F-35

The first two F-35 Joint Strike Fighter plane have been delivered to Israel.  The program has been lambasted by President-elect Trump for being too costly; billions of dollars that could be spent on other "military and other purchases".  The new planes are the latest in technology and will "allow pilots to evade detection and fly at supersonic speeds while conducting air defense...".  The delivery to Israel was delayed when the planes could not take off from Italy due to "poor weather".

Election Option for 2016

If you can't or won't vote for Clinton or Trump what should you do? (Actually on second thought this is aimed at those who would otherwise be democratic candidate supporters).  One should vote because there are many candidates down the ballot that deserve support; so vote.  For President, one could vote Green or Libertarian.  My suggestion would be to write-in Senator Bernie Sanders.  He will still be around after the election and has a greater chance of effecting change than either Johnson or Stein.  If Clinton wins (which appears likely) my guess is she will push Sanders aside.  He could be the choice to replace Harry Reid as Minority Leader of the Senate; Reid is retiring at the end of this January and Sanders could be a replacement.  If the democrats can manage to re-take the Senate or even win 50 seats (a tie) then the Minority Leader become the Majority Leader and will replace Mitch McConnell.  Unfortunately "Billary" has already made it known that she/he will pick Senator Chuck Schemer of NY for that post, further marginalizing Sanders.  Clinton has already shunned Sanders and his supporters by her pick of Kaine as her VP and I believe some promise was made with Sanders-a cabinet post maybe-to keep him in line and supporting the ticket until after the election. Whatever promise was made to Sanders before the convention will after the election be "shit-canned" and he and his ideas will be ignored for the next four years.  Thus, getting to my point, a write in for Sanders will make an impression on Clinton and her team that his supporters will not stay in line if Sanders is ignored.  

Elections

I hope after this election is over we quit telling other countries how to run their elections.  I know Winston Churchill once said "Democracy is the worse form of government, except for all others".  If this election goes any longer, it will give reason to call into question the wisdom of that old English statesman.

Thought for the day Oct 10, 2016

People do not want to be educated, they want to be entertained.  Think about the ancient Romans and pitting Gladiators against each other to fight to the death.  All for the entertainment of the Roman citizens.  Think of our devotion to the sports of every season and the television programs with violence and sex 24/7; it's entertainment that is the key, and that applies to our election process for President.  It would seem Donald Trump understands that and he just might be proven correct on November 8th. (God forbid).

Supreme Court Nominee

President Obama noted that not since the Civil War has the Congress refused to confirm a Supreme Court justice.  Now the Obama appointee-in case you have forgotten- is Merrick B. Garland. It will be interesting to see what Congress will do once the election is over.  If Trump wins they will refuse to confirm guessing they will get a more right wing nominee from Trump and if Clinton wins that will jump on Garland figuring Clinton will nominate a more left wing judge.
Update:  The MSNBC post on Facebook was; "The last time a Supreme Court seat was kept vacant through Election Day was in 1864.  At the height of the Civil War. So, this isn't about precedent.  This is about the obstruction of a broken Republican-led Congress". On Facebook on Oct 9, 2016

First Presidential Debate of 2016

The "fact checker" for The Record newspaper in Bergen County, NJ provided some answers to statements that were incorrect.  First, Clinton stated she did not call the Trans-Pacific Partnership the "gold standard" of trade agreements.  Trump said she did.  Trump is correct.  She said it during a 2012 trip to Australia.  Second, Trump has claimed he can not release his tax returns because they "are under audit".  That is incorrect.  His attorney's say his returns are "under review"; they do not say audit.  Trump says he is audited every year; IRS officials claim no one is audited that frequently. Third, Trump says he got his start with a one million dollar gift from his father.  He really got "loan guarantees of $ 10 million and a 2005 report stated he "drew an additional $ 10 million from his future inheritance".

Defense Spending

The Navy now has a new destroyer-the USS Zumwalt-a stealth vessel that was built with the idea of making it undetectable by enemy radar or surveillance.  The cost of the ship is reported as $ 3.8 BILLION.  It will not join the fleet until  2018.  Two sister ships-the USS Michael Monsoon and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson-are in the works at the Bath Shipyard in Maine.  Those ships with cost $ 2.8 BILLION  and $ 2.4 BILLION respectively. And this to fight a land-based terrorist organization far from the sea.

"Every Gun That is Made..." IKE

In April of 1953, upon leaving office, President Dwight Eisenhower (a republican, for those who think the GOP only had Donald Trump) gave a speech known by the above title.  It is more pertinent now than ever before and I will record some of it below.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired  signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of it's laborers, the genius of it's scientists, the hopes of it's children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.  It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8000 people.
This, I  repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any sense.  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

(I would only add that the cost of those weapons might very well be greater today than in 1953).

Trump and "war on terror".

