ELECTION 2021

 

It’s November 3, 2021 and the elections for this month/year are over. Glenn Youngkin (R) has beaten Terry McAuliffe (D) for the governorship of VA. This is a heavily Democrat state where Biden supposedly won the election by 10% only a year ago. The Democrats are saying this is not a reflection of Biden’s failure as a President. The Republicans are saying that it is.

Throughout the campaign the Democrats focused on one issue: Trump. It was what they talked about most. When President Biden went there to campaign he mentioned Trump repeatedly but never mentioned any accomplishments he or McAuliffe had achieved. President Obama went in and told the people of VA that the culture war didn’t actually exist, it was created by the Republicans. VP Harris came in and campaigned for him. So did GA heavy hitter Stacy Abrams. And yet he lost.

On the other hand Youngkin never talked about Trump and didn’t even campaign with him. He talked about the concerns that the voters of VA had. This included the handling of the border, the rise in crime, cancel culture and the determination of school boards to insert critical race theory into schools.

The difference in views between the two on schools was jarring. McAuliffe did what any Democrat would do. He said that he would increase teacher’s pay. He showed he could care less what voters and parents think saying "I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." Then again teachers unions almost exclusively donate money to Democrat candidates.

Youngkin sides with the parents. He made note of what the fact that critical race theory is yet another attempt to pit one group against another. It’s yet one more example of the Democrats trying to create an us versus them mentality. All the while schoolboards were claiming that they were in fear for their lives. They and the teacher’s unions sent letters to the President asking for him to start an investigation into parents who were upset by their actions. Unfortunately for President Biden it came out that these letters were instigated by his own White House as they asked both groups to make this request so they could assign AG Garland to instruct the FBI to look into the parents. This is a throwback to the Obama administration politicizing a government branch as they did targeting right leaning groups by the IRS.

So what can we take away from this election? If you ask Biden he says it’s because his Build Back Better initiative hasn’t been passed yet. He ignores his performance as President in the whole matter and says that has nothing to do with anything. This after saying a few days ago that America has the strongest returning economy in the world…despite the fact that both Indian and China are showing more growth. He says things like more people have had the vaccine since he took office; well since the first vaccine was administered on December 14, 2020 and he took office January 20, 2021, about a month later I hope so. That’s almost 10 months compared to one. And the numbers aren’t decreasing.

The wise Democrats are realizing that the goose that laid the golden egg, or in this case the orange goose, can no longer be used to win an election. At a time when gas prices are at least a dollar more than what they were a year ago, when inflation shows no sign of slowing down, when the border is porous, when murders in this country are on the rise people no longer want to hear “orange man bad”. He’s been gone for 9 months how can any of this be his fault? Especially when anyone can see what policy measures have been put in place that have created these things.

The border: Biden eliminates all items put in place by President Trump without looking to see which ones worked. During his campaign he also told people come on in. The results was an increase in people crossing the border illegally. He tried to say this was just a seasonal thing but the numbers showed the numbers were higher than in the pass. Then he recently decided to pay all these people who entered ILLEGALLY $450,000 each because they were separated from family members while breaking the law in the way they entered the country.

Crime: As activists and protesters complain there are thousands of young blacks in this country being killed by white police officers they called out for an elimination of police forces and defunding the same police departments. This in spite of the fact the facts. Facts like black criminals were more likely to be shot by black officers than whites. Facts like the numbers aren’t there to back up the claim. As the claim was made the facts showed there were perhaps 100 blacks killed by police officers at the time and that most of them were either trying to take the officer’s gun when shot, trying to run over them with a care or other violent acts. At the time the claim was made there were only two, count them, two incidents where the police were guilty of misconduct in a shooting death and both resulted in charges brought against those officers.

Gas prices: When Biden took office the average cost of a gallon of gas was 2.47. Today it is 3.39. Before he took office America was self-sufficient for the first time when it came to gas. Those on the left will tell you that Biden had nothing to do with this, it is due to a shortage on the supply side. This ignores the fact that he shut down two pipelines when he entered office. And while he’s called on our country to commit to stop using fossil fuels he’s encouraged those in the Middle East to increase their output and agreed on Putin putting a pipeline in Russia.

Activism right and left: As riots and buildings continue to burn across the country the Biden administration does nothing to prevent them. They don’t hold organizations like BLM or Antifa responsible for any of it despite their fingerprints everywhere. Instead they continue to push the concept that the most dangerous groups facing our country are white supremacists. This despite there being no white supremacists staging rallies or destroying property or people anywhere. And if you’re a parent concerned about what your children are being taught, the Biden administration considers you a threat as well. So much so that they’ve called on the AG and FBI to investigate parents who are bold enough to speak on behalf of their children.

Foreign policy: Before he became President, Biden said that out allies were unhappy with us and he would re-establish our relationships with foreign countries. Now the French are unhappy with us because of our deal with Australia for nuclear subs. North Korea began testing missiles again. China launched a hypersonic missile. President Biden removes our troops from Afghanistan in a catastrophic failure removing the troops first rather than last and leaving behind a number of US citizens and Afghanis who helped us who would now face execution; his response was that this was Trump’s fault because he committed us to withdrawing troops from there by May (which he said as he began withdrawing them in August 3 months after that “deadline” while ignoring the Trump plan that called for troops to be withdrawn last rather than first; it also ignored the fact that a vast number of other items put in place by Trump he either ignored or rescinded).

In 2020 candidate Joe Biden ran as a moderate Democrat. Once in office that was tossed out the window and he showed his far left ideas and put them in place. Yet another lie to get where he wanted to be. Or at least to get the Democrats in power. And to retain power they’ve done all they could from trying to eliminate the filibuster (which they used often) to claiming voting rights were being destroyed by the right when in fact they were making things easier to vote. At least legally.

So what can we take away from the elections this year? Well for one Democrat strategists are today talking about how they need to stop talking about Donald Trump. It’s done nothing to help them. But that won’t be easy since there are almost no accomplishments that can be seen as positive since Biden took office. More bad things have actually happened in almost 10 months than the entire 4 years Trump was in office. My guess is we will see more lies told about opponents and more attempts at changing voting rules.

The Republicans may be celebrating now but they need to keep the push on rather than bask in the wins. They need to continue to stand up for things they believe in such as not teaching CRT or allowing pornographic books into schools. They need to clean up police forces and eliminate the bad apples and show this is being done. They need to prove they have a better plan for all of the things that Biden has ruined since taking office. And they need to not sit down but to work hard to win the midterms and take back both the House and the Senate.

They say you can’t blame all of the bad things that happen on just one President. The mass media tried to prove that wrong for 4 years of Trump by turning any good news into bad and consistently blaming him for everything. Now they claim none of these problems are because of Biden. But they’re finding it’s not near as easy to make something as terrible as the Biden administration look like it’s doing something good. It would be nice if they were just impartial. It’s time they were ignored and people did their due diligence in what is actually taking place.

ARE WE HERE YET?

 

I’ve noted before that fear sells when it comes to the press. They not only thrive on it, they encourage it. If you don’t believe that then look at the headlines at the top of Drudge today. You’d think the world ended and the apocalypse predicted in MAX MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME was already here.

-CDC internal report calls Delta variant as contagious as smallpox 

-Millions infected daily?

-Significance of “breakthrough” infections not clear

-Mask decision followed Cape Cod outbreak

-Capitol Police ordered to arrest barefaces

-School debate erupts anew weeks before classes resume

-Feelings of déjà vu amid more mandates, restrictions

-Front-line workers in FL say surge “feels like impending storm”

-“Crazy” wait times at testing sites

-Some chasing extra dose, while scientists debate

-NFL QB jabbed after pressure from league: “They’ll make life miserable”

-Pandemic leads to another summer of anger

-Biden mask back on

-Military ‘mandatory injections’

-Sydney readies for the army as lockdown fails to quash Delta variant

-LA schools mandate weekly testing for students, teacher

-‘Covid with a vengeance’ consumes politics

I know that most of us have had someone touched by Covid since this all began. I had a family member who tested positive. The result? Some headache, some nausea for a few days. After that all done. Now don’t get me wrong I know there are some who had it worse and many who have died. But consider all of the people you know, your day to day life, your going to the grocery store, your family get togethers. Do you see signs of the apocalypse there? 

