This year, it seems like every week another candidate announces his or her bid for the Democratic nomination.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Corey Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, John Hickenlooper – and maybe Scranton Joe Biden
I say come one — come all!
Let there be a robust, upbeat competition for the Democratic nomination.
Let there be a robust, upbeat dialogue about the Democratic agenda.
First and foremost, let’s define the Green New Deal— and then extol its virtues. We need a visionary agenda as ambitious as FDR’s bold antidote to the Great Depression.
This country (and our world) needs another spasm of liberal advancement like Kennedy and Johnson shepherded in the mid-1960s. In fact, a new Voting Rights Act is needed to overcome the damage done by the Roberts Supreme Court. When more American citizens vote it’s better for progressives.
Democrats! Progressives! Young folks who don’t relate to political labels!
We need a comprehensive progressive vision for reversing climate change, modernizing our national infrastructure and addressing criminal justice reform, equal rights, economic justice, fair taxation and voting rights – not to mention universal health care!
Let’s see which candidate embraces such an agenda.
Let’s see which candidate stands on an inspiring, revolutionary platform.
And let’s see which candidate can sell it to the American people.
But, for *@#! sake, let’s not fall into the “Are Democrats moving too far to the left?” trap! Let’s not defend ourselves against charges of “Socialism.” Instead, let’s ask whether people like Social Security and Medicare – not to mention the Interstate Highway System.
The fact is that progressive Democratic reforms reflect mainstream American values. Most Americans want to see human beings survive – and, hopefully, thrive! That’s why tackling climate change is Job #1.
Provided Democratic candidates are in ideological agreement, our 2020 ticket must balance race, gender, age and geography. And so far, I must say — I’m delighted with the casting pool.
Other than the fact that at least one woman must be on the ticket — and someoneon the ticket should notbe a white person — there’s plenty of time and room for any of the contenders to define a progressive agenda, inspire us and fire our imaginations.
Like Obama, a Democratic winner must motivate young folk, women, people of color, principled professionals and working families. Without the enthusiastic support of all these American voters, we don’t stand a chance.
That means American sanity doesn’t stand a chance.
Humanity doesn’t stand a chance.
So, come on Democrats!
We may differ on how we get there. But, despite our internecine disagreements — let’s not give the right wing anything to exploit.
Democratic candidates should promote their progressivism proudly. And they should put it in historical context.
FDR’s progressive New Deal” saved mid-century America from the Great Depression, won World War II — and saved worldwide Capitalism.
Democrats running for President or any other office must educate voters on the millionaire tax rates under Republican President and World War Two hero, Dwight Eisenhower. Ike’s highest marginal income tax rate was 91% — during the years that built the great American middle class. Taxing the rich works.
The American people know these things in their bones. (At least the majority of us do.) And we’ll vote in overwhelming numbers for a progressive, forward-looking agenda.
And I haven’t even mentioned the Great Orange Disaster. Leave him to Mueller and Congress.
Democrats must embrace the Green New Deal and an Agenda for a Great American Future.
But, most of all, we must get out and vote for a DEMOCRAT in 2020!
The GOP has proven itself unworthy of governing this still promising country.
We hear it over and over from the pundit class: Democrats have a chance to take over the House (and maybe the Senate) this year — but younger voters can’t be relied upon to turn out on Election Day.
Some older Democrats think that younger voters are not realistic, or too impatient, or too easily swayed by fringe candidates on the extreme left…
I know you’re going to vote because the Parkland students have inspired us all to fight for sane gun laws.
I know you’re going to vote because Brett Kavanaugh is an embarrassment to the Supreme Court.
My wife and I were privileged to join the march in San Diego a few weeks ago in protest of Donald Trump’s heinous policy of separating immigrant families at the border.
Because during the past week, Trump managed to make our horrible national nightmare even worse than it’s been. And now the rest of the western world hates the Mango Mussolini as much as we do.
But we must not let Trump scandal fatigue wear us down.
But – above all – vote.
But now that Donald Trump sees the writing on the wall (and the polls), his destructive attack on the integrity of the American election process itself leaves his Veep pick with no other way to save his dignity, credibility and reputation than to jettison the flame-throwing narcissistic demagogue at the top of the ticket.
