Politics and Prose: Dr. Eric Motley- Interviewing Elaine Pagels: ‘Why Religion’

Source:Politics and Prose– Dr. Eric Motley, interviewing author Elaine Pagels at Politics and Prose in Washington 

Source:The Daily Review

As someone who is Agnostic and proud of it who believes in reason, science, facts, and only has faith in people, things, institutions that I trust based on the evidence that I’ve seen from being around them and talking to them, I can actually see why people would be attracted in religion. As someone who believes in the First Amendment which includes the Freedom of Religion in America, ( sorry Hippies, I’m not spiritualist and I’m not a Communist either ) I can see why people would want religion, be involved in America, and even need it. I guess the difference between an Agnostic and an Atheist, especially a fundamentalist Atheist ( and yes, there is such a thing ) like a Communist to use as an example.

Source:Good Reads– From author Elaine Pagels 

This is not an official definition, but that might only be because there isn’t any official definition of religion, but my personal definition of religion is basically basic set of moral values that people believe and follow, as well as the belief in God. Now, depending on what religion you are a member of determines what moral values that you believe in and follow that helps you in your life. I can easily see how people can get positive benefits from being a part of a religion and get positive benefits from attending church and listening to their religious leader every week give a sermon, especially when they’re going through rough times and need help getting through those tough times. Even though religion is not for me and I prefer to use evidence and reason to get through those tough times in our lives.

Source:C-SPAN– Author Elaine Pagels, on C-SPAN 

Elaine Pagels, lost both her son and husband in the span of a year back in 1987-88, apparently wasn’t very religious before those tragedies in her life, but found religion after that and I can understand someone who goes through those tragedies especially in such a short period of time would feel the need to get help from religion and learn about that and try to figure out for themselves why they’re being put through those tragedies one following by another. Religion, has been used by alcoholics to get over their alcoholism. It’s been used to help career criminals who are doing long-term prison sentences get their life going on a positive track so once they’re finally out of prison they can become positive members of their community once they’re free. As much as I might hate religious fundamentalism in all forms, ( and trust me, I do ) people should also understand and beware of the positive aspects of religious life as well.

Politics and Prose: Dr. Eric Motley- Interviewing Elaine Pagels: ‘Why Religion’

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Politics and Prose: Timothy Snyder- The Road To Unfreedom

Source: Politics and Prose– Author Timothy Snyder 

Source: The New Democrat

Timothy Snyder seems to be arguing that the reasons why voters in America and in Europe, have turned to nationalist-authoritarianism instead of liberal democracy, has to do with what’s called inequality. That people who are voting for what’s called strongmen or at least people with strongmen authoritarian leanings ( like Donald Trump ) is because they’ve seen their incomes decline while their taxes have gone up and then they see someone come in and essentially say that if you give them all of this power, they’ll fix your problems for you.

Source: Writers Bloc Presents– Author Timothy Snyder

Left-wing socialist and communist authoritarians, make these promises all the time. We saw that with Hugo Chavez and now Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela and we’re now seeing that with Vladimir Putin in Russia and seeing it in Poland and Hungary today, and Donald Trump in America. Right-wing nationalist authoritarians coming into power and saying that if you give them all this power and don’t question them, your lives will improve.

Which tells me that when people’s lives seem so dark and without hope and they just can’t seem to get ahead and their bills start piling, they become so desperate that they’re willing to try anything to improve their lives. Including authoritarianism whether it’s right-wing or left-wing authoritarianism.

Politics and Prose: Timothy Snyder- The Road To Unfreedom

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The Wawg Blog: Andy Hailey- ‘How We Got Into The DJT Political Swamp: It Has Little To Do With Russia’

Source: Wall Stats– Yep, that pretty much sums it up

Source: The New Democrat Plus

Andy Hailey seems to making the argument that Washington lobbyists became a problem, when our tax rates became lower. That since we’ve cut taxes both in 1981 under President Reagan and again in the 1990s multiple times under President Clinton and again under President Bush in the 2000s and President Obama in 2009, that is when lobbyists became a problem in Washington. And that after we made lobbying easier in Washington that is when lobbyists became a problem as well.

