These Two Men Take the High Road and Everybody Wins!!!
Click on this: Watch Now and experience what civility feels like… experience what being a responsible, accountable adult looks like… experience what integrity, honesty and mutual respect feels like.
Experience the true American spirit, what we stand for, and what we are capable of at the very core of our being.
For me, it’s what it would be like to discover an oasis in the middle of a vast and seemingly endless wasteland… to find unconditional love after a lifetime of abuse… to wake up from a nightmare and discover you are safe and comforted…to being released from a life sentence in prison for a crime you never committed… to lie on a sandy beach listening to gentle ocean waves after being trapped in a Jerry Springer Show. What is it like for you?
It’s FREEDOM, JOY, LOVE, PEACE!! It’s a political campaign conducted with human decency. It’s an example of enlightened leadership. Isn’t this what we want for our children and our country and our world? All it takes is a willingness to drop the guns, the swords, the ammunition, and mean assaults on the others’ character and to step across the line, extend a hand and make a commitment to find a way for both to win, to find a way for their community and state to win and ultimately their country and world.
There are two games going on.
One is the smaller game of running for a political office and it is clearly a competition, but the bigger game, the most important game is the game of life. For a world that works, it requires co-operation and collaboration. These two men are showing us how to play both games. One will win the election fair and square and take office, but the other hasn’t lost. He will win the big game of living life with integrity and values and the universe rewards that. . (Not everyone wins the gold medal at the Olympics, but if you do your best, play fair and square and come in 2nd, everyone knows that isn’t losing.) Doors will open up for him and possibilities will appear that he never imagined possible.
1. Please contact BOTH of them via Twitter. Thank them and let them know how you FEEL.
Republican Spencer Cox: @SpencerJCox
Democrat Chris Peterson: @PetersonUtah
2. Send a donation to BOTH of them!!! Let them know policies are important, but more important is who they ARE and the framework of thinking they are bringing to the political process. They are showing us you can play hard, give it all you’ve got, disagree and not sacrifice your values.
3. Send this link to as many Senators and Representatives (and their opponents) as you can and tell them you require this of your leaders from now on.Let them all know how you intend to hold them and yourself to higher standards from this point forward.
4. Let them all know how you intend to hold them and yourself to higher standards from this point forward.
There could not be a finer example of how powerful one person’s voice can be. It’s what Self Mastery and enlightened, transformational thinking stands for and always will.
“If we really want something to heal, we sometimes have to let it rest a bit so it can learn to heal from within.”
Martha Borst
Time to Heal
If we want to heal as a nation, we need to think about that before voting. We are a deeply damaged people. We are angry, hurting, sad, frightened and dying at an unprecedented rate. Who can best lead us to the kind of connection, compassion and caring most of us are starving for?
Caroline Giuliani (Rudy’s daughter) who is adamantly supporting Joe Biden, in the recent Vanity Fair said, “The very notion of ‘bipartisanship’ may seem painfully ludicrous right now, but we need a path out of impenetrable gridlock and vicious sniping.”
We need a leader who will prioritize the common good, who will look for solutions, who will work for the majority, who will be a protector and truly care for the lives of all Americans. We need a leader who is skilled at collaboration and co-operation, experienced in working across the aisle, someone who can turn the tide on the animosity that pervades the airways, social media, and everyday communications between Americans everywhere.
I have long supported Jon Stewart. He is not only smart, but he is wise. In an August 2020 interview with Stephen Colbert, he said the following:
“I don’t feel like this election is just, and I’ve really tried to parse this. I mean, is it really just anyone but Trump? I mean, Biden was not my guy. He wasn’t even in the top four. I was more of a Sanders/Warren guy… that was just my direction so, y’know, [Biden] not my guy. But having watched him on your show and spoken to him at other times, and seen him in different situations…
I’m not a fan of the ‘Uncle Joe’ character, (he imitates) the ‘Hey, how’re you doin’?’ …the touchy-feely stuff, I don’t like that shit. Pops always told me, ‘Joey, always take the train because it always gets you there.’ Y’know, all that kind of stuff feels schticky to me, but I feel that’s not the core of who that guy really is and I’ve recently been thinking about something and that is, we are a country in terrible anguish right now—we are in pain.
Exceptionalism—the blindfold is off and we’re kind of seeing ourselves as who we really are. The American exceptionalism is not like a title you wear like you were Miss America in 1937 and you’ll always be Miss America no matter what. It takes effort and work to maintain it and if you treat it like a fait acomplit, it will erode and we will lose it.
And we are seeing that erosion, and we are fearful and we are angry and we are in pain. When I see Biden past the ‘schtick’, I see a guy who knows what loss is.
