Tag: Presidents

Thoughts About Surviving Donny

Four ex-presidents were asked if this country can bounce back or even survive the crap Donny is putting it through….

Let me say here I could write this without ever hearing what they would say….but they were asked and they answered….

All four living former presidents are striking a similar note as the US nears its 250th birthday. In exclusive interviews with Jenna Bush Hager for Today, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all argued that the country’s democratic foundations are sturdy enough to weather its current tensions—if citizens stay engaged. Highlights:

  • Biden: “We’re the most unique country in the world,” said No. 46. “Most unique country in the world in the sense that we really do think democracy is dictated by the rule of the Constitution. And we do believe … that all men are created equal.”
  • Obama: “Hope is not blind optimism. Remember what’s best in us,” said No. 44. “The basic principle upon which this country was founded, which is we don’t have rulers, we don’t have kings, or monarchs, or aristocracies. We have citizens.” Hope “arises in the face of difficulty” and depends on Americans treating each other with respect while working out differences “in peaceful, legal ways.”
  • Bush: “My message is consider yourself fortunate to be a part of a great nation,” said No. 43 and the only former president Hager addressed as “dad.” “Study our history so you have a better sense for what the future will be like. And be a citizen, not a spectator. And by that I mean participate in the process, but also love a neighbor like you’d like to be loved yourself.”
  • Clinton: “The country will survive as much by the process, by the freedom to speak, the freedom to vote, the freedom to be active in politics as by any particular issue,” said No. 42. “And because it’s like it is, compromise is essential.”

read the full piece at Today.

Just as I thought….centrist crap….they do not want Americans fighting for their rights just to vote and keep- the riff raff in bucks.

Sorry I know that is a bit harsh but nothing changes in decades and these guys are part of the reason.

If you vote their thoughts then you are looking at a very long time before we have our country back.

But you do what you think is best….and I will do what is needed.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

First Gay In The White House

Dem candidate, Mayor Pete, is once again making news…this time it is about a published op-ed from a well known source…..

Despite apologizing for an “inappropriate and offensive” opinion piece on Pete Buttigieg, the New Republic has lost a sponsor. The League of Conservation Voters was to be one of the hosts of a New Republic forum on climate change in September with the publication. No more, CNN reports. The environmental group said Saturday that it will withdraw because the decision to run the article was “inconsistent with our values.” The article on the magazine’s website, by Dale Peck, mocked Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate, for not coming out as gay until four years ago, and went downhill from there—speculating about his past and future sexuality.

By now the whole nation knows that Mayor Pete is a gay man and he is running for president…..if he were to win the election then he would be the first gay in the White House…..

Not the truest of statements……first there was James Buchanan our president before (1857-1861) the Civil War…….I wrote about this 5 years ago……https://lobotero.com/2014/04/04/will-us-ever-have-a-gay-president/

The WaPo also wrote about this historical piece……https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pete-buttigieg-wouldnt-be-americas-first-gay-president/2019/03/26/0b7b1eb4-41de-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html

What got me thinking was some more history I read about this time it was the wife of Grover Cleveland……https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/grover-cleveland/

The man is not the subject it is his wife Rose who was First Lady and a Lesbian…….

Pete Buttigieg thinks the US has already had its first gay president. Now researchers are pointing out a first lady who carried on a same-sex relationship—Grover Cleveland’s sister, Rose Cleveland. As it was typical for a female relative to fill the role of first lady for a bachelor president, Rose stepped in for 14 months beginning in 1885 until her brother married. Years later, during the winter of 1889-90, she met the love of her life, widow Evangeline Simpson, according to a new book of Rose’s love letters. Preserved after Simpson’s 1930 death, the letters tell of a romantic relationship spanning almost 30 years until Rose’s death in 1918, per the Washington Post. “My Eve! Ah, how I love you! It paralyzes me,” Rose wrote to Simpson, who was 10 years her junior, in April 1890. “I am bold to say this” but “you are mine, and I am yours,” she later added.

