No… Democrats and Republicans are NOT the same.

So… you say yet again, “It’s not just the GOP. It seems almost all our lawmakers are way, way out of touch. The very real fact that all of us often struggle for basic needs means they’re [all] failing us. Near the top of the list of things I hate, is articles… that highlight the fact that the [offending person] is a Republican, as if to intimate that the Democratic solution is better. All it does [is]… create a false narrative for the purpose of getting votes.”
You could — perhaps — have comfortably made that argument 25 years ago — or, for the very generous of heart, maybe even 15 years ago. And then we could have discussed how both parties needed improvement.

However, I’m sorry, today it is NOT a “false narrative” that Republicans keep espousing repugnant ideas and working to ensconce those ideas in official policy. We have watched the GOP, for at least the last quarter century, descend ever more rapidly into our current nightmarish authoritarian extremism. Not only do the worst of them spew vile and hateful rhetoric, when they do, their Republican peers don’t do anything about it. Democrats are constantly accused of the “circular firing squad” for speaking and acting to hold peers to the higher standard. While, just as an example — yet again — the GOP primaries an actual card-carrying nazi in Arthur Jones, elected blatant racist Steve King, and are right now again primarying pedophile Roy Moore.

Former House Speaker, Paul Ryan actually said of his desire to gut Medicaid, “We’ve been dreaming of this since I’ve been around,” Ryan says, before interrupting himself to clarify exactly how big of an opportunity this is, “since you and I were drinking out of kegs.” Mitch McConnell is right now gutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs. The GOP has been waging war against America’s middle class and working poor since before the Reagan era with singleminded devotion to enriching the mega corporations and the wealth class. Even in Bill Clinton’s day, the GOP controlled Congress, and rammed through their agenda against America’s middle class and poor. The GOP’s patriotic religiosity and misogyny will settle for nothing less than the systematic tearing down of our constitutional democratic republic, creating a nightmare Handmaid’s Tale-like society by imposing their vision of a Dominionist theocratic corporate feudal state. We’re three fourths there already.

No one is saying Democrats are without faults, but they hold a clear moral high ground. It’s worse than a mere false equivalency to conclude that Republicans and Democrats are not different in their intent — it is a baldfaced, perfidious LIE. Democrats have often been ineffectual, but the overarching intent, since at least the time of LBJ, has been increasingly progressive and more inclusive. In that same span, the GOP has become increasingly fear mongering and divisive and exclusionary. It has been the GOP’s calculated arch strategy; it is known and has a name — “Nixon’s Southern Strategy.” The GOP continues to hone the stratagem for maximum fear mongering and divisiveness through patriotic religiosity to disenfranchise — nay, to oppress — as many non-GOP voters as possible.

Articles like the ones you so often decry highlight the fact that the person is a Republican because, for more than half a century, the GOP increasingly emboldens and embraces repugnant ideals. They create policies predicated upon stances that would have us believe that women are so morally and constitutionally weak that we mustn’t even be permitted the dignity of personhood that comes with autonomy over our own bodies; minorities and people of color (POC) aren’t American enough to freely vote; POC are inherently criminal in all they do and are a threat while living in spaces white privilege deems its own; all religion not their Christianish ideal is evil; and, the very existence of our LGBTQ Americans is a stain upon and dire threat to the nation’s very soul.

The GOP and Democrats are completely divergent on every issue

The GOP is exclusionary. The GOP denies climate change; disbelieves fact and science; is anti-intellectual; devalues education; and promotes regressivism. Twitter says their algorithm cannot distinguish between Republican and Alt-Right accounts. Misogyny and sexism are core values of the GOP. Racism and xenophobia are key pillars of GOP control over their base. Demonizing the LGBTQ and criminalizing women’s control over our own reproductive rights is integral to fomenting anger in the GOP base. Suppressing voting rights and access is the only way the GOP can cling to power. The GOP has been waging war against America’s middle class and poor for at least the last forty years, since the Reagan era. The GOP is fighting to take away our healthcare because they seem to believe healthcare is a privilege only for those who can afford it. The GOP only care about the corporations and the wealth class.

The GOP has become completely divergent from our constitutional democratic system. They are NOT part of our system any longer. They are destroying our system. It is calculated and systematic.
Democrats are inclusive. Democrats know climate change is real and immediate; embraces fact and science and intellect; they value education; and they promote progressivism. Democrats challenge misogyny and sexism. Democrats try to recognize past errors and work to reverse the impacts of institutionalized racism and xenophobia. Democrats believe ALL PEOPLE deserve the right to control their own bodies and to choose who they will be and who they will love. Democrats are fighting voter suppression and working to increase voter access. Democrats believe healthcare is a human right. Democrats care about all Americans.

