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This from a friend and fellow memo reader:
"This was something I wrote as we headed into the last US election. I didn’t write it to circulate generally, rather by writing, it helped to clarify to ME my position ( I think it needs to be "slightly" updated now, although much will be similar)
2016 fsm
As we are approaching an opportunity to change this country (2016 elections) I have given thought to the following as to my position. I am aware that it may differ with some others, perhaps resonate with others still. (Of note : Yes Israel is a very important issue to me).
In my thinking of issues that are important to me now and in the future, I wrote the following list. This is something I tend to do to help me frame my thinking on things.
Some of these ideas developed from reading, conversations and from other various sources.
The positions I advocate are:
1. Full compliance with The Constitution of The United States of America and what the roles of Federal vs. State governments are as contemplated and defined.
2. Capitalism with benevolence. Conscientious Capitalism.
3. Reformation of the tax code to a flat tax system or possible "fair tax" system.
4. Trickle-down economics. Incentivize not penalize entrepreneurs and business.
5. A government that acts as a safety net for those that are truly in need.
6. A government that supports the elderly through healthcare programs that are administered responsibly.
7. Women’s rights ranging from equal pay to making decisions about abortions. Re visitation of the equal rights amendment of the Constitution
8. Sentient (responsible) adults have the right to live in whatever state of matrimony they chose to without the government adjudicating on the validity or invalidity thereof.
9. Downsizing our Federal Government by beginning thereof with the reduction of the IRS which is antiquated (see # 3 above).
10. A Strong Defense Department.
11. A State Department that updates its policies to meet our worldwide challenges around and eliminates antiquated systems and inadequate diplomats.
12. An administration that supports Israel as a strategic partner in anchoring democratic values in the Middle East.
13. An administration that will not undermine Israel’s security through moral equivalence between Israel’s democratic system with that of its Muslim neighbors who are determined to eliminate Israel.
14. Loyalty and support of our friends and allies throughout the world. Meaning loyalty and support not just rhetoric. Encourage a global democratic system and assist those desiring to have the same. ( Charles Krauthammer)
15. An administration that states and understands that the Middle East is in the midst of an Islamic Revolution hell-bent on destroying the West, Christians and Jews, and conducts itself accordingly in opposition of the same.
16. Never apologizing for our Constitutional right to express ourselves regardless of its content.
17. Stating that the Palestinian issues are in need of resolution but are not Central to solving the many problems floating around the Middle East including Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, ISIS and Afghanistan.
18. The sanctity of the borders of our country, and English as the primary language and a requirement to speak, read and write to be a United States citizen. An orderly process of citizenship.
19. Environmental Conscientiousness As custodians of the planet Earth we should be aware of possible environmental issues and take actions to be responsible to safeguard earth and its natural resources. Regardless of global warming being factual or not, we should err on the side of caution and be responsible and conscious of environmentally sensitive and prudent actions, within our control.
20. All Lives Matter, including but not limited to Black Lives Matter. Hatred in whatever form has no place in our society or world.
I do NOT advocate nor support :
1. Incurring additional debt to finance entitlements and out of control Federal programs. The growth of entitlement payments over the last 50 years has grown exponentially. The Federal Government has become an entitlement machine.
2. Recognizing the horrific consequences of unfunded liabilities being piled via the benefits given to Federal, State, County and Municipal employees which will encumber our children their children and beyond.
3. Unions must be downsized because they are no longer a necessity as was the case in the 20th Century. Unions have become a base for corruption and a partner in the fundraising machine of the Left.
4. A President who blames the “rich” for our fiscal problems and who wishes to redistribute the wealth of the nation in the name of a “fair” playing field. Thomas Sowell said it best, "The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty”.
5. Burdensome regulations- Funding for Federal regulatory agencies and their employment levels are at an all-time high. The number of Federal Register pages devoted to proposed new rules is now beyond all previous highs. These regulations alone will impose large costs and create heightened uncertainty for business and especially small business.
6. Internet Regulation by the FCC and the Net Neutrality Plan - Leave the Internet alone no burdensome regulations or taxation
7. Selective Religious Freedom-While I’m a major advocate for religious freedom, I oppose treating Islam as worthy of our Democratic rights and benefits unless Muslims agree to subordinate their love for Islam to the laws of our Country. We cannot accommodate Islam with a different set of rules. If our Democracy impedes your religious beliefs, you have a choice to impose your will someplace else.