Book co-editor Lizzie Ehrenhalt notes Rose struggled to label what the two had, as “this was before there was a concept of sexual orientation.” But Ehrenhalt says she’s certain the relationship was sexual in nature; the Post quotes one letter that mentions “long rapturous embraces” that “carry us both in one to the summit of joy!” The couple bought property in Florida and lived together in Italy’s Bagni di Lucca, where they’re buried side by side. But their love was interrupted by Simpson’s 1896 marriage to Bishop Henry Whipple, who died in 1901; read the full article at the Post for more on the chill that followed the wedding. The book’s publication is timed with the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots—which occurred the same year that the Minnesota Historical Society opted to hide Rose’s letters for nearly a decade, per the New York Daily News

Now that brings us to the 2020 election and Mayor Pete…..and the question…is America ready for a gay president?

A decade ago I would have said that we were….but after a decade of vile rhetoric and some violence I am not so sure that we are ready….according the polls and CNN… we are NOT ready.

A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that 70% of voters (including 86% of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic) say they are open to electing a gay president.
The same poll also discovered, however, that only 36% of voters (including 40% of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic) think the United States is ready to elect a gay president.
 
I would like the thoughts of my readers on this…..please feel free to comment.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

God in the White House

Today’s posts will be generic….nothing in Breaking News……I have a full day of tests for my doctors so I will be a bit missing for most of the day….I apologize.

This is a FYI piece…it is not intended to influence anyone one way or the other…..purely informational……and in no way should be seen as an endorsement.

Every election we will see an ad or a speech or something about the candidates belief in God almighty….which is fine but it is not a deal maker with me.

I personally do not care what religion the candidate is or what his personal beliefs are….I do not make my decision based on religion.

I would prefer that we keep religion out of the voting process all together.

But that aside we hear a lot about this president or that and their belief in the deity we call God and how it influenced their tenure as president….but are these claims accurate?

Let’s look at the presidents down through the years……

The religious beliefs of the first president of the United States of America have been the subject of debate since he held office.

Washington’s faith has been categorized at times as evangelical Christianity, deist, Free Masonry and mainline Protestant Christianity. Washington himself was raised in, married in and became a vestryman in the Episcopal Church (the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion). However, he rarely took communion and attended church sporadically.

(read on……)

Source: God In America: God in the White House | PBS

There is your look at our presidents and their religious thoughts……

Closing Thought–06Apr17

Those presidential offspring!

The president’s children are always a focus for the media and this president is no different…..

Mr. Trump has his family in almost every aspect of the governing of this country.  His daughter has gotten an official office within the confines of the White House…..kinda reminds me of the Borjas in Italy and any number of authoritarian monarchs in the Middle East.

After ethics experts raised concerns about her acting as a informal adviser to her father, Ivanka Trump will join her husband as an unpaid government employee, the New York Times reports. Critics worried Ivanka Trump, who already has an office in the White House, could skirt ethics rules while advising President Trump, despite her promising to voluntarily comply with them. Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics on Wednesday, asking how ethics rules would apply to the president’s daughter, according to the AP.

A short time later, Ivanka Trump announced she would take an official position as an unpaid White House adviser with the title “assistant to the president.” She says this will allow her to be “subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees.” Those rules include prohibitions on conflicts of interest. Releases from both Ivanka Trump and the White House call her new position “unprecedented.” CNBC notes that Ivanka Trump has already sat in on her father’s meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

My thought is why is not the First Lady dealing with some of this stuff?

He, Trump, is giving the term “all in the family” a whole new meaning.  He is acting like some Middle East potentate where the family has all the positions whether they are qualified or not…

Let’s not forget his opponent in the last election, Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea……who was used in the closing days of the campaign liberally (no pun intended)…..

“I am not running for public office,” Chelsea Clinton tells Variety. After her mother’s loss to President Trump and with the rise of her own public persona, political pundits have been wondering if it’s Chelsea Clinton’s turn to try her hand at the family business, CBS News reports. Apparently not. In her interview with Variety, Clinton quashes such rumors—which she finds “rather hysterical”—and says she’s “constantly surprised by the stories of me running for, fill in the blank.” The 37-year-old says she’s been asked about running for office for most of her life and has never changed her answer. However, Clinton stops short of saying that answer will never change.

What total bullshit!  Remember when her mother was not considering running for president?  No one believed her then why should we believe dear Chelsea now?

God, I love these privileged presidential larva…

Update:  After writing this post word has come out that yet another Trump family member has joined the White House gang……his daughter-in-law, wife of son Eric will be working in the White House…..

