University Of Michigan

Democrats In Michigan Reject Party Establishment, Nominate Abdul El-Sayed For Senate Race!

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Democratic Party voters, by a narrow margin of about 15,000 votes, have rejected the “Party Establishment” which backed Congresswoman Haley Stevens, and have nominated progressive leftist Abdul El-Sayed for the Senate nomination, against Republican nominee, former Congressman Mike Rogers, for the election in November, which will decide who will replace retiring Senator Gary Peters.

On first thought, it might be believed that the result is disturbing, but when one goes beyond the political propaganda, it is clear that while El-Sayed is critical of Israel’s war in Gaza against the Palestinians, he is NOT antisemitic OR anti the right of Israel to exist, but believes that the Palestinians also have the right to exist, and that the war in Gaza and the West Bank, which has led to 75,000 deaths, mostly women and children, needs to end.

One can be pro Israel, but not pro anything that nation and its leadership does, just as is the same with the United States and its leadership.

The battle to retain the Michigan Senate seat for the Democrats, and for them to gain the four seats from Republicans that are needed to gain control of the US Senate, is an urgent one.

Already, Donald Trump is calling El-Sayed a “Communist”, utilizing the old idea of the Red Scare promoted by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin in the 1950s, and this despicable tactic must be vigorously opposed by every decent person in Michigan, and nationally.

Ironically, Trump consorts all the time with “Communists”, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, wishing to be a tyrant and dictator as they are for sure.

El-Sayed is a very impressive and acomplished person, attending and graduating with high honors from the University of Michigan, and giving the commencement address. He had two years of medical school at the University of Michigan, followed by a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England, and then an MD degree from Columbia University, and went into public health epidemiology work, rather than pursue a medical license. He became a public health professor at Columbia University, and then, Health Director of Detroit, and then, of Wayne County, Michigan.

El-Sayed was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Chris Van Hollen, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, outgoing Senator Gary Peters, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and other establishment Democrats backed Haley Stevens in a losing, although, close margin campaign.

El-Sayed is an accomplished dynamic speaker and podcaster, and would be the first Muslim US Senator, although there are and have been a few Muslim members of the House of Representatives. To date, there have been five Muslim members of the lower house, with one, Keith Ellison from 2007-2019, who has been Attorney General of Minnesota since 2019.

50 Years Ago Today, “Great Society” Speech Of Lyndon B. Johnson!

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A half century ago, on this date, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a commencement address at the University of Michigan, on the six month anniversary of his becoming President, due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Instead of just stating that he would finish the work of John F. Kennedy that had been left undone, LBJ enunciated the greatest series of domestic reform goals ever formulated, more than the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt thirty years earlier, particularly in the “Second New Deal” legislation of 1935-1936.

What followed in 1965-1966 was the most productive Congress in American history, the 89th Congress, with the FDR 74th Congress the second most productive ever in American history.

We saw the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, the War on Poverty, education legislation, consumer legislation, environmental legislation, immigration reform, and so much else that advanced the American domestic agenda!

While we celebrate that 50th anniversary, one must realize that we have taken many steps backward, and no worse than the present 113th Congress, the absolute worst ever in American history in taking care of the nation’s domestic agenda.

And this comes just four years after the end of the 111th Congress under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the most productive since the 89th Congress, during the first two years in office of Barack Obama.

The nation has been poorly served, and we have backtracked on so much that had been done under FDR and LBJ!

This is a tragedy, the extent of which we will not fully realize for many years, and it is a moment to commiserate and to mourn what mean spirit and lack of compassion can do to undermine the “American Dream.” Government activism has been rejected for a harsh, individualistic, libertarian mentality that favors leaving those less fortunate to the “wolves”.

The Future Presidential Library Of Barack Obama: Chicago Or Hawaii? A Solution!

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With only two years down in the Obama Presidency, the debate is beginning as to where the future Obama Presidential Library should be located.

The alternatives are Honolulu, Hawaii, where Obama was born and lived in his early childhood years, or Chicago, where he he has spent the majority of his adult life, met his wife, married, had his two daughters, taught for 12 years as a adjunct law professor at the University of Chicago, and pursued his political career, and still has a home.

It is clearcut which location should be the choice, and that is Chicago by a massive margin!

Chicago is also in the middle of the country, and would be a major boon to scholars and tourists who will wish, in the future, to honor and commemorate the 44th President of the United States.

Hawaii may be the choice of Obama for vacations with his children, and his boyhood home may be there, but it is so out of the way that very few tourists or scholars would prefer it as the primary location for an Obama Presidential Library.

But a compromise to please everyone could be adopted, which would be to have the major Presidential Library in Chicago, and to have an Obama Museum and Birthplace in Hawaii.

This would be the similar compromise reached for the Gerald Ford Presidency, with his Library being at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where attended college, and the Gerald Ford Museum being in Grand Rapids, where he lived most of his life and represented the area in the United States House of Representatives.

That way, tourists who travel to Hawaii could visit the Obama Museum, but many more tourists, as well as scholars, would have the opportunity to be educated by the Obama Library in the Chicago area!

No decision will be made until a few more years pass, but the discussion and debate over the issue has unofficially begun, and the proposed solution of the author seems to be the best solution!