Tag: George W. Bush
I Agree with T. Friedman – A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast

I Agree with T. Friedman – A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast

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I rarely say good things about Thomas Friedman as he is typically too far left, in my opinion. However, I regularly read his columns (when the NYT doesn’t block me) and I think I have read all of his books because it is good to understand all sides of an argument.

This analysis of the recent deal in the Mideast is very well done. Probably the best that I have read. If you are not blocked by the NYT paywall, you should read it.

This deal is amazing. In a normal news cycle, this would be the top headline in every newspaper and every news site (but this isn’t a normal news cycle). This is a deal that no former POTUS has been able to pull off. Is it a Nobel worthy as what James E. Carter or William J. Clinton did? No. But it is a lot better than what George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, or Barack H. Obama did in the Mideast (and Obama received the Nobel prize just for giving good speeches not for actually doing anything). Trump won’t get a Nobel for this because the committee hates Trump. But even if you are a Trump-hater, you have got to give credit for getting this deal done.

Thankfully, Mr. Friedman does that and kudos to him to look past politics and focus on a great result that will make the world a better place. Friedman writes a lot about the Mideast and he knows a massive move forward when he sees it.

To allay the fears of some of you that have read this far, I am still not voting for Trump for re-election even though he accomplished one of the biggest international wins of the 21st century so far. I am still supporting Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party candidate as I feel that her platform is the closest to mine and I think this nation needs a change in the political discussion of something other than Left or Right but instead a focus on personal liberty and personal responsibility. If you believe in personal liberty and personal responsibility, please give an honest look at her platform and then join me in changing the US to be a better place.

Since NYT may block you from reading the article, here are the first couple of paragraphs but will keep it under 300 words to protect NYT copyright. The following are not my words but Mr. Friedman’s:

The agreement brokered by the Trump administration for the United Arab Emirates to establish full normalization of relations with Israel, in return for the Jewish state forgoing, for now, any annexation of the West Bank, was exactly what Trump said it was in his tweet: a “HUGE breakthrough.”

It is not Anwar el-Sadat going to Jerusalem — nothing could match that first big opening between Arabs and Israelis. It is not Yasir Arafat shaking Yitzhak Rabin’s hand on the White House lawn — nothing could match that first moment of public reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

But it is close. Just go down the scorecard, and you see how this deal affects every major party in the region — with those in the pro-American, pro-moderate Islam, pro-ending-the-conflict-with-Israel-once-and-for-all camp benefiting the most and those in the radical pro-Iran, anti-American, pro-Islamist permanent-struggle-with-Israel camp all becoming more isolated and left behind.

It’s a geopolitical earthquake.

To fully appreciate why, you need to start with the internal dynamics of the deal. It was Trump’s peace plan drawn up by Jared Kushner, and their willingness to stick with it, that actually created the raw material for this breakthrough.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/opinion/israel-uae.html
To prepare for this pandemic, our liberal and conservative leaders failed us

To prepare for this pandemic, our liberal and conservative leaders failed us

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A lot of liberals won’t like this post. Please don’t read it if you are a liberal because you will get mad. It hurts when facts smack you in the face, so you should avoid doing that. This article points out that liberals completely failed to help the US prepare for a pandemic.

To be fair, conservatives shouldn’t read this post either because that same brick wall of facts is going to hit you in the face as well. Don’t read it as conservatives haven’t prioritized preparing for a pandemic either.

This is an article from 2009. It is from NPR, so no one is going to say it right-wing bias. Conservatives will say that it is MSM, but the facts on the ground have proven this article to be very accurate. 

Here is another article by Sheri Fink that covers the various studies in 2006-2009 about how woefully prepared the US is in handling a pandemic.

In 2007 and 2006, the country did studies that showed that during a pandemic, NYC would be short 15,000 ventilators, and 150K people could die. Sound familiar? There were probably studies since the publication of these articles. So did Bush or Obama do anything? Not much, and I will suggest they did zero. Trump didn’t come into office with any insight and initiative to fix this known problem, so he is just as guilty as Bush and Obama.

