Thursday, February 11, 2016

America Bereft Of Needed Leadership.

A thoughtful response from a long time friend and fellow memo reader:

"The line ... 'There is nothing new under the sun' is important when considering the listener not the speaker.  Even though a speaker may be saying something for the first time, It is usually not important to a listener who has heard it 100 times.   There are occasions however, when a listener has heard something 100 times, but hasn't connected the important dots relevant to a current situation.  Hearing it again at the right time in the right environment may trigger the connection and cause significant action!  And of course, if a speaker has said something 100 times but the listener has never heard it ... then it could be powerful! 
Rubio and all the candidates know this ... his problem was that he didn't listen and respond to what was being said ... there was a scratch on his 'record' and it kept playing the same line in the song!
Glad your computer problem is cured!! 
Best,  J--"
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When I saw the picture of Bernie with  Sharpton in the Wall Street Journal, it simply reinforced my conviction America has reached a point where it is totally bereft of the leadership it needs.  Like the cruise ship that recently got pummeled by high waves and had to see a safe port, I am not sure America has a safe  port.

It used to be our Constitution but Obama decided to trash its dictates and disregard its restraints on monarchical behaviour.  

I admit to being cynical, I am, most assuredly, a pessimist and I believe Murphy's Law is sound dictum.

Bernie has no idea how he will pay for all his giveaways except to tax the rich.  His and Hillarious' attacks on 16% of America's GDP, is shaking Wall Street, which they also attack, so the rich are getting poorer with their every word. The Bernie band wagoners are only too happy at the thought of being on the receiving end and/or too stupid to ask how he will pay for it because , in D.C, money grows on those beautiful Japanese trees.

Meanwhile, Janet Yellin is busy giving a pitiful explanation of how The Fed is going to raise rates in the face of a weak economy as The Fed seeks to unwind from all those QE's.

And

Putin and Iran rub our faces in the ground on a daily basis and Obama continues to pit American's against each other by presenting a balloon budget in the hope it will win his party votes in 2016, knowing full well all the goodies he seeks to dispense will be rejected by the Repubs - the heartless party of gun toting, bible thumping mean spirited bastards.

So it is off to South Carolina, more racial pandering , more garbage speak, more food fights among the candidates.

Woe is us!!!
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The Pew  Report on Muslim political thinking. (See 1 below.)
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I thought the title of this article was very insightful.  (See 2  below.)
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Dick
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1) What a New Poll Says about Muslims and American Politics



Almost every day, pundits inform us about the voting intentions and habits of various groups in elections in the United States.  Almost by decimal points they have identified the intentions of blacks, Jews, evangelicals, Presbyterians, seniors, gays, and others.  Now, a new survey in January 2016 by the Pew Research Center has informed about the electoral intentions of Muslims in the U.S. as well as about attitudes of Americans toward Muslims.

The Pew survey, by chance, provides a useful opportunity to comment on the assertions made on February 3, 2016 by President Barack Obama in his first visit to a mosque in the United States.  In his speech at the 47-year-old Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, the president, after praising Muslim achievements in various activities in American life, exhorted his immediate audience, but in essence the American people as a whole, to do the right thing, and endorse religious pluralism.

Without mentioned the names of any current presidential candidates, and really referring only to their remarks about Muslims, Obama declared, "We have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias and targets people because of religion."  No one can object to this as a general, non-political prescription pertinent to all religious faiths and beliefs, nor to Obama's admonition to condemn hateful, inexcusable rhetoric and not be bystanders to bigotry.

Yet, even if Obama did not seem to imply that Islam is immune from criticism, or that Islamic extremists have little to do with violence and terrorism, he might have clarified the difference between objective appraisal and criticism of certain aspects of Islam and what has been termed "Islamophobia."

This distinction is important in view of the findings of the Pew survey, which shows a division in the American public on attitudes, whether caution or bluntness, about Islam and Muslim behavior.  Half of Americans think the next president should be careful not to criticize Islam as a whole when speaking of Islamic extremists, while 40 percent think the president should speak bluntly about Islamic extremists even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole.


The two main political parties, as well as various American groups and segments of the population, differ on the issue.  Blunt talk about Muslims is preferred by two thirds of Republican, by those who lean toward the Republican Party, and by 70 percent of conservatives, while 70 percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, and 80 percent of liberals, say the next president should speak carefully.  Among the American population, black Protestants, secular individuals, and post-graduates, as well as blacks under 30, believe that the president should be careful.  About 60 percent of white evangelicals call for bluntness, and Catholics and mainline Protestants are evenly divided.

In his Baltimore speech, Obama assured his Muslim audience, "You fit in here [America].  Right here" and declared that only a small fraction of Muslims are propagating a perverted form of Islam.  The figures, which can support or disapprove his argument, show that 77 Muslims have been charged in the U.S. with links to terrorist groups, and 22 have been convicted.
The Pew study shows that the opinion of many Americans on whether Muslims are indeed part of the American fabric differs from that of Obama.  About half of the public believes that at least "some" U.S. Muslims are anti-American, including 14 percent who think that about half the U.S. Muslim population is anti-American.  There is a partisan division on these issues.  More than half of Democrats think that "just a few" U.S. Muslims are anti-American, while a third of Republicans think that at least half of Muslims are anti-American.

