A National Emergency
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| Trump Loves to Sign Things |
A recent posting on this blog suggested that the need for declaring a national emergency was not on our Southern border, but instead in the area of reducing gun violence. I note that on the anniversary of the Parkland murders, House Speaker Pelosi said the same thing. Even Ann Coulter, from the far right and for different reasons, has chimed in saying “the only emergency is our idiot President.”
Well, our White House occupant is indeed declaring a national emergency on that border, a declaration which is certain to be challenged in courts and in the Congress. The Judicial and Legislative branches of our government will draw the line and slap down this sleazy and ignorant real estate peddler/deal maker who sits at the head of the Executive branch who daily flaunts the Constitution.
The only deal he should be making now would be
with Robert Mueller. But that won’t happen because no one trusts him
anymore to live up to anything he says, even Ann Coulter. Soon
enough, America will be saying “good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Jack Lippman
Democratic Horn of Plenty
In
picking candidates to run for President and Vice President in 2020, Democrats
must accept certain realities. In my
opinion, they are:
1. For a “West Coaster” to be on the ticket,
he or she must come from a Governor’s chair.
Being in the Senate or House is not enough. Because the West Coast is usually secure
territory for Democrats, geographic appeal is not a plus but strong executive
experience is. Following this same logic,
for a Texan to be on the ticket, they similarly should offer executive
experience in a Governor’s chair. Being in Congress is not enough. Hence, I do not see Kamala Harris, Beto
O’Rourke or Julian Castro being on the ticket.
2. There will have to be a woman on the
ticket and there will have to be a man on the ticket.
3. One of the two candidates on the ticket MUST come from the Midwest, because doing well there is a priority for Democrats. That candidate can be either a man or a
woman, so the other candidate must be of the opposite sex. Right now, there are three possible
candidates from the Midwest, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Amy Kolbuchar and
South Bend Mayor Peter Buttigieg.
4. The other slot on the ticket would have to
come from the East Coast. There are many seeking to be on the ticket. These include Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren,
Cory Booker, Kristen Gillibrand, Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg, the last three
of whom have not yet declared their candidacy.
Based
on the above realities, here are some of the possible ticket combinations. If Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders or Booker is the
Presidential nominee, Amy Kolbuchar will be their running mate. If Warren or Gillibrand is the Presidential nominee,
Brown will be their running mate. If
Brown is the Presidential nominee, Warren or Gillibrand will be his running
mate. If Kolbuchar is the Presidential
nominee, Biden or Booker will be her running mate, the other male candidates from
the East not being interested in the number two position. This leaves out those yet to throw their hats
into the ring and some of those who have already done so, but I think the
choices will come down to those mentioned above.
Republican Strategy
The
Republican nominees in 2020, whomever they may be, are in a weak position. Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump,
nationwide, and his margins in the three states which gave him a victory in the
Electoral College were so small that there is no chance of their repeating
their performance for a Republican, Trump or otherwise, in 2020. And G.O.P attempts at voter repression
nationwide are falling short. The
Republicans cannot win on their own in 2020, and they know it. What they can do, however, is make the
Democrats lose! And that will be their
strategy.
Watch
for Republican criticism of all Democratic candidates, picking out and
exaggerating details which will soil their image, hopefully turning the process of
choosing the Democratic (note that I never use the pejorative adjective
“Democrat”) ticket into turmoil.
Examples: Biden makes misstatements and gaffes,
Bloomberg is a Republican and is really too pro-business for the Democratic
left, Sanders is a wild-eyed Socialist, Booker has no real experience governing
outside of Newark where no one goes out at night anyway, Kolbuchar is mean to
her employees, Warren, another wild-eyed socialist, lied about her racial
background, Brown and Gillibrand are too unknown to have a national impact,
Harris, another Socialist, plays the race card in an unspoken manner and the
two Texans, Castro and O’Rourke, do it openly, appealing to Latinos.
Republicans
will spend millions to lie about the Democratic field hoping that enough of it
will stick in the minds of the gullible to enable the Republican nominee to
slip through to the White House. Beware!