Looking more and more like the family government of some sultanate in the Middle East.

What Dunnit?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject”  American History

Let us step into IST’s version of the “way Back” machine…….if you remember your American history from your school days…..you will recall that our 9th president William Henry Harrison…..he is most noted for the president that spent the least amount of time as president……he took office in March of 1841 and died in April 1841….he was president of the United States for one month.

The story goes that he gave a very long speech in very cold weather and was not dressed warmly….he caught pneumonia and died a month later……does that ring a bell?

There has been a new revelation on the cause of death for our 9th president……

The history books tell us that William Henry Harrison died just a month after taking office in 1841 because he caught pneumonia while delivering a too-long inaugural address in lousy weather. Now, modern epidemiology is revising the diagnosis. In the New York Times, Jane McHugh and Philip Mackowiak write that Harrison’s real killer seems to be a gastrointestinal illness called enteric fever. And instead of blaming the inauguration ceremony, we can instead blame a marshy area of raw sewage near the White House.

In the days before DC had a sewer system, sewage stagnated near the White House, just blocks from its water supply. Harrison likely picked up an infection, which was worsened by the standard treatments of the day, they explain. While Harrison’s doctor didn’t bleed the president, he did administer opium, which would have made it difficult for Harrison’s intestine to rid itself of pathogens. Harrison probably got an enema, too, which could have helped the bacteria spread to the bloodstream. “As he lay dying, Harrison had a sinking pulse and cold, blue extremities, two classic manifestations of septic shock,” write McHugh and Mackowiak in diagnosing enteric fever. The pneumonia played a secondary role. Click for their full post.

See there is always another side to the story…..now that makes me wonder about John Wilkes Booth……there is a conspiracy that he did not die in that barn at the hands of the Union army……but that is for another day…

Class dismissed……read chapters 12 through 15 for next session…..

Will US Ever Have A Gay President?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  American History

I have caught my readers up on the international situations that need to be watched and now I would like to educate them with some historical events……..Almost every American knows the Constitution, well the parts that interest them, but what do they know about our presidents especially some of the earlier ones?

America has elected its first black president and to some he is a non-American citizen, a Muslim and even gay…….beyond that does anyone think that this country will ever elect a gay person as president?

That may be a trick question.  There is a possibility that we have already done so……and his name was James Buchanan.

Some historians believe that he was gay….he was never married and shared an apartment with another man…….an Alabama senator named William Rufus King……………several historians who believe that James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861, was in fact our first gay president. He is the only president to have remained a bachelor throughout his life. (His niece, Harriet Lane, handled the duties of First Lady during his term in office.) He shared a home with William Rufus King, an Alabama Senator and Vice President under Buchanan’s predecessor, Franklin Pierce. Their relationship was reportedly so close that Andrew Jackson and other contemporaries referred to them as ”Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”.

King was assigned to Paris in 1844 and after his departure Buchanan wrote a letter to a friend about how he felt without King near by…….

“I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.”

Was Buchanan gay?  There are report that he was engaged at one point and that he wooed several ladies but none ever corralled him in wedlock…….we may never know for sure…that is until someone learns how to use a time machine…….it will be almost impossible to be certain for Buchanan had all his correspondence destroyed at his death…..losing all that info to the flames of time……..

 

And The Prez Speaks……Again!

From the VOMITORIUM

I guess I will make today “Energy” day…….

Today Obama made his speech on energy….and hot damn we have a ….YAWN!  Will some please tell these people to stop all the damn lip service to our dependence on foreign oil?  He basically said the same crap that started with Nixon….and thanx to Politfact for the info……

Richard Nixon kicked off his 1974 State of the Union speech by commenting on how it was the first of its kind to feature energy as the No. 1 priority. He went on to say that even if the embargo is lifted, “conservation will continue to be necessary.” And private enterprise will “develop the new resources, the new technology, the new capacity America will require for its energy needs in the 1980s.”

Gerald Ford picked up the thread, calling in 1975 for more synthetic fuels, home insulation, efficient cars and the like. And in 1976 he advocated “technology to capture energy from the sun and the Earth.”

Jimmy Carter was an avid conservationist, and talked at length about the subject during his State of the Union speeches, such as in 1981 when he endorsed technology such as “photovoltaics, which generate energy directly from the sun.”