And I think that kind of grief humbles you. When you lose, and you know about this (he says to Colbert)… we’ve talked about this… and it’s something I appreciate about you as well… There’s a humility to the randomness of tragedy that brings about a caring you can’t fake, and it can’t be contrived, and I think in this moment what this country needs is a leader of humility, who understands that he doesn‘t understand. Someone who understands the humanity of this experiment and the difficulty it is in maintaining it… and that we must connect on a much deeper level and it gives me hope that now, maybe he is the man of the moment.
Cuz listen man, Trump doesn’t have that gear. He just doesn’t. He’s still of the mind-set that Covid was created to stop him from having another term.
And so I’m not just making the negative case for Biden anymore. It’s not just, ‘Well, we’ve got to get rid of that guy [Trump]’. I really believe there’s something in Biden’s experience that can benefit this country at a time when it really needs it.”
My friends, if you are planning to cast a symbolic vote or abstain from voting altogether, please reconsider. It is more important than ever to avoid complacency.
Joe Biden is not the charismatic dream candidate many had hoped for, but we don’t need that right now. We need to quiet down, eliminate the chaos, calm down and take some time to breathe.
If we want to engage people and restore unity, we can’t make any startling, extreme changes. In spite of what his opponents say, he is not in favor of defunding the police or confiscating peoples’ guns. He is not a Socialist who is going to turn companies into communes run by the workers. He is a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, a capitalist who wants to support the little guy and strengthen the middle class by asking wealthy corporations and individuals to pay their fair share of taxes. He wants affordable health care and proposes a plan to invest in our educational system.
The Wharton School of Business Newsletter says of the effect of Biden’s plans on our economy, “One notable caveat is that this 0.8% boost to GDP might actually understate the benefit of the Biden platform to people’s well-being.”
I honestly can’t find anything wrong with any of that. Can you?
Joe Biden is a decent human being who has learned the value of humility. I believe he will serve as the perfect bridge we so desperately need right now.
Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote, “When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed the rain for the last-minute decision, saying “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.
Trump’s understanding of concepts such as patriotism, service, and sacrifice has interested me since he expressed contempt for the war record of the late Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015, while running for the Republican nomination for president. “I like people who weren’t captured.”
There was no precedent in American politics for the expression of this sort of contempt, but the performatively patriotic Trump did no damage to his candidacy by attacking McCain in this manner. Nor did he set his campaign back by attacking the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
When McCain died in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides.
Meanwhile…
Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger—the legendary pilot who saved 150 passengers of the US Airways Flight 1549 performing the “Miracle on Hudson” on January 15, 2009 scorned Trump’s disrespect:
“For the first time in American history, a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country.
While I am not surprised, I am disgusted by the current occupant of the Oval Office. He has repeatedly and consistently shown himself to be completely unfit for and to have no respect for the office he holds.
He took an oath of office that is similar to the one each person takes who enters the U.S. Military. But he has completely failed to uphold his oath.
Now we know why. He has admitted he cannot comprehend the concept of service above self.
He cannot understand selflessness because he is selfish. He cannot conceive of courage because he is a coward. He cannot feel duty because he is disloyal.
We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out.”
When you vote, remember not one single Republican Senator rebuked Trump for his comments and actions against the men and women who have so courageously served our country… not one!!!
(Trump, the rich, privileged White boy got five military deferments for alleged “bone spurs”)
“McConnell has shown no ideology, except his own political power.”
John David Dyche, former staunch McConnell supporter
Did We Learn The Lesson?
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote:
Stuart Stevens, a longtime Republican political strategist and consultant, who has spent decades getting Republicans elected at every level, agrees that McConnell’s party deserves a considerable share of the blame for America’s COVID-19 disaster.
In a forthcoming book, It Was All a Lie – How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump, Stevens writes that in accommodating Trump and his base, McConnell and other Republicans went along as Party leaders, dismantled the country’s safety net, and ignored experts of all kinds, including scientists.
“Mitch is kidding himself if he thinks he’ll be remembered for anything other than Trump,” he said. “He will be remembered as the Trump facilitator.”
The President is vindictive toward Republicans who challenge him, as Mitt Romney can attest. Yet, Stevens believes the conservatives who have acceded to Trump will pay a more lasting price. “Trump was the moral test, and the Republican Party failed,” Stevens said. “It’s an utter disaster for the long-term fate of the Party. The Party has become an obsession with power without purpose.”
Bill Kristol, (please click on this to read more about his transformation) a formerly stalwart conservative who has become a leading Trump critic, describes McConnell as “a pretty conventional Republican who just decided to go along and get what he could out of Trump.” Under McConnell’s leadership, the Senate, far from providing a check on the executive branch, has acted as an accelerant.
