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While I occasionally write "pro Trump" pieces as described by my family and the few friends I have left, I'm actually a registered Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama. I was vehemently against the investigation and subsequent impeachment of President Clinton for lying about the cigar box he had in the oval office. Back then, my father argued that the president should be a moral pillar for the country while I was more practical. I was relieved that the guy with his finger on the nuclear button had the same finger in a pie. It was years later that I learned President Clinton actually lost the nuclear codes for months. I was just as much against special counselor Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump as I was opposed to Kenneth Star's investigation of Clinton. Using taxpayer funds to unleash a team of lawyers to look into anyone's background is just not a fair game. With enough money and time, twenty lawyers could likely unearth mud on the Virgin Mary.
Since I always vote in the primary, I need to know something about all these candidates. Some would have more success with a gun shop in Lancaster County than ever becoming president. So I'm focusing on just a few of the contenders for the 2020 Presidential Election.
Joe Biden
As the leader in the polls, Biden has a target squarely on his back. A former vice president and senator from Delaware, Biden stands out as a centrist except for how he behaves in picture opportunities with the wives and daughters of his colleagues. He has a long history of public service swaying moderate Republicans and independents as well as staunch bigots. At 76 years of age, some say he should heed his own words to "pass the torch." Biden has declared that he's "still holding onto that torch," but his outdated tactics of making young girls "feel comfortable" by trying to bury his head in their hair and kiss them gives me some good ideas where he can insert that torch. The video he put out mansplains that he believes governing is "about connecting with people." President Trump connected with a lot of women too, especially over furniture shopping.
To illustrate how ancient Biden's thinking is, he declared that as president, he'll "cure cancer." Back in the '70's, people used to think that all cancer was the same, and a single cure was possible. Today, we know that's just not the case. I think Joe Biden's expiration date has long passed.
Bernie Sanders
Sanders is the socialist senator from Vermont who owns three houses. Born in Brooklyn, he wants public college tuition to be paid for by taxpayers, which means we will all be complicit to the collective bad choices of millennials selecting useless majors. I wouldn't pay for my kid to get a degree in anthropology. Why should I pay for yours? Bernie also wants Medicare for all even though when they tried to do this in Vermont, the governor scrapped the idea because it was too costly and more complicated than setting up a Starbucks on Mars. At least Bernie admitted he would raise taxes on the middle class to pay for all of his bold, socialist ideas. He can be forceful and argumentative, but he seemed to fade in the latter half of the debate as the event pushed past his bedtime.
Elizabeth Warren
A senator from Massachusetts, Warren is a sometimes Native American, although she posted to her website a cringeworthy video femsplaining that she never benefitted from her phony minority status. Being from Tax-achusetts, most of her plans are going to be paid by a "wealth tax" levied against the handful of Americans making over $50 million and a special tax on the three people who made over a billion. Look out Kylie Jenner. Elizabeth Warren is coming for you.
Marianna Williamson
Best selling author of spiritual self help books and advisor to Oprah, Williamson lost her bid in 2014 for a congressional seat in California. She promotes racial reconciliation through reparations and a more humane immigration policy. She wants the government to pay $10 billion a year for ten years to African Americans. When asked what the first thing she would do if elected, she answered,
"My first call is to the prime minister of New Zealand, who said her goal was to make New Zealand the place where it’s the best place in the world for a child to grow up. And I will tell her, 'Girlfriend, you are so on.' Because the United States of America is going to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up."
I'm glad that at least one candidate has a foreign policy that reigns in those pesky kiwis.
Kamala Harris
A former prosecutor in California, Harris most recently was the states attorney general before she was elected to the US Senate. She is known for the Lift Act, a middle class tax break similar to the Earned Income Credit (EIC), which is tax relief for people who don't actually pay taxes. Harris had the big moment in the debate when she went after Joe Biden for boasting about his past work with his racist colleagues as well as his stance against busing early in his career. She said,
"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me.”
Before we declare busing a success, let's find out what happened to the kid Harris bumped so she could go to a different school.
Cory Booker
Hailing from the nation's armpit, New Jersey, Booker is a junior senator who graduated from Stamford, Oxford and Yale and is a Rhodes scholar. He's known for the "baby bond" program giving every child a US Treasury bond at birth with larger sums going to poorer kids. He's also known for a deer in the headlights stare during the debates when Beto O'Rourke started speaking Spanish. I think he was trying to recall the Spanish word for "handout." Either way, the internet got another viral meme out of it.
Julián Castro
Castro grew up a poor kid from San Antonio, but managed to graduate from Stanford and Harvard. He worked as the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary in the Obama Administration. He is a strong supporter of free trade. During the debate, Castro was asked whether his healthcare plan would cover abortion. He said,
“Yes, it would. I don’t believe only in reproductive freedom. I believe in reproductive justice.”
He should have stopped there upon a safe Democratic talking point. Instead he added,
"And, you know, what that means is that just because a woman — or let’s also not forget someone in the trans community, a trans female — is poor, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the right to exercise that right to choose. And so I absolutely would cover the right to have an abortion.”Finally, a liberal cause with a manageable cost, abortions for people with no uteruses.
Andrew Yang
The former tech entrepreneur promotes only one issue, protecting Americans from robots stealing their jobs. Yang proposes giving everyone over 18 years of age $1000 a month to help pay bills after they lose their job to a robot. That comes to $3.2 trillion dollars a year. He would pay for it by a value added tax that would result in a "trickle up" economy as people spent their free government scratch. Seems to me that the smart thing to do is to take the $1000 a month and enroll in robot repairman school.
During the debate, there were other one liners worth mentioning like when Tulsi Gabbard, US Representative from Hawaii, corrected Ohio Congressman, Tim Ryan, who said that the Taliban flew planes into our buildings, by saying,
"The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11, al Qaeda did."
Just like an American to pile everyone into the same basket of deplorables.
When co-moderator Savannah Guthrie said, "This is a show of hands question and hold them up so people can see. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants."
Ten candidates raised their hands including Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson.
Yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker which pretty much sums it up.
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