PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

The first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden occurred yesterday evening. In my opinion, Biden was the obvious winner and Trump was the loser. Trump from the onset had a melt-down, loudly spewing lies and nonsense and constantly interrupting both Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News. Trump showed himself to be a loud-mouth, fowl mouth, unhinged bully. Biden presented himself as presidential, honest, and competent. Biden’s best moments were when he ignored Trump, looked directly at the camera, and spoke to the American people. Trump’s actions were most likely the way he ordinarily is but amplified by fear that he is so behind in the polls that his artificial advantages due to the Electoral College and using his presidential levers of power to suppress voting (for example damaging the United States Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting) might be overcome by reality. Trump’s fear is most likely heightened by the knowledge that his personal financial crimes committed both before and during his presidency are coming to light and he will lose the ability to protect himself by using the powers of the presidency.

QUESTIONS FOR TRUMP

President Trump, I have a few questions for you.

1.    What are you hiding in the tax returns that you refuse to make public? I know you say you can’t release them because you are under audit. But that is a lie. Being under audit does not prevent a person from releasing tax returns. And, by the way, why are you under audit? Does it have something to do with the fact that you claim to have successfully made so much money in business before you became president and would use that business ability to improve the American economy? But actually it is now known that you paid very low amounts in taxes, lower than most average Americans, lower than many undocumented immigrants whom you deride? Donald, you can’t have it both ways, high income to the banks when you want to borrow money and low income to the US Treasury when you are called to pay your fair share of taxes. When you don’t pay your fair share of taxes, the rest of us Americans have to pay more (in taxes or loss in services) to make up the difference.

2.    Why are you so subservient to Vladimir Putin? Why do you prefer information from Putin’s neo-KGB over the American intelligence agencies? Why did the neo-KGB hack American computers and use social media to influence the 2016 election in your favor and are doing it again in the upcoming 2020 election.? Do you owe Putin something? Did he give or lend you money? Does that not indicate that you might show him and his country preferential treatment to the detriment of the interests of America?

3.    Why do you prefer foreign dictatorships (like Russia and Turkey) over our democratic allies in Western Europe? Do you have or seek financial interests in those dictatorships? Do they give you money? Or is it just that you aspire to transforming America into a dictatorship under you?

4.    Why did you sweep the seriousness of the COVID pandemic under the rug early in the pandemic? We know you knew about it because Bob Woodward recorded your admission when he interviewed you. At the same time you were telling the American people it was not serious. We know that is true because we heard you say that on television. Hiding the seriousness of the pandemic resulted in many more deaths in the USA than in other developed countries. That showed a lack of empathy for the American people, but wasn’t that also stupid?

5.    There are many more questions that could be asked about your shady, treasonous, and bigoted actions, but the list could go on and on. So for the moment let’s stop here.

DISLOYAL

I recommend Michael Cohen’s book, DISLOYAL. Mr. Cohen was a loyal lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump before he became president, during his 2016 presidential campaign, and during the early years of Trump’s presidency. The FBI seized materials from Cohen’s office and hotel room in April 2018 which documented his guilt in tasks done in the service of Trump. When it became obvious that Cohen would be indicted for those illegal tasks, Trump dumped Cohen and distanced himself from Cohen, leaving Cohen to take the consequences for the crimes which Trump directed Cohen to commit. Then Cohen turned against Trump, admitted his own guilt as well as those of Trump. Why did he turn against Trump? One obvious factor was that Trump did not return the loyalty that Cohen had shown to Trump. Another important factor was that his wife and children had all along disagreed with Cohen’s service to Trump and Trump’s corruption. Cohen admits his own guilt and agrees that his punishment was deserved. Perhaps Cohen had an epiphany as part of his reason. So what caused Cohen to do the crimes he did in the service of Trump? I can’t know independently what was in Cohen’s head. I can only read what Cohen said in his book. In the book, Cohen goes into detail about how he became enamored with glitter and power. In that way the book not only exposes Trump’s selfishness, narcissism, lack of empathy, and lack of morality. It also explores Cohen’s own complicity and how a person can be drawn into immorality by the glitter of power.