No… Democrats and Republicans are NOT the same.
This link is a collection of actual things Republicans have said about women https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10207849909589262&type=3

Letter to #GOP: #HealthCareIsARight

Will you hear me? Do I matter? Does my child matter?

How can you countenance gutting Medicaid and slashing protections and permitting coverage for millions to evaporate? 

I have preexisting conditions that went untreated for all of my adulthood until the ACA.

I have a 13-year old child who would not have insurance without the Medicaid expansions; my child also has ADHD and receives highly successful in-school guidance and counseling partially funded by the Medicaid expansion.

My husband works full time in the service sector. When he worked for a different service sector employer and had employer provided healthcare (at only 60% coverage with a $3000 individual deductible, $6000 for the family), it did NOT cover my son and I – we had to pay full price out of pocket to buy into his employer’s group plan. 

The ACA changed that.

How can you countenance allowing that coverage to fail? At my current age – mid 50s – I cannot maintain a reasonable quality of life without care for my preexisting conditions. For something approaching 25 years of adulthood, I did not see a pulmonologist for my asthma – a carcinoid tumor went undetected for what the doctors have said may have been decades. For twenty years I did not see an endocrinologist for my pancreatic seizures and hypoglycemia; when, after my pregnancy, I developed diabetes, I still could not see an endocrinologist until the ACA. Nor did I see a heart doctor for the arrhythmia I developed while pregnant. I did not see an orthopedic doctor for the hip dysplasia with which I was born – not even when I was pregnant; and, we had what was considered great insurance at the time. I suffered with Plantars Fascia without treatment until the ACA. I nearly died - full near-death experience and all – for lack of treatment for high blood pressure during a two year period when we had no insurance at all. 

Your suggestions of tax credits will not help us. We already receive the maximum deductions on our tax returns. I don’t receive disability because my husband makes just slightly too much for me to draw off his and I’m denied access to my own SS disability because I took time to be a stay-at-home mom before I became disabled. I became disabled due largely to lack of treatment for all my preexisting conditions (that’s what Catch-22 looks like). Your health savings plans are meaningless for us – if we had money to save for such a thing, we would be saving for our brilliant, tech-phenom son’s future education. Frankly, if we had money for a health savings plan, we would have all along been able to afford the “privilege” of premium insurance such as you in Congress enjoy.

Healthcare is NOT a privilege. It is as necessary as basic utilities… as necessary as food, water, air. Healthcare should never be a for-profit business. Healthcare should not be some stripped down version that just collects money while providing no substantive coverage. You cannot justify continuing to help the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to scam the nation for their ever increasing, annual multi-billion dollar profit margins. You cannot sustain tax cuts to help the wealthiest gain more wealth at the expense of the working-poor whose labors generate that wealth.

Walk through a nursing home, where sick, elderly Americans will be forced out by the Medicaid cuts, and say to those people that their healthcare is a “privilege” they did not earn after a lifetime of struggle. Walk through the emergency rooms where people who lose Medicaid coverage for their children will be found and tell those mothers that healthcare is a “privilege” their children do not deserve. Tell all the people who will end up in the emergency room when their untreated preexisting conditions leave them clinging to life, send them home with no quality of life in sight. Tell me it is a privilege to be able to breathe or to keep my heart beating. That is what permitting the ACA to fail says to hardworking, poor Americans: “Healthcare is a privilege you have no right to attain.”

The GOP’s attitude to healthcare is symptomatic of its attitude to America’s hardworking poor. That attitude is continuing a corporatist trend creating a new era of robber barons. You are helping the robber barons destroy the middle class in America, making corporate feudal wages-slaves of us all. It is nothing less than the social and economic brutalization of the very people who do the work of generating the wealth of this nation. Politicians, the legislation you make tells all of America for whom you work: Either you work for us and vote against this social and economic brutalization… or you work for the robber barons.

My #ACA, #Obamacare story… #RESIST

I’ve had preexisting conditions all my life, from the NICU at birth: Asthma, hypoglycemia, pancreatic seizures, hereditary dishidrosis, poor eyesight, hip dysplasia, food and environmental allergies… As an adult, during pregnancy, I developed gestational diabetes plus an arrhythmia from full-blown eclampsia – post pregnancy, high BP and diabetes set in, a carcinoid tumor was found on my lung (thanks to the ACA making it possible for me to see a pulmonologist at last) and is being monitored, I developed Plantars Fascia, arthritic hips, and became disabled because of the sum of my conditions. The truth is that most of my problems may never have become serious if I’d been able to get treatment for the decades years of my adult life I was denied healthcare coverage for my preexisting conditions – that included the arrhythmia post pregnancy until the ACA. I went from 2003 until the ACA went into effect without treatment for an arrhythmia! That tumor on my lung may have been there for decades but I never saw a pulmonologist in all that time because my asthma was a preexisting condition for which I was legally denied treatment before the ACA.