8. I do not support the religious right's desire for the United State's conformity with their beliefs. However nor do I support the far left's illusion of progressiveness as it is being called and their clear shift towards socialism
9. I do not support our current 2 party system in politics. I believe it has and continues to fail us and think in any event term limits need to be applied as we need youth energy and vitality mixed in with experience and wisdom.
Four years have passed now we are headed into yet another election
YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOMED
SM"
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S.C's Sen. Scott is what a Senator should be. He is serious, he is balanced and he cares about his people and our nation. He also works well with Trump and is respected by the president. He was the force behind Opportunity Zone Legislation along with Sec.Carson.
‘Living His Mother’s American Dream’
Sen. Tim Scott discusses his police-reform bill, Dick Durbin’s put-down, and how Republicans can appeal to black voters.
By Tunku Varadarajan
Thirty seconds into his Wednesday speech on the U.S. Senate floor, Tim Scott paused, distraught. Mr. Scott was introducing the Republican police-reform bill, the Justice Act, drafted by a team he led in response to the national outcry after the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd. It was also the fifth anniversary of the murder of nine black worshipers in a church in Charleston, S.C., Mr. Scott’s hometown.
Mr. Scott, 54, is the first black Republican senator since 1979—and the first elected from the South since 1875. He reminded his colleagues of the Charleston anniversary, “the day in which a racist walked into Mother Emanuel Church.” Then he fell silent. Paralyzed with emotion, he failed to fight back tears, and stood mute for nearly a minute before resuming his address—now delivered extemporaneously. The prepared speech on the lectern went unread.
“That minute felt like an hour,” Mr. Scott tells me in a telephone interview. He had to “pray for a second” to compose himself. “It’s pretty embarrassing. It was a hard day. And I didn’t realize how hard it was until I walked out there and got overwhelmed with the anniversary.”
The day had been made harder by a fellow senator—the Democratic whip, Dick Durbin of Illinois—who’d referred to the Justice Act as “a token, halfhearted approach.” The word “token”—sometimes used by those who seek to dismiss a black person as a mere symbol or window dressing—stung Mr. Scott. I ask about Mr. Durbin’s choice of word. “I think so much of politics is calculated,” Mr. Scott says. “I’m pretty confident that he chose his words carefully.” (Mr. Durbin has since apologized.)
Mr. Scott, the only African-American ever to serve in both chambers of Congress, bristles when he talks about Mr. Durbin’s put-down. “I’m just really ticked off about how casual and cavalier he gets to be, as a Democrat leader, to race-bait in an intentional, and unnecessary, and unfortunate way.” He doesn’t think that Mr. Durbin is “a racist,” he stresses, but says he’s “adopted a rhythm and a cadence that is consistent with what sometimes the elite liberals can get away with because they’re supposedly woke. And that’s a problem, because it just denigrates everybody who’s not in their way of thinking about the world.”
Frances Scott—the senator’s 76-year-old mother, who raised him and his elder brother on her own—watched his Senate speech in her Charleston home. “She had tears as well,” Mr. Scott says, “and she was very thankful to the Lord that ‘he is still using me,’ according to her words.” As for Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Scott “just said we should pray for him more,” he says. “My mother is a really devout Christian. I’m not always. I’m trying to be.” That effort is unquestionable: A staffer tells me Mr. Scott promised his pastor to be at church in Charleston for 45 Sundays every year.
Mr. Scott’s
Twitter page carries a single line of biography: “Just a South Carolinian living his mother’s American Dream.” He is successful way beyond her expectations. “My mother was a nurse’s aide,” he says. Her mother, a maid, had dreamed of being a nurse. “And my mother, who was helping my grandmother clean houses when she was a teenager, aspired to make her mother’s dream come true.”
He acknowledges that the GOP faces an uphill task in its bid to woo black voters, and attributes the disconnect between his party and African-Americans to “lost credibility over the years and perhaps the ‘Southern strategy’ driven by Lee Atwater, ” an aide to Ronald Reagan and manager of George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign. These factors, he says, “had a profound and powerful impact that the Republican party has not overcome yet.” (In a 1991 article, a dying Atwater apologized for a comment linking Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis to Willie Horton, a furloughed murderer who is black.)
Mr. Scott believes the GOP can win black support and “make up ground we’ve lost by showing up, and going where we’re not invited.” He says that he has “undertaken that” himself and found it effective: “Our policy position is a strong one. If we have the right tone and passion, we’ll win people back over the next few cycles.”