BETWEEN ROSH HASHONAH AND YOM KIPPUR

We are now in the time period between Rosh Hashonah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). It is said (figuratively) that one’s fate for the year is written on Rosh Hashonah and sealed on Yom Kippur. This year is particularly significant for our country, and since we are Americans, for each of us personally. More than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID giving our country the highest death toll in the world. I wish I would not have to insert politics into religion, but this year I pray that in the upcoming election Joe Biden will be elected to bring sanity and honesty back to the USA. I also pray that we elect senators with integrity who will support the important measures that Biden will have to implement to bring back honesty and civility to America and end the chaos of the past 4 years. We also honor the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who will go down in history as one of the great judges of the Supreme Court. I wish a healthy and good year for all people of all religions and races here in America (citizens and residents) and people all over the world.

NON-DISCRIMINATION LAWS PROTECT PERSONAL FREEDOM

 

My father completed dental school in the 1920s. My parents married in 1929, the year the Great Depression began. The 1930s were difficult years to build a dental practice. In addition to the Depression, there was antisemitism and an oversupply of dentists in the neighborhood where his practice was located. Then World War II began. My father was by then past the draft age. He heard that there was a need for dentists in the suburbs. He started an office at the almost southernmost point in Chicago about half a block from the corner where Chicago and 2 suburbs, Riverdale and Dolton came together. The Riverdale-Dolton community was a steel mill community. The inhabitants at that time were mainly steel mill workers and people who serviced steel mill workers. The inhabitants were also White. After the war a suburb called Altgeld Gardens was developed nearby. Most of the inhabitants of Altgeld Gardens were Black. There was a significant anti-Black sentiment in Riverdale-Dolton. The Whites there feared the Blacks would move into their community. Because of the anti-Black sentiment, my father would lose most of his patients if he took Black patients. On rare occasions when a Black patient came to his office with an emergency (like a bad toothache), he would tell the patient to come to the back door at night and he would usher them in with no one looking. My father had to risk losing a profitable practice in order to do the right thing. If the law would have forced professionals to provide service to all Americans without prejudice, he would not have had to risk his income including the ability to send my brother and me through medical school to provide the ethical service for which he worked so hard.

WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SHOULD BE

I used to consider myself an Independent who leaned more to the Democratic Party. Actually, the first party in which I ever registered was the Republican Party when I lived in Illinois because I wanted to vote for the nomination of a Republican candidate named Anderson. When I arrive in the voting booth the candidates were not listed, only the names of the electors. I had to step out of the voting booth and ask the judges which elector represented Anderson. My only reply was from a Democratic judge who took me far away from the voting booths to inform me which elector was for Anderson. Apparently, Thompson, the head of the Republican party in Illinois, favored Ronald Reagan. The faithful were informed which elector to vote for. Us Andersonites were not.

I understand the argument of ethical conservative Republicans that our country attracts immigrants because of its equal opportunities for advancement without guarantees. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s was the party that ended slavery. As a Democrat, I also believe that a wealthy country like ours should provide a safety net for those less fortunate. I also have noted that opportunity in America is not always equal or self-made. Wealth is often obtained by inheritance or sheer luck. Opportunities are often given prejudicially based on one’s religion, race, ancestry, or country of origin. I am not a socialist. I understand that everything can not be exactly the same for everyone. But there should be a reasonable limit to inequality.

In recent years, the Republican Party has increasingly become the party of billionaires to the detriment of the rest of us. They have used various undemocratic means to protect their wealth at times even undermining free honest capitalism by artificially protecting their financial positions. This has finally reached a crescendo with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency and the subsequent perversion of the Republican Party to give in to Trump’s every whim and chaotic behavior, to tolerate his attacks on the institutions of our government, to support his bigotry and divisiveness, and to even look the other way when he colludes with Vladimir Putin, a foreign dictator, against America. These sycophants are willing to discard 250 years of American progress to protect their personal wealth. We Americans must stand up to Trump and his mentor Putin. Many true conservative ethical Republicans have joined us. Just look at all the refugees from the real Republican Party who have sought refuge as commentators on MSNBC.

VOTE FOR JOE BIDEN!

VOTE FOR BIDEN AND HARRIS!

REAL REPUBLICANS, COME UNDER THE TENT IF ONLY JUST FOR THIS ELECTION! WE CAN DUKE IT OUT NEXT TIME IN 4 OR 8 YEARS!