“Demagogues like Trump, if they can get elected, can’t really govern unless they have people like McConnell,” Kristol said. McConnell has stayed largely silent about the President’s lies and inflammatory public remarks, and has propped up the Administration with legislative and judicial victories. McConnell has also brought along the Party’s financial backers.
“There’s been too much focus on the base, and not enough on business leaders, big donors, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page,” Kristol said, adding, “The Trump base would be there anyway, but the élites might have rebelled if not for McConnell. He could have fundamentally disrupted Trump’s control, but instead, McConnell has kept the trains running… Trump came to drain the swamp, and now he’s working with the biggest swamp creature of them all.”
Rick Wilson, a former Republican political consultant and strategist for George H.W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani, and served as a presidential appointee to the Dept. of Defense under Dick Cheney, also once worked on races with McConnell’s team, said, “McConnell’s an astounding behind-the-scenes operator who’s got control of the most successful fund-raising operation in history.”
Former McConnell staffers run an array of ostensibly independent spending groups, many of which, take tens of millions of dollars from undisclosed donors. Wilson considers McConnell, who has been Majority Leader since 2015, a realist who does whatever is necessary to preserve both his own political survival and the Republicans’ edge in the Senate, which now stands at 53–47.
“He feels no shame about it,” Wilson said. “McConnell has been the most powerful force normalizing Trump in Washington. McConnell knows if their relationship fell apart, it would be a disaster for the Republican majority in the Senate.”
A former avid McConnell supporter, John David Dyche, a lawyer in Louisville and until recently, a staunch conservative columnist, enjoyed unmatched access to McConnell and his papers and published an admiring biography of him in 2009. However, in March of this year, Dyche posted a Twitter thread that caused a lot of talk in the state’s political circles. He wrote that McConnell “of course realizes Trump is a hideous human being and utterly unfit to be president,” and that, in standing by Trump anyway, he has shown he has “no ideology except his own political power.”
After the coronavirus shut down most of America, Dyche announced he was contributing to McConnell’s opponent, Amy McGrath, and tweeted, “Those who stick with the hideous, incompetent demagogue endanger the country and will be remembered in history as shameful cowards.”
When Obama won his election, Dyche called on the American people to hope, which he assured them, was not simply “blind optimism”. He was referring to “the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a mill worker’s son, who dared to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believed America had a place for him too. Hope! Hope in the face of difficulty! Hope in the face of uncertainty! The audacity of hope! In the end,” he concluded, “That is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief there are better days ahead.”
Immediately following Obama’s election, McConnell proclaimed, “My number one priority is making sure president Obama is a one-term president” and reiterated he “Had no intention to co-operate with the new president.” With those words, hopes for unity were dashed upon the rocks and the fierce divide that existed during George Bush’s presidency was cast in concrete.
Congressional gridlock followed as Republicans aligned behind him and vowed to thwart every piece of the new president’s agenda.
If Biden wins and is faced with a Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell, GRIDLOCK is absolutely certain. McConnell will thwart any efforts for unity and poisonous animosity will reign. Like before, he will refuse to collaborate and his Republican co-conspirators will once again blindly follow.
We cannot sustain another four years of this…………….
ARCHIVE FROM 2016 I wrote the following article in October 2016, right after the Access Hollywood tape. Trump was down in the polls and everyone was sure Hillary would win. How could she ever possibly lose? STAY CONSCIOUS, please! Get out and make calls, donate, make sure everyone you know votes! Complacency is our enemy… Enlightened people participate…
“Enough!”
Condoleezza Rice
Your VOTE represents you. It is your VOICE and the very essence of democracy. As Dr. M.L. King said,
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,”
…and so speak I must, and VOTE I will, because this election is not just another reality show. This election is real, and it is deadly serious stuff—
The President, who is Commander in Chief, has the singular authority to initiate a nuclear attack and within four minutes, missiles are launched and nuclear bombs will be on their way. Don’t you think it’s imperative we have a stable person in the White House?
This time, I am writing only to those of you who are even thinking about the possibility of voting for Donald Trump. The rest of you should just get on about your day and do something productive, as what I have to say does not apply to you.
Over the past 38 years, I have worked with over 25,000 people from different parts of the world and in all walks of life. I have become a student of human behavior and without a doubt, I find Donald Trump to be a dangerous, narcissistic sociopath and a bigoted, misogynistic, vindictive lunatic. He is a rampant xenophobe and racist and pledges to ban all 1.6 billion members of an entire religion from entering this country.
I form this opinion for no political purpose, but as a result of simply listening to his own words and watching his own actions. The vile, plethora of hatred, vulgarity, and vicious, demeaning bullying and bold faced lying* that has spewed from his mouth is not only disrespectful and disturbing, it is destructive to our very way of life as a democracy. His 3 AM unhinged twitter tantrums reveal a man who is seriously unstable. He spent an entire week of his Presidential campaign “getting back” at a former Miss Universe for things she revealed about him.
