QUESTIONS I WOULD HAVE FOR ANY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

     I wrote this last election cycle and edited it a bit.

First of all, both Mr. Presidents, will you swear right here and now that if you are elected you will uphold and defend the Constitution as you will be swearing to God to do?

Traditionally information collected by our intelligence agencies could be used for one purpose and one purpose only: the protection of national security. We seemed to have expanded that directive considerably.
• Do you believe such information when collected on American citizens should ever be shared with domestic law enforcement agencies for purposes other than national security?
• Are you comfortable with the collection of so much information being partly subcontracted to private corporations?
• Define national security: definitions range from as broad as the threat of a nationwide ‘flu epidemic or as narrow as a threatened attack on a military installation? How do you define it?
• How do you propose to protect the right of an American citizen to express dissent – and not be persecuted by any public or private actor for doing so — without inadvertently permitting “lone wolf” terrorists and other menaces to wreak havoc?

Secular law is traditionally about protecting people and property; religious law is about morality. Do you believe secular law can ever impose a standard of morality? If so, in what way and why; if not, why not.

Tell me, what version of the American dream ought to be available to each of the following people:
• a hard-working young man with an IQ of 85?
• a gifted poet whose work while sublime is likely to be enjoyed by only a few?
• a divorcee with three children who’s crippled by multiple sclerosis and cannot work?
• a veteran whose shattered mind will need years to recover from the horrors of wartime?
• a sixty-year-old who’s just lost his life savings to a pension swindle?

What may a corporation reasonably do to protect its interests? What may it not do?

Do you think multi-national corporations – those with no loyalty to or vested interest in the well-being of the United States – should have the same rights as American corporations on our soil?

Agriculture is still a vital part of our national interests, but a much-neglected one in debate. Please tell me how you see the future of American agriculture.

Where do you believe the line should be drawn between business interests and environmental concerns?
• Do you have a plan for replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy?
• To what extent should industry be held responsible for health problems and their attendant costs when caused by polluting?

How do you balance the rights of the consumer with the rights of the vendor?
• How do we see to it consumers have the right to sue when they have been have been truly wronged, but at the same time protect corporations from excessive and exploitative litigation?
• Do you believe consumers should have to consent to binding arbitration to do business with a corporation, especially if that corporation is the only game in town?
• Do you believe mega-mergers are good or bad for consumer choice? Explain.
• Bonus question: it simply isn’t possible to keep everyone safe from everything all the time – yet we increasingly demand just that, and feel a need to blame and sue someone when anything goes wrong. What is a sensible and reasonable standard for safety?

Do you believe the profit margin ought to be capped on any or all of the following: life-saving medicine and medical care, basic utilities (and only the portion necessary for human life), and basic housing – or that these things ought to be subsidized in any way? Why or why not?

If you will, please address any plans you have to solve the following problems in education:
• Lack of parental time to participate in and encourage the educational process
• The distractions of television, the Internet and video games
• Overcrowded classrooms
• Rigid curricula and an over-emphasis on standardized testing
• Low morale due to a belief that no careers are available
• the student loan crisis

Would you have supported the bailouts of so-called “too big to fail” companies in 2008? Why or why not?

To what extent should money be a part of the political process?

Name five college majors you think are vital to America’s future; name five majors you think aren’t.

The Affordable Connectivity Program just ended, leaving millions of school students without access to homework and millions of the unemployed unable to look for work. How do we bridge the so-called “digital divide” and get everyone access to modern telecommunications and the Internet at a reasonable price?

How would you alter our revise our taxation system? Please address the following:
• large corporations
• small businesses
• the middle-class
• the poor
• the wealthy

Define “fiscal responsibility.”

Name three dangers you believe threaten our military strength today and how you would fix them.

What’s your stand on offshore tax havens / shelters? What if anything do you intend to do about people and corporations avoiding taxes by parking money offshore?

When should we give aid to foreign nations, why, and what if any should the rules be?

Tell me what we need to do to rebuild the following parts of our infrastructure:
• roads and bridges
• public transportation systems
• utility grids
• ports and airports
• natural disaster prevention systems (levees, floodbreaks, firebreaks)
• AND HOW ARE WE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS?!?

Of previous presidents, whom do you admire most and why?

If you do become president again, what would you like your second term to be remembered for – what do you want your legacy to be?

ESSAY QUESTION (if you want it):

It’s 2076. On our three hundredth birthday, what does America look like? What are our greatest achievements? What’s different from now, and what’s the same? How does the world look? And what did you do – or not do – to make it so?

On Watching the Democratic Party Walk Donald Trump Back into the White House, Part One

Every time I think the Democratic Party can’t show more contempt for the working people of this country, they do.

A perfect example is a recent decision by Arizona governor Katie Hobbs to take back the Social Security cost-of-living increase from thousands of retired Arizonans.