My husband works full time in the service sector with NO employer provided healthcare. Oh – and we all know that employer provided healthcare ONLY covers the employee – NOT their spouses and children; spouses and children’s coverage comes at full price out of pocket paid by the employee – spouses and children were NEVER covered by employers; employer plans only make it possible for employees to buy into the plan for their dependents – at full cost out of pocket.

Without the ACA, I would probably be dead by now. I would certainly be in deep decline and my thirteen year old son would be watching his mother die. Moreover, my son, himself, would be without healthcare if it wasn’t for the ACA Medicare expansion.

Your plan is ludicrously out of touch with the reality of the working poor. Tax credits are meaningless to us. We already get the maximum tax deductions and use that return to keep paying our modest mortgage all year. And no, that does NOT mean we don’t pay taxes – as you well know. It means we get some of those taxes back which we then pay sales tax and service fees upon for every dollar of which is spent and put back into the economy – because we are surviving financially off that tax return.

Because I haven’t worked in over ten years due to my disabilities, I cannot draw my social security disability and my husband makes just barely over the limit for me to draw disability on his social security. BTW, that also means he makes just that little bit too much for us to get any kind of assistance, including food stamps. OH, BTW – I’m told (by the SS caseworker who denied my disability claim) that I will NEVER draw social security in my own right, even though I paid in for 25 working years before becoming disabled, just because I’ve not worked for more than ten years. I worked for every cent that was taken out of every paycheck I ever received. That is NOT a tax nor an entitlement – that is my earned wages being stolen by my own government with no accounting for those contributions. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

As for health savings accounts – damn! If we could save money for that, we wouldn’t be spending our tax return all year making up the income difference every month because my immigrant husband, who speaks six languages (three fluently) and graduated on the National Dean’s List is relegated to the service sector and not deemed worth even $15 an hour, let alone decent employer provided healthcare.

Detach your lips from the festering backsides of the Kochs and ALEC and open your eyes to the devastation you are wreaking upon America’s hard-working poor, sick, elderly, disabled, and children. You claim to work for Americans but you obviously believe the only Americans who matter are those rich enough to be lining your campaign coffers. Your actions sacrifice everyone else on the altar to your gods, the über rich.

You also know that the only reason the ACA is failing is because YOU – the members of the GOP – have done everything in your power to sabotage it for the last seven years! You never considered working to make the ACA better. You never tried to suggest anything else in its place. You never even started any kind of plan of your own. You just kept fighting the law of the land to suit your theocratic corporatist overlords. Stop trying to kill the ACA – Stop trying to kill honest, hard-working Americans and their families who rely upon the ACA.

You Say They Won’t Cut Our Safety Nets?

I can only hope you’re right… 

We’ve all heard those folks who say the government won’t tear down our safety nets. I can only hope they’re right and that the GOP will see sense. But, the truth is that all our civil rights gains of the last seventy years are under assault. This regime is going to make us refight every battle of the last seventy years.

The GOP has already repealed the ACA and their “replacement” plan specifically targets people like me. I’m over 50 and will be hit hard by that age scale (age tax, more like). My son is on Medicaid and will surely lose his coverage with the Medicaid rollback. CHIP has been in place since the 90s and has covered millions of children every year, but was included in the repeal of the ACA. 

There have been plenty of examples over the last six years, since 2010, of the GOP-held government cutting those safety nets. I personally know people who’ve lost such support. I know many families who’ve been pushed from free school meals to reduced, or off the meal support altogether. And, don’t forget, the Congress, in their first few days this year, cut funding for school meals AGAIN! That’s CHILDREN having their access to meals eliminated.

Moreover, the GOP’s primary thrust of their healthcare is going to be tax credits on a by-age sliding scale – which even the AARP has roundly condemned – and health savings accounts. Do you have money to put into a health savings account? I don’t. I don’t know about you, but we already receive the maximum tax deduction each year. Tax credits will be meaningless for us.

As for those rising insurance costs, that has nothing to do with the ACA and everything to do with the GOP and the boards of those insurance companies. Did you know that Paul Ryan has personally taken over $4 MILLION from the insurance industry? Were you aware that Mitch McConnell took upwards of $6 million? And, the CEOs of those insurance corporations make more PER DAY than most of their customers make per year! If the CEOs are making that much, you can be very sure there’s not a person on their boards making much less than their CEOs. Today’s GOPers are not people who care about us – these are mammonites who care only about increasing their own wealth and their own self-aggrandizement. We are just fodder for their wealth engines. 