Mike Pence says he’s a follower of Jesus Christ. What is there in the four Gospels that give any indication that the Prince of Peace would approve of Donald J. Trump? Not a thing. Re-read the Sermon on the Mount – especially the Beatitudes. Nowhere does Jesus say, “Blessed are the whining sore losers, for theirs is the right to torch the landscape in their wake.”
In 1960, when Richard Nixon lost by the thinnest of whiskers to John F. Kennedy, even the man who would become infamous for campaign “dirty tricks” and Watergate respected the vote of the American people, despite unproven claims of election fraud in Illinois and West Virginia.
And now comes Donald Trump. He’s not even waiting for his eventual (and much deserved) defeat to cast doubt on the fairness of our American democracy.
Trump indicts the dishonest media for its part in rigging the election against him. Really? Is that what FOX, CNN and MSNBC were doing for a solid year when they covered just about every one of his rallies from start to finish? When they would put Hillary or Bernie Sanders in a little box in the corner of the frame while The Donald held court full screen? The truth is that the cable news networks were major enablers of Trump’s candidacy.
And that’s why Mike Pence – who surely knows better – must take a stand by standing down.
So now, just hours after Donald Trump couldn’t bring himself to admit to The Washington Post that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A. — some campaign flunky puts out a statement saying that Herr Trump actually believes that Obama is, in fact, born in America.
Well, let’s hear that from Donald J. Trump himself.
“We’re looking into it very, very strongly. At a certain point in time I’ll be revealing some interesting things,” Trump said on CNN’s American Morning.Trump first claimed earlier this month he had sent investigators to Obama’s home state in an effort to find out if the president was indeed born there, as he says he was and several media organization’s independent investigations have confirmed.
“I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” Trump told NBC then.
What did his “people that have been studying it” really find? And why could they not “believe what they’re finding.”
The Presidency of the United States is at stake.
What is it about Donald Trump’s vulgar, shameless, fact-free Presidential candidacy that appears to suck the intelligence, discernment, fairness, judgment and journalistic integrity out of our callow cadre of TV news anchormen and women?
It’s as though Donald Trump is some sort of insidious political vampire with the power to mesmerize, fascinate and overpower his overpaid, under-researched and ratings-infatuated newsreader victims.
It was hard enough to watch the weak performance of NBC’s Matt Lauer in the recent Commander-in-Chief Forum, as he let Trump tell lie after lie with impunity — especially his whopper about opposing the Iraq War from the start. But much worse is the spectre of what we can expect from FOX’s Chris Wallace in the third Presidential Debate on October 19. Consider this exchange with Howard Kurtz.
KURTZ: …as they go at it, let’s say Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, what do you do if they make assertions that you know to be untrue? 
Getting at the truth is not Wallace’s job? What would his father, the late CBS News and “60 Minutes” stalwart, Mike Wallace, have said if he heard his son say such a thing?
Then again, maybe I should just set FOX News aside. After all, it’s little more than the unofficial cable channel of the Republican Party. Sure, there are elements at FOX that share some in the GOP’s ambivalence about Trump’s rogue candidacy – but it’s also clear that FOX News will not seriously challenge the rise of the Great Orange Hope.
So, why do so many supposedly professional newsmen at these major media outlets fail to ask the most obvious follow-up questions when Trump and his clownish parade of lying, low-ball, blowhard surrogates mislead viewers by misstating the facts?
Why else would they allow Trump and his cohort to perpetuate the calumny that Hillary Clinton is the dishonest, untrustworthy person in this race? Do they fail to challenge this relentless lie because they have no access to the fact checking by PolitiFact?
Just in case Chris Wallace is too busy to do the math – 72% of Hillary’s assertions range between true and half-true. She’s been caught tell a lie only 2% of the time.
No wonder Chris Wallace doesn’t want to fact-check The Donald during his debate. Wallace would have to interrupt Trump at least 71% of the time. And nobody likes to watch a football game where the referees are throwing a flag on every 7 out of 10 plays. It would be unwatchable.
However, had Lauer done a least the ten minutes of research I just did he wouldn’t have been caught slack-jawed and flat-footed when Trump doubled down on his ignorant, erroneous notion that military sexual assault is a problem created by putting men and women together in uniform.
Yet, Trump and his surrogate minions are allowed, unchallenged, on network after network, to continue to frame this particular debate as an issue that’s all about women in the military.
The great Edward R. Murrow is surely rolling over in his grave.