Trump says he will impose a process of questioning Muslim immigrants that would include "extreme vetting" (sounds like torture to me) and would deny entry into the US "...not only those with terrorist sympathizers but those who believe in Shariah law, don't believe in the US Constitution (how are immigrants going to know what's in the Constitution when most Americans don't know what' in it) or support BIGOTRY AND HATRED" (my emphasis).  This from the man supported by the American Nazi Party and the Klu Klux Klan?

Some thoughts today

Green Party candidate Jill Stein noted on his site and something called "Ring of Fire" that the US has 700 to 800 military bases around the world and "only 16 % of the US budget is  spent on military operations at home and abroad".

Huffington Post on 8/16/16 reports that 64 million Americans are paid less than $ 15 an hour.  This group of workers has recently held a "convention".  I have no other information on this convention at this time.  Research is required.

47 % Americans pay no income tax bit.

My friend Steve posted on Facebook recently that Mitt Romney claim that "47 % of Americans who pay ZERO federal income tax are voting on what to charge everyone else".

My response to Steve:  But they pay social security taxes, federal excise taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes and many pay property taxes.  How many of this number are wealthy who pay not federal income taxes; I know at (least )two.  To our knowledge Donald Trump pays no federal income tax, and the only way that can be disproved is if the Donald releases his income tax records like all other major presidential candidates.  Prove me wrong and "I'll kill your ass in Macy's window".

To Kill a Mockingbird

I came across the following passage while re-reading one of the great literary classic of our time.

Atticus Finch, while talking to his young son Jem, defends a neighbor who Jem believes is the worst person he knows.  He says the following;

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand (Atticus is talking about himself).  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.  Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her.  According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody.  She was the bravest person I ever knew"

My guess would be that Harper Lee was also foretelling a tribute to Atticus who takes on the defense of a black man accused of a sex crime he did not commit.  He knew the Alabama of the 1930's will find his client guilty simply because a white man accused him.  Hopefully today the verdict would be different.

July 31,2016 Thoughts

We were told by the US Supreme Court that corporations are akin to people and have to be afforded the same rights as people; the Citizens United case.  I recently read in The Nation (March 7, 2016)-ok I am behind on my readings-that corporations can deduct on their income taxes "customized company-sponsored pension plans" paid to their CEO's.  Being done by half of the 383 Fortune 500 companies that provided info.  The plans cover the CEO's for the "rest of their lives", while the same companies  have done away with "guaranteed monthly compensation" for the average employee.

Now if corporations are people, then people must also be corporations and allowed the same rights.  Thus I will pay my wife-as the CEO of our family-a monthly pension check and then deduct that cost from my income taxes.  Seems only fair. 

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I am one to be more concerned about domestic policy, but foreign policy developments are setting us up for some major disaster. 

First, we have been building up or modernizing our military forces and arsenals at a considerable rate.  The new F-35 plane will cost us billions, the Navy wants a new class of submarines with nuclear capability, the Air Force says we need to replace the B-52 long range bomber and build another ICBM missile to replace the Minuteman III.  

Second, we have allowed NATO (and the US) to take on the defense of former Soviet republics in the Baltic region.  We now have Russia completely surrounded by our military might.

Third, we are about to elect as President (Hillary Clinton) who is clearly a "hawk" on foreign policy, meaning she is want to flaunt our military power in the name of national interest.

(I hate to note this here, but Donald Trump says we should not pledge ourselves to the defense of countries that do not pay their share of the expenses of NATO; specially Baltic nations.)

Fourth, it should also be remembered that when nations are in the midst of domestic turmoil and bordering on civil war-racial or economic-their develops and atmosphere that is ripe for governments to use warfare to take their citizens minds off their differences and unite to defend the homeland.  A case could be made that the domestic issues in this country are at that point.

My musings for today.

I am  trying to stay off Facebook to give my friends a rest from hearing my excellent political commentary.  I don't want them to have to say "I wish I thought of that".  Anyway here are come comments for today.

1.  Clinton delegates: she still does not have enough earned delegates to win the nomination outright. If the super delegates don't stick with her, the convention would be wide open.  Some democracy we preach.  After a full season of primaries and caucus's the voice of the people is still going to take a back seat to the political establishment.  And we want to sell out system around the world?  A system where those who vote stick their finger in an ink well to indicate they voted might be better than the millions we spend to get a result that is highly suspect.

2.  Donald Trump is taking aim at NATO and questioning why we should be spending our money to defend places that don't spend their own.  It is dangerous to tell former republics of the Soviet Union we will come to their defense if Russia attacks.  How would we respond if Hawaii and Alaska decide to go it alone and Russia makes a defense treaty with them.  Going "ape shit" would be my guess. Trump is going to get a lot of people nodding their heads in agreement with his anti NATO spending plan.  I have been thinking for a long time that the US  should just pull its forces back from most of the areas in the world we have them and tend to business in this country.  Isolationism I know some will say, but we are spending billions on places in the world where the money would do more good here at home.  George McGovern use to say in 1972 "Come Home America".

