possibility, sadly, that Joe Biden may be stopped in making massive changes, similar to what Barack Obama faced in 2011-2017, and that is so infuriating!

And the danger that the party in the White House almost always loses seats and or control in the midterm elections, presents a real challenge to Democrats in 2022, when with two thirds of the Senate seats up for election in that year being Republican held seats, and at least five incumbent Republicans not running for reelection.

Joe Biden’s First Foreign Trip To NATO And Summit Meeting With Vladimir Putin: A Major Challenge

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President Joe Biden will be traveling overseas for the next week and a half, visiting the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including restoring relations to the way they were before the Presidency of Donald Trump, with all of our European Democratic allies.

Also, he will visit Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and most importantly, he will have a face to face summit meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, June 16, a most important moment in the relationship with our adversary.

Russia is testing us in many ways, and it will be important for Biden to reassert our leadership, as compared to Donald Trump’s willingness to give in to Putin, as he did early on in his Presidency.

Biden has made clear that while he needs to deal with Putin, he is not going to flatter or bend to his will or threats. Instead, he will challenge Putin on Russian cyber hackers who have been engaged in ransomware attacks on US companies that are increasing rapidly. He will also challenge him on many other issues, as Biden fully realizes that Putin is a “killer”, and that the democracies represented in NATO will stand up against Russian autocracy!

Let all decent people wish Joe Biden good fortune in this next ten days!

The Joe Manchin Problem

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West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is a real problem for the Democrats in the US Senate.

While he is a Democrat, and has supported all actions so far by President Joe Biden in legislative votes, he has now made it clear that he will NOT work to end or modify the Senate filibuster. This despite great disappointment that ten Republican Senators could not be found to support the creation of the January 6 Commission.

Manchin is a conservative who, if he was to retire or lose support of his voters, he would be most likely replaced by a Republican, so this creates an impossible situation in a 50-50 Senate.

This mess creates great problems for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and could do great damage to the Joe Biden agenda, in a way similar to what Barack Obama faced after the first two years of his Presidency.

The ability to have a voting rights law to overcome the actions by many Republican legislatures to limit voting rights for racial minorities will be hampered, as well as a serious infrastructure legislation, gun control legislation, immigration reform, and so much else.

“Reconciliation”, which would not require 60 votes, might be possible, but is based on some bipartisan support, which is far from guaranteed.

Mike Pence: A Weak Sycophant To Donald Trump, With No Political Future, And A Disgraceful Reputation!

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Former Vice President Mike Pence was directly threatened with being lynched on January 6, at the time of the US Capitol Insurrection, and President Donald Trump did not have any contact with him for the next five days.

Pence came very close to being lynched on a noose set up by the insurrectionists, and yet, Pence can only say five months later that he and Trump disagree, and might never come to any agreement about the events of that day.

This shows how weak kneed and sycophantic Pence is to Trump, rather than being outraged and demanding Trump apologize, and be held accountable, as seventeen Republicans made clear in the second impeachment trial, and 42 Republicans made clear in supporting the establishment of a January 6 Commission.

Mike Pence has no political future, and a disgraceful reputation, but is emasculated by Donald Trump, an outrage for which Pence needs to be condemned by all decent people!

The Assassination Of Robert F. Kennedy 53 Years Ago Transformed The Future Of America!

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The world changed on June 5, 1968, 53 years ago, when Democratic Presidential contender, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, was assassinated in Los Angeles.

This author has written about that tragic event in his 2015 book, 2017 in paperback—ASSASSINATIONS, THREATS, AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: FROM ANDREW JACKSON TO BARACK OBAMA (Rowman Littlefield Publishers).

While there was no certainty that RFK would have been the Democratic Party nominee in 1968, or that he would have been able to defeat Richard Nixon, many observers believe his death was a turning point that transformed the future of America!

RFK had been able to put together a coalition of working class whites, as well as African Americans and Hispanic Americans, and he was inspiring many young people to engage in the campaign, including those opposed to the war in Vietnam under Lyndon B. Johnson.

While no winner of the Presidency could, in reality, be expected to accomplish all the goals that had been set, there was great optimism and hope that RFK would have been a transformative President.

Instead, the right wing of the Republican Party won out under Richard Nixon, who appealed also to many George Wallace supporters, and Hubert Humphrey, despite his wonderful record of commitment, was lost in the anti war movement opposition to LBJ.