When you think about it the worst thing about this has been the politicization of it all. The government talking about forcing people to take vaccines. Government groups arresting people for not wearing masks, especially odd since they told us if vaccinated you don’t need them. Biden and Harris saying they wouldn’t take a vaccine if it was made under Trump only to months later condemn people for not taking the same vaccine prepared under Trump; and then claiming others were responsible for people’s unwillingness to get the vaccine. Borders closed to the north while thousands who test positive are allowed to come across the southern border and shipped to cities across the country. Telling us to trust the government who says one thing one week, the opposite the next and then reverses to the first item a week later. Yes, information changes but why not stop rushing to judgement only to change days later?

With all of this explosive news one would think Covid was the number one cause of death in the US in 2020. Except it wasn’t. It came in third. First was heart disease and second was cancer. Then you have unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide. I understand and Covid is different from the first two because it can be transmitted from one person to another but why are we not seeing as large a concern for every other item on the list? And if we are forcing people to be vaccinated, when we see the same edicts given to the other items on the list?

Here’s the thing about Covid. It’s out there. It will always be out there with new variants popping up from time to time. If you don’t believe that consider that influenza is still on that list and it’s been around for centuries. Take precautions, get the vaccine and wear a mask. But don’t condemn others for choosing not to. And stop with the Chicken Little scenarios. It’s not helping the country when you do so.

WE ARE NOT WHO THEY CLAIM WE ARE; WE ARE UNITED

 

I mentioned “self-fulfilling prophecy” On Facebook. There’s a great example of it going on right now.

For most people their day to day lives consist of going to work, coming home, doing things around the house, eating dinner, watching TV and going to bed. Weekend are spent dealing with bigger things around the house, going places, being with family and things like that. The average person, the majority of people, are doing this day in and day out. They have jobs, they don’t have time to join hate groups. But the press goes on and on about them as if they were marching down each and every Main Street in America.

They have pushed this narrative of a racist country for decades in spite of things finally getting better. As each generation realized the mistakes of the past, things improved. Starting in the 60s, which you have to realize is now 60 YEARS AGO, the changes began. Blacks were on TV series and commercials, being paid on sports teams and in commercials and separate bathrooms were being changed to just two, men and women. The 70s showed a surge in movies with Blaxploitation films making blacks heroes, blacks were not just included in series but were the lead characters as well, inclusion and representation in more and more things on a daily basis was happening. All of this continued with each passing decade. But one thing didn’t change much. 

Blacks still weren’t moving into better paying jobs. They’d been sold a bill of goods for decades saying “Vote for me and I’ll take care of you”. Except it didn’t happen. Instead politicians like LBJ destroyed the black family unit and black fathers were replaced with government fathers paying the bills and raising kids. It is perhaps the single worst thing to happen to blacks in the country. It increased the number of crimes committed by blacks and an increase in black gangs.

This was boosted in a time when it should have decreased. Barrack Obama was our first black President. That should have been a great moment for blacks in this country and in some ways it was. But here again we had a Democrat pledging to save people and he did nothing to help them. Wages for blacks didn’t rise significantly his 8 years in office. And he blamed white people, in particular police officers, for all the ails that took place for blacks in this country. It was the initial wedge being planted between whites and blacks again.

Then we had a rash of police involved shooting deaths involving white officers and black suspects. Except that it wasn’t a rash or huge number. It was like single digits and almost all of them involved criminals committing crimes. But that’s not what we heard. That caused the rise of a Marxist organization (their words not mine) who focused on the deaths of blacks in this country. Unless those deaths were committed by blacks against blacks (the number one killer of young black men today in this country) or abortion clinics. That organization took in millions of dollars preaching hate and claiming this was rampant in this country. As the dust settled slightly we found out that all of those donations weren’t going to local chapters and the leaders of the group were buying multiple properties, some on posh white neighborhoods filled with people they claimed to hate.

Now that self-fulfilling prophecy. Throughout all of this, from the 60s forward to now, one group profited highly from these events. The mainstream media promoted racism in this country. Seriously. News is based on alarmism. You create a boogeyman to scare children and tell them stories about him on nightly news. In this case white supremacist and Klan members. Early on these people were rightly vilified and they began to crawl into obscurity. Groups like the SPLC were trotted out by the press to inform us that it was still raging across the country. The thing is we didn’t see these groups. Almost ever.

That all changed when Trump was elected. Not because he encouraged it, he actually condemned racist organizations routinely but you’d never know that watching the nightly news. For the first time in decades we actually saw a racist group show up on TV in Charlottesville. And then they disappeared again. But that didn’t stop the press. They could now jump up and down screaming “See! We told you they were there!” And then they disappeared again.

But the press continued their claim that these people were out there rioting in the streets and causing issues in this country. To boost this claim they began labeling anyone who disagreed with them as racist. If you thought all lives matter and not just black lives, you were told you were a racist. If you supported that policies of the Trump administration, things like policies that saw significant rises in median household income levels and wages of blacks rise for the first time in decades, you were labeled a racist. If you spoke your mind and it wasn’t a woke mind, you were a racist.

Night after night, day after day, we were being bombarded with this information from the press. And it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. After claims had been made for decades people began to believe what they were being told. Recent surveys show that many Americans believe that racism is alive and well in this country, that it is thriving. Why? Because they have been told repeatedly that it has.

Stories of people like George Floyd were claimed to be the norm rather than the exception. This led to calls to defund the police. If you’d listen to the news you’d think that’s what everyone wants. Some cities went so far as to follow through with this, taking money from police departments and putting it into social systems instead. The end result was fewer officers and a rise in crime. Some of these cities saw a 700% rise in their murder rates. The hardest hit neighborhoods were those of color and impoverished neighborhoods. In those neighborhoods blacks were not calling for fewer police but for MORE police. Almost every survey of these neighborhoods saw that 70-80% of blacks living there wanted MORE police. But that doesn’t make for a good soundbite for a politician on TV.

And those racists scum we were told about, our biggest boogeyman? The Biden administration and the FBI have told us that white supremacist are our most feared domestic terror group at present. All funding and efforts are aimed towards taking down these groups. None of these groups are named though. And we haven’t seen evidence of their doing anything. At least with foreign terrorists we saw them take down two towers, get on planes, kill our soldiers in other countries and more. Here though? Crickets.

And while those crickets chirp when it comes to these racists terrorists we watched as buildings were being burned to the ground in Democrat run cities across the country. Federal buildings and police stations were set afire. People were being brutalized and in some cases killed by groups like antifa. Cars were carjacked. Streets were blocked and cars forced to drive elsewhere. A section of one city was set aside for protesters resulting in death, rapes, theft and more in that area with no police protections. Make no mistake these groups were definitely terrorist groups. But Democrats called them a myth. They said they didn’t exist as video upon video showed them doing these misdeeds. The press portrayed them as “peaceful protesters” as building burned in the background.

When January 6^th happened the press had a field day. There was those racists’ boogeymen! There they were trying to overturn our country and destroy democracy! They were mostly white so they had to be racists! They were terrorist trying to harm this great land.

While we had a steady stream of violence for three months across the country that destroyed lives, businesses and billions of dollars in property damage none of that was called an act of terrorism. And it went on for months and months. January 6^th took place on one day and after 5 hours it was all over and things went back to normal.

If you think a bunch of unarmed people waving American flags can completely overturn our system of government in a single day I have to wonder about you. This group was nothing more than a collection of people who were unhappy about election results and got carried away. The amount of damage they did that day was a few windows and a door. No buildings were burned to the ground. No businesses were destroyed. With the exception of one of the protesters no one was killed by what took place. How could you possibly believe that our system of democracy, our government, could be completely upended by 3-400 people walking through the Capitol building while we have thousands upon thousands of military personnel in this country, thousands upon thousands of police officers in this country? Really?

I think our country is stronger than that. And if people simply turned off the network news and cable news stations who make it their business to create turmoil rather than appease it they’d know this. If they sat on their porch and said hi to their neighbors they’d see just how peaceful this country really is. No one is walking down the aisle of the supermarket yelling racial epithets at people of color. They see people they know, smile, wave and say hi. Their lives are not ruled by racist beliefs in spite of what the press and left wing politicians want us to believe.