Immigration is particularly under assault. My son and my naturalized citizen husband already have been impacted by the visa-waiver exclusions for dual nationals passed by the GOP last year; my husband and son are Iranian-American dual nationals – not by choice but because Iran does not permit anyone to give up their citizenship and automatically deems their children citizens too. And, this president has a particular burr under his backside about Iranians. We have several acquaintances who were stymied by that stupid first ban, left hanging in airports around the word when their legitimate visas were denied – that’s violating the civil rights of completely LEGAL immigrants. I’m haunted by what this presidency will mean for my Iranian-American husband and son.

Both the president and the GOP-held congress have rolled back clean air and water protections already and are steam-rolling the end of the EPA, our environmental safety net. They’re eliminating the tax credits and subsidies for converting to or installing clean energy and are trying to actively kill wind and solar to favor fossil fuels. They block wind and solar fields yet promote fracking and strip mining and deep-sea oil rigs. They pass laws and policies to allow coal ash dumping in waterways and more…

It’s naive to think these GOP theocratic corporate extremists will not strip away everything that helps the working poor. They are not the republicans of Lincoln’s party; they’re not even the republicans of the 1950s. The entire party has become increasingly radicalized, starting with Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Today’s GOP does not care about the working poor. They do not work for us. They work for corporations who keep turning in those record breaking profits while complaining that they cannot afford to increase wages and even trying to convince us that there doesn’t need to even be a minimum wage. And today’s GOP embraces the racism, bigotry, misogyny, sexism, and xenophobia of the alt-right (white nationalists and white supremacists) by the expediency of their refusal to turn their backs on such evils for the sake of their own political greed.

I understand those who feel they need to stay away from the political fight. But, it is a fight, a fight for the very survival of democracy in the world. Our own constitutional democratic republic is being systematically supplanted for the GOP’s theocratic corporatist vision. Add to that the fascist and would-be tin-pot dictator that is our groping bigot-in-chief and the danger to freedom in the world becomes glaring and imminent.

I’m sick and crippled. I’m not young. I’m poor. I’m married to an Iranian immigrant. I don’t expect to survive this presidency. But, I’m going to fight to the last for whomever comes next – especially for my 13-year old son.

Republican Praise for Hillary Clinton

There has been a quarter century of GOP-led witch hunts… endless, exhaustive hearings and investigations on our hard earned taxpayer dime – by now probably to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars – only to produce the same RESULTS every single time: NO PROOF… NO CHARGES… NO CONVICTIONS! Again, that’s NO PROOF! Accusations, innuendo, and rhetoric are NOT proof. America, our constitutional democratic republic, is a country where the RULE OF LAW is predicated upon the principle still – for now, at least – of “innocent until PROVEN guilty.” 

People only parrot UNPROVEN – I’ll repeat that again – UNPROVEN accusations, unfounded innuendo, and rhetoric of a false narrative! Moreover, the very GOP mouthpieces spoon-feeding their base that false narrative have heaped praise upon our soon-to-be Madam President when they were not trying to defeat her politically. They slander a person who’s actual, well-documented record of accomplishments is in diametric opposition to the venal grotesquery of their gossip!

While there are many more examples, the following are a few of the notable republicans’ own praise of Hillary Clinton:

Condoleezza Rice  
Meet the Press 12/21/2008
“No, look, it’s a unique situation. I think we all see that it’s unique. But my successor, Hillary Clinton, is an extremely talented woman. She is a woman of integrity. She believes in this country deeply. We’ve already had a couple of conversations. I know her from the time she brought her freshman daughter to Stanford for the first time when I was Provost. And she’s going to do this very well.”

NBC news 08/12/2003 
"I think [Hillary Clinton’s] done a fine job. The problem isn’t Hilary Clinton, who’s great,’ Rice told members of Ohio’s delegation to the Republican National Convention. ‘The problem is that we’ve chosen to speak with a muted voice about America’s role in the world. We’ve chosen to try to lead from behind. That’s an oxymoron in my mind.’”

Former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge
Ballot Box, The Hill 02/03/2015 
Ridge also offered some praise for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, saying he always had ‘productive’ meetings with her when he was in the Cabinet and she was a senator. He said a Bush versus Clinton match-up would be ‘almost a clash of titans,’ leading to a campaign that is ‘tough, rigorous, and hopefully, for the first time in a long time, civil.’”

Former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush
Philadelphia Inquirer, 07/28/2013; Constitution Center press release, 06/27/2013 – RE: 2013 Liberty Medal
“Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, chairman of the National Constitution Center and a possible contender for the 2016 Republican nomination… praised Clinton in a statement released… announcing her selection. ‘Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy,’ Bush said. ‘These efforts as a citizen, an activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year’s Liberty Medal.’”