The next fifty years would be dominated by conservatives who wanted to push the nation backward, and the battle for Democrats has been to overcome their impact, and the battle is presently engaged under Joe Biden, at a very difficult time with Donald Trump promoting the “Big Lie”, that he won the election.

So America is in crisis, and Biden, having the same birthday as RFK, but 17 years later birth, is trying to bring about what RFK was promoting a half century ago!

The Record Of Donald Trump

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Donald Trump has “many” accomplishments that no other President has had over the long haul of American history.

He is the first President not to serve a second term in the past 28 years, since George H. W. Bush, and only the 11th in history.

He is the first President since Herbert Hoover to lose the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the US Senate.

He is the first President to lose hundreds of thousands of Americans to a pandemic since Woodrow Wilson a century ago.

He is the first President to lose the popular vote twice since Benjamin Harrison in the Gilded Age, and by massive margins unlike Harrison.

He is the first President to boycott his successor’s inauguration since Andrew Johnson a century and a half ago.

He is the first President ever elected with the help and collaboration of a foreign government, the Russian Federation.

He is the first President ever to fail to gain a majority popular vote approval rating since polling began in the late 1930s.

He is the first President to be impeached twice in the same term of office.

He is the first President ever to have a member of their own party vote for conviction in an impeachment trial, in both trials.

He is the first President ever to refuse to concede defeat.

He is the first President ever to insure a peaceful transfer of power.

He is the first President ever to actively incite a terrorist attack against his own government.

He is the first President in the Social Media age to be banned by Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from posting, because he incites right wing domestic terrorism.

He is the first President who will be indicted and go to trial for criminal and civil violations in American history.

He is the President who will have more convictions of people engaged in corruption in his name, even more than Richard Nixon.

He is the first President who is mentally deranged and a danger to the Constitution and rule of law, and to the future of American democracy.

Democrats, Popular Vote, And Economic Performance Way Ahead Of Republicans

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Democrats have won the national popular in seven of the last eight Presidential elections, from 1992-2020, with exception of 2004.

Democrats have had more people vote for their candidates for Congress than Republicans in the past two decades.

Democrats have only presided in the White House for one of the past eleven economic downturns, a brief recession in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, with the other ten under Republican Presidents from Eisenhower to Trump, 1953-2021.

Under Democratic Presidents since 1961, the stock market, job growth, and economic performance have done much greater than Republican Presidents in the same period.

And yet, Democrats are at a political disadvantage, due to:

The Electoral College

Political Gerrymandering of House seats

Republicans working to undermine Democratic Presidents with the Senate Filibuster

This is why Democrats need to play “hardball”, and overcome the barriers of gerrymandering and filibusters, and move to make Washington DC and Puerto Rico the 51st and 52nd states. Also add members to the Supreme Court to overcome the political manipulation of Mitch McConnell, who helped to create a stacking of the high Court with the refusal to approve Merrick Garland in 2016, the rightful nominee of Barack Obama; and the “ram through” of Amy Coney Barrett in record time before the Presidential Election of 2020!

A Victory For The Environment: Biden Suspends Drilling Leases In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Oil and Gas Drilling in one of the largest tracts of undeveloped wilderness in the United States, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, has been suspended by President Joe Biden, a major victory for environmentalists and conservationists.

The nation is so fortunate to have a President who values nature and the environment, and cares about wildlife and climate change.

This is a complete reversal of the devastating environmental polices of Donald Trump, and the nation is blessed by having been able to reverse so much of the damage perpetrated by the worst environmental President in American history, much worse than Ronald Reagan, who was also horrible on the topic, but not to the extreme extent of the 45th President!

The Horrors Of A Potential Coup To Remove Joe Biden Really Exists In The Right Wing Conspiracy World!

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The horrors of a potential coup to remove President Joe Biden is not just a dream of right wing extremists, but to them, it is reality as part of their conspiracy theories.

The Secret Service is tasked with real threats to both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as there are people around Donald Trump, such as Sidney Powell, retired General Mike Flynn, and right wing talk show hosts who are promoting the idea that by sometime in the summer, with all of the illegal recounting of election results, totally unauthorized, Donald Trump will return to power.

Even Donald Trump is saying such now, an example of total delusion, but it is not to be laughed at, as too many Republicans nationally are hooked to the idea that Joe Biden is an illegitimate President.

We are not being told about threats to Biden and Harris, but clearly, this is a time of great concern and stress, and the need for the FBI and the Secret Service and the Justice Department to move forward to prevent such a coup, and another attack on the US Capitol!