The press does this because it sells. The old adage “if it bleeds it leads” is still true to this day. The thing is that they encourage the worst in people giving them air time. Politicians know too that if you create something to fear they can control you as well. Present people an evil and make them think you are there to right all wrongs, to finally give them justice and to protect them and you’ll get votes which is all they care about.

A simple question. After months of riots, burning buildings, looting, killing in the streets, congress has not impaneled an investigation of what took place. As a matter of fact many of those people who were arrested doing these things have been released without charges. On the other hand a congressional inquiry has been established for what happened during 5 hours on January 6^th. Almost 500 people have been arrested and jailed for actions from that day. A man walking peacefully through the Capitol that day was just sentenced to 8 months in prison. He was guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time waving the wrong flag. So why are we focusing so much on that day but not the months previously? Unless you’re using it for political purposes.

How about we do this. We stop watching those news programs that promote outrage and violence. Or we start digging deeper into the things they tell us so we can learn the WHOLE story. And how about we continue to sit on the porch, wave to the neighbors and be the normal people we are. The normal people that the news folks and politicians have no clue make up the majority of this country. The good people that know first-hand that racism isn’t running rampant, that black and white people live together fine every day, that police are actually good people and that hate isn’t ruining this country, news people and politicians are.

Cathy Turner's Memorial

 

 

As some of you are aware my wife of 41 years (this coming August) passed away. I've been writing on Facebook to deal with it in my own way. At her memorial service I wrote something for Pastor Kevin Stirratt to read for me since I knew I'd never make it through reading it. Many of you said that not only did Pastor Stirratt do a great job of the service but that the words touched you. So if you would like to read them through taking your time I thought I'd post it here. The following is what was written and said:

If you know me you know that I surround myself with two things. Movies and humor. So keep in mind that humor has gotten me through much of this. Memories of things that Cathy and I laughed at, of when she laughed at me and when I laughed at her. I’ve also gotten through much of this with crying and thinking back to the good AND bad times. What I posted this week is true, ALL couples go through times like that. If you think you’re the only one take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. And as I said on my post, like the nightly news it is the bad things that get talked about and the most attention while the daily good things are set aside. Those bad times might make up just point 1% and the good times 99.9%, but they don’t get nearly the attention they deserve.

Cathy and I began dating in high school. She always reminded me how dumb I was about asking her out and it made her laugh. I walked up to her at her locker and said “Would you like to go out Friday night?” She said yes and I said “Okay I’ll let you know when” and walked away. Believe it or not I was shy. Before that we were with a group of friends who went out to Luden’s Bridge and then Noah’s Ark for pizza. The next time we went out was our first date, 3 couples, to Southtown to see the movie THE ODESSA FILE. The following week we began going steady. 

We went steady off and on through 2 years of high school. She’d get mad, break up and by the time I got home (remember, no cell phones then) she’d be on the phone apologizing and we’d be back together again. We stayed together the same way while I was in college and in 1980 when I graduated we got married. We moved to Indy and I worked for Loews Theaters while she worked for different dentists making retainers. We had Alex there and around 1986 we moved back to Decatur. 

We were together through the years of Popcorn Video and she kept making retainers for a doctor in Ft. Wayne. Eventually she left that and pursued an education as nurse. She went to both Ivy Tech and St. Vincent’s and eventually got her BS in nursing. She was proud of the RN after her name.  She worked at various hospital including here in town and at nursing homes. When she got sick with Meniere’s disease she went on disability. Eventually she came down with cancer and was fighting that the last two years. But it was congestive heart failure that took her from us. 

So much for history and a few answers to some of your questions. My memories? 

I remember her being a hottie and no matter what she always was that to me. I remember how much she adored our son Alex, James to some of you. Ask me another time and I’ll explain. I remember her loving being the drum major for the Bellmont High School band. I remember her loving music, from playing it to singing to listening to it. She was mostly off key singing but I never told her. She would often be enthralled by various performers from Kenny Loggins to Daryl Hall to Michael Hutchence to Robert Lamm. And yet when I once said “It’s a good thing I don’t fall for any performer” she cried saying that would tear her apart. She was still a fan of Chicago last week. 

She couldn’t have loved her family more. Not just her nieces and nephews who she baby sat for when they were kids but their kids and their kid’s kids as well. If there was a baby around they weren’t safe if she was there. She loved holding those babies. She loved watching they grow up. She loved supporting them. She loved watching them in their homes. 

She loved the rest of her family too, her parents and sisters and brother. She loved my family. Does love mean you never get mad? Not at all. She did that often. If you ever saw her scowl you’ll remember it now. But it didn’t mean she didn’t love those people with all of her heart. She was opinionated and that got her in trouble sometimes but it never meant she didn’t still love her entire family, each and every one of you. Okay I will admit, though not a family member, she didn’t like Juan Williams on THE FIVE very much. She made me fast forward through his comments when we’d watch.

When our son moved away it broke her heart but she understood. There were times when she would call just to hear his voice. There were times she had ME call just to hear him but didn’t want to talk over the past year. Then she would say something because she got tired of hearing the two of us talk about movies or comics. Neither interested her. 

She love some reality TV but hated other shows. Ghost hunting shows she loved, historical shows she loved and lost type shows she loved. Among the pictures I shared are some of the guys from GHOST HUNTERS we met. She was ecstatic about that. She heard they were going to be in Kentucky and I made sure she got to go see them. She loved FINDING BIGFOOT and EXPEDITION BIGFOOT. Watching those shows with her gave me ideas to use in Sweet Christmas. I often wondered why she loved shows like this but hated wrestling programs. Some people actually believe in Bigfoot *cough cough Kevin*. 

She was my censor when I would write the Sweet Christmas programs. I heard more than once “No Mark, you can’t do that there.” Everyone who is a member of this church should be thankful that she was there. You may be in trouble at the next one. And yet in spite of that she didn’t prevent issues with pants. 

You can’t be with someone for 45 years and sum up your life together in 25 words or less. Heck I’m at 1027 already. We had our ups and downs but I loved her each and every day. Last Friday I realized it even more than ever. I will cling to those memories and thoughts and feelings. From comments made this last week I know all of you will as well. The outpouring has been amazing. I will have to adjust. My whole focus for the past two years has been taking care of her. Now I feel kind of lost but I will find myself again eventually. I love each and every one of you just like she did. I thank you for your love to her all these years. I thank her for the love she gave me for over half of my life. 

I have no doubt more memories will be shared over the upcoming days and weeks. But now I open up to allow anyone to do so here. I was told some people might be too shy. You’re among friends and loved ones. There were so many good times. Feel free to share those now, here. And if not Kevin will move on. If someone doesn’t get up and talk about Swine Lake I will be stunned. 

I’ll get the ball rolling. Three weeks ago she looked at me after the song “Happy Man” by Chicago played. She said “I could play the bongos like that. Why don’t you order me some bongos?” I laughed it off. A week later she said “Has my package shown up yet?” I said “What package?” She said “My bongos”. I told her I thought she was joking and she know she was serious and not to buy her any of those cheap bongos but a real pair. So I ordered her a real set of bongos. They showed up last week and she was tickled pink. She began playing them right away having watch lessons on YouTube that week before. She kept telling me she wanted me to learn a song on the guitar and would joke that we would play together on Madison Street. I’d just laugh. I knew better. But I’ll tell you this. I’m glad I bought her those bongos. At a time when she wasn’t feeling herself or feeling good they made her smile. I’ll keep that smile with me. 

I love you all. Thank you for me and Alex both. Your turn.

If you are here with someone you love, turn to them and tell them and give them a hug or a kiss or both. Let them know. Right now. Life is precious and short. You might think you’re too busy and will get to it eventually. The reality is that you never know no matter what age you are if you will miss that chance. So do it now while you can. Call someone you love when you leave here and make sure they know. Write to them. You can lose someone in the blink of an eye. Don’t let the chance to tell them what they mean slip from you. Do it now and do it often after.