Source: Steemit– Deep State Fantasy

I have a different take. Economics Professor Classical Liberal Milton Friedman, who I didn’t agree with on everything mostly having to do with regulations of the economy where I tend to be in favor of them, if they’re commonsense and not intended to run private businesses, argued that the problem with money in Washington, has to do with power and money in Washington meaning the Federal Government. That the reasons why lobbyists lobby so much in Washington is the same reasons why bank robbers rob banks, because that’s where the money is. Since 1964 the Federal Government has only gotten bigger, with few exceptions in the 1990s. And since that time even if you want to go up to 1970 from 1964, we’ve also only seem more lobbyists in Washington.

My other take on this has to do with American voters themselves. One good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. You continue to vote for the same people to serve in Congress and vote for members that are corrupt or if you prefer bought and expect their behavior to change, you’re acting insane. U.S. Representatives and Senators, are not lifetime appointments. They go up for reelection every 2 and 6 years which gives their constituents the opportunity every 2 or 6 years to evaluate them and decide if they’re doing a good job or not. Are they of strong character and have strong qualifications to serve in the House or Senate, or are they lazy, vote against their constituents interests, and are corrupt or bought by the people who write them checks and finance their political campaigns.

So if you want to better politicians in America, you have to have better voters. And voters who stop voting for politicians because they like the smartphone the person uses, or because the politician is up to date on pop culture references, catch phrases, and entertainment in general, but who can be bought for a 100 bucks to vote this way or that way. And instead vote for candidates and incumbents who will do the job that they’re elected to which is to represent their constituents especially the people who can’t afford too write big checks to political campaigns.

And to go back to the Milton Friedman argument. You want fewer lobbyists in Washington, a good way to do that is to get money out of the Federal Government and decentralize a lot if not all the social insurance programs and allow for the states and localities to run them, under basic Federal standards to make sure those programs for the people who truly need them are run the way they’re supposed to be. Stopping running budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year. And get the the country’s fiscal house in order.

A couple of things that Congress can do and the U.S. Supreme Court might do one of these things for Congress, since Congress probably won’t has to do with gerrymandering and full disclosure. Eliminate gerrymandering all together and you’ll make Congress at least in the House accountable. Because representatives will no longer be able to just run to a hyper-partisan faction in their district and instead will have to represent a district that is more balance politically and ideologically.

And the second one being which unfortunately qualifies for the good luck with that column, because it goes against current members of Congress own political interests , would be full disclosure off all political contributions in America, at least at the Federal level and force members and candidates, as well political action groups and lobbyists, to disclose how they’re funding their political campaigns. And let the voters decide if their politicians and candidates, are bought or not.

A lot of the so-called Washington swamp and lobbyists issue in Washington, goes to personal responsibility. Back to my definition of insanity about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, you keep voting for the same politicians and you’ll just get the same behavior and same policies. Which will probably be written by the lobbyists who make the biggest political contributions. But you vote for good qualified people instead and help them get elected and get them elected and you’ll get different policies that are designed to represent their constituents instead. And Congress if they decided to go against their current political interests, could be helpful here as well by eliminating all gerrymandering and passing full disclosure off all political contributions. But fixing Washington and Congress starts with the voters themselves.

Source: Fox News: Donald Trump- ‘We’re Going To Drain The Swamp’: In 2016

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Politics & Prose: David Frum- ‘Trumpocracy’

Source:Politic & Prose– David Frum talking about his book.

Source:The New Democrat 

“David Frum, former White House speech writer and senior editor at The Atlantic, discusses his book, “Trumpocracy”, at Politics and Prose on 2/7/18.

Frum’s ninth book expands on his eye-opening March 2017 Atlantic column, “How to Build an Autocracy,” which argued that Trump is leading the nation into authoritarianism. An experienced Washington insider and one of the country’s leading conservative commentators, Frum examines the implications of Trump’s behavior as well as his policies. From Trump’s admiration for strongmen such as the Philippines’ Roderigo Duterte and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan to the president’s threats against the media, his impulsive decision-making, and flouting of tradition and even law, Frum sees evidence that Trump’s presidency, if left unchecked, will seriously damage America’s democratic future.”

From Politics & Prose

David Frum’s Trumpocracy argues that thanks to President Donald Trump and perhaps other people and other things our liberal democracy and liberal democratic form of government is at risk. That Donald Trump represents a right-wing nationalist populist movement that puts their political and cultural values over everyone else and everything else, including the U.S. Constitution.

The one clue that you need to know about the Trump Nationalist Tea Party populist movement is not conservative, is that they’re not traditionalists. They don’t believe in conserving the status quo. They want to blow up the system and the Washington way of doing things and replace that system with their own political system which wouldn’t be democratic.