Reagan made very little reference to dependence (go figure)…..Bush I the same….Clinton was not that forthcoming with views on the dependency thing….and now Obama…..

Please stop it!  For nearly 50 years presidents have been pointing out that we are dependent on foreign oil and for 50 years NO one gives a sh*t….so why NOT just give it up…..as long as big oil has a control of Congress we will always be dependent….and if you think all that will change with domestic drilling…all I can say is…….HA HA HA HA HA!

Happy Birthday, Ronnie!

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Presidents

NOTE:  I apologize for the delay of this post…it was meant to be done on 06 Feb on Reagan’s actual birthday……a cold and a fever have been more than my fingers could take……

We are in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the US, that god-like hero of the Right….conservs bow and pray (or should that be prey)  at the feet of the giant in American conservatism…..

Let us be real for just a damn moment!  The Left (if you will) has its deified leaders……FDR, Kennedy and Clinton….you know those past presidents that did some things right and the country seem to respond well to them….and thus they become rallying calls for subsequent elections…..and what has the Right had to use?  Goldwater? Hoover?  Nope!  The only thing that they have had in the past 70+ years is …..Reagan.  And they have used it for all it is worth…….every recent GOP nominee has tried to use the mantle of the heir to Reaganism.

I will give Reagan his props…..I believe that he was instrumental in the ending of the Cold War (a debatable premise)  and the demise of the USSR….he helped redefine the conservatism as we know it today and he changed economics ………not that I consider anything good…..the trickle down theory that is still used today and still does NOT work……

If the very name makes you wish for better days then you need to go back and try again….Reagan supposedly stood for lower taxes, deficit reduction and smaller government….you know all the crap that Repubs still cling to but still cannot seem to find the right handle to open that door.

In reality, Reagan could not find the handle either….for all his bolster and vocalization….he could NOT keep the three simple rules of the GOP…..he increased taxes 6 out of the 8 years he was president……he increased the deficit at least two fold and he grew the size of government….

Does lower taxes, smaller government or deficit reduction sound at all familiar?  Well it should!  You have been promised that by every GOP president for the last many years….Bush I, Bush II, and every candidate for as many years…..and whenever they control Congress they have been unable to keep the promises and in most cases did the opposite….and yet YOU keep voting for the idea that cannot be upheld…..at least NOT in our way of governing…..

The GOP cannot keep their promises and have seldom kept the promises of smaller government, lower taxes or deficit reduction and yet they cling to the past and the crap of the past……Repubs need to find a new tune….this song remains the same…..

People!  Stop deifying these people…they do NOT deserve such an honor!  Every president is a special person, in their own right, but NOT one needs to be deified…….when the electorate finds that person that can solve the problems and still treat the people, all the people, with respect to their needs, then, only then…..should deification be considered!

Questions? We Have Questions…..

In a recent event Obama was asked questions by Repubs and he answered…it was a win for him (and he did not need a teleprompter….a fact that is overlooked by the opposition that accuses him of too much)…..and now there are calls from bloggers, progressives, libertarians, etc for a regular session of questions by the Congress to the Prez and it is suppose to be broadcast…..thoughts?

For me, I think it is a damn good idea……no teleprompter….random questions…..with short concise answers…that would be a win-win for the people and their education on the issues….. I agree with Voltaire, “Judge a man by his questios rather than his answers”……meaning……the question that is asked will be far more telling than the answer that is received….if it is the Repubs then we will see if they truly want to work bi-partisan or just there to say NO to everything……and because it is televised the people will be the winner and become more informed…..

From the website:  demandquestiontime.com:

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy.

Please join us by signing the Demand Question Time petition.

If you believe that this type of thing can make our democracy a bit stronger then I urge you to sign the petition!

Question time has been an institution in the UK for some time now and I am sure that there are those that think it is a waste of time, but I prefer to hear from my friend Quin of Quintessential Havoc (blogroll will get you there…a site worth the visit)……

Professor’s Classroom

Morning and hello–tender minds.  It is a Monday and time for the dreaded quiz.  Today’s question is about American presidents.

This American president had a long relationship with a male senator.  It was rumored that it was a homosexual relationship, whispered but never proven.  Who was the president and who was his “friend”?

Time to Google your butt off.  This should be interesting.  You may begin and enjoy the learning experience.