THINGS 2020 DEMOCRATS AND CANDIDATES ARE FOR

I’ve been sharing this list as each Democrat candidate makes a claim about either what they stand for or what they promise to do if they’re elected. For some reason they seem to not think that proof of things they say will always be out there. Then again maybe they just think no one will remember what they say by election time. One more thing to note, a number of Democrats commented that it takes one set of promises to get the Democratic nomination and another to win the Presidential election. Think about that. It means you tell people what you plan to do in one election and then distance yourself from that until you win the next election. One of the reasons it's important to remember the things they've said they stood for and promised to do if elected. The list continues and when it finally ends the number of items promised by these candidates, especially all of the “free” stuff will be enormous since it already is.

All of these items come from various news sources including CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, AP, Reuters and more. There are things that were actually said by those quoted.

2-26-20

-Elizabeth Warren wants to levy civil and criminal penalties against social media companies that "knowingly disseminate" misinformation. What she fails to discuss is who gets to decide what is and what isn’t misinformation. Also by saying this she indicates that the American people were stupid and only voted for Trump in 2016 because of items posted on social media by Russians.

-Tom Steyer promises to raise minimum wage to $22 after the CBO predicts raising minimum wage to $15 would lose 1.3 million jobs.

-Elizabeth Warren banning males from competing in female sports is cruel.

-Pete Buttigieg is against the death penalty for terrorist.

-Bernie Sanders defends Cuba saying it’s “unfair to simply say everything is bad”. Why? “When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program.” No comment could be found from the 97,000 verifiable dead people Castro had killed after taking power who never had access to that literacy program.

- In the “do as I say not as I do” category. AOC aka Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, preached against charter schools in favor of public schools. While doing so, she also got her goddaughter into a charter school.

-Mike Bloomberg thinks if you’re old and dying, you should just die and get it over with. “We’ve got to sit here and say which things we’re going to do, and which things we’re not, nobody wants to do that. Y’know, if you show up with prostate cancer, you’re 95 years old, we should say, ‘Go and enjoy. Have a nice [inaudible]. Live a long life. There’s no cure, and we can’t do anything.’ If you’re a young person, we should do something about it.”

-AOC says children should attend public schools and school choice should not be something that is offered instead. She also made a point of getting her god child into a private school.

-Elizabeth Warren berates Mike Bloomberg during the debate, bringing up reports of one particular allegation against Mike Bloomberg that he told a pregnant employee “to kill it,” a reference to the woman’s unborn child. Bloomberg denied the allegation. This is the same Elizabeth Warren who cheers on Planned Parenthood, is pro-abortion and who said “Today, thanks to Roe, getting an abortion is safer than getting your tonsils out.”

-During the debate, almost all of the candidates chastised Mike Bloomberg for being wealthy. None of those candidate ever created a business or employed anyone other than those who worked for them in public office. With the exception of Pete Buttigieg, all of them are millionaires.

2/1/2020

-Biden vows to bring back the individual mandate for the ACA which means everyone gets a new “tax”

-Elizabeth Warren blames coronavirus on Trump due to his cutting back on bureaucrats and his views on climate change

-Elizabeth Warren opposes tax credits for donations to schools with Christian views on sexuality

-When questioned about how he intends to fund the numerous free items he wants to install Bernie Sanders says there’s no way of knowing

-CNN commentator who claims to be a journalist Don Lemmon laughs uncontrollably when his guests ridicule Trump supporters using hillbilly accents and claiming they don’t know what words or maps are

-The Washington Post noted that Bernie Sanders and his team are crafting executive orders to be put into place his first day in office should he win. These would bypass congress since they fear Republicans will take back the house and remain in control of the Senate. Included in these executive orders are stopping construction of the southern border wall, reversing Trumps immigration policy, lifting the cap on the number of refugees who can enter the country, reinstating the Obama-era program that granted legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, allowing prescription drugs from Canada to be sold in the U.S., blanket legalization of marijuana, declaring climate change a national emergency, banning the export of crude oil, nixing the federal contracts of companies paying their workers less than $15 per hour and reversing federal rules that prevent the funding of organizations that engage in abortion counseling. The letter with this list also notes that the authors believe the items are so important that “We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues…” In other words the fear that Trump would become a dictator bypassing congress that never materialized could potentially happen under Sanders.

11/14/19

-Bernie Sanders now says that broadband internet is a "basic human right" and plans on using the New Green Deal to provide internet free internet to everyone. Another “free” item in order to gain votes.

-Michael Bloomberg plans to close all 251 coal plants in the country within 30 years to combat climate change as well as gas-fired power plants. He also said that if elected he would be ending all subsidies for fossil fuels, implementing stringent carbon and health pollutant standards for new gas plants, and putting a halt to construction of a new generation of fossil-fuel power plants. What he fails to note is that there is nothing currently available to take their place. Instead he plans to dedicate money to research and development. Which means during that time the costs of power will rise.

-Pete Buttigieg wants to decriminalize all drugs. Perhaps this explains why the crime rate in South Bend has risen since he was elected.

-From the Democrat debate on 11/14/20

              -Elizabeth Warren (known for lying about being of Native American background to get a better

                position when teaching, who lied about the job her father had, etc.) accuses Bernie Sanders of

                 saying there was no way a woman could beat Donald Trump. Amy Klobuchar who also talked

                 with Sanders said he never said it. Sanders denies ever having said it.

              -All candidates on the stage were white.

              -Sanders attacked Biden for his voting for the Iraq War and his approach on free trade.

              -Steyer faced complaints that as a billionaire he was trying to buy his way to the White House.

              -Warren said all troops need to come out of the Middle East while Buttigieg, Biden and

                Klobuchar said we need to maintain a small military presence there.

              -Sanders claimed that NAFTA cost the US 4 million jobs. Fact checkers said it wasn’t so. In

               addition to that, if this were the case he should be happy Trump renegotiated the deal.

              -Steyer wants to declare a state of emergency on climate change on day one if elected.

              -Biden says, again, that he opposed the Iraq War from day one. Fact checkers showed this

               wasn’t true and that he didn’t say his vote for the war until 3 years later in 2005.

              -The candidates want to provide free child care.

              -Buttigieg says ensuring Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons is a priority. Didn’t Trump say that

               this week too?

              -All of the candidates in the debate trash talked Trump. He seems to get more coverage from

               these debates than the people on the stage.

What was learned at the last Democratic debate of 2019:

-You start the night by taking turns slamming President Trump even though he’s not in the debate, not part of the debate and not a nominee. But you earn brownie points for talking trash about him anyway instead of using the time to talk about what you stand for.

-If you are a person of color you complain that the rest aren’t

-You attack a fellow nominee for taking money from big business even if you have too, just not as much

-You insult your opponent by saying he’s too young

-While being attacked for taking big business money, you note that of the people standing on stage you’re the only one who isn’t a million or billionaire

-You attack big business, those people who employ everyone

-Almost all said on day one they would impose climate change regulations, ignoring the effect it would have on the economy and costs for things like heat and gas for low level income people.

-One candidate said we need to work together with Republicans to achieve things and that was Biden. While I think he truly believes this it could also be because if Democrats lose the odds of his son being investigated by people he is talking nice about is pretty good.

12/4/19

-It may be that Michael Bloomberg wants people to forget that he’s all for raising taxes on the poor in hopes of changing their behaviors. In a speech made April 2018 to the International Monetary Fund in Washington he while talking about raising taxes to force people to stop smoking or eating sugary foods he said “The question is do you want to pander to those people or do you want them to live longer.” Also from that speech “Yes they are [regressive]…That’s the good thing about them because the problem is in people who don’t have a lot of money. And so higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves…I listen to people saying, ‘Oh, we don’t want to tax the poor.’ Well, we want the poor to live longer so they can get an education and enjoy life. That’s why you do want to do exactly what a lot of people say you don’t want to do…There is just no question. If you raise taxes on full sugary drinks, for example, they will drink less and there is just no question that full sugary drinks are one of the major contributors to obesity and obesity is one of the major contributors to heart disease and cancer and a variety of other things.” So raising taxes in an effort to force you to do something is fine with Bloomberg. The question is, what follows these items, what’s next?