3.  New Jersey legislature has come up a plan to fund the highway construction program in the state by raising a sales tax (gas tax) every gallon purchased and compromising with anti tax conservatives by ending the estate tax and giving back other tax breaks to select groups, like seniors and veterans.  So conservatives that want to re-distribute wealth.  Well this is exactly what this plan is.  It shifts the burden of paying for transportation needs from the very wealthy to the middle class and poor.

Trump and Authoritarianism

Donald Trump's appeal to many may be to those who crave an authoritarian approach to life.  It may not be his racism after all, or his put down of women in his appeal to white men.  It could very well be that many of us today want an authority figure, someone who is a "law and order" man.  Someone who will make decision for us and take charge.  As Erich Fromm once penned, people want an "escape from freedom" for it is much easier to follow than to decide for oneself.  Interesting concept for a party that keeps stressing individual freedom (at least for the buying of weapons).

Trump and Muslims

Donald Trump says he would ban all Muslims from entering the US "until we can figure out what is going on".  Some of his supporters may want to deport Muslims or in other ways impinge on their right to practice their religion.  For someone who believes that half of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution allows just about anybody to buy unlimited quantities of firearms thus portraying himself as a defender of the Constitution, I wonder how he rationalizes the First Amendment which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"  Maybe he has just forgotten to read that part.

Ex-Patriotion

With all the talk of late about people choosing to leave the country if one or another presidential candidate wins in November, I got thinking about what it would take for someone to make that choice.  

Apart from those who leave to escape the law or hide assets in Aruba, what would cause a person to become an ex-pat? (if anything)  I wonder if any non-Jewish Germans left their country in the late 1930's when it became obvious that Hitler was taking the country to war for reasons of conquest or opposition to his policy toward the country's Jewish population?  

In this county would it be the arresting of all people of the Muslim faith (as suggested by one candidate)?  Would it be the policy of torturing POW's or killing of the families of suspected terrorists?  Would it be a sense that the country is following an immoral domestic program, or the suppression of the Constitution to allow for dictatorial powers by an executive?

In the 1960's and 70's countless young men left due to the conduct of a war, but many did so to escape the military draft, even thou some left for reason of moral opposition to an unjust war.

During the era of Jim Crow and the early civil rights campaign, people did not leave to oppose our racial relations issues.  People in the south did not leave over the wide-spread lynching of black Americans.  So what would it take for some people to move to Canada or Ireland?
Update Aug 29, 2016.  The number of Americans living abroad (nonmilitary US citizens) estimate to be 8.7 million.  In 1999 there were 4 million.  Accuracy may be in doubt.

News items of interest to myself that I once would have posted to Face Book I will now post here.  July 2016.

July 2016:  Hillary Clinton's E-mail investigation is in the news (and has been for quite a long time) again because the Congressional investigation has ended at a cost of $ 7 million.  I would like to know "how many jobs did that congressional effort create?"

Trump's comments about Mexicans and Muslims (negative always) has created a attitude in this country that bigotry is fashionable again.  People in the public eye can create a atmosphere that makes others follow along.  JFK created a atmosphere of public service and many young people went into teaching or the Peace Corps; a positive impact I would note.  Jimmy Carter made conservation  fashionable and people walked more and drove slower and wore sweaters instead of turning up the heat and using more electricity.  On the other hand, Ronald Reagan made it fashionable for us to hate the government and there are now militia groups arming themselves so they can take down the government if they so desire.  Now Trump, with his tirades against Muslims and Mexicans and immigrants has increased the occurrence of racial and group hatred.  And instead of blaming Trump for the impact of his actions, we blame Obama for them.

At the end of Bill Clinton's term of office the budget had a pretty nice surplus.  Al Gore and democrats wanted to set that money aside to fund Social Security well into the future.  Put the money in a "lock box" Gore said.  George Bush and the republicans wanted to return that money to individual tax payers.  Because Bush won a corrupt election the surplus was returned to individuals, the vast majority going to the wealthy like himself and Dick Cheney.  Now with the Social Security fund is running low the republicans want to cut the benefits to Social Security.  How anybody today depending on SS to provide basic needs and voting for republicans has to boggle the mind.

US Constitution

It seems to me that those who talk so much about Constitution know the least about it; except for one half of one Amendment.  Those who complain about federal government "dictatorial" actions should study the document.  There are so many ways the Constitution divides and separates power to protect a system based on democracy.  Powers are granted to the state government and the federal government.  Education, for example, is a state responsibility;  national defense a federal.  Separation of powers grants to each branch fields of action, the Amendments grant to the people protection against abusive government.  

The Constitution works, not always perfectly, but it works.  Its wrong that some who don't get their way want to change it; they would not come up with anything better.  If we don't live by the law we live by the one who presently holds power.  That is a receipt for disaster.

Political Speech

When politicians or pubic figures (like Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump and others) who trash talk the government they give emotional support and encouragement to those who just want an excuse to be violent. As in Nazi Germany the anti-Semitic laws of Nuremberg and before that the anti-Jewish retoric led directly to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.  You can't preach hate and not expect some of the flock will take it to the next level.