Former Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels
Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, 02/05/2015
“She is comprehensively experienced and has advantages that some of the other contenders would have to scramble to match in terms of her exposure to the world and… foreign policy.”

Former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee
Real Clear Politics, 09/15/2014
Huckabee described her as ‘smart’ and ‘tough,’ and cautioned that she should never be underestimated. ‘She’s a policy genius,’ he said. 

CSPAN2’s BookTV Programming. 01/25/2015
Huckabee: “I would have great respect for the formidable nature of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.”

Ohio Governor, John Kasich
Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, 01/22/2015
“I know her. I like her. I’ve worked with her.”

Former Texas Governor, Rick Perry 
U.S. News & World Report, 08/12/2014
Perry Sec. Clinton’s stance on Syria: “I think on that issue she was closer to being right than she has been on some other ones.” According to the U.S. News & World Report, “Rick Perry agrees with Hillary Clinton. Or at least, pretty close to it. Asked Tuesday at the Iowa State Fair whether he agreed with the former secretary of state’s assessment that a lack of prior U.S. intervention in Syria emboldened jihadists to penetrate Iraq, the GOP governor of Texas found some daylight with the potential future presidential rival. ‘I think on that issue she was closer to being right than she has been on some other ones,’ he replied.” 

The Daily Caller 08/30/2011
"In 1993, then-Texas Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry praised the efforts of then-first lady Hillary Clinton to reform health care. In a letter to Clinton…Perry wrote: ‘I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation’s health care system are most commendable. I would like to request that the task force give particular consideration to the needs of the nation’s farmers, ranchers, and agriculture workers, and other members of rural communities,’ Perry continued. … ‘Again, your efforts are worthy,’ Perry concluded, ‘and I hope you will remember this constituency as the task force progresses.’”

Former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger
CNN, 11/16/2008
Schwarzenegger on Hillary’s selection as SOS: “Also on Sunday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the potential choice as a great move. ‘I think she is a very very bright woman and very experienced. I think this could be a great move,’ Schwarzenegger told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.”

General David Petraeus
Book review, The Wall Street Journal, 02/09/2014
According to a book review in The Wall Street Journal, “Gen. Petraeus also emerges as a Clinton character witness here, declaring that Mrs. Clinton was ‘extraordinarily resolute, determined and controlled’ in the wake of the attack. The retired general [told] Mr. Allen and Ms. Parnes: ‘She’d make a tremendous President.’”

Jenna Bush Hager
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, 11/11/2014
President Clinton has become a dear friend. We call him — I call him a brother — my dad calls him a brother from another mother. You know, he didn’t have a close relationship with his father. He didn’t have a relationship with his father. And so in some ways my grandfather has become like a surrogate father for him. RONAN FARROW: Does the same warmth extend to Hillary Clinton and a potential Hillary Clinton run? BUSH HAGER: Well, I guess it depends who she’s running against, right? But we admire Hillary Clinton very much. I mean, she — as a woman, I admire her. She’s done a lot for our country and she’s a great public servant. I see her around New York and I’m always talking about Chelsea’s baby and I think they have a personal friendship that my dad even said that you know, obviously if there’s a Bush-Clinton part deux, you know that wouldn’t ruin any friendships.

South Carolina Senator, Lindsey Graham
New York Times, 07/01/2012 
“Even some Republicans in Congress acknowledge the skills she has brought to the job, though they remain critical of many administration policies. ‘I think she’s represented our nation well,’ Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, who as a member of the House served as one of 13 managers in the 1998 impeachment trial of Clinton’s husband, told me in an interview in his Senate office. ‘She is extremely well respected throughout the world, handles herself in a very classy way and has a work ethic second to none.’”

CNN 03/30/2011
“It was a good briefing. I never got to ask a question, it was over. You know, Secretary Clinton and Bob Gates are really national treasures in my view. You know, very good people. I like President Obama.” 

Fox News, 05/28/2007
“I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president. She’s smart, prepared, serious.”

Graham’s speech at Council on Foreign Relations, 09/15/2011
“Secretary Clinton [was] a great choice to be our secretary of state…”

Voice of America, 02/03/2007
“We have become, actually, good friends. And that was a surprise to both of us. If the Hillary Clintons and Lindsey Grahams of the world can’t work together, America’s best days are over.”

The State, 01/28/2007
“Over the last few years, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton have become a Capitol Hill odd couple, working across party lines… Graham said the two of them often come at problems from different directions, but share an interest in important policy issues. ‘Certainly, she’s a national figure, and to share the stage with her – I consider that a compliment,’ he said. ‘We’ll probably have totally different agendas that we think are best for the country, but the point is to speak boldly about problems that require bipartisanship and solutions that are essential to us surviving as a country in the 21st century.’”