This
has already started. Last week, a relatively mild column
by National Review Senior Editor Jonah Goldberg proves it. It is aimed at making voters uncomfortable
with Democrats. CLICK RIGHT HERE TO READ IT. And if that doesn't work, here's where to find it.
https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/trump-can-only-win-again-if-democrats-keep-moving-leftward/
Expect more of this kind of thing, but even stronger, over the next nineteen months. Texas Senator Cornyn has already quoted Winston Churchill declaring that "Socialism always starts with good intentions but always ends up with the Gestapo" to paint a sordid and dishonest image of the Democratic Party. Republicans fear any increased role whatsoever which government assumes, and call it 'socialism' because that means higher taxes and that is precisely what the G.O.P.'s supporters and donors abhor with a passion. That's their bottom line.
A Favor
Do
me a favor. I am experiencing some
problems with Google Adsense, a service which provides advertisements on
blogs. Last year, this blog included ads
on every posting but supposedly isn’t continuing doing it this year. I understand, however, that some of you are still
seeing advertisements on blog postings.
I would appreciate your letting me know if that is the case with you,
and on what kind of device (desktop, tablet, smartphone) you are getting
them. Just drop me a note at riart1@aol.com or
jacklippman18@gmail.com. Thanks.
Wealth, Immigration, Opportunity and Some Ideas
There
is a determinable quantity of wealth in the world. It is based on the possession and extraction of natural
resources and crops, the utilization of those resources through manufacturing,
consumption and their distribution through national and multi-national economic
systems. It is augmented by the value of
intellectual property, a significant recognizable resource in our electronic
age. And through investment of that
wealth and increases in its value based on supply and demand, that wealth of
the world is constantly increasing.
The
problem is that this wealth is not equally distributed throughout the
world. Some nations or regions have more
of it and some have less of it. And
while some individuals control or possess very large portions of this wealth,
other individuals possess far less of it, with some even possessing next to none of it.
The
availability of electronic communications in most of the world through
computers and mobile phones, augmenting television, and the spread of the internet, including
social media, has widened the knowledge of this wealth, and its uneven
distribution, throughout the planet.
People living in unheated huts with dirt floors are now aware that much
of the world has housing with floors and heating. People who know only unpaved roads now have
seen superhighways and high-speed trains.
And most importantly, they are aware that in nations or regions of the
world possessing a lot of this wealth, there are opportunities and ways of earning a
living which are not present in areas with less wealth.
It is natural, then, for people in places
without much wealth to want to get to those places where there is plenty of it,
and ultimately be able to share in it.
Hence, the desire arises to emigrate to these places, legally or
illegally if necessary. Add to this the
impetus to emigrate which comes from living in places where not only is wealth in short supply but where there also is social and political disorder as well, at times dangerous. Places with wealth appear
to be much more stable and orderly and usually are less hazardous for
residents.
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| 'I lift my lamp beside the golden door' |
And
why did the Hebrews leave the land of Canaan to settle in Egypt? The Biblical explanation doesn’t tell the
whole story. Egypt offered more
opportunity. And when they were no
longer welcome as immigrants there, they left on a generations-long exodus to
the “land of milk and honey.” This is
the same reason Africans risk crossing the Mediterranean in overcrowded and
leaky boats to get to Europe, why Central Americans seek asylum, or any excuse,
to get into the United States and why Haitians pay smugglers to bring them from
the Bahamas to Florida’s shores. People
will try to get to places where the wealth is, because that’s where opportunity
lies. It has always been that way and it
always will be. Immigration follows the
money.
Locking
the gates will not solve the problem. A
more equitable distribution of the world’s wealth on a national or regional
basis would go a long way toward solving the problem. Institutions like the World Bank and
international monetary practices designed to ultimately redistribute some of
the world’s wealth on a more equitable, but nevertheless deserving, basis may
be the answer. This is what monetary
gatherings such as the one periodically held in Davos are about. That can lead to an answer to making poorer nations richer. Nationalism cannot.
As
for individual personal wealth, there are many innovative ideas around. In Germany, companies with over 500 employees
are legally required to have significant employee representation on their
Boards, sometimes approaching fifty-percent.
This serves to divert some of a firm’s profits from shareholders and
highly paid executives to employees.
Another “wealth redistribution” plan involves “Modern Monetary Theory”
by which the government prints all the money it needs to provide “entitlement”
benefits and guaranteed income, the only brake on this practice being the
inclusion of steps to prevent inflation.
Ideas like this deserve a hearing rather than instant condemnation.
JL
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