 

QUESTIONS FOR TRUMP AND THE TRUMP PARTY HYPOCRITES

 

The Trumpers are clamoring for Joe Biden to release his list of candidates for RBG’s replacement on the Supreme Court, claiming that Trump is being transparent by releasing his list. But that is not true. Trump is releasing his list for purely political reasons to appeal to those in his base who want to destroy the gains made by Justice Ginsburg. Joe Biden will not release his list because that would also be political and would unfairly influence the candidates on his list. Biden should not be drawn in by this trick of the Trump Party. But while we are talking about transparency, Donald, why have we still not seen your tax returns? What are you hiding? Might you be hiding your entanglements with Russian oligarchs (also known as mobsters) and Vladimir Putin? Or your questionable business tactics both before and during your presidency?

Also while we are on the subject of RBC’s replacement, why are you Trump Party senators so willing to jam in a replacement at the last minute before the new president and senate take office contrary what you said concerning the appointment of Merrick Garland in 2016? You guys said then that a Supreme Court justice proposed in the last year of a presidency should be decided by the new president to give the American people the choice. Now you are saying the exact opposite. Is that not hypocritical? Does that not demonstrate to the voters how dishonest you are? Does that not tarnish your reputation? Your place in history?

COVID 19

 

Let’s review the COVID pandemic of this past year and how we got here. COVID 19 began in Wuhan China. At first the Chinese government tried to sweep it under the rug, but soon realized that was an error and mounted a vigorus campaign to control the problem. By then the virus had begun to spread outside of China, particularly to Europe. Then from Europe it began to spread to the USA. Early this year (2020) in a recorded interview with Bob Woodward, Trump admitted that he knew the virus was more contagious and more deadly than previously realized. At the same time Trump continued to downplay the importance of the virus to the American people publicly (and particularly targeting his loyal base) saying that it was just a regular flu and would spontaneously resolve soon. He apparently thought that alerting the public to the seriousness of the problem would be bad for him politically. At that time (and still today) the only effective measures to contain the problem were face mask wearing, social distancing, and cleanliness, but Trump discouraged those measures. To Trump’s followers, protecting themselves and their fellow Americans from the virus became politically incorrect. Trump tried as much as possible to remove scientists with integrity from high office and replaced them with sycophants who say what Trump wants to hear. The person who now has Trump’s ear is Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist (not an infectious disease expert or epidemiologist). Contrary to the real experts on the subject, Dr. Atlas favors herd immunity. Herd immunity means let the epidemic proceed  on its own without interference from us humans so it can kill off the most vulnerable (like us old people and also young people with other complicating diseases) and the rest can get sick and develop antibodies. However that means killing off a larger number of Americans (so far more than 200,000), and we don’t yet know with certainty to what extent the antibodies protect us from this particular virus. As a result of Trump’s reckless policy (or lack of policy), the USA has become the worst infected of all the developed countries in the world, and the pandemic has been disastrous for the American economy.

VOTE

Americans: VOTE! EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS! EACH VOTE COUNTS! Trump and the hacks he has installed into high places in the administration are trying to interfere with your right to vote because they know that most Americans prefer Joe Biden. So plan ahead. Vote as early as you can in person or by mail, whatever works for you. If by mail, use a drop box if one is available to you or mail it out as early as possible. Whatever you do, VOTE!

RUTH BADER GINSBURG

 

America mourns the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg was truly an American heroine and patriot who represented the rights of the American people against the bigots and greedy oligarchs who sought to trample on the rights of Americans. Justice Ginsburg labored on in her work despite illness and advanced age because she knew that if she stopped during the presidency of Trump/Putin and the tenure of the Trumpish McConnell Senate, she would be replaced by a Trumpish Far Right political hack thus further upsetting the balance of the Supreme Court. She almost made it, and in normal times would have reached her goal, but these are not normal times. We now have a corrupt, dishonest, inept administration in the White House led by President Trump who is compromised by Vladimir Putin and Putin’s neo-KGB, and we have a hypocritical leader of the Senate (Moscow Mitch McConnell) who blocked the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court by President Obama, then jammed through the appointment of Judge Kavanaugh (of questionable personal ethics), and now wants to at the last minute jam through the appointment of any political hack of Trump/Putin’s choosing. We Americans must fight to prevent any appointment to the Supreme Court before hopefully Joe Biden becomes president.