In some ways, Mr. Scott is different from most black conservatives. He doesn’t play down or efface his ethnicity and is as forthright about race as any black Democrat. He’s less inclined than liberals are to dwell on past injustice, and he says the “conversation about race” should be “more about what you see through the windshield than in the rearview mirror.” He quotes Van Jones, a liberal black radio host, who once said to him that he’d “trade a dozen Black History Months for one ‘black wealth’ and ‘black futures’ weekend.”
Yet Mr. Scott is outspoken about police excesses. He says his ambition to reform law enforcement is driven by his Christian ideas of fairness and justice. It’s also informed by personal experience. In his Wednesday speech, he said he’d been stopped by police 18 times since 2000, “including seven times in one year” as an elected official.
On four separate occasions, he says, Capitol Police officers have tried to impede his entry into the building, disbelieving that he’s a U.S. senator. “The first time, I didn’t say much because [the cop] physically put his arms out, so I couldn’t walk in,” Mr. Scott says. “My chief of staff called the police department after, and they thought I was exaggerating.” They looked at the security-camera footage and called back to apologize. “That kind of scars your soul a little bit.”
The second time, an officer wanted to see his Senate identification, even though Mr. Scott was wearing the lapel pin that is issued only to members of the chamber. “I was very irritated,” Mr. Scott says. He told the cop he was being “irresponsible, and that he should know who I am. That’s why they have pictures of all the senators.” He did, however, show the man his ID. Again, the department called later to apologize. The third time was when an officer at the entry barricade asked Mr. Scott, seated in a car with his driver, for proof of his status. Mr. Scott refused, and the officer “just let me through.” The fourth incident was similar to the third.
Mr. Scott’s brother has been stopped so often for “driving while black,” the senator says, that the two of them have lost count: “They don’t stand out anymore.” Mr. Scott says that “all the police chiefs I’ve spoken to that are African-American tell me that they’ve been stopped by their own departments, and by other departments.” Rare, he believes, is the black man in America “who has not had some tough experience with the police. I hear the same narrative over and over and over again.”
There are no official statistics on this sort of “persistent or consistent harassment,” but Mr. Scott says it “does something to your ability to expect that law and order is something that is good for you.” He has counseled his nephew to be “as cooperative as he conceivably can be” if stopped by the police. Mr. Scott’s own practice, if stopped in his car, “is to put the window down, put my hands out the window or to 10 and 2” on the steering wheel.
Mr. Scott says that “communities of color have lost confidence in the institutions of power and authority in this country. That has been a slow drain over a couple of centuries.” Police reform is one way to help restore that confidence—and he is adamant that there’s “no binary choice between law enforcement and communities of color.” We can, he says, be “raving fans of both. If we’re not, we’re pitting two very important parts of our society against each other.”
Mr. Scott strikes a conciliatory tone as he discusses partisan differences over police-reform legislation. “The good news is that the Justice Act has a lot of common ground with the House bill,” he says. “The outcomes we strive for are the same.” Both sides agree on the need for more body cameras and training, ending chokeholds, and collecting more data on the use of force, “even though Democrats do not provide more funding for departments to carry out increased training and reporting.”
The major difference is over “qualified immunity,” a legal doctrine that limits liability for officers who violate constitutional rights. “The White House has said removing qualified immunity is a red line,” Mr. Scott says, “and I want to see something that can be signed into law.” For Mr. Scott, “the critical piece right now is Senate Democrats must vote to let us start debate on the Senate floor. I don’t pretend the Justice Act has all the answers, but if we don’t debate, if we don’t move toward an amendment process, then we absolutely are not going to be able to get a final product.” The American people are “demanding a solution—not in two months, not in two years, but now.”
I ask about the Black Lives Matter movement, and Mr. Scott marks his distance. “BLM today is synonymous with defunding the police. And that’s a big issue from my perspective. We should not defund the police. I reject that.”
To Mr. Scott, the “question about black lives mattering that has nothing to do with the organization can best be seen in the New York City park where the woman says: I’m going to call the police and tell them my life is being threatened by an African-American man.” He refers to the video, which attained global notoriety last month, of a white woman confronting a bird watcher who’d complained about her unleashed dog in Central Park.
“That, to me, is a snapshot of the devaluing that so many African-Americans have spoken about. We should all have the same intrinsic value in society. And that’s an important position to hold on to.”
Mr. Varadarajan is executive editor at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
By way of contrast:
In the NFL, the knee is not the only problem...
The knee is not the only problem . . .
68 children by 52 women! 7 players!