-Elizabeth Warren says she’ll abolish the Electoral College by her “second term”. In other words she expects to win not just this election but the next. She stated that her “goal” “is to get elected and then be “the last American president to be elected by the Electoral College.”

-Elizabeth Warren vows to wear a Planned Parenthood scarf to the inauguration if she wins.

-CA Gov. Gavin Newsome hands down an executive order that directs the state’s Transportation Agency, pension funds, and the department that manages government contracts to reconsider how they spend the public’s money with an eye toward investing in projects that could help Californians prepare for climate change. He claims the money intended for road repair and pensions will be made up with a new tax and fees levied on fuel and vehicle registration. So gas, already at some of the highest prices in the country, will go up, owning a car will go up and new taxes on top of some of the highest taxes in the country will go up. So he can take money designated for one thing and shift it to a pet project instead.

11-27-19

-Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill to remove the Medals of Honor given to U.S. soldiers who were at the massacre at Wounded Knee.

-Elizabeth Warren finally introduced her plan to pay for health care for all and her approval among Democrats for the candidacy took a nose dive. She revised it by saying that she wouldn’t take away people’s private insurance until the third year of her Presidency.

-Joe Biden says that talking about his family is off bounds but doesn’t mention if the same holds true for Trump’s family.

-Michael Bloomberg announces he will run for the Democratic candidate for President. Bloomberg news follows up the announcement by saying they will no long do investigative pieces on Bloomberg of the other Democratic contenders but that they will continue to investigate President Trump and his family.

-Barack Obama doesn’t lend his support to any candidate quite yet but does make it clear he doesn’t support Biden, his own VP.

11-11-19

-AOC claims that the way to fight climate change is to guarantee that everyone will be “clothed,” “educated,” and “paid a living wage,” and that the environmental battle involves fighting against “white supremacy.” At a “Climate Crisis” summit in Iowa Ocasio-Cortez stated that “indigenous wisdom,” not science or anything else, should be what guides America’s “climate policy.” She continued “The way, the way, that we preserve our systems is by transitioning to principles of universality, that means I want you clothed, I want you educated, I want you paid a living wage — no ifs, ands, or buts. And what that also means at what Naomi talked about as well is directly, consciously, combating white supremacy in the United States of America.”

11-7-19

-Bill De Blasio, after having dropped out of running for the Democrat nominee, wants to give criminals movie passes, Mets tickets, and gift cards as incentives to show up to their court hearings. I mean because what criminal wouldn’t show up if he could get a chance to see the Mets for free.

-While the press discusses that the election of a Democrat governor in Kentucky was a resounding loss for Trump, they ignored the fact that all other major roles that were up for election were filled by Republicans, including the first black Republican Attorney General the state has ever had. At the same time in Virginia they elected a new Senator there who was charged with distribution of child pornography, was sentenced to 12 months in jail for having sex with a minor (a 17 year old staff member he later married), who has 6 children by 4 women and who ended up with a settlement to end this issue.

-Joy Behar suggests that Democrat candidates not say a word about gun confiscation while running for office and then just enact it as law once they take office.

-Democrats held their impeachment inquiries prior to voting to finally do so publicly behind closed doors in secrecy…except for the bits and pieces of information they felt helped their cause they leaked to the press. So much for secret testimony.

-Democrats insist that the anonymous whistleblower not be revealed because he was receiving death threats. How does an anonymous person receive death threats if no one knows who he is?

-Rep. Katie Hill has photos of her sporting an iron cross (associated with Nazi Germany) in an unmentionable area of her body, smoking from a bong, having three way sex with her husband and a staff member, violating the codes of conduct with a staff member and having those photos revealed publicly in a heated separation/divorce proceeding. Rather than assume responsibility for having said affair with her staffer or for allowing the photos to be taken, she blames Trump, Kavanaugh, misogyny and claims Republicans were responsible for leaking the photos. This doesn’t explain how they would have had access to the photos to do so and also shows she is more than willing to blame others for her own poor choices.

10-17-19

-Elizabeth Warren promises to raise taxes on firearms and ammo purchases by 30% and 50%, respectively. That's on top of her plan for federal licensing for gun ownership -- presumably with a federal database of who owns what -- expanded background checks, and a renewed ban on "assault-style" weapons. This ignores the facts that those committing crimes do so with unlicensed and illegal guns or that it doesn’t do anything to deal with suicide prevention which accounts for two thirds of gun related deaths. Those people will still find a way to commit suicide.

-Beto O’Rourke says if churches oppose same sex marriage, which they would do so on religious grounds, he would have their tax exempt status removed.

-Beto also said that he would impose restrictions on guns and that if a person did not turn in their AR-15 then they would have it taken from them by force.

-When asked if he thought that criminals would voluntarily turn in their guns Beto said "I think we should have faith in our fellow Americans, gun-owners and non-gun-owners alike, including the owners of AR-15s and AK-47s, to do the right thing." The term some kind of stupid comes to my mind.

-Candidate Tom Steyer thinks the economy is terrible. He said "Everybody in this country knows this government has been bought. And the best way to beat Trump is to talk about the economy and take him down. He's rotten on the economy."

-When asked during an LGBTQ forum the question how would she respond if a voter approached her and said, “I’m old-fashioned, and my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman?” Elizabeth Warren replied “Well, I’m going to assume it’s a guy who said that,” she deadpanned, pausing a beat for the audience to catch the joke. Then she added, “And I’m going to say, ‘Then just marry one woman — I’m cool with that…Assuming you can find one.’ ” This drew cheers and applause from the crowd in attendance as well as support from Hollywood stars. So if you’re conservative and believe in traditional marriage you’re apparently ugly. Is this her way of calling some voters deplorables?

- Speaking at a LGBTQ forum Biden and Warren endorse taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries.

-Bernie Sanders proposed his own version of a New Green Deal that would put millions of workers out of jobs…who he would then take care of with taxpayer funds. In his plan the government would nationalize the energy industry and those 20 million people who lose their jobs when that happens according to him would get new jobs. He said "These jobs will be good-paying, union jobs with strong benefits and safety standards in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants." He also said "This plan will prioritize the fossil fuel workers who have powered our economy for more than a century and who have too often been neglected by corporations and politicians… We will guarantee five years of a worker’s current salary, housing assistance, job training, health care, pension support, and priority job placement for any displaced worker, as well as early retirement support for those who choose it or can no longer work."

DEBATE 10-15-19

-Prior to his election and right after the big fear among liberals was that Trump would get us into war. Tonight in the debates they focused on assailing Trump's decision to pull US troops out of northern Syria.

-While time should have been spent talking about their plans, much of it was spent on talking about Trump and how he should be impeached as well as his withdrawing from Syria. These debates should be about learning about the candidates and their plans but apparently it’s easier to focus on Trump.

-In spite of the Trump trash talk a few candidates went after one another. Apparently the one big target was Elizabeth Warren with the other candidates attacking her on failing to directly answer whether her healthcare plan would raise taxes on middle-class Americans. She has yet to answer that question.

-According to CNN here are the winners and losers of tonight’s debate:

Winners: Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders.

Losers: Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Tom Steyer and Kamala Harris.

-Elizabeth Warren said she’d like to see the US military presence gone entirely from the Middle East. And yet still slams Trump for withdrawing from Syria.

-Kamala Harris tried to get Warren to agree with her that Donald Trump's Twitter account should be suspended but it didn’t happen.

-According to a Drudge poll the big winner of the night was Tulsi Gabbard with 39% and Andrew Yang with 20%. None of the other candidates had double digits. The closest were Buttigieg with 8%, Warren with 7% and Biden and Klobuchar both with 6%.

10-8-19

-Elizabeth Warren announces her plan to re-open the case against Justice Kavanaugh by closing loopholes in the legal process. She also plans to re-open a closed case against Donald Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry.

10-6-10

-AOC announces a plan that would give federal benefits to illegal immigrants. Her bill, called has six acts to it.

1) “The Place to Prosper Act” would prevent year-over-year rent increases of more than 3%.

2) “The Uplift Workers Act” would mandate that the Department of Labor to create a “worker-friendly score” considering factors such as paid-family leave, a $15 minimum wage and union membership.

3) “The Mercy in Re-entry Act” would grant public benefits to those convicted of criminal offenses.

