Thoughts On The December 15, 2015 Republican Debate

By D. DiFrancesco

Although I could only bare to listen to about an hour of the debates last night I came away with a very clear picture of what the republican candidates are offering the American people and that is continued war and ramped up hate and racism.

Wow, these sound like promises that just call me to vote for them...not!  Each one of the candidate is a meaner and nastier war monger than the next rival and I just don’t understand it.  As I see it the Republican Party, over the last bunch of election cycles, has run on platforms of fear and war, they have not offered any solutions nor have they justified why war will solve our problems.  Isn’t war how we got into this mess in the first place.  Clearly they have learned nothing as the perpetuation of war is their solution to everything.

Perhaps new strategies are in order instead of the same-old-same-old.  This morning while listening to the radio show “The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Hovt” on SiriusXM, Ari came up with a great point that I

ISIL in Iraq
Image: besacenter.org

wholeheartedly agree with.  He correctly stated that Congress has the authority, as granted by the United States Constitution article 1, section 8, clause 11, to declare war.  As the republicans have control of both houses of Congress, why don’t they just declare war against ISIS and all 1.6 billion Muslims, since they seem to have some general vendetta against them anyway and be done with it. This way they can stop bitching and moaning that President Obama is not doing enough to combat our perceived threats.  My guess is that this will never happen as it would put as least some responsibility on them for our actions.

Please don’t assume that this is my preferred stance on matters of national security or foreign policy, in my view war is not the answer.  I don’t believe that the American military is designed to be able to effectively wage war against unconventional, un-uniformed combatants.  How do you identify them

Senator Ted Cruz
Image: crooksandliars.com

without inflicting an untold numbers of civilian casualties, I don’t think that you can.  This however, is not what some of our Republican candidates believe.  Take Ted Cruz for example, he has been touting carpet bombing as a way of destroying ISIS.  I guess this is because he doesn’t know if “sand can glow”, his words not mine, but clearly he would like to find out.  That is all well and good if ISIS would be the only casualty of this kind of action, but unfortunately that would not be the case and would likely result in nothing more than the further recruitment of new and more dangerous terrorists.  

My firm belief is that a profound change in our foreign policy practices would do far more to stem the the long term attraction of terrorism than military solutions alone ever would.  

First, if we would stop assuming that every nation on earth is ready and willing to embrace democracy we would be so much better off.  Democracy is an alien concept to much of this world.  It is something that must be accepted gradually and called for by the people, not thrust upon them by some foreign power.  

Lastly, deposing rulers of foreign governments and / or installing American chosen puppets has got to stop. This has failed us time-and-again and circled around to bite us in the you know what.  Perhaps there are times where we just need to let things be for stability's sake.  Middle Eastern cultures are very old and very different from our own and therefore need to progress at their own pace and on their own path.

Maybe someday we will learn though I hope it is not the hard way.

Republican Presidential Candidates Continue to Disparage Obamacare, But They Are Wrong

By D. DiFrancesco

Republicans have been relentless in their attempts over the past couple of years to repeal the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare.

A countless number of votes in Congress along with numerous court challenges to have Obamacare repealed have essentially been fruitless resulting in the act becoming the law of the land.  Those most vocal about the law are those who are least affected by it.  If you have an employer sponsored health plan or Medicare you very unlikely to be affected at all, but if you listen to Fox News you would think that nearly every American is paying more or in many of their reported cases, an exorbitantly higher amount for insurance than they were before.  This in fact is blatantly false.  Yes, you may be paying more for insurance if you chose not to have insurance in the first place or if your plan was sub-par though those that fall into this category are in the minority.

I for one have been in favor of the Affordable Care Act from its inception.  I have a decent health insurance plan that is sponsored by my employer and that I still contribute toward on a monthly basis to the tune of approximately $700 per month yet I still benefit from portions of the act.  I am able to provide insurance for my under 26 year old children at a much lower rate than what they would pay on their own and I appreciate the fact that preexisting conditions can not be held against you should you change jobs or insurance plans.  I can’t imagine that anyone would not like these benefits of the ACA.

Those that preferred the pre-ACA healthcare environment don’t seem to realize that requiring insurance of every American can only help.  Individuals that didn’t have insurance or only had sub-par insurance were generally obligated to go to their local emergency rooms for care in the case of illness.  Typically these individuals left the hospitals stuck with a bill that they could not and would not pay.  These costs are then passed on to...guess who...you and me through higher insurance premiums and higher costs for medical services.