It’s not bad enough that the Democratic Party has lied and lied and lied about inflation for the past three years, claiming the increase in prices was 8% when in fact prices on thousands of items have doubled along with rent (and everyone knows it). It’s not bad enough that they did absolutely nothing while a group of crooks and swindlers made life a living hell for millions of working Americans by skyrocketing prices. No, the Governor of Arizona felt a need to show her complete contempt for working people by crowing about a balanced budget, having chosen to balance that budget by taking away the entire COLA from thousands of retired truck drivers and schoolteachers subsisting on food stamps.

Forty years of hard work and Governor Hobbs had to take away even the pitifully inadequate increase from these people – while showering tax dollars on corporations like Cox that have taken PPP funds and then shipped jobs overseas, and private equity firms driving the price of homes through the roof to make a bunch of foreign crooks rich.

Is it possible for the Democratic Party to indicate any more clearly the complete and utter contempt they have for anyone who works for a living?

I sent a letter to the governor’s office regarding the matter and received a reply so frigid, soulless and dripping with contempt for retirees and working people that it staggers the mind.

While throwing taxpayer dollars and tax breaks to every crook who’s made a campaign contribution – as well as contracts that charge the taxpayers of Arizona ten times what they should be paying for goods and services – the governor finds sentencing people who have worked their asses off all their lives to starvation “regrettable” That’s right – it’s “regrettable” that a truck driver who wore out his kidneys driving food to market for forty years can now eat cat food for dinner thanks to Governor Hobbs.

Even more revolting: Governor Hobbs considers preventing seniors from experiencing malnutrition, homelessness and disease “wasteful spending.” Of course, throwing your tax dollars to every crook who wants a fat and cushy contract isn’t wasteful spending; letting half of northern Arizona serve as a haven for California’s biggest tax avoiders isn’t wasteful spending; and letting every Chinese and Russian crook with money in private equity price houses out of reach while getting tax breaks to do it isn’t wasteful spending.

But making certain a teacher who spent forty years teaching kids to read doesn’t wind up sleeping under an overpass or counting tea with milk as a meal is “wasteful spending.”

Is it humanly possible for the Governor to indicate more clearly that working your ass off for forty years means nothing to her?

“Regrettable.” Taking food out of the mouth of a mother fighting cancer is “regrettable,” and is Governor Katie Hobb’s — and the Democratic Party’s — way of showing you how much they don’t care about anyone who can’t write their campaign a fat check.

Governor Hobbs is the quintessential example of why the Democratic Party can’t be trusted to get the backs of anyone who works for a living.

When Donald Trump is elected president on November 5, 2024, the first people he will need to thank will be the Democratic Party, for displaying utter and total contempt for families, workers and retirees everywere.

In the meantime, remember this: every time a Democrat screws over the working class, hands another crooked corporation a fat pile of cash, and lies about inflation, a Trump voter gets his wings.

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If you’d like to let Governor Hobbs know how you feel about her priorities, you can email her at engage@az.gov, or visit https://azgovernor.gov.

Note: an earlier version of this blog erroneously referred to the outsourcing of jobs after receiving PPP funds as “breakng federal law” due to a copy-and -paste mistake. I regret the error.

SAYS THE STATE OF LOUISIANA, I SHALL MOCK GOD…

Says the State of Louisiana, I shall mock God…

I shall mock God by placing a copy of the Ten Commandments in every school in a state legendary for its corruption, bribery, extortion, so that all may see how we laugh at God’s requirements of justice and truth.

I shall mock God by placing His Word where the Black first-grader who had nothing for breakfast can see it and know the state mocks suffer the little children unto me.

I shall mock God by placing His Word where the innocent in jail can see it know the State of Louisiana jeers at justice, justice thou shalt pursue.

I shall mock God by placing His Word before all in a state where millions die without medical care, rejoicing in mocking Christ’s commandment to care for the sick.

I shall mock God by placing His Word where those breaking their back working and living in hovels can see how the State of Louisiana roars with laughter at each man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree.

I shall mock God by placing His Word where the shadow of the noose still falls over all, and delight in the perversion of God’s commandment you shall not hate your neighbor in your heart.

I shall mock God by placing His Word above lakes, rivers and earth God made now so fouled with filth and poison they are unlivable, and rejoice in how we have defiled God’s creation.

I shall mock God by placing His Word before the children of a state that disavows every variation of love your neighbor as yourself in every action, laughing at Jesus Christ, Moses and God, teaching the little ones that in this state we place the Commandments before you while showing you how much contempt we have for God, how much we laugh at His word, and send the message in this state we rejoice in taunting you with words we your leaders will never obey, so that you may know we will place every false God – greed, corruption, hatred, spite, jealousy, falsehood, hypocrisy, theft, fraud and cruelty – before the Lord God.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-founders-fury-ten-commandments-acc

The DNC, The Mainstream Media, and the Train Wreck

I wrote this in March 2017, after the election of the latest DNC chair.