Just as political and current affairs junkie, I hate it when political commentators and reporters, call people Conservatives when they’re not conservative. The tax bill and budget that the Republican Congress passed in the last two months that will add trillions of dollars to the national debt and as a result we’re looking at a deficit of over a trillion-dollars next year which would be our first trillion-dollar deficit since 2012.

Conservatives don’t borrow and spend and they don’t blow up tradition and the status quo. They protect and conserve the system that they’re part of because it works and they helped design it. Donald Trump represents an anti-conservative movement that is nationalist, tribalist, and authoritarian, that believes their movement are the real Americans and everyone else are Un-American.

Donald Trump by himself I don’t believe is as scary as people want to believe. As much as a wannabe nationalist dictator that he wants to be the problem is he operates in a system with checks and balances and still is part of a liberal democratic form of government and there real limits to what he can do by himself and he like no other President in American history is above the law. If he’s guilty of anything illegal or impeachable, we’ll know about it and Congress will have an opportunity to act on that.

What people should really worry about are the people and voters that Donald Trump represents and the prospects for those people coming to power in America. Not just at the Federal level but the state and local levels which is more important, since a lot of members of Congress come from state and local government. And establish regimes that pass laws that make it close to impossible for members of the opposition to even vote. That is what we should worry about as people who believe in checks and balances and liberal democracy.

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Politics and Prose: David Cay Johnston- ‘It’s Even Worse Than You Think’

Source:Politics & Prose– author David Cay Johnston at Politics & Prose in Washington.

Source:The New Democrat

“David Cay Johnston discusses his book, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” at Politics and Prose on 1/24/18.

Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, has been covering Trump since 1988. In June 2015, he was the first national journalist to write about a possible Trump presidency and in his 2016 bestselling The Making of Donald Trump he gave a comprehensive account of Trump’s business practices, associates, and family background. Now Johnston follows up that profile with a detailed analysis of the Trump administration’s first one hundred days. He shows how Trump’s policies are affecting ordinary people’s jobs, finances, and security, explains the federal agencies charged with carrying out Trump’s executive actions, and illuminates places where the system can hide what’s really going on.”

From Politics & Prose

I agree with David C. Johnston that Donald Trump is not the disease in American politics, but a symptom. His presidency is an example of what can happen when Americans are literally so pissed off about American politics, American politicians, the lobbyists that they actually represent instead of the everyday American voters who work very hard for their living and proud of that.

Not just Independents but Democrats voted for Donald Trump. Far-Left-Wing Democrats and third-party voters who voted for Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries for President, voted for Nationalist Republican Donald Trump for President. Who came out in favor of banning Muslims from entering America and a huge border wall that is supposed to be about two-thousand miles along and cover the entire American-Mexican border, even though no one actually believes that is even possible to accomplish let alone will ever happen, except for Donald Trump’s Far-Right Breitbart Fox News voters. Even Donald Trump knows enough about immigration to know his wall won’t ever happen, but he’s also smart enough to know that his base doesn’t know that.

Think about that for a second: Socialists voting for a right-wing Nationalist for President, even though they had Green Party Socialist candidate Jill Stein, as an option to vote for President.

Donald Trump for all of his weaknesses and lack of knowledge about everything other than how to make money for himself and entertainment, understands the American political system very well. Not the governmental system where he’s not even a student of American government at this point, but instead barely knows it exist and sees the U.S. Justice Department and White House Legal Counsel Office, as his personal law firms that are supposed to be in the business to only represent him.

But Trump is smart enough about American politics to know where American voters are at least on the right-wing side of it and not the Center-Right of the Republican Party, but the hardcore Right if not Far-Right. And he knows what he can do and has to do to get those voters to vote for him and support him.

Trump also knows that there is this so-called Reagan Democrat wing in the Democratic Party who generally vote for Democrats for President and who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama for President twice, but that these voters haven’t been part of the economic recovery that we’ve been living though since 2009. And hate our American political system and the politicians that get elected for obvious reasons. And that Donald Trump completely represents the anti-political as well as government establishment in America.

Donald Trump represents what can happen when you have a Congress with a 15% approval rating, where you have a large percentage of middle class workers who haven’t gotten a raise in twenty years, where corruption in politics and government looks like the norm instead of a surprise. And for the Far-Right in America Trump represents what can happen when you have an America that looks like America which is the world ethnically and racially, instead of just looking like Europe.

