Most Republican men are not so insecure about their manhood that they need to plaster their name atop every tall building, yet here they are, endorsing a man who Elizabeth Warren correctly identified as a "small, insecure money-grubber."








    It leaves me wondering why the lemmings who follow this Pied Piper believe that in spite of all the self-contradicting lies, this bankrupting pretend billionaire would actually fulfill their dreams of making this great country "great again."

     Does the Donald give them confidence that he will withhold any impetuous impulses with nuclear weapons? Do they believe that a so-called billionaire wannabe who has shorted all his creditors and business partners throughout his nefarious bankruptcies will work diligently for ordinary Americans' economy? If so, they are confirming P.T.Barnum's famous quote.

After his speech at the Republican convention, where Ted Cruz urged Republicans to “vote your conscience,” delegates from his home state jeered him.  Cruz said he refused to fall in line like a “servile puppy dog.”   Today, he endorsed the man who insulted him, his wife, and his father, the man he previously called “a pathological liar”, “utterly amoral”, “a serial philanderer”, and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen.” 
Please send some virtual dog biscuits to Senator Cruz at https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=form&id=16 ...  
oh ... make that puppy biscuits.

Check out Alexandra Petri's WashPost column:
Ted Cruz And His Conscience Amicably Part Ways
September 23, 2016

Many of my posts have been snarky criticisms of the Donald which, although very well deserved, don't contribute any positive reasons for voting for the better candidate.  Here is a brief list someone posted on the Washington Post comment board.

Clinton as Senator from New York
1. Set the groundwork for health care reform, including many GOP proposals that became part of Obamacare.  
2. National immunization programs.  
3. State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP programs throughout the nation).  
4. Adoption and Safe Families Act.  
5. Foster Care Independence Act.  
6. Early detection in cancer legislation through Medicare.  
7. Increased research and funding into prostate cancer and childhood asthma.  
8. Illnesses suffered by veterans in Gulf War (Gulf War Syndrome).  
9. Legislation for rebuilding after terrorist acts, including that of 9/11.
10. First Responders' Health Care legislation.  
11. Legislation to increase regular army in order to reduce rotation of reservists.  
That was just her first term.

I attended the League of Women Voters presentation of Piedmont School Board candidates, but was disappointed that the League moderator filtered out pointed questions to the two incumbent candidates.  I wanted to know how the Board members justify the hiring of a Director of Athletics without going through an open, competitive selection process.  Why has the School Board refused to make his resume and qualifications known to the public?  How has his family relationship with one of the senior staff members influenced the selection?  Thanks to the Piedmont Post's reporting, I am aware of these suspicious circumstances. 

Fortunately, one candidate did mention this issue, as well as the deplorable reduction of music and art instruction in the elementary schools.  Hari Titan has been critically watching these issues, as well as the very important method of securing bond funding (different financing methods can result in a large cost difference to Piedmont taxpayers).  I'm going to vote for Titan.  I'll also vote for Julie Caskey who, I believe, will bring some fresh energy and accountability to the School Board, as Hari will.  And I'll definitely not vote for the two incumbents, Sarah Pearson and Andrea Swenson. 

An enormous school bond is on the ballot.  Based on the previous bond financing plan which fortunately was defeated, I have little confidence that the incumbent School Board members can manage a huge facilities upgrade responsibly.  Would Hari Titan's influence on the Board be enough to justify our trust if we vote yes for bond measure H-1 in November?   With the Piedmont Post keeping us informed, we stand a better chance of improving our schools effectively.

     The loudmouth bully hangs nasty monikers on his adversaries.  He called Cruz "Lying Ted," and Rubio "Little Marco."  Now he's calling Senator Clinton "Crooked Hillary."   "Liar," "Little," and "Crooked" seem like powerful insults to the man who hurls them because they actually describe his own shifty character.  The more people see through this shifty huckster's con, the more insecure he becomes, and the louder he yells. 

Empty barrels make the most noise.

Check this out:
A Week of Whoppers from Donald Trump, NYTimes, 9-25-16

       The Wannabe Billionaire who wants to be President continues to inflate his presence with lies upon lies upon lies.  Now, the Chief Promoter of Birther Treachery claims that accusations about President Obama's origin came from Hillary Clinton.  That might be laughable on a TV sitcom, but stunningly indicative of mental dysfunction on the presidential forum.  Equally stunning is the continued loyalty and adulation of the Narcissistic Bully's followers.  The Shifty Huckster could stand up in front of a rally and say, "I am not here," and his supporters would leave, disappointed they didn't get to see him.

The Atlantic Monthly published a thorough review of the Combover Candidate's many unscrupulous dealings (The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet).  He likes to call Hillary Clinton "crooked," but check out this long list of untrustworthy acts:
 
Charitable Ungiving - He hasn't contributed to his charitable foundation since 2009 (but has solicited contributions from others). Most of the charities he claims to have funded reported to Washington Post investigators that they never received a dime!
 
Uncharitable Giving - He did use his foundation to make an illegal contribution to Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi just before she decided NOT to join in the Trump University fraud lawsuit.  And he used his foundation to make illegal restitution payments totaling $258,000 for lawsuits that he lost accusing him of fraud (Washington Post).
 