Do you seriously think these are qualities of a Commander-in-Chief?
He objectifies women and rates them on their looks and size of their “boobs”. Those he dislikes, he calls “pigs”, “sluts”, “bimbos” and “whores”. Based on his behaviors, he crudely treats women like they are just objects for men to treat any way they want. He has bragged about sexually assaulting women (I won’t even quote his vulgarity on that bus) and boasted about the size of his genitals.
A direct quote from him to Howard Stern regarding the beauty pageants he owned: “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said. By his own admission, he regularly entered the dressing rooms of teens as young as 15 and leered at their naked bodies.
That, my friends is known as a SEXUAL PREDATOR! He talks about women as a “great piece of ass.” Don’t you find that to be absolutely disgusting?
Is this the kind of person you want representing YOU as President of the United States?
His actions indicate he is literally incapable of maintaining any sense of professional dignity or a decorum of human decency. He has demonstrated a compete inability to think about anyone but himself. He has no faith in his own country, the democratic system or our political process.
He says, “The whole voting system is rigged” which he only started claiming when it became clear that he could actually lose the election. Clearly, as David Avalon wrote, “Trump just doesn’t have the psychological capacity to admit defeat. The prospect of being defined in the history books as a loser—possibly on an epic scale – is too much to bear. And so the only face-saving play is to say the whole system is rigged against him” which is the ultimate LOSE/LOSE player.
He appears willing to take down the whole country with him, which triggers his predictable vindictive response to anyone or anything that doesn’t go his way. His message is, “F*** you, America, if you won’t vote for me. I’ll just delegitimize the very core of your democratic process . . . your system of VOTING, all of which could incite his base (who would vote for him even if he shot someone on Park Avenue in broad daylight) to create a constitutional crisis, which will delight Putin no end. He trashed the First Amendment, when he promised as president to “open up the libel laws” so he can more easily sue hostile journalists.
How in the world can you think about supporting this demagogue to represent the values of a free society?
He has called Mexicans rapists, declared that a judge, who was born and brought up in Indiana, could not be fair to him in one of his many legal battles for the sole reason he had Mexican parents. If elected, he said he would deport the 11 million illegals who are here, but he will not tell you how he’ll do it—because, unless he follows Hitler’s example, it’s impossible. But that may not be far from the truth because he has never disavowed the hearty approval of the Ku Klux Klan, Donald Duke or other white supremacist groups who avidly support him.
He incites violence at his rallies and the Neo-Nazis have hailed him as a savior. He maligned a magnificent Gold Star family who were so proud of their heroic son who gave his life for this country, because they were Muslims and spoke against him. He pronounced that John McCain is not a hero, and said he knows more about Afghanistan than all the generals put together.
He says he believes in supporting American business and yet, his clothing line and ties as well as the steel for his buildings are fabricated and manufactured in China. He thinks women should be punished for making a decision to have an abortion, yet he said he would bomb women and children in order to get ISIS. When reminded it was a war crime to do so, he said, “I have no problem with it.” And let’s not forget the wall he’s going to build and get Mexicans to pay for it.
Does this fill you with pride and hope? Is this the person you think is equipped to fill the most powerful leadership position in the world? Do you not see what a megalomaniac he is???
And here’s my personal favorite . . . he has abhorrently mimicked the disabled, demeaning them for their physical limitations and speech and regularly mocked Marlee Matlin (the deaf Oscar Award winner), as “retarded”.
This is repulsive. He doesn’t have even one ounce of the gut courage, fortitude and grace most disabled people have displayed throughout their entire lives
And you are thinking of voting for this person to represent you? What is it going to take? When is enough, enough?
He boasts of being a great business man, yet records obtained by the NY Times show he declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Who does he think is going to support the schools, roads, public servants, etc.?
I guess that’s up to the “little folk” like you and me because it’s certainly not him! Although he may have gamed the system with existing tax loop holes, remember he derived this loss from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. He has had dealings with organized crime, declared bankruptcy five times and screwed millions of workers out of their retirement savings.
He abandoned thousands of honest hard working contractors, and never paid them for work conducted on his behalf and left them holding the bag with nothing. He has financially used, abused and disregarded millions in the wake of his other business debacles, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Air and Trump Financial. Trump University and the Trump Charity Foundation, were both found to be fraudulent entities existing for the benefit of one person and one person only, Donald G. Trump!
These weren’t just risks that went bad. They were shams built around empty promises and on Trump’s fragile and overwhelming self-aggrandizement. (Google the differences between the Trump and Clinton Foundations and learn for yourself). He won’t reveal his tax returns. I wonder why . . .
And yet, after ALL of this… after ALL that has been revealed about him… are you STILL undecided????