All Donald Trump did in 2015-16 was to be smart enough to understand these things and be smart enough to take advantage of them. You want to get the Donald Trump’s of the world out of the American political system and more importantly out of the American government, you need better government and better people working in government especially at the top. And even more importantly you need better and smarter voters who vote for good people to represent them. Even if they tell them things and take positions that they don’t want to see and hear from time to time.

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C-SPAN: Christopher Hitchens: On Bill Clinton (1993)

Source:C-SPAN– British-American Socialist writer Christopher Hitchens, on C-SPAN in 1993.

Source:The New Democrat

“Christopher Hitchens Interview For the Sake of Argument”

From Hitch Archive

“Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Buchanan spoke on current events in Washington politics, including the performance of the Clinton administration to date, and the reaction of Western countries toward the civil war in Bosnia. The correspondents responded to callers’ comments criticizing the Clinton administration. Credit to C-SPAN.”

Source:C-SPAN– Left-Wing political writer Christopher Hitchens, on CSPAN in 1993.

From C-SPAN

“Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Buchanan spoke on current events in Washington politics, including the performance of the Clinton administration to date, and the reaction of Western countries toward the civil war in Bosnia. The correspondents responded to callers’ comments criticizing the Clinton administration.”

Source:C-SPAN– Pat Buchanan and Chris Hitchens on CSPAN, in 1993.

From C-SPAN

This is certainly an interesting combo to have Chris Hitchens and Pat Buchanan, on the same show.

Hitchens, a self-described Democratic Socialist and Pat Buchanan, would be what’s called today an Alt-Rightist: someone who tends to be against free trade, multiculturalism, non-European immigration and perhaps immigration in general. Anti-internationalism when it comes to foreign policy and not believing that America should be involved in other countries human rights crisis’s and civil wars.

And then you have Socialist Chris Hitchens, who believes that the big central government, should decide what people need to live well. And that the central government should be responsible for a lot of those services. But tends to break away from Socialists when it came to foreign policy and did believe America and Europe, could play a positive role in seeing that people who live under authoritarian regimes, can break away from authoritarianism and even use military force to break those authoritarian regimes.

Hitchens was in favor of America and Europe, being involved in the Balkans in the 1990s. Buchanan was against that. They weren’t two men that even though one was clearly on the Left, Far-Left even and the other was on the Far-Right, that you could assume that either would automatically take a certain position on a certain issue.

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Caleb Rojas Castillo: Hillary Clinton on Good Morning America, 1998

Source:Caleb Rojas Castillo– U.S. First Lady Hillary R. Clinton, on ABC’s Good Morning America, in 1998.

Source:The New Democrat 

“First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton gives an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, facing tough personal questions.

January 28, 1998. (A day after the famous “Today show” interview)”

From Caleb Rojas Castillo

Lisa McRee, hosting ABC’s Good Morning America. Gee, there’s a blast from the past. She co-hosted that show, what two weeks. I guess when your network’s overnight newscast gets better ratings than your morning show, that’s a clue that you might need to change your morning crew. Diane Sawyer, saved Good Morning America and perhaps is the reason why that show is a strong competitor with The Today Show. Or at least while Diane was hosting GMA.

Hillary Clinton, is either the most gullible person on the planet: and would take the word of a known compulsive liar, when the liar says that fire is cold and water is dry and it snows in South Florida in July, or she’s just a bad liar herself. I mean, to say she believed her husband, who just happens to be Bill Clinton, perhaps better known as Wild Bill and Slick Willy, when he told her that allegations about Monica Lewinsky were false, is hard to believe. I mean, Bill is her husband and it’s not like they have a long distance marriage and do not know what is going on in the other’s life. They’ve shared a bed at this point for over twenty years. Well, they shared that bed when Bill wasn’t with one of his girlfriends.

When you’re a fly in hot water and you can actually swim, I know a little tough to consider, you get yourself out of the water and fly away. That is what Hillary is trying to do here. Lisa McRee, wants to talk about Lewinsky. Hillary, would rather talking about the color of a brick wall, or how often someone should clean their garbage cans. Or how come the Chicago Cubs, haven’t won a World Series in a hundred years, or the price of Arkansas dirt, then talk about her husband’s latest affairs. So of course she’s going to try to change the subject from Lewinsky and try to talk about her husband’s political agenda. Outside of saving his ass in the White House. And that is exactly what she tried to do here.

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PBS NewsHour: Shields & Gerson On Ebola & 2014 Elections

Source:PBS NewsHour– left to right: Michael Gerson & Mark Shields.