Ultimately I would have preferred that we took this to the point of providing universal healthcare for all.  We already have it for seniors through the Medicare system.  We simply would need to eliminate the age restrictions on this plan and expand it to everyone.  

I recently was confronted with the typical argument that “we don’t want a plan like they have in Canada, you know the Canadians don’t like it”, but in fact that is nothing but a Republican talking point.  Of all developed countries there are only two that don’t have universal healthcare provided to their citizens and guess who those two are, they are the United States and tiny Belarus.  I also looked at life expectancy around the world and the United States comes in at a dismal #42 on the list while Canada, with the plan that Republicans tell us no one likes is #14.

I suppose that as usual the United States is right while every other developed nation in the world is wrong.

I don’t think so.

The Trump Phenomenon

View image | gettyimages.com

By: D. DiFrancesco

I find the political climate today quite fascinating, just look at “The Donald Trump Phenomenon” that we are all living through. It is the first campaign of its type for the office of President and  provides, if nothing else, a unique look into the psyche of at least a portion of the Republican Party.

Mr. Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire has been nothing short of arrogant, abrasive and in your face and yet he leads in the early polls and not by a small margin.  He has left the other candidates scrambling to grab a piece of the limelight or be buried under six feet of the Trump ego.  Take Ted Cruz and his “machine-gun bacon” stunt.  Although somewhat intriguing, it brought Cruz little in the way of percentage gains on Trump’s sizeable lead.  Ultimately the current state of the Republican race has turned into a “who can be more outrageous than Trump competition”, one which no one is more masterful at than Trump himself.

The Fox News Republican Debate, the most watched debate in history with 24 million viewers was nothing if not unconventional with Trump rubbing the face of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in the mud and daring him to do anything about it.  

The first question of the debate was clearly aimed at pinning Mr. Trump into a corner.  The candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support whomever was the Republican Party nominee and as expected Donald Trump did not raise his hand.  He stated that he would only support a nominee if he respected him otherwise he would not make that promise. This statement caused the audience to erupt in boos, but coming from Trump, what did they expect.  

Taking things a step further he doubled down on his inappropriate comments about Rosie O’Donnell, he took shots at Fox moderator Megan Kelly and called his fellow candidates stupid and losers amongst other things.  He also had no issue whatsoever attacking fellow candidate and libertarian Rand Paul questioning his tactics and self aggrandizing grandstanding which as you can imagine did not sit well with him. And again, even with all of Donald Trump’s bellicose antics he is leading in the polls and seems to be gaining in popularity.  I can only assume that he is also taking jabs at “The Apprentice” for saying “You’re fired!” and then creating one of the greatest pieces of reality TV ever...namely his own Presidential campaign.

So what we can learn from Donald Trump’s rising popularity?  We learn that there is an element of the Republican Party that is angry, angry that they haven’t been openly able to show their racism, namely their hatred of immigrants.  They need someone to blame for their stations in life so they seek diversion in attacks on women, finding humor in the hideous things Mrs Trump says and attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement dismissing them as little more than thugs though not said in so many words.  This one time pro-single payer proponent now Obamacare hater, promises to repeal the popular and at least partially successful plan drawing in those voters that refuse to accept the reality that the ACA is legal and the law of the land.  They revel in Trump’s statements of the obvious.  He points out that jobs are being shipped out of the country by the terrible trade deals that have been negotiated by our government over the years.  He wants to close the southern border with Mexico to keep the “illegals” out though I don’t believe that he has much experience with the state of our southern border.  He loves to state how he is the only one to come out against the war in Iraq, yet he has never been anything but a private citizen so his for or against vote really carries no weight.  Regardless, Trump receives cheers and standing ovations for his stance regardless of how outrageous it is.

I guess my fascination with Trump to this point is that he can gain such a following while having offered not one single solution.  When asked about his plans for any number of issues he simply answers that his plans will be huge, terrific or spectacular with not one single specific. Even his evasive answers are not enough to dissuade his followers.  This fact leads me to believe that the mainstream media is underestimating Trump’s candidacy.  They are calling him a flash in the pan, but if his wealth is anywhere near what he so vociferously claims that it is, he can stay in this thing to the very end regardless of what the RNC wants him to do and it appears that at least for now his followers, like the “Mexican people”, love him.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, so get your popcorn, sit back and watch the greatest show on earth...The Trump Phenomenon.