He has praised Putin’s leadership (an ex KGB tyrant who has committed atrocious crimes against humanity). Trump says he likes his “style” and says he wants to meet with him before the election. Putin in turn has lavished praise on Donald Trump and decidedly favors him for president. The Russian TV channel, Russia Today, paid homage to Trump’s talents.
Immature, he appears to have had arrested development in early childhood. He throws tantrums and acts like a selfish little spoiled brat who pouts when he doesn’t get what he wants. He bullies anyone who criticizes him. The Texas Observer wrote, “He always seems like the mean little boy whose last fun moment was beating his pet hamster to death with a chair leg.”
The Republicans are at a complete loss as to what to do with him. Mitt Romney has called him a fraud who would drive the country to the point of collapse and said, “He’s playing the American public for suckers. He has neither the judgment nor the temperament to be president.”
Well over 100 Republican Members of Congress have disassociated themselves from his candidacy, including the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. One was quoted as saying, “He is the complete antithesis of what I would want my son and grandson to be, and I will not associate myself with him.” Over 60 of our top security officials have officially and pointedly diagnosed him dangerous as well as a multitude of military commanders.
For the life of me, I cannot understand after all of this, how you could still be undecided. If character matters, then character matters.
I’d like to point out that all of the above information is true. They are all facts – not opinions and not conspiracies made up by the opposing party. They are from actual visual and audio recordings by Trump himself and other data backed by hard core FACTS.
And yet, even after all of this, are you STILL undecided? Does none of this disgust you? How much deeper into the sewer does he need to go before you realize this man is a political monster who needs to be stopped?
When is enough, enough?
You say, “But what about Hillary? She is crooked and a liar. I can’t trust her…”
Personally, I do not share your same concerns. I think Hillary is a calculating politician who has learned to protect herself from the barrage of attacks and accusations (proven to be false) heaped upon her by the Republicans over the years. I think she has shown incredible strength and fortitude.
By all accounts, she is the smartest person in the room and is the most experienced person ever to run for the Presidency. However, conspiracies abound… Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinski, Libya, The Clinton Foundation, her suspected connections with Wall Street. Shouting “Benghazi” or bringing up “those damn emails” isn’t going to do it. Isn’t it important to deal with the actual reality of the situation?
The truth is: Hillary has never been arrested, she’s never been charged with a crime and has never even been prosecuted. She’s been in the public eye and closely scrutinized for 24 years. She was a lawyer, a First Lady, a Senator and a Secretary of State. She has testified for hours ad nauseam and over $100 of tax payer funds have been wasted on investigations that found absolutely nothing to charge her with.
While Trump was going bankrupt and firing people on TV, she was dedicating her adult life to making a difference. She has made mistakes and is not the heroine some have made her out to be. But she is also not the villain. There are NO FACTS to warrant this claim, just vindictive conspiracies.
You think she is untrustworthy? That is your right. We all have a choice as to how we see things. But one thing is for sure, it pales in comparison to Trump’s record and performance. In fact, there is NO viable comparison.
Bill Maher recently said to Andrew Sullivan of New York Magazine, “You hate her. You’ve always hated her!” To which Andrew responded, “Yes, well, let me say right now, Bill, as someone who has never liked the Clintons, who has always opposed them, who still does not want to withdraw any of my criticism about them, I am passionately involved in voting for Hillary for President of the United States. It’s the only adult thing to do!”
He went on to say this was not the time to exercise a protest vote for the Libertarian or Green Party because they would essentially be sending votes to Trump, as there was only one person who could stop this political monster, and that was Hillary.
For the sake of having a healthy campaign, I am sorry the Republicans didn’t end up with a more viable candidate who would proudly represent their party. But he was voted in, fair and square, by the voters of the Republican party and that’s the reality. So was Hillary. That’s how we do it in America. Now we all must sleep in the bed we made and we must choose.
My friends, there’s a part of yourself, your moral architecture, known as your soul. Every decision of your life either elevates or degrades that soul. I ask you to look into that soul and make a decision on behalf of human decency, dignity and respect. I ask you to not allow yourself to sink to the low road that is driven by hatred and fear. I ask you to rise to the High Road and vote for a mature, experienced, steady, stable person who knows how to act and behave like an adult, even if you don’t like her. To not do so, I believe, is unconscionable.
It is time to VOTE! Your VOTE is your Voice and it represents YOU. When the moment comes to actually mark your ballot, know you hold in your hands a precious right that many throughout the world will never have. Know that people died on the battlefield for you to have this one moment for your voice to matter… to choose your nation’s leader.
Please choose with clear conscious, because how YOU VOTE will tell the world about our American character and even more important, you will be speaking volumes about your own.