Senator Graham press release, 09/29/2006
“Senator Clinton and I have been fortunate to have very good allies in this effort and Congress has stepped up to the plate to meet the health care needs of our Guard and Reserves. The Graham-Clinton TRICARE efforts have gained support from many groups including the National Guard Association of the United States, the Reserve Officers Association, and the National Governors Association.”

New Hampshire Senator, Judd Gregg 
Gregg Press release, 01/21/2009
Gregg issued the following statement on Senate confirmation of Senator Hillary Clinton to be the Secretary of State. "Senator Gregg, the Ranking Member of the State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee, stated, ‘Today’s overwhelming confirmation of Senator Hillary Clinton to be our next Secretary of State is a testament to the well regarded talents and qualifications she will bring to the job of overseeing our nation’s foreign policy. Like Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Senator Clinton will be a positive voice to carry America’s message around the world. As the Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee tasked with funding State Department activities, I look forward to continuing my work with Senator Clinton to advance our nation’s interests through U.S. diplomatic programs and activities.’”

Arizona Senator, John McCain
MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11/19/2014
“It is well known that Hillary Clinton and I have a good relationship” “We do agree on a lot” “She is a great representative of America, kind of a rock star status, visited more countries than any other secretary of state.” 

Fox News, 01/23/2013
“First of all, Secretary Clinton is admired and respected around the world. She and I have been friends for many years. We used to travel together.” “So, I have — I admire the fact that she is admired throughout the world and a very effective secretary of state.

Foreign Relations committee hearing, 01/23/2014
“Thank you, Madam Secretary. It’s wonderful to see you in good health and as combative as ever. It’s — we thank you. We thank you for your outstanding and dedicated service to this nation, and we are proud of you. All over the world where I travel, you are viewed with admiration and respect.”

Politico 10/28/13
“Sen. John McCain said Monday… speaking in Chicago at an event with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)… praised Clinton’s work as secretary, according to Bloomberg News. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that Secretary Clinton would be a very strong candidate,’ McCain said. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt she has widespread support. Her work as secretary of state… has been outstanding. I think she would be viewed by anyone, Republican or Democrat, as a very formidable candidate for 2016.’”

The Christian Science Monitor, 04/06/2011
“At a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters on Wednesday, Senator McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate for president, was asked to rate President Obama’s national security team. ‘I think the international star is Secretary Clinton,’ McCain said. ‘She has done a really tremendous job.’”

The New York Times, 07/29/206
“I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president.” According to The New York Times, “It was during their joint trip to Iraq in late February 2005 that Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton appeared via satellite on ‘Meet the Press,’ an appearance that put their civility on display. When Mr. Russert asked Mr. McCain at the end of the interview whether he thought Mrs. Clinton would make a good president, Mrs. Clinton came to his rescue, saying: ‘Oh, we can’t hear you, Tim!’ ‘Yeah, you’re breaking up,’ Mr. McCain added, laughing. But then he said: ‘I happen to be a Republican and would support, obviously, a Republican nominee, but I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president.’”

Trump Is A Porn Fiend

That repugnant hot mic audio…


Y’know, there’s something about this whole thing that I’ve been trying to put to words even before those tapes came out. It came to me this morning, 11 October 2016, when my twelve year old son asked who thinks that way. My knee-jerk response was “porn addicts.” 


That’s what those comments on that tape were – they were pornographic sexual predation. His decades of interviews on Howard Stern’s radio show were pornographic. His telling Stern it was okay to call HIS OWN DAUGHTER “a piece of ass” is offering up his own child up to pornography. His telling that apprentice contestant he’d like to see her on her knees is pornographic. His participation in Playboy soft-core porn videos is proof that he revels in the pornographic. His behavior toward a business partner’s girlfriend is something you’ll only see in sexual-harassment sensitivity training videos… or in porn. His courting his second wife (while still married to his first) in CHURCH is a porn fiend’s fantasy of church. His bragging that just because he owned the pageant he got to walk in on the naked contestants is what every porn addict imagines beauty pageants to be. Ivana’s divorce revelations about his behavior toward her is the porn addict acting out his porn fantasies… his partner be damned! The accusations about him raping those CHILDREN enslaved by Epstein… It’s all pornographic; but worse, it’s the most stomach churning, putrid kinds of pornographic… It’s straight up ISIS fantasy pornographic! 


The top of the GOP – whose platform decries pornography – is himself a degraded and degrading, sexually predatory porn fiend! A sexually predatory porn fiend who is doing his damnedest to take the entire GOP down in flames with him.


That is what the GOP embraced. That is what Paul Ryan knew – or should have known – Trump to be. That is what Paul Ryan has defended and still endorses. Saying “I’m just gonna ignore that oozing wound and pretend it’s not there” only gives the wound time to kill. That is what proves that party and political agenda mean more to Paul Ryan than conscience, morality, ethics, or even his Faith.