4) The “Guarantees the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for All” Act does, well, just that.

5) “The Recognizing Poverty Act” orders the Department of Health and Human Services “to adjust the federal poverty line” based on location.

6) “The Embrace Act” would allow illegal aliens to claim the same welfare benefits as all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

-AOC also came out against prisons of any kind. This means that she believes criminals who’ve committed violent crimes like rape or murder should not be imprisoned. Said AOC “a real conversation about decarceration [and] prison abolition in this country…A cage is a cage is a cage. And humans don’t belong in them.” According to her “Mass incarceration is our American reality. It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery.” Which ignores the fact that prisons were made long in advance of America even existing. But hey, never let a chance to blame things on racism get in the way of facts. Or the fact from Manhattan Institute’s Rafael A. Mangual that 60% of the inmates in state prisons⁠—which house the overwhelming majority of prisoners across the country⁠—”are serving time for murder, rape, assault, robbery, or burglary—four times the number convicted only of drug offenses.”

 -Elizabeth Warren claims on the campaign trail that she was fired because she was visibly pregnant years ago when she was teaching special needs children. This paints a picture of being dismissed due to pregnancy, right? Once again we have a politician who seems to forget that video tape exists of comments made in the past. In a 2008 interview she said “My first year post-graduation, I worked — it was in a public school system but I worked with the children with disabilities. And I did that for a year, and then that summer I actually didn’t have the education courses, so I was on an ’emergency certificate’.” Then she said “I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, ‘I don’t think this is going to work out for me,'…I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking, ‘What am I going to do?” Sounds like a completely different story doesn’t it?

9-22-19

-Beto O’Rourke wants the federal government to provide “Drug War Justice Grants” to people formerly incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana offenses. In other words give tax payer dollars to people convicted of crimes that were definitely illegal in the past.

-Elizabeth Warren thinks tax-payers should foot the bill for transgender surgery. She tweeted "Everyone should be able to access high-quality, affordable, gender-affirming health care, but the Trump administration is trying to roll back important protections for trans Americans. “Help fight back by leaving a comment for HHS in protest." Of course back in 2013 when she wasn’t running for President and didn’t need all the votes from the LGBTQ community she was against the same thing. At that time she felt providing gender reassignment surgery for a prison inmate was not “a good use of taxpayer dollars”. Not strange how an opinion can change when you need someone’s votes.

-This is how it works. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said "Maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like, let’s keep it real.” Andrew Yang wants to raise the price of beef to cut down the amount of it that people eat saying “So what you would want to do again is you’d want those cattle producers to have to internalize the cost of emissions.” And when asked if she supports changing “dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of red meat in light of the impact of climate change” Kamala Harris said “The answer is yes. The balance that we have to strike here, frankly, is about what government can and should do around creating incentives and then banning certain behaviors.” So the Party and the candidates say they don’t think people should be eating as much red meat as they are. So what were they cooking in Iowa for their supporters? According to CBS News "Organizers grilled 10,500 steaks for attendees on Saturday, along with 1,000 vegan burgers.”

9-20-19

-Andrew Yang says to combat climate change and get people to reduce the amount of meat they eat he wants to make it more expensive. “Because if your cattle ends up polluting a lot, which they do just naturally — we don’t hate them for it, they’re just animals. […] So then what that would naturally do — and some people are going to hate this — but it’d probably make those products more expensive…And that is appropriate because there’s a cost to producing food in that way.”

-Candidate Marianne Williams wants people to “go beyond and stop thinking about the facts”. Discussing nuclear power she said “What is wrong with [nuclear power]? If something goes wrong with nuclear energy — I don’t think people have really stopped to take in the horror. See, we need an integrative politics. We need to go beyond hard data. We need to go beyond just thinking about the facts. I want you to think about this with your heart. If something goes wrong there, what are we even talking about? How can we even consider it? And so what? Maybe we all be a little warmer, a little cool. I mean, Americans, we have to decide. That’s the problem I have with nuclear.” Currently nuclear power accounts for 20% of the power output in the US. To date the Democrat candidate have said they want to go carbon free (which nuclear power is though they don’t support it) and count on only wind and solar power. Germany tried this and have had nothing but problems ever since.

-Elizabeth Warren says she wants to ban lobbyists from making campaign donations. She wrote

“My plan not only bans lobbyists from making political contributions, it also bans them from bundling donations or hosting fundraisers for political candidates.” This is the same Elizabeth Warren who gladly took $95,000 from federally-registered lobbyists during her 2012 and 2018 Senate election campaigns.

-Joe Biden said that if elected he would put 720 million women back into the work force. The only problem is that there are only 330 million people in the US according to the last census.

- The New York Times breaks a story of another Kavanaugh accuser. The rest of the press picks it up and comments on it. Nearly every host on CNN this weekend offered a comment. Democrat candidates Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro immediately call for impeachment while Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden and Bill de Blasio think there should be investigations into the allegations. A day later the New York Times retracts and apologizes for the article noting that it was based on hearsay and that the woman the article claimed the incident happened to said she doesn’t recall it ever happening. Even after the retraction several of the candidates still said that impeachment proceedings against Kavanaugh should more forward.

9-10-10

-Beto O’Rourke now wants to force wealthy people to live next door to poor people by force if necessary so that poor people don’t have to drive so far to work. Apparently he thinks all wealthy people live next door to their jobs. Said Beto “Rich people are going to have to allow -- or be forced to allow -- lower-income people to live near them.” Does anyone else not recognize some of these ideas as communism?

9-5-19

-Andrew Yang wants to eliminate a lot of things too. "I propose a Constitutional amendment that makes it a responsibility of the United States government to safeguard and protect our environment for future generations". He then suggested we have a "buy-back" program for vehicles that use combustible engines, he wants the government to "shape our system" to discourage people from eating meat, saying: "The U.N. just released a study that said we're going to be okay if the vast majority of the world goes vegetarian immediately" and eventually eliminate air travel.

9-5-19

So what are Democrats against today? Apparently they want to ban straws, red meat, incandescent lightbulbs, gas-powered cars, nuclear energy, off-shore drilling, fracking, natural gas exports, coal plants, and even "carbon" itself. During CNN’s global warming forum they said all of these.

-Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking, straws and phase out red meat

-Elizabeth Warren wants to ban nuclear power plants

-Cory Booker not to be outdone said he wants to ban fracking, off-shore drilling, and, eventually, fossil fuels themselves

-Bernie Sanders thinks the problem is too many people and wants to cut down population by helping to fund 3rd world population control programs

-Joe Biden said he'd shut down coal plants and work to eliminate gas-powered cars

-All candidates said they support a "carbon-free America"

None of the candidates discussed the fact that doing all of this would result in higher gas prices, higher electric prices and more taxes to fund their plans.

9-3-19

-Cory Booker announces a $3 trillion dollar deal to combat climate change. Of course the deal also includes “a dual crisis of climate change and economic inequality” so we’re talking redistribution of wealth in an effort to clean the world as well as items that work towards a clean environment. The deal would also impose a a carbon tax on natural gas, coal and oil producers and that he would give taxpayers a monthly dividend from some of that revenue. Questionable is if that dividend would be enough to offset the rise in heating, electric and gas that such a tax would result in.

8-21-19

-Bernie Sanders is okay with a “meat tax” to offset working on climate change. He also thinks we need to force farmers to change their attitudes to help fix the problem. “All I can say is if we believe, as I do and you do, that climate change is real then we are going to have to tackle it in every single area including agriculture, ok? And in fact, one of the things we want to do with our farmers out there is help them become more aggressive and able to help us combat climate change rather than contribute to it.” Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker are also suggesting that Americans cut back on their consumption of meat.

8-9-19

-Elizabeth Warren tweets “Fox News is a hate-for-profit machine that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.” Other left wing organizations including one run by Obama claim the same thing and twitter is inundated with calls to remove Fox News from the airwaves.

-Following the shootings in El Paso and Dayton the call for gun control is pushed by almost all candidates less than 12 hours after the first shooting. Several also fun raise based on the shootings.

-Bernie Sanders didn’t promise a chicken in every pot but if elected he will release any and all documents about aliens at Area 51.