FRAGILITY OF DEMOCRACY

 Democracy is fragile. It’s freedom allows opportunity for opportunists who seek to pervert it.

The first democracy in ancient Greece was ultimately conquered by Alexander the Great who turned it into a monarchy. The same happened to the ancient Roman republic when it was turned into a monarchy by Julius Caesar. France’s brief turbulent unsuccessful first flirtation with democracy was ended by Napoleon who crowned himself emperor. Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic after World War I lasted about 10+ years until Hitler took over and changed it into the most brutal dictatorship in history. Around the same time, Mussolini turned Italy into a fascist dictatorship. Since the end of World War II, most of Western Europe has formed democracies which have stuck so far.

The most long lasting democracy in recent centuries has been ours in the USA. It has not always been perfect. In the beginning it allowed slavery for a period of around 90 years, and we are still working on the after effects of that slavery. But our democracy has lasted and gradually improved in quality over a period of about 245 years. The original framers of our system of government took great pains to create a system of checks and balances because they feared that a tyrant might someday try to overthrow our democracy.

Now we are facing a challenge. A wannabe dictator (Trump) was elected president 4 years ago by less than the majority of Americans through the inequity of the electoral college and the help of a foreign dictator (Putin) who has used his neo-KGB (his spies) to influence our elections through social media in Trump’s favor. Trump has seized the levers of government to consolidate his power by removing people of integrity from high administrative offices in the government and replaced them with sycophants who do not represent the interests of the American people and who hide facts to benefit Trump (and Putin). Trump’s grab at tyranny has been supported by most Republican senators who fear losing their elected seats if they cross him because many true conservatives have left the Republican party leaving behind Trump’s loyal Radical Right.

To my Conservative Republican friends, in this election put country above party. Once we have removed the tyrant from the White House, next time we can duke it out with a new and improved Republican Party. The upcoming election is the greatest test American Democracy has faced. It is existential for America.

VOTE!

VOTE FOR JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS!

VOTE FOR AMERICA

DRAFT DODGER DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump: How dare you call American soldiers killed in battle "losers" and "suckers?" How dare you demean John McCain who was captured as a pilot in Vietnam and spent years as a POW in a prison? How dare you insult American war dead. Unlike you, they were patriots who sacrificed for America. 

I did not claim fake "bone spurs" as you did to dodge the draft. I am no hero, but when I was called by the draft to serve my country in 1964, I did so because I am an American. I spent my tour of duty as an army doctor, 1 year in South Korea and the second year in the USA. I was fortunate to not have been in Vietnam, but if I had been sent there I would have gone because that was what one does. 

Also why did you ignore Vladimir Putin's bounties on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan? Why are you so subservient to Putin? Why did you ignore reports by American intelligence about attacks on the US elections by Putin's neo-KGB? Is it because those attacks were done to favor your candidacy? Is that why you are acting like Putin's agent, or are you also in debt to him? Donald, what are you hiding from the American people?

BLACK LIVES MATTER REQUIRES GUN CONTROL

Black lives matter as all lives matter. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, as well as many others were equally tragic and equally unjust. Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and murdered by two armed White Supremacists who pursued him and shot him while he was jogging because he was Black. This was obvious first degree murder. George Floyd was murdered by a policeman who unnecessarily and illegally choked him to death by placing his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck. One might argue what degree of murder, but it was murder. 

Breonna Taylor's killing was certainly tragic, wrong, and unjust, but who was guilty of what? In that case the police erroneously broke down the door of her apartment (it was the wrong apartment and the culprit they were pursuing was already in police custody) without announcing themselves thus waking up Miss Taylor and her boyfriend. The boyfriend who was in legal possession of a gun fired at the door thinking it was intruders prompting the police to fire back killing Miss Taylor. The police certainly acted with gross incompetence and malpractice, should have been fired, should have lost their licenses to carry guns forever, and should have been liable financially. But where is the greatest guilt? The greatest guilt is in the gun anarchy that exists in America, in the NRA, in the notion that the Second Amendment (which is of doubtful interpretation) allows anyone to carry any kind of firearm at will, in  the greed of the gun industry that will promote any crazy injustice that will bring them money. Racial bias does exist among some policemen and must be corrected with police reform, but correcting the problem of wrongful disproportionate killing of Black men needs gun control to complete the solution to the problem for the safety of all Americans.