It is disheartening – nay, it is DEPLORABLE – that the fundamentalist evangelical ChristianISH right willfully CHOSE a man who is the embodiment of everything we have always been taught is immoral, ungodly, and downright EVIL! It is iniquitous and obscene that anyone would support Trump. When you stand before God, on that final Day of Judgement, how will you “Christians” look God Himself in the eye and proudly say you WILLFULLY STILL CHOSE Trump, a man convicted from his own mouth as a sexually predatory PORN FIEND?



It is absolutely horrifying that their party, the GOP, is the majority party in control of our government!

Trump’s fetid misogyny isn’t new.

The evidence is everywhere… in print… in video… in audio. More and more and more of Trump’s vile and fetid misogyny and sexism. Trump is a predator – the kind of predator to which you fear the women you love will be subjected. It’s not new and barely shocking anymore. I wish Trump and the pornographic nature of his attitude was a singular example of the worst in men that women face. Disturbingly, that’s not the case… Trump is only the most public example of a poison in our society women have always faced, that decent men – and we women know that’s most men – do not and/or will not see. You choose NOT to see our reality – this should never be our reality.

There’s an undercurrent of humiliation that the Trumps and the Billy Bushes of this world have made a numbing constant in the lives of girls and women. It’s part of an everyday, everywhere message that we don’t matter enough to be respected as a person. The personhood women is subsumed by the personhood of men… we are women before we are human.

I make a plea on behalf of women and girls everywhere: As long as other men continue to tolerate that kind of speech and attitude, even in the locker room, the misogyny and sexism and chauvinism and gender discrimination and sexual harassment and rape culture will continue to plague the lives of every woman you know. Please – EVERY decent man – stand loudly and always against the rampant misogyny and mistreatment of women that the 2016 GOP candidate represents. Be the voice and leader of decent men standing as one against the Trumps of this world. You’ve condemned his latest revelation of vile and repugnant sexism and predation. Please make it your personal crusade to end this assault on women and girls everywhere from men like this. It may only be a few men who think this way, but they are everywhere as we women try to navigate our lives. IT IS OPPRESSION – it makes us feel marginalized. 

It makes us afraid to go alone to public spaces like clubs or restaurants or the gym or even to walk alone in our own neighborhoods at night. It hurts us when the men who should defend us just say we shouldn’t have been in the public spaces where we are harassed and abused. It breaks us to be held accountable by the men who should defend us for the abuse by the Trumps of this world.

If you love a woman… if you know a woman, get out front and lead all decent men to stop the Trumps of this world, to educate the next generations of boys who will be the men in the lives of your daughters. Be the leader of change!

As a woman who has faced the groping Trump describes from early adolescence onward, too many times to count…

As a woman who has faced gender and sexual harassment in public leisure spaces…

As the friend of women I’ve known (most of them) who also had to and still have to face gender and sexual harassment in public leisure spaces…

As a woman who has faced gender and sexual harassment in the workplace…

As the friend of women I’ve known (again – MOST of them) who also had to and still have to face gender and sexual harassment in the workplace…

As a woman who has more than once been personally inundated by such vile speech…

As a friend who has heard and hears other women subjected to such vile speech…

As a woman who is a surviver of an incestuous pedophile…

As a woman who has more than once dealt with attempted acquaintance rape and dealt with acquaintance rape…

As a sister of a sibling who was a victim of acquaintance rape…

As the friend of a woman who was the victim of incestuous rape…

As a woman who, as an adolescent, lived through violent, attempted gang rape IN MIDDLE SCHOOL…

As the sister of another sibling who was a victim of violent rape…

As the friend of a woman who was stalked, raped, and nearly killed…

As the mother of a young son whom I know has already heard this kind of puerile and VILE speech from some of his peers…

I wonder how many men have listened to such reprobate and repugnant humiliation of women from their peers? I wonder how many men have watched porn and admired characters who, like Trump, revel unchecked in such narcissistic self-entitlement?  I wonder how many men perhaps saw that character’s sense of entitlement as a kind of power they wish they held? I wonder how many men, now so appalled by Trump’s degenerate speech towards women, laughed and tittered over it just as Billy Bush did when they heard one of their own peers talk that way in the locker room?  

I wonder if the men, now so appalled by Trump’s contemptible denigration of women will finally understand that every single woman you know has been and will be subjected to that kind of misogyny throughout our lives. No… it’s not everyday. No… it’s not ALL – nor even MOST men… Yes… it’s only a few men – BUT THOSE MEN ARE EVERYWHERE as we women try to navigate our daily lives.