Children raised in fatherless homes, especially black children, are far more likely than children raised in two parent homes to engage in criminal behavior and thus, have contact with police.
Ergo when they father a child with a woman to whom they are not married---or at least living with---they are contributing to the problem against which these football players are taking a knee. If you look at many of these players' records on out-of-wedlock children, you find that they are contributing significantly to the problem against which they are protesting.
For example,
Antonio Cromartie has 12 children by 9 different women. Apparently the NFL had to shell out $500,000 before he could even play football for them.
Travis Henry has 11 children by 10 women,
Willis McGahee has 9 children by 8 women,
Derrick Thomas has 7 children by 5 different women,
Bennie Blades has 6 children by 6 women,
Ray Lewis has 6 children by 4 women and
Marshall Faulk has 6 children by 3 women.
They forgot to include
Adrian Peterson: 11 kids from 7 different women.
Before these guys take a knee they should take a good look in the mirror .It appears that their problem is not the knee.
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM IS NOT SYSTEMIC RACISM or POLICE BRUTALITY.
IT'S NO FATHER IN THE HOUSE, and THE LITTLE RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY THAT FOLLOWS.
I am now 1/2 way through reading "Shame" by Shelby Steele . What else does this brilliant man have to say?
My first review pointed out white guilt needed to end because the effect continued to create the reverse of what
liberals profess they intended. White paternalism led to affirmative action and this denied the fact that we have
achieved illegal discrimination though not bigotry. Steele believes it is time to allow blacks to be left along so they
can figure out their next steps.
The'60's introduced the culture wars between liberalism and conservatism. "Poetic Truth" was a new concept
that was introduced and helped define one's ideological identity and served to deny true facts..This allowed
victimization rather than investigation of black dysfunction to rule the debate.
PC'ism and "poetic truth" allowed whites to escape real truth because "poetic truth" is about power and relates
to the past while PC'ism served as it's enforcement arm.
No one disputes the '60's introduced the ability for Americans to re-interpret a re-definition of America and to reject
some of the hypocrisies between what was written and what was practiced. Protest movements against the
immoral Vietnam War,, feminism, racism, sexism, environmentalism flourished.. We no longer were able to revert
to the hypocrisy of denial.
MLK's peaceful protests were morality based and helped eliminate the previous legitimacy of "traditional authority."
Authenticity became a new word. Black alienation morphed into strident black nationalism.
The broad characterization that America is inherently evil has become the basis causing the great divide that
exists between liberals and conservatives and is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Why? Because liberals
cannot accept that America is not inherently evil because to do so would cut the ground out from their
philosophical structure which allows them to deny the enormous progress blacks have made,
More when I finish.
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As I said previously, Bolton enlightened us about the same person we already knew, warts and all.
Bolton’s Trump Is Also the Voter’s Trump
Guess what? The public is cynical about politics. That’s what the 2016 earthquake was all about.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
The highly plausible caricature of Donald Trump in John Bolton’s book is also completely unsurprising. Nobody who has run for president was better known to the American people than Mr. Trump nor did more for the preceding 40 years to advertise his un-presidential qualities. In an unusually balanced analysis, the
New York Times let slip a deep truth: “Other presidents at least maintained the notion that there was a difference between presidential duty and campaign imperative, but as Mr. Bolton describes it, Mr. Trump sees little need for pretense.”
Bingo. Mr. Trump’s defining quality has been his gargantuan cynicism about the game of politics and the politicians who play it, a cynicism shared by millions of voters.
But this leaves out something. He seeks personal victories, all right, but ones constantly aimed at fulfilling the vision he sold to voters and apparently truly believes in: Our elites are hypocritical and corrupt (Ukraine). We’ve been suckers in trade deals (China). Our allies take advantage of us (Angela Merkel). Our rivals don’t respect us because we appear weak (Putin).
There are multiple ironies, as there ought to be when voters embark on an experiment as outré as the Trump presidency. After all, which of his supporters didn’t pull the lever thinking “I hope we can go four years without a major crisis.” Yet if not for the pandemic wild-card, Mr. Trump would be the greatest economic success in a generation, and simply by calling off Barack Obama’s reflexive, indiscriminate granting of power to every pro-regulation interest in the Democratic coalition.
Daily and hourly pundits denounce his evangelical supporters as hypocritical. These experts forget basic political science. Our two-party system would cease to exist if voters weren’t ready to make common cause with those they have nothing in common with, especially if they can deliver.
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