8-1-19 Debate Update

Again I didn’t watch the debates but chose instead to get the highlights from news sources online. The fact is we are too far out and there are too many candidates right now to determine who is going to actually be the candidate. But it does provide insight as to what they believe and are for. So here we go.

-First of most news sites couldn’t say enough bad things about Joe Biden. He fumbled his own website, he called Cory Booker the President then changed that to future President, said Medicare for all would cost $3 trillion instead of $32 trillion and said 8 more years of Trump would be disastrous when Trump would only be in office 4 more years. This doesn’t bode well for his abilities.

-Almost all of the candidates took aim at Biden, no doubt because he is the front runner in all of the major polls. CNN reported that Kamala Harris in particular took him to task.

-Gov. Jay Inslee complained that not enough was being done about climate change.

-Bill De Blasio was taken to task for not firing the police officer who choked Eric Garner to death. Protesters were in the audience railing against him.

-Other protesters apparently disturbed the proceedings.

-From what I read most were too busy arguing with or attacking each other to discuss their policies or beliefs but their summations showed what they were for:

-De Blasio: “The party of labor unions. This has to be the party of universal health care. This has to be the party that's not afraid to say out loud we're going to tax the hell out of the wealthy. And when we do that, Donald Trump right on cue will call us socialists. Here's what I'll say to him: 'Donald, you're the real socialist.'"” How Trump is a socialist is beyond me.

-Michael Bennett: “…put the divisive politics of Donald Trump behind us." It’s understandable why he’ll be dropping out before the last rounds if this is all he has.

-Inslee: “Literally the survival of humanity on this planet in civilization is in the hands of the next president. And we have to have a leader who will do what is necessary to save us. That includes making this the top priority of the next presidency." So he stuck with climate change.

-Kirstin Gillibrand: “"I'm running for president because I want to help people. And I actually have the experience and the ability to do that.” Another one who will most likely drop out early.

-Tulsi Gabbard: “"The needs are great as your president I will put your interest above all else." Early dropout and yet one of the few who makes sense now and then.

-Julian Castro: “With one destiny. And our destiny in the years to come is to be the smartest, the healthiest, the fairest and the most prosperous nation on Earth."

-Andrew Yang: Decried automation and then said “We're up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines. Playing roles in this reality TV show. It's one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president." He’s right about rehearsed attack lines and being reality show contestants.

-Cory Booker: “We have a real crisis in our country, and the crisis is Donald Trump — but not only Donald Trump, I have a frustration that sometimes people are saying the only thing they want is to beat Donald Trump. Well, that is the floor and not the ceiling." After spending months talking trash bout Trump.

-Harris: "What we need is someone who is going to be on that debate stage with Donald Trump and defeat him by being able to prosecute the case against four more years. And let me tell you we've got a long rap sheet." Using the terminology of a prosecutor which was a mistake since her time as a prosecutor was called into question throughout the night.

-Biden: “Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. We have to let him know who we are. We choose science over fiction. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. And we choose, we choose the idea that we can as Americans, when we act together, do anything." The use of fear tactics has long been used by Democrats, they were divisive during Obama’s time in office (when Biden was VP) and they exclude and demean those they disagree with.

7-31-19 Debate Update

-Sen. Elizabeth Warren says Democrats should be the “big party of structural change”…which sounds like Barack Obama’s claim to want to fundamentally change the country.

-Sen. Bernie Sanders says he is running to “transform this country and to stand with the working class of America,” which he says has been decimated for decades…as unemployment still stands at record low levels.

-Mayor Pete Buttigieg is against congressional Republicans for continuing to support President Donald Trump…unlike Democrats who always stood by their Presidents.

-Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’d work as president to strengthen the United States’ standing with the United Nations and focus on diplomacy, not military action…even though there’s been less military action under Trump than the last 2 Presidents.

-Buttigieg, who is white, says he didn’t become mayor “to end racism,” but he had worked on issues of race, crime and poverty affecting communities of color. Residents of South Bend where he is mayor have income below the poverty level 10% higher than the state’s figure and Buttigieg is facing problems with the black community right now over an officer shooting of a black man.

-Sanders, Warren and O’Rourke all want to decriminalize crossing the border illegally.

-Marianne Williamson wins the Drudge poll of candidates for the evening with 47% of viewers saying she won the debate. In spite of the fact she appeared to 'yodel' while delivering a lecture on healthcare commented about President Donald Trump inspiring 'dark psychic forces' and used new-age jargon as for her policy ideas.

-Democratic candidates for the 2020 nomination have promised more than $210 trillion in new spending across the field, analysis by the Washington Free Beacon shows. That overall figure is an undercount, as it is based only on proposals for which the Free Beacon could identify actual spending estimates. The true figure is much larger.

7-27-19

-Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Tom Steyer, Bill De Blasio, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Kristen Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro came out against capital punishment after it was announced executions would resume with 5 criminals on death row. 1 was a white supremacists who murdered a family of 3 including an 8 year old girl, 1 killed a 63 year old grandmother and made her granddaughter sit beside her body before slitting her throat twice and then bashing her head in with a rock, 1 raped and murdered a 16 year old girl and then dismembered her and burned her remains, 1 physically and emotionally tortured, sexually molested, and then beat to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and the last shot and killed five people — two men who planned to testify against him and a single, working mother and her ten-year-old and six-year-old daughters. These same candidates have no problem with late term abortion.

7-26-19

-Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, not to be outdone by the other candidates, unveils a $10 trillion plan to fight climate change. Too late to the game maybe?

7-11-19

-Elizabeth Warren plans to “decriminalize” immigration violations, welcome more refugees and focus enforcement on security threats

-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promised on Thursday to end “forever wars” and reassert American leadership to combat authoritarianism and global instability. Biden outlined his foreign policy vision in a speech in New York, indicting Trump’s “America first” approach as belligerent, short-sighted, incompetent and ultimately threatening to U.S. interests and democracy across the world. In other words we become part of one world rather than our own nation.

-Beto O’Rourke feels that the country was founded on white supremacy. “This country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in the country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and suppression even in our democracy.”

7-6-19

-Joe Biden says if elected he would bring back the ACA mandate. So if you choose not to buy insurance the government then penalizes you for it.

7-4-19

-Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke both back Nike’s plan not to release a Betsy Ross shoe because they think the Betsy Ross flag is “hurtful”.

-Kamala Harris claims that she knows predators and that Trump is a predator. From the same people who say it’s beneath someone in office to call someone a name.

-Not a candidate (yet) but Ilhan Omar says about immigration officials it’s time to talk about "eliminating their existence." She also claimed “We know that they have certain views about, you know, what brown and black people deserve” while ignoring the fact that 51% of the border patrol agents she was demonizing were Hispanic or Latino. Omar has also called for the complete defunding of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for the security of the United States.

-In an interview Joe Biden says “Look at what’s happening with Putin. While Putin is trying to undo our elections, he is undoing elections in Europe. Look at what’s happening in Hungary, look what’s happening in Poland, look what’s happening. You think that would happen on my watch or Barack’s watch? You can’t answer that, but I promise it wouldn’t have, and it didn’t.” The last election took place under Barack and Biden’s watch didn’t it? If that’s the case shouldn’t Biden have come out in support of Trump during the Mueller investigation and now with the calls of congress to continue investigating in spite of the results of the Mueller report?

-In an interview with Chris Cuomo, Joe Biden reversed his stance on free healthcare for all illegal immigrants. He now said we “need to have a means by which they can be covered when they’re sick,” which apparently should not at all be confused with “health insurance.” He further clarified that the government should be “building more clinics around the country” so that illegal immigrants can be cared for “when they’re sick, when they’re ill.” He added "in an emergency, they should have healthcare. … How do you say, you’re undocumented, I’m gonna let you die, man?” Which is what the current law provides without complete comprehensive healthcare. Their healthcare plans “would provide coverage” for illegal immigrants is what all the candidates said they wanted for illegal immigrants while raising their hands on the debate stage.

6-27-19

-Apparently missed from last night’s debate. Rep. Joaquin Castro believes in a transgender female’s (a man who has become a woman) right to abortion…even though they have no uterus or any of the required parts to get pregnant. This didn’t stop him from creating a new phrase though when he said “I don’t believe only in reproductive freedom, but reproductive justice.” See how phrases keep changing, kind of like global warming to climate change.

