From the very first moment I saw and heard Trump I knew he was the biggest phony I had ever witnessed. I am only one citizen, a voter, a USMC VN veteran, and my experience has taught me that a TV conman is a circus clown in government office. Is anybody laughing at this tragedy?
Jennifer Rubin's analysis neglects too important (to the Powers-That-Be) goals. Those that love the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that initiating this war on Iran would bring about have been rewarded. First, oil interests in the US are ecstatic about profits from higher oil prices. Second, the anti-communist Sinophobes are equally ecstatic about limiting exports of Iranian oil to China. These goals, however, will fail.
My assessment is that higher oil prices might enrich the American oil companies' CEOs and shareholders, but the American public will not tolerate higher prices for long. As for China, she has known about American plans for blockading petroleum imports for years and has taken steps to frustrate those plans. With extensive arrays of solar and wind power as well as solid agreements with Russia for natural gas and oil using the North Sea Route, she can shrug off relatively limited restrictions of energy from the Gulf.
In our 250 years of selecting Presidents, America has benefitted from soldiers, businessmen and lawyers of various abilities. Not all who entered office had the necessary experience to govern but most had the vision to choose the greatest good for the greatest number (of citizens). Trump has been a departure from respectability choosing personal greed, disrespect for laws, and chooses poor communication with world leaders. All voters must realize that placing a candidate with minimal qualifications or experience has risks for our security. There are educated Americans with morals who can excel as leaders if they decide to. American voters must choose intelligence to improve upon their image as the dumbest voters in the history of democracy.
JC Bruce, I worry slightly about your promotion of a group like Project 140 ... only in that they don't seem to be lock-step with our state democratic party which is where, in my humble opinion, we all need to be shoring up support if we ever want to bring our state back to the middle, let alone more to the left. They are the only pathway for partisan voter registration and quality control/training. A far better way to get qualified candidates into seats across the state would be working WITH Nikki Fried and the FDP, with Ruth's and Emily's Lists, not as a stand-alone organization operating in the wild. Perhaps I am not as familiar with them as I should be but I am deeply familiar with the other organizations mentioned above and the effectiveness of each. One of the deepest problems that we have seen in our state here is how the donor base went rogue and left the FDP with their funding. The rise of all of the varied funding organizations, many of them not qualified nor effective, have added to the multi-billion $$ political industry that has cropped up over the last couple of decades. If we really want to one day flip the state house and senate, we need to rebuild the FL Dem Party and the infrastructure of the democratic base at the foundational level.
From the very first moment I saw and heard Trump I knew he was the biggest phony I had ever witnessed. I am only one citizen, a voter, a USMC VN veteran, and my experience has taught me that a TV conman is a circus clown in government office. Is anybody laughing at this tragedy?
Jennifer Rubin's analysis neglects too important (to the Powers-That-Be) goals. Those that love the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that initiating this war on Iran would bring about have been rewarded. First, oil interests in the US are ecstatic about profits from higher oil prices. Second, the anti-communist Sinophobes are equally ecstatic about limiting exports of Iranian oil to China. These goals, however, will fail.
My assessment is that higher oil prices might enrich the American oil companies' CEOs and shareholders, but the American public will not tolerate higher prices for long. As for China, she has known about American plans for blockading petroleum imports for years and has taken steps to frustrate those plans. With extensive arrays of solar and wind power as well as solid agreements with Russia for natural gas and oil using the North Sea Route, she can shrug off relatively limited restrictions of energy from the Gulf.
This makes sense. There is no way Xi would not have been prepared for a dick move by Trump, when he can read him like book and play him like a fiddle.
In our 250 years of selecting Presidents, America has benefitted from soldiers, businessmen and lawyers of various abilities. Not all who entered office had the necessary experience to govern but most had the vision to choose the greatest good for the greatest number (of citizens). Trump has been a departure from respectability choosing personal greed, disrespect for laws, and chooses poor communication with world leaders. All voters must realize that placing a candidate with minimal qualifications or experience has risks for our security. There are educated Americans with morals who can excel as leaders if they decide to. American voters must choose intelligence to improve upon their image as the dumbest voters in the history of democracy.
JC Bruce, I worry slightly about your promotion of a group like Project 140 ... only in that they don't seem to be lock-step with our state democratic party which is where, in my humble opinion, we all need to be shoring up support if we ever want to bring our state back to the middle, let alone more to the left. They are the only pathway for partisan voter registration and quality control/training. A far better way to get qualified candidates into seats across the state would be working WITH Nikki Fried and the FDP, with Ruth's and Emily's Lists, not as a stand-alone organization operating in the wild. Perhaps I am not as familiar with them as I should be but I am deeply familiar with the other organizations mentioned above and the effectiveness of each. One of the deepest problems that we have seen in our state here is how the donor base went rogue and left the FDP with their funding. The rise of all of the varied funding organizations, many of them not qualified nor effective, have added to the multi-billion $$ political industry that has cropped up over the last couple of decades. If we really want to one day flip the state house and senate, we need to rebuild the FL Dem Party and the infrastructure of the democratic base at the foundational level.