Funny how little has changed.

The DNC, The Mainstream Media, and the Train Wreck

I watched the election of the new DNC chair a few weeks ago, cringing the way you do when you see the train bearing down on the car stuck on the tracks but can’t do anything to stop it. When I finally took my hands away from my eyes I winced the way you do when you’re staring at the plume of smoke rising from the wreck. And then I watched the mainstream media cover this coronation with their expected earnest approval, and…sigh.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/tom-perez-profile/index.html

The Democratic Party has it right on any number of things. Their devotion to the truth that hatred and bigotry is wrong is commendable, and their emphatic embrace of civil liberties is righteous. They understand the importance of both healthcare and education, and that’s reassuring.

But on the matter of the economy, both the hierarchy of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media seem determined not to get it. Don’t get me wrong – I believe they want the middle class and working people of this country to be okay, just not if it involves the terrifying specter of standing up to Goldman Sachs, or any sacrifice of their own power and position. If it could just sort of happen without them having to take any real risk that’d be great, but if not, they’d rather talk about anything else. And so they do.

They talk about problems and suggest solutions that go absolutely nowhere. They point at bad things and frown and pontificate. They gabble like turkeys and cluck like chickens, and seem completely incapable of doing a single useful thing. And this was true the entire time they had maximum political power; I suppose now that they’re the minority they have an excuse, but – sigh.

And apparently they learned nothing from the election. After spending fourteen months trying to cram Hillary Clinton down the people’s throats despite the outraged protests of those who wanted real change – after blatantly eighty-sixing the one guy who was willing to take on the power structure – after being presented with incontrovertible proof that the people are sick and tired of the status quo – they select as the party’s new leader an establishment factotum, Tom Perez.

Since the election a great deal has been written and said about the future of the Democratic Party and the Left in general. There seems to be a sharp dichotomy between those who think the Party ought to move further to the Left and those who think it ought to move to the center. The Party hierarchy has predictably chosen the allegedly center route. Personally, I think neither camp is right.

The issue really isn’t further Left or center, and the very fact the choice is being parsed this way only shows how little the Party understands the people these days. (And those who believe that the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote indicates the party has some kind of mandate are deluded; her popular vote victory only indicates more people than not were frightened of Donald Trump as president.)

For forty years the people of this country have had political corruption shut them out of any real say in what actually happens in this country. They’ve seen the media substitute a kind of puppet show for the voices of real people. And they’ve seen multinational and transnational corporations vacuum up the wealth and income that was once theirs like a Hoover on steroids.

They want their government back. They want the free press back. And they want the orgy of corporate greed that has left them in constant terror of penury stopped – preferably without an orgy of ill-conceived regulations slapped together in a hurry without any real thought of their consequence, and preferably without an orgy of government spending that simply throws money at a problem (and a slew of bureaucrats and special interest groups in the bargain).

The hierarchy of the Democratic Party has zero intention of actually doing any of this, of course, and if you doubt that all you really need to listen to is Mr. Perez’ first statement as DNC chair: our first priority must be to send the message that you vote for a Democrat if you want a good job.

Note the wording: “send the message.”

Not we must create policies that deal firmly and courageously with the pattern of economic predation that is destroying the middle class. Not the well-being of the majority of the American people is more important than our own well-feathered nests. Not we are determined to root out the causes of your misery and change them.

No, it was we’re going to do what we always do: ask for your money so we can talk a good game and do absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

What the DNC really should have offered was an apology, one that would sound something like this:

We the Democratic Party wish to apologize to every working man and woman in America for abandoning you to the wolves these past forty years, for our shameful cowardice in being more interested in protecting our careers than serving you and taking on the powers that have destroyed your wealth and income. We apologize for throwing the Democratic Primary to the candidate we favored and completely ignoring your wishes as the people. And we apologize for using our chums in the media to force a choice on you that wasn’t yours.

We apologize for spending so much time sucking up to special interests and lobbyists and ignoring your problems. We apologize for selling out, again and again, to Wall Street and Greed Incorporated. We apologize for dismissing anyone who didn’t agree with us as ignorant, crazy, mean, or unenlightened. We apologize for thinking that talking is a substitute for doing.

We apologize for all the harm we have done you by sitting in our little self-satisfied circle and ignoring your needs, and we swear to you from this moment on you come first, not us. We swear we will fight with matchless courage against any power that seeks to harm you, that we will do, not simply talk, and that from this day forward we will make in action the well-being of the common people our first and main priority.

Every night I go to sleep and dream I wake to that. Were that it were so, I could stop cringing at the wreck.