Once again, Trump didn’t originate the poison – he only displayed the putrid rot that everyone was ignoring. He’s not the only man who thinks and behaves this way. Billy Bush isn’t the only man to empower such disgusting misogyny with his skeeze reveling. This is… and has been… and continues to be the reality of women’s lives.

Your mothers… your sisters… your wives… your daughters… We live every day of our lives with the knowledge that our bodies – our personhoods – are not safe. This kind of predator has been and continues to be our reality – dismissed… demeaned… ignored by the men who love us, befriend us… by the men who should be on the forefront in holding the Trumps of this world accountable. Every time you DON’T speak out… every time you DON’T intervene, you enable the sexual predator.

YOU personally know women who have been subjected to the Trumps of this world. If you do nothing, you put your own hand with his grabbing at us, groping us. PROCURER!

If you, the decent men in this world, do not hear us now and stop Trump and all men like him then how can we trust any of you?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To you defenders of Trump…

To you dismissing those tapes as “locker room talk…”

SHUT UP! Just slither back under the rock you oozed out from under and SHUT UP! Women have had to face the Trumps of this world all our lives! ON OUR OWN because of people like YOU! YOU and every enabler are more guilty than the Trumps of the discrimination, harassment, abuse, assault, victimization, marginalization – OPPRESSION – that is the reality of women’s lives! YOU make women’s oppression our reality because YOU DO NOT STOP the Trumps of this world! There is no defense! There is no joke! That you think there is any humor or that it is in any way appropriate to dismiss the kind of sexual predation Trump has ALWAYS – YES ALWAYS – lived out, screams FREAKING volumes ABOUT YOU!

JUST SHUT UP YOU MORALLY BANKRUPT ENABLER!

How DARE she be NOT GUILTY!

The GOP has REPEATEDLY proven she is NOT GUILTY with a quarter century of FAILED “investigations” – squandering probably BILLIONS of our hard earned taxpayer dollars by now on trying to “get Hillary.” The Right can only parrot the paranoia and propaganda of the GOP and Faux Noise that Hillary Clinton just MUST-MUST-MUST have gotten away with something.

It couldn’t possibly be that there was nothing to find in their never ending witch hunt. The FACT is that the GOP is either lying or incompetent – I opt for both. Nothing makes a witch hunter madder than that their victim not being found guilty. How DARE she be NOT GUILTY.

The truth is that the only thing the GOP has really successfully achieved in the last three and a half decades is to convince people that the RULE OF LAW in America, still – for now, at least – predicated upon the principle of “innocent until PROVEN guilty” need never apply to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Their philosophy remains: How DARE she be NOT GUILTY! Crucify her anyway! 

[SMH]

 

Is America becoming the monster?

What is this movement in our nation that has wretched-up Trump as the GOP’s best and brightest hope? I think it’s symptomatic of a deeper society wide disintegration. It’s so distressing I cannot adequately express how despicable and bone-deep horrifying I find it. It’s yet another layer of Hitler-esque rhetoric.

If elected, Trump will have his Muslim database,

Trump will have his wall and Latino immigrant expulsions;

McCroryism (that’s best way I’ve seen to define this new Jim Crow or McCarthyism standard codified by McCrory and his NC cronies, a standard spreading disease-like all across the nation) will criminalize transgenders, and won't stop until it encompasses all LGBTQ folk;

The entire GOP continues waging war on the middle class and working poor, and continues to grind the middle class down to join the ranks of the working poor wage slaves;

The libertarian styled agenda of the GOP would like to even abolish the minimum wage, but certainly wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it;

They want to go backward and penalize the sick and poor for needing healthcare… (the Nazis called them “useless eaters;”

The fundamentalists and evangelicals will have women at home, barefoot and pregnant with no right over our own bodies;

Higher education is already being priced out of reach and the GOP/libertarian agenda includes ending public schools;

…and an endless litany of much more.

It fully looks like history repeating itself. The way things are going, I fully expect Trump’s database to lead to internment camps at the least – the history of the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII overrides anyone’s disclaimer of that not being possible in America. A Muslim database will not stop with Muslims – those things never do. They’ll add every element of society that doesn’t fit their narrow vision to that database.

There seems to be a diminishing of the American ideal we’ve always cherished and held out to the entire world. America is supposed to be the safe haven… the bastion against the intolerance of hate-fueled fascism. Are we becoming the evil from which the world turned to us to escape? Is America becoming the monster we need to escape? Is that American ideal fading? Is it already lost?

by D. Denise Dianaty

© 14 May 2016

Pick up your own copy of my autobiographical book of poetry at My Life In Poetry

Or, get your copy of my short romance novella, The Dance Plays On… A delicately sad tale of transcendent love, a perfect kiss, and haunting, beautiful tragedy…