*POLITICO, the nonpartisan political and policy information company, has thoroughly fact-checked the hundreds of statements made by both candidates and found the following:
Four years ago, I warned that Trump could win and many did very little to stop him. This year, nearly everyone I know is out doing whatever they can to support the Biden/Harris ticket and to flip the gang of Senators who have actively supported, defended and endorsed Trump’s lies, inept handling of the virus, refusal to wear a mask, “private talks” with his buddy Putin, racism, verbal assaults, demeaning women, denial of climate change, alienating our allies, etc. with no consequences whatsoever.
I just heard on the news, Federal agents just thwarted a plot to violently overthrow the government as well as kidnap and murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—a conspiracy that included visits to her summer home in northern Michigan and training with firearms and explosive devices.
The plot resulted in the arrest of thirteen domestic militia terrorists unhappy with Whitmer’s coronavirus restrictions (especially on GMS) calling her a “tyrant.” They are known as the Wolverine Watchmen, one of the White Supremacists hate groups whom Trump refused to condemn during his debate. Instead, he covertly instigated them to action with his call to arms to “Stand back and stand by”.
Words matter and the terrorists listened. Instead of supporting the Governor and her safety, or even inquiring about her well-being, Trump, the President of the United States, just reinforced the terrorists’ rallying cry and condemned her calling her the “Lock-Up Queen”!
Today, he called Kamala Harris a communist and a monster, and he’s outraged that William Barr has not yet taken action to arrest Biden and Obama for Trump’s claim that they were spying on his 2016 campaign and he just lashed out at Pompeo for not releasing more of Hillary’s emails…. His furious retort to them all was, “I won’t forget this!”
Then he called for more rallies, only days after being infected with the Corona virus and declared himself a “remarkable physical specimen… and very young,” claiming it’s easy…“when you get it, you get better.”
Totally ignoring the 210,000 Americans who have died.
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!!
Be prepared folks, I promise you, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The closer we get to the election, the more desperate and dangerous he will become and the more Trump supporters will do to delay, stop and interfere with voting.
They must be stopped.
Don’t let them intimidate you!
Don’t be afraid. Be determined!
It’s time for ALL HANDS ON DECK, folks! We must stop this madness.
My good friend Mark Lange sent me the information below and I ask you to help, too. If you’re already helping, that’s wonderful, I’m so proud of you and please do this, too. Make no mistake about it, this is a sprint to the finish, which is only 25 days away!
Mark wrote:
“Since it’s all about getting out the vote at this point, I’m hoping you’ll forgive this impersonal medium to make a personal appeal.
However-much you’ve already done or given, you can multiply the power of your own vote by making a little time for some direct outreach to registered, but infrequent, Democratic voters. You can also help new voters register and vote early in states (like PA and AZ) where that’s still possible.
Nothing is more effective or important now.
Here’s a great place to start on virtual phone banking—an orientation session for “new and reluctant callers” (which I was — it’s more fun than I imagined!). They’ll send you emails offering sessions in the key states…
“What does Trump most admire or worship? The answer is money. Now, ask yourself, who is the richest man in the world? Putin is the richest man in the word by a multiple…
Trump loves Putin because the Russian had the balls to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company—like the Trump Organization, in fact. In Russia, no one questioned or doubted Putin, just as no one called out Trump on the 26th floor of Trump Tower.
Putin’s ability to bring the press to heel, the media’s throat under his jackboot, was also an attraction to Trump, not a bad thing. The same was true for the banks and Russia’s industrial complex; an entire society and civilization bent to the will of a single man was how Trump viewed the ideal historical form of government—with him as the man in charge… Locking up your political enemies, criminalizing dissent, or terrifying or bankrupting the free press through libel lawsuits…
I honestly believe the most extreme ideas about power and its uses only really took shape as he began to seriously contemplate the implications of taking power and how he could leverage it to the absolute maximum level possible…
Trump didn’t run for office with a coherent ideology… but as he got further and further into the process of becoming a politician, the implications began to emerge for him. One thing that was definitely true about Trump was that he was constantly calculating and assessing how to take maximum advantage of every situation…
Putin is worth more than a trillion dollars…Trump secretly wanted Putin’s kind of power for himself, which is part of why I’m convinced he won’t leave office voluntarily…To Trump, Putin was like the Saudi royal family, or Kim Jong-un in North Korea: the incarnation of dynastic wealth and the real ruling class of the planet. Everyone other than the ruling class on the earth was like an ant, to his way of thinking, their lives meaningless and always subject to the whims of the true rulers of the world…
The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being. The truth is he couldn’t care less…To Trump, his voters are his audience, his chumps, his patsies…Trump is a con man.