-Also from last night every Democratic presidential candidate polling above 1% supports a bill that would force schools to include male athletes who identify as transgender girls on female sports teams.

-Another first night debate item I missed. None of the presidential hopefuls on the stage were willing to support any limitations on abortion at all. All demanded abortion for everyone, at every stage, for any reason, for free.

-Another item. Elizabeth Warren refused to rule out whether she would have the government go door-to-door and confiscate semi-automatic firearms from law-abiding Americans.

NIGHT TWO OF THE DEBATES

-All on stage said they would support a health care plan that would cover undocumented immigrants

-Kamala Harris attacked Joe Biden again for working with segregationist in the past to reach compromises on issues, in spite of Biden’s record of working to improve racial relations

-Mayor Pete Buttigieg said it was un-Christianlike to place children in cages…but failed to note that this was policy put in place prior to Trump and enforced by President Obama as well

-Both nights only 1-3 candidates said they would give up their private health care in favor of government run health care. So much for believing in what they think others deserve.

-Andrew Yang wants the government to pay every U.S. resident $1,000 a month

-Biden, Hickenlooper and Harris all condemned Trump for placing children in cages while ignoring the fact that children were detained in the same facilities under Obama and that they are chain link fences not cages

-Bernie finally conceded that while claiming he would raise taxes on the wealthy he would raise taxes on the middle class as well saying “Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health care than what they pay now”

-During both nights of debate moderators asked no questions about the national debt while all the candidates discussed how they would spend money

-In an attempt to pander to a crowd at a rally in Miami, New York City mayor Bill De Blasio yelled 'Hasta la victoria siempre!' (Which translates to translates to 'Until victory, always!'). He later apologized when he was told what it meant as it was a favorite slogan of Che Guevara, the noted Cuban communist who oversaw the execution of his political rivals and who sentenced gays to prison and execution.

6-26-19 – The Debates

-Elizabeth Warren and Bill DeBlasio support eliminating private health insurance

-Julian Castro said he would decriminalize border crossings by migrants. When Beto O’Rourke said he helped introduce a bill that would ensure that those who are seeking asylum and refuge in the United States are not criminalized Castro replied “I’m not talking about the ones that are seeking asylum, I’m talking about everybody else.”

-Elizabeth Warren wants to spend money on green technology saying “We need to go ten-fold in our research and development on green energy going forward”. You may remember the millions sent to Solyndra that were lost when they went bankrupt.

-Most of the candidates were all for breaking up big companies. De Blasio went so far as to say "We are supposed to break up big corporations when they are not serving our democracy."

-Gov. Jay Inslee, the governor of the state of Washington, wants to make climate change his first priority to save Miami. He said his first step is to take the legislative filibuster away from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This is the filibuster that was put in place by Democrats when they controlled both houses under Harry Reid who used it.

-The candidates were unified in claiming that the economy was good for the wealthy but no one else. In spite of the fact that wages are rising, unemployment is lowering and median incomes are rising for the first time in years.

-AP reported that candidates like Warren are demanding dramatic change that includes embracing liberal policy priorities like free universal health care, debt-free college, a forgiving immigration policy and higher taxes on the rich.

-While everyone sings the praises of Elizabeth Warren and discusses how she’s rising in the polls, a Drudge Report poll showed Tulsi Gabbard winning the debates tonight.

6-24-19

-Reparations for blacks

-Reparations for gays

6-13-19

-Joe Biden says if elected he will cure cancer
-Bernie Sanders gave a speech and he wants to give pretty much everything to everyone for free. From the speech he listed: “…the right to quality health care, the right to as much education as one needs to succeed in our society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to live in a clean environment….The right to a decent job that pays a living wage, the right to quality healthcare, the right to a complete education, the right to affordable housing, the right to a clean environment, the right to a secure retirement…”

-Candidates are putting the word “green” in front of items now. Elizabeth Warren has the “Green manufacturing plan” with three subsets “the Green Apollo Program, the Green Industrial Mobilization and the Green Marshall Plan.”

-Joe Biden promises clean energy by 2050

-Corey Booker said “Make no mistake: Abortion is health care and health care is a right, not a privilege”

-U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell promised to make background checks mandatory for gun purchases across the nation and to create a buy-back program for what he called assault weapons

-U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said her priorities are "Medicare For All," improving education, rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and improving its water and air and to pay for it “As president and commander in chief, I will end our foreign policy of waging wasteful regime-change wars that have taken so many lives, that has cost us trillions of taxpayer dollars and undermined our national security”

-Pete Buttigieg? He says Democrats can only win by making the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states; treating the climate crisis as a national security issue; and securing the right to abortions

-Rep. Kamala Harris? She wants to put President Trump in jail. "I'm here to ask for your support, because I am prepared to make the case for America and to prosecute the case against Donald Trump."

-Gov. Jay Inslee? "I can tell you that if given this honor (of becoming president), I will wake up every day, I will make defeating climate change the first, paramount duty of the United States."

-Rep. Tim Ryan? “We don’t just talk about $15-an-hour. We talk about $30-an-hour and $40-an-hour and $50-an-hour jobs so that if you work hard and you play by the rules, you can make a living in the United States of America.”

-Andrew Yang wants the government to give every adult citizen $1,000 a month

-Gov. John Hickenlooper said he would grant access to birth control and abortion, support a public option for health care coverage, make a commitment to addressing the climate crisis and create one million apprenticeships to fill the country’s skills gap.

-Beto O’Rourke said “First, let’s bring tens of millions of our fellow Americans in through same-day and automatic voter registration. Next, let’s remove every barrier in place: A new voting rights act for this country, no more purges of the voter rolls or voter IDs to keep people out. And let’s restore faith in this democracy by holding accountable those who invaded it in 2016 and then afterward sought to cover up and obstruct the investigation.”

An ever changing list of what 2020 Democrat candidates have stood for to date:

-Open borders
-70 percent income taxes
-The Green New Deal -Socialized medicine -Legalized infanticide -Reparations to native and African-Americans -Changing the make up of the Supreme Court -Getting rid of the Electoral College

4-7-19:

-Felons in prison should be allowed to vote (Bernie Sanders 4-7-19) )

-Redistribution of wealth

-Tax anyone worth more than $50 million

-A $1,000 per month universal basic income for every American adult

-Medicare for all

-A universal nest egg for children, a US treasury bond issued to every child born with larger amounts for children born in poverty

-A $500 a month tax credit for families paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy

-Reducing the acquisition of nuclear weapons

-Make public colleges tuition free

-Make corporate America more union-friendly

-Subjecting all incomes above $250,000 to the 6.2% payroll tax

4-16-19

-Democrat candidate Eric Swalwell (D-CA) says that he wants to ban “military style semiautomatic assault rifles,” buying them back from owners and then criminally prosecuting those who don’t comply. And if you don’t turn your gun in? He wants to put you in jail unless you comply. His plan once again ignores the fact that it is people not guns who do damage and his suggestion does nothing to increase funding for mental health issues.

4-23-19

-Kamala Harris said that if elected she would enact gun laws via executive order if Congress didn’t change them in her first 100 days in office

-Elizabeth Warren said that she would eliminate student debt explaining how much you had removed based on your income and taxing people who don’t have student debt to pay for the elimination of said debt

-Bernie Sanders wants all felons and prisoners in jail to be able to vote, including rapists, murderers, the Boston bomber, etc.

5-31-19

- Kamala Harris calls for a third gender option on IDs

-Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill that would tax trading of stocks, bonds and derivatives. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is a co-sponsor of the bill.

6-6-19

-Beto O’Rourke proposes limiting membership of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to 12 years, and requiring Supreme Court justices - currently appointed for life - to step down after 18 years. He also wants to allow voters in every state to register on election day, and to make registration automatic every time a citizen does business with a government office, such as getting a driver's license. Which could be a problem since some states allow undocumented citizen (aka ILLEGAL immigrants) to have driver’s licenses. His reasoning for these items is to get 50 million more people registered to vote and to force there to be younger candidates to vote for, especially younger voters.