The article continues, summarizing additional scandals:
*          The Beauty Pageant Scandals  
*          Four Bankruptcies   
*          Breaking Casino Rules   
*          Refusing to Pay Workers and Contractors
*          Racial Housing Discrimination   
*          Tenant Intimidation   
*          Undocumented Polish Workers   
*          Trump University   
*          Trump Institute
*          Undocumented Models
*          Alleged Marital Rape   
*          Antitrust Violations   
*          Condo Hotel Shenanigans   
*          Suing Journalist Tim O’Brien for Libel  
*          Buying Up His Own Books
*          Corey Lewandowski     
*          Mafia Ties   
"As the old saying goes, those who give to glass foundations shouldn’t throw stones. Or something like that. In any case, after hitting Hillary Clinton hard over the Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump is under fresh scrutiny for his own foundation."

      The Wannabe Bully-in-Chief said "we should take Iraq's oil" during the Commander-In-Chief Forum.  It's a terrible, dangerous, and immoral idea.  It says our nation should be a thief.  How would we look to the entire Muslim world?  It's is a call for enmity and disaster.  And the logistic difficulty and cost, in human life and treasure, of such a nasty endeavor reveals the Loudmouth Narcissist's profound ignorance.  The Combover Candidate's statement was a much more serious disqualification than his stated admiration for Vladimir Putin.  He is making us out to be a nation of thieves.  Hillary, and the legitimate news media, must call the Shifty Huckster to account for his thoughtless bluster.

Policy and Politics - what do you think?

I'm finding a lot of resistance to HRC from Progressives who are further lefty than myself.  They oppose Hillary's corporate status more than they fear T rump's authoritarian sociopathy. They seem to overlook the fact that the Combover Candidate is as corrupt and as corporate as can be!   Go figure.
 
All in all, I see her as, yes, representing the corporate power structure that in fact rules this country, but also, as more likely to shift some power away from the elites and back to ordinary people than T rump even pretends to.  Thanks to Bernie, Hillary has abandoned support for TPP, she's strengthened her promises for regulating Wall Street, and for enacting strong campaign finance reform.  Everything Progressives would like?  Not even hardly.  But this election is between maintaining the goals of a Liberal Democracy or becoming an authoritarian autocratic preserve for a pissant dictator.

We currently have a two party political system.  Not voting for the lesser of two evils ends up supporting the greater of two evils.  Voting for a 3rd party in November at best has no impact either for that candidate nor on ending the two-party system.  At worst, it helps elect a truly dangerous demagogue.  Two words of reminder: Ralph Nader.
Sorry, but that's the world we live in.
 
HRC wasn't my first choice during the primary, Martin O'Malley was.
She wasn't my second choice, Bernie was.
But she's the candidate we've got; the one opposing a sociopathic narcissist who has taken over the Repuglicans. 

From Bob Burnett, Berkley Daily Planet, 9-3-16
False Equivalence: Trump=Clinton, Godzilla=Bambi
"It’s absurd to compare Trump’s astonishing capacity to lie with the Clintons’ support for their foundation." 
 
A transcript of Jill Stein's meeting with The Washington Post editorial board
http://wpo.st/hi5w1

Jill Stein's foul language on race, from The Washington Post
http://wpo.st/uj5w1

Stein appears to be nearly as bad and obfuscatory as T rump. 
And of course, the Libertarian candidate didn't even know what Aleppo is.

The alternative to Democrats is Repuglicans, which are worse because they have no guilt about enabling and empowering the rich to get richer, AND they have a repressive social agenda.  Yes, it is true that big money runs both parties.  But Bernie is showing us that the Dems can be modified a bit more towards a Progressive agenda. 
 
While not a Visionary Reformer, our Pragmatic Incrementalist is far better than an arrogant, ignorant, self-absorbed, self-serving, insecure, insane, intimidating, unfair, disrespectful, vain, and obnoxious Bullying Bad Boss Billionaire Wannabe.

     Donald J. Combover tried to paint all undocumented immigrants in this country as violent criminals.  He didn't call them "immigrants" although most of them have risked their lives coming to this country because the places from where they've come threatened them with starvation, violent death, or worse.  He called them "illegal aliens," a term that denigrates the humanity of the millions of law-abiding, hard-working people who take the lowest paying jobs and try to get by, raising their children to have a better life. 

      Lumping all undocumented immigrants as "aliens" and "criminals" is a big step toward fascism and despotism.  We've seen this before in Hitler's Nazi Germany, in Mussolini's Fascist Italy, in Franco's Authoritarian Spain.  Where does it lead?  First the undocumented immigrants, then the liberals and political opposition, then racial minorities, then religious minorities, and then ... and then poor folk who get conscripted into fighting foreign wars for the "glory of the Homeland," dying and suffering disfiguring wounds for the satisfaction of the despot's pride. 

     Watching this demagogue give a speech on MSNBC shocked me as I saw, first hand, the ferocity of the untrue statements he uses to whip up emotional support for cruel policies that would destroy our free society.  I'd like to fault the media for giving the Wannabe's campaign more than an hour of free air time without giving equal exposure to Hillary Clinton.  But I also have to acknowledge that without such exposure, I wouldn't have seen what a dangerous threat his candidacy is to the civil liberties we hold dear.

     It now is incumbent on the media to give Clinton an equal amount of free media coverage of her campaign speeches.


Policy and Politics - what do you think?