There is a serious danger that Donald Trump will not leave office easily, and there is a real chance of not having a peaceful transition. When he jokes about running again in 2024 and gets a crowd of thousands to chant ‘Trump 2024,’ he’s not joking. Trump never jokes.”
You now have all the information you need to decide for yourself in November.
Thank you to my dear friend Tina Benson for sharing this with us.
Equal rights and equal justice for all Americans regardless of race, religion or gender identity
Women having control over their own bodies and not the government, someone else’s religious beliefs or sexual predators (Kavanaugh hearing)
Healthcare for all people, with coverage for pre-existing conditions like all other civilized countries in this world
Common sense gun laws
Voting rights
Civil rights
Separation of church and state
Responsible news reporting that reveals and condemns the outrageous conspiracies proliferated by Fox News propaganda
Keeping politics out of our Justice system, Homeland Security, the CDC and our US postal system
A balance of power within and between the three branches of government
A Supreme Court that reflects the American people
Saving relations with our allies, rebuilding trust and rescuing our severely damaged image throughout the world
Not pandering to, and admiring the fiercest dictators in the world whose main intent is to destroy us
Stopping Russia’s sophisticated ability to infiltrate our elections to support Trump and undermine Biden
Supporting the integrity of our FBI, CIA and protecting our country from adversaries who are intent on infiltrating and weakening our security
Respect for science when responding to Climate Change
A President and Senate that tells the TRUTH to the American people
Leadership that stands for and supports the needs of the American people above their own self-aggrandizement, need for power over others, greed and financial gain.
A peaceful transfer of power and respect for the voter’s choice
DEMOCRACY not tyranny
Then we MUST get rid of Trump and we MUST Flip the Senate – because those currently in office, have not stood up for ANY of these standards, NOT ONE.
This is a serious election my friends, like none other in our lifetime.
It is very, very IMPORTANT because our democracy is at stake. As I speak, a dictatorship is being formed before our eyes. The Senate Republicans are spending $20M plus another $100M on reserve, taking specific actions to limit voting. Postal boxes are being dismantled and systems are in place to slow down the mail, Trump is threatening to throw out ballots and promises chaos in the streets. He refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and the Republican Senate not only supports him, but they defend him.
Never in our history have we come so close to losing our democracy. The stewardship of freedom is literally in our hands. It’s our turn now to…
“Stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with a light from above.”
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination’ and you can use my words against me and you will be absolutely right.”
Lindsey Graham – 2016
Trust me. I will never lie to you.
In 2016, joining Lindsey Graham to deny President Obama’s right to nominate a Supreme Court replacement when there was over 10 months remaining before the election are:
2016, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.): “The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.”
2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas):“It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”
2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term – I would say that even if it was a Republican president.”
2016, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.): “The very balance of our nation’s highest court is in serious jeopardy. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will do everything in my power to encourage the president and Senate leadership not to start this process until we hear from the American people.”
2016, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”
2016, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.): “In this election year, the American people will have an opportunity to have their say in the future direction of our country. For this reason, I believe the vacancy left open by Justice Antonin Scalia should not be filled until there is a new president.”
2016, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.):“The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court justice until we have a new president.”
2016, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Col.):“I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”
2016, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio):“I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations. This wouldn’t be unusual. It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.”
2016, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.):“I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.”
And from the Leader of the Senate himself…
March 2016,Mitch McConnell:
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
Lying Hypocrites Every One
Every one of these men, and ALL of the Republican Senators have gone back on every word they said. All lies, but it was predictable because on a daily basis, they all lie, manipulate and deceive the gullible factions within their base so much, any level of an assumed moral standard has been eradicated. Lies and hypocrisy have become the norm.
Their followers, as in a cult, refuse to listen or hear or believe what is being said and being done right in front of their eyes. Like all people who fall for a con, they only hear what they want to hear and they disregard the rest.
As Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time.” As Trump himself said of his followers, “I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and they’d still follow me.”
How true.
Others of us know Trump is a deeply disturbed, mentally unstable man who has no regard for human life, unless it can enrich or empower him. But it’s the Republican Senators who are most derelict in their duty to:
1) maintain a balance of power and hold the President accountable with consequences and
2) protect the American people and the country from enemy invasion (internally, externally, militarily and through cyberspace).
It’s the Republican Senators who enable Trump, support him and defend his erratic irrational, destructive behaviors.
They are lock-step behind this criminal, unrepentant sociopath, and along with him, they have overseen the preventable deaths of over 200,000 deaths of American citizens. That is the insidious corrupt bargain they have made with the devil, all to maintain their own lust power and financial gain.
In return, they get a conservative super majority on the Supreme Court so they can rip up Roe vs. Wade (to control women and tell them what they can and can’t do with their own bodies), overturn Obamacare (and eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions) and invalidate the Nov. election if Trump loses.