Source:The New Democrat

“Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the response to Ebola in the U.S. and how it affects national politics, as well as the outlook for the midterm elections and the gubernatorial debate in Florida.”

From the PBS NewsHour

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a North American public broadcaster and non-commercial,[1][2][3][4][5] free-to-air television network based in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.[6][7][8][9] PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States,[10][11][12][13] distributing shows such as Frontline, Nova, PBS NewsHour, Masterpiece, Sesame Street, and This Old House.[14]

PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source.[15] PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.[4]

As of 2020, PBS has nearly 350 member stations around the United States.”

From Wikipedia

Anyone who uses Ebola to gain political power (Right or Left) is unfit for office and perhaps should resign or give up their request to win the office that they are pursuing. This is a serious issue that affects millions of people who the U.S. Government and others have to deal with effectively, or millions of people could get hurt by it. And they need all the resources and people necessary to handle this problem as effectively as possible.

As far as the U.S. Senate elections: Mike Gerson might be right and maybe Senate Republicans are ahead in 8-11 elections right now. But I’m still seeing Kansas where Republican Senator Pat Roberts is in the fight for his Congressional career and is losing to Greg Orman. And I don’t think the debate this week helped Senator Roberts. And I’m seeing Georgia where Democratic Senate nominee Michelle Nunn has a small lead against David Perdue and they are competing for a Republican Senate seat.

In Kentucky, Allison Grimes has probably shot off too many of her own toes to win that election. You know a centrist or center-left Democrat not being able to admit that she voted for a Democratic President in Barack Obama, who is also center-left, shows she may not have the character and political knowledge as far as how much that could hurt her by not being able to admit the obvious, to win a U.S. Senate seat. Even against an unpopular Mitch McConnell who is also the Senate Minority Leader, Leader of the Senate Republicans.

Senate Democrats path to retaining the Senate even at 50-50 or 51-49, is to run the table and hold all the close Senate Democratic seats. They need to hold probably half of them and pick off a few Republican seats as well. Like Kansas and Georgia and they do that by holding North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan as a lead there. Holding South Dakota, which seemed impossible even a few months ago. Hold Colorado with Senator Mark Udall and somehow pull out Arkansas or Louisiana. And put Senate Republicans in a position where they have to run the table to even win a net of six seats, after dropping a couple of their own.

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Taylor F: President Dwight Eisenhower on Little Rock Integration Plan

Source:Taylor F.– Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, Texas) President of the United States (1953-61)

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on WordPress.

“This is for educational and personal purposes.
Executive Order – – Little Rock 1957 – – Dwight D. Eisenhower”

From Taylor F.

Dwight Eisenhower, America’s first civil rights president. Not Lyndon Johnson who was our third, after Jack Kennedy who got involved in it strongly late in his presidency. But President Eisenhower was our first because he took on segregation from the executive level before the 1960s and when the civil rights movement became strong.

By taking on civil rights at the federal and executive level, President Eisenhower immediately gave credibility to the movement. Especially by being in favor of it and against school desegregation, by essentially saying that:

“African-Americans have the same right to a quality education as Caucasian-Americans. And that government can’t force African-American kids to go to poor schools. When Caucasians are going to good public schools”.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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Market Ex: President Dwight Eisenhower- On the American Safety Net

Source:Market Ex– President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, Kansas) 1953-61

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Source:Market EX

Dwight Eisenhower certainly wasn’t a Tea Party Republican economically or anything else. Whatever a Tea Party Republican is supposed to be, because there are many types.

But Ike was not a classical conservative economic libertarian Tea Party Republican. Not a Rand Paul Conservative Libertarian, which is what I’m getting at. But more like a Newt Gingrich Republican at least when it came to economic policy or what they use to call in Canada a Progressive Conservative.

Progressive Conservatives believe in the basic safety net for people who needed it, including the New Deal. But someone who also believed in freedom when it came to economics as well as personal freedom.

A Progressive Republican (not an Oxymoron) is someone who didn’t want a big welfare state for America. Someone who believed that Americans should have the freedom to be able to do as much for themselves as possible.

Progressive Republicans believe the safety net are for those people who needed it. Ike certainly wasn’t a Social Democrat or Democratic Socialist (which are very common in Europe) but someone who believed in using conservative principles to accomplish progressive goals. That you needed both freedom and a safety net for the country to be as strong as possible economically.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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