There has been a total lack of leadership by Bush, Obama, and Trump on this issue.

And Governor Cuomo? Nope. He didn’t fight for it either—more lack of leadership.

And neither did Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, Schumer, or any other leader of our Congress. A complete lack of leadership for a situation that everyone knew would eventually happen.

BTW, the current candidates for POTUS in 2020: Biden, Sanders, and Trump – nope. None of them did anything when they were in positions that could have influenced this.

All of our government leaders failed us on both sides of the aisle. They taxed the hell out of us. They whined and complained about other stupid shit. They gave incentives for solar energy, oil production, buying stuff on the internet, buying health insurance, fighting bad guys in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria. But prepare the country for a pandemic? Nope. 

They all said, “Hopefully, that pandemic will happen when I am not in office, and the next person can worry about that.” Guess what, we are the next person. We are now worrying about it, and our bickering Federal government messed up big time.

The Federal government is really only good at two things

  1. the infrastructure that hundreds of thousands or millions of people rely on
  2. the defense of our country and people.

To be honest, the government isn’t all that good at those two things, but it is the only entity that can do them. The government shouldn’t be doing other things. It should focus on doing those two things and do them as well as possible, giving the inefficiencies of an organization that has no competition.

It is woefully incapable of doing anything else well. In just about every case other than the two cited, private industry that competes with others will do a better job. Will the private sector screw something up? Absolutely! But then that private enterprise will be displaced by a competitor that will perform better. 

Pandemic relief falls into both categories. It is the defense of our people, and it is the infrastructure to support that defense. We did both poorly for pandemic relief, and it is now costing us dearly.

What is the solution? Throw the bums out. Every damn one of them. They failed us. They screwed up. They should be rewarded with losing their jobs.

We need politicians that are focused on just doing the two things that only the federal government can do. We need politicians to look at a bill and say, “Is this something that ONLY the federal government can do and therefore is in the above two categories?” If the answer to that question is NO, then the politicians need to vote it down. If the answer to that question is YES, then the politicians need to approve it and give it the appropriate funding and oversight that it is done as well as possible.

Header Photo by Parentingupstream (Pixabay)
Will Clinton take over as VP?

Will Clinton take over as VP?

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A recent article on FoxNews suggests that Barack Hussein Obama should drop Vice President Joseph Biden from the ticket in 2012 and put Hillary Clinton in the job instead.

I don’t think she will do it.

She will stay Secretary of State for the balance of the first term. If BHO is re-elected, she will resign shortly into the second term and no one will blame her as the SecState job is brutal.  This will allow her to publish one more book and do the money-raising chicken-dinner circuit.  She will then run in 2016 to succeed BHO, taking credit for thegood that she did as SecState but distancing herself from BHO’s screwups.

If BHO would lose in 2012 , she would be even better positioned for ’16.

Also, dropping Biden in 2012 (unless he is sick) will be seen as intensely disloyal by the American voters.  No President has changed VPs for an election since FDR put Truman on the ticket.  Nixon ran through a couple VPs but that was because Agnew was even more crooked than Tricky Dick and even then it wasn’t for an election – it was mid-term and Agnew had to resign the position.

It would be near political suicide to switch VPs in the 21st century just based on politics. Even George W. Bush didn’t do it with Dick Cheney which would have been a good move for the party. Cheney had terrible numbers and was never a candidate for President in 2008. Putting a fresh face on the ticket would have allowed Bush to weasel out of some of his mistakes and would have setup a successor candidate (rather than the very limp and inadequate McCain).  For that matter, GWB could have put McCain on the ticket and given him a better standing to run for President with fewer competitors in the primary.

If Biden should become very ill, Clinton is the obvious choice for VP. I have nothing against Mr. Biden, so I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, but if for some reason he is faced with a life-threatening illness, Hillary will be the logical and politically-prudent choice for VP.

Biden is here to stay if he is healthy. Look for Clinton on the ticket in 2016.

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