They do not care. That is their plan. They do not care about the pandemic and the death toll. They do not care about protecting people or legitimate voting practices. They do not care about protecting our national security. They do not care about the Constitution or democracy.
All they want is raw power and they will do whatever they can to get it and keep it…They will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, control, kill, hurt, overpower – whatever it takes to win, regardless of the cost. They are cut-throat win/lose players.
The closer we get to the election, the deeper Trump’s psychosis will drive him into the darkness. For our Democracy to survive, we MUST get rid of him and we MUST Flip the Senate.
We must not only vote them OUT, but we must do so by a huge margin because Trump has already said if he doesn’t win, then the elections are “rigged” and fraudulent (without one iota of evidence) and he has already admitted to plans to invalidate and manipulate the results if they’re not favorable to him… If that happens, get ready folks.
Don’t anticipate “reasonable” reactions. I promise you, he will stop at nothing and it would not surprise me if he even started a nuclear war to stay in power.
ONLY if we overturn the Presidency and Flip the Senate can we have a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
Use your time, your energy, your resources, every ounce of commitment you have, and VOTE EARLY. Please contact all your friends to make sure they vote, too.
There is absolutely nothing more important you can do this year than to VOTE.
The future of our country will be affected greatly by your choice for years to come…
VOTE EARLY!!
For all the information you need, go to: www.Vote.org
Last night you watched an obnoxious, spoiled little rich boy brat throwing a tantrum. He has never been told “NO”, never before told to “Shut up” and like every two-year old, he thinks the world revolves around him as he demands all the attention be on him.
No one stops him, not his hand-picked aides, not the Senate, nor the Justice Dept. and so he gets his own way and runs rough-shod over everyone. Rules don’t apply to him. As someone on Facebook said, Chris Wallace should have been replaced by any mother who has been in quarantine with her kids since March.
To cover up his pathological insecurity and inability to discuss issues intelligently, like all schoolyard bullies, he resorts to attack, humiliation, abuse and lies. Combine this with the unwavering support of the Republican Senate and Justice Department, he possesses a frightening, dangerous power to destroy.
Like a rabid, wild animal that is cornered, Trump lashed out in a desperate attempt to save himself. He knows he is losing and that means he will soon be an open target for some serious legal charges, which will very likely land him in prison. With over 200,000 dead in our country, he instead chose to focus his outraged utterances between the incendiary and an outright assault on the American political system, declaring the election, the most sacred act of a democracy, will be a fraud.
He refused to denounce White Supremacists and instead gave a recruiting rallying cry to “The Proud Boys”, a far-right neo-fascist male-only gang of vigilantes that promote and engage in political violence. When he told them to “Stand By” they cheered, loaded their guns and now await his next command.
Near the end of the debate, Trump implied ominously that the violence in American streets and the deep divisions in the nation were just a sample of what was to come after Election Day.
“This is not going to end well,” Trump vowed. “This is not going to end well.” The Proud Boys militia are listening. They are eager and ready…
He didn’t denounce White Supremacists because he is one.
If you support him and the Senate that enables and defends him, then by default….
So are YOU!
I just received the following from my good friend and a real patriot, Marsela Pecanac. Like so many of you who are supporting Biden by donating money and time making calls and sending out post cards, she has not stood idly by. She has taken 100% responsibility to do her part to save our vulnerable democracy.
As a survivor of the vicious Bosnian war, she knows only too well how quickly a group of rabid, prejudiced anarchists waving flags from their trucks, can take over a country. She wrote:
“Responding to the urgency of this moment requires every creative, persuasive and impactful piece of content we can generate and disseminate. Some of us are pooling resources and working with media experts to launch a social media campaign to distribute the video “Trump Is The Virus”, created by our friend Yuval Lion. We found this footage compelling and powerful.”
Click the link to watch this 1:15 video. It’s excellent.
As Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast wrote, “The institutions of democracy are only as strong as the people who run them. Before Donald Trump, we tended to think that because these institutions have been around for so many years, they’re sturdy and stable and one man can’t destroy them in a mere four years.
But now we’ve learned no institution of democracy is inherently stable or strong. They’re only as strong as the people who are in charge of them. The special counsel’s office can be strong. But Robert Mueller decided, at the moment his nation needed him most, to be weak. Congress can be a strong check on presidential power. But Republicans have turned that to mush. The Department of Justice can also be a strong defender of democratic principle against an abusive president. But William Barr is a fascist.”
Never before have YOU had so much influence with the direction of our country than you have right NOW.
To preserve our democracy and to restore integrity to our leadership, we must remove Trump and the Republican Senate.
how much longer will we see this? how much longer are we to believe this will "just go away"? More importantly, WHY… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 week ago
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination’ and you can use my words against me and you will be absolutely right.”