An earlier Pew study in December 2015 found that 46 percent of Americans think that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, and a similar number is "very concerned" about the rise of Islamic extremism in the U.S.  About 14 percent think that some religious teachings encourage violence and that Islam in particular does this.  This perception differs sharply from Obama's declaration that "in this [Baltimore] mosque and across the country and around the world, Muslim leaders are roundly and repeatedly and consistently condemning terrorism."
In view of these perceptions, it is not surprising to learn, in a survey of 2,000 registered Muslim voters in six large states, of the intentions of the 73 percent of Muslims who say they plan to vote in the current 2016 presidential primaries.  In the 2012 election, more than 75 percent of Muslims voted for Obama.  In 2016, about 67 percent plan to vote Democratic, 15 percent to vote Republican, 2 percent liberal, and 5 percent for other groups.
In general, Muslims have indicated their present personal preferences, though these may change: 52 percent for Hillary Clinton, 22 percent for Bernie Saunders, 7 percent for Donald Trump (because of his business background and his properties in Middle East countries), and 2 percent for Ted Cruz.

This preference for Democrats may relate to the fact that, after Islamist massacres in Paris and elsewhere, Democratic politicians including President Obama, with rare exceptions, do not refer to the events as the actions of "Islamist terrorists," but blandly as "violent extremism."  It neglects the reality that, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has remarked, the U.S. has "to engage with the ideology of Islamist extremism."

Another finding of the survey is the great difference between Muslims and the rest of the U.S. population on what they consider the most important issues.  Among Muslims, they rank as follows: Islamophobia 30 percent, the economy 24 percent, health care 14 percent, and foreign policy 6 percent.  This priority, so different from the agenda in the presidential primary debates, in which foreign policy has been prominent, is understandable in view of the Muslim disquiet about some political rhetorical excesses that candidates have made about Muslims.  Nevertheless, the priority given to "Islamophobia" implies that criticism of Muslim beliefs – say, regarding sharia law and its customs, is to be equated with animosity or discrimination against Muslims.

The presidential candidates should take note of the findings of the Pew survey.  Muslim voting may only be about one percent of the total vote, but they may be important, and perhaps decisive, in swing states such as evenly divided Florida, with its 29 electoral votes; Ohio; Virginia; and Pennsylvania.
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2)

Gov. Kasich Extols the Tortoise Lane



"There are too many people in America who don't feel connected. They've got victories that no one celebrates with them. And they've got defeats, and pain sometimes, that they have to absorb themselves," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said in a speech that celebrated his second-place showing in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday. It was a breakthrough moment. In early GOP debates, Kasich talked too much about his working-class roots and his mailman dad. "I care about poor people," he crowed in a November debate -- as if no one else did. Tuesday night, however, Kasich moved from boasting that he relates to working stiffs to relating to working-class voters.
The flinty Kasich always was a good fit for the Granite State. The former House Budget Committee chairman is a budget hawk; New Hampshire has no income tax. As a pragmatist, he wasn't likely to excel in the Iowa caucus, where the GOP base rewarded obstructionist Sen. Ted Cruz with a top finish. Kasich doesn't go in for kamikaze tactics, hence his cross-over appeal to independent voters who cast ballots in the GOP contest. His years in the House enabled him to forge alliances with New Hampshire heavyweights such as former Sens. John E. Sununu and Gordon Humphrey, who backed Kasich over hopefuls with bigger war chests. He likes to talk. New Englanders like to talk too. Kasich held 106 town halls, and they paid off.
Meanwhile, rivals' super PACs were painting a bull's-eye on the back of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. So, Kasich got to sit back and watch New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie take down Rubio a few pegs during Saturday night's debate. Christie punctured his own balloon as well. By hanging back, Kasich got stronger.
Now Kasich is a bigger target. Right to Rise, a super PAC that supports former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has hit Kasich for forcing "a massive expansion of Obamacare in Ohio." Kasich knew the political risk of taking advantage of an Obamacare provision that fully funded new Medicaid enrollees for the first three years. But he told Fox News that it was his job to "bring money back to Ohio," not watch his taxpayers send money to Washington to subsidize other states' health care.
"If punched, we'll punch back publicly," Matt David of the pro-Kasich super PAC New Day, told me. "Make sure you use the word 'publicly' with that so it doesn't sound like I'm coordinating."
While Right to Rise whispers Kasich is not sufficiently conservative, Planned Parenthood is hitting Kasich from the left. President Cecile Richards told the Women in the World Forum in Los Angeles that, given Ohio's restrictions on abortions, a Kasich administration would be "a complete and utter disaster" for women. Looking to woo hard-core South Carolina Republicans, Kasich strategist John Weaver tweeted, "Ask her to keep it up, please.
He is walking the fine line with an upbeat message that's part Catholic and part New Age. "We're all made to change the world. We're all made to be part of the healing of this world," he told his supporters. Once upon a time, critics, panned Kasich for being too boyish. In this field of GOP contenders, he has found his stride and has graduated to Yoda.
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