I must admit that when I first saw Donald J. Trump riding his Trump Tower escalator on June 16, 2015, descending into the bowels of the GOP Presidential primary, I was intrigued. There was never a remote chance I’d vote for such an arrogant blowhard – especially when, fresh off his escalator, he declared that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” But I sensed that Trump was more than just another right wing political hack, playing to people’s fears and spouting Republican boilerplate.
Here was a spoiled, egocentric, reckless autocrat with no loyalty to anyone or anything but his own personal brand. This was going to be interesting.
It was plain to see The Donald was a dynamic and destructive force that the GOP would find hard to ignore, repudiate or control.
As Trump careened through each news cycle like a rip-snorting orange bull in a china shop, I enjoyed watching Republican politicians squirm, afraid to alienate Trump’s growing legion of angry, white, poorly educated fans.
Meanwhile, Trump’s feckless primary opponents were unable to deal with such an unconventional, unapologetic and unblushing political bomb thrower — and were systematically dispatched.
At the start, those TV ratings mattered most: to the major media outlets – and to Trump’s campaign.
Donald Trump said things that no Republican candidate had ever said in recent memory. He was, in some ways, if we’re being completely honest, a breath of fresh air. Sometimes.
And, afterwards, damned if wasn’t still leading in the polls!
All of these positions would normally disqualify a Republican candidate. But not The Donald.
But, back to Trump.
Yet, now that the party conventions are over and the Olympics are over, the media pundits tell us that the American people are just now focusing on the Presidential election and that Trump’s latest “pivot” may win back some of the college-educated, suburban and minority voters who have rejected him. Some of these talking heads suggest that the race will tighten – and some, for the sake of promoting the horse race, assert that Trump may still have a chance of becoming our 45th President.
It’s been a mad, mad, mad, mad year with Donald Trump. It’s been entertaining. It’s been surprising. It’s been nutty as hell. But when I see the rage, paranoia, xenophobia and hysteria he fuels in his fans, it’s becoming more and more frightening.
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
An Exclusive Interview with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller III.
Until now.
Mr. Mueller explained that he enjoyed my recent blog post on a hike my wife and I made in Yellowstone National Park – and that he needed to let off some steam without winding up on the front page of The New York Times. I wasn’t entirely sure it was a compliment when he told me that he was certain nothing I wrote on my blog was going to make headlines anywhere.
He said I could ask him anything I wanted.
What follows is a transcript of our phone call.
ME: You’re getting a lot of pressure to wrap up your investigation…
MUELLER: Hold on, what do you mean by pressure?
ME: You know. Giuliani and the President are waging a campaign to discredit you…
MUELLER: (Laughs) Oh, that? You call that pressure? I’ll tell you what pressure is – and Donny Bone Spurs has no clue – but pressure is trying to keep a squad of young soldiers alive when you’re waist deep in a muddy rice paddy taking incoming fire from an enemy you can’t see. That’s pressure. This is no deadly jungle firefight. I can see Trump and his impotent bullies coming a mile away. Nothing they say affects me.
MUELLER: That’s not my concern. I’m not hosting a popularity contest – I’m running a criminal investigation. Facts matter to me. I don’t give a rat’s ass for anyone’s opinion. And certainly not a flack like Sean Hannity or a soulless, Mephistophelean mouthpiece like Kellyanne Conway. Funny. Her husband actually sounds like an intelligent guy. That’s a real odd couple there.
ME: But what do you say to those who complain that your investigation has gone on too long and has spent too many taxpayer dollars?
ME: Oh, that’s right, you are a Republican.
MUELLER: Have been all my life. So are Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray. We’re rock-ribbed members of the Grand Old Party. Accent on “Old”.
ME: So, are your fellow Republicans correct? Is it time to wrap this thing up?
MUELLER: First of all, not every Republican wants to end this investigation. There are still quite a few in Congress who want to see it play out and justice be done.
And between you and me — many of my fellow Republicans won’t say it publically, but they’d love to have me indict Trump and his whole White House mafia so I’ll rid them of the disaster they helped to create.
ME: I see, but…
ME: But Trump and Giuliani are certain you haven’t found any evidence of collusion.
MUELLER: Collusion? I don’t give a fig about collusion. I’m running down a conspiracy: a criminal conspiracy. And it’s a big case.
It’s like a vast all-you-can-eat buffet. There’s so much perjury, malfeasance, chicanery, money laundering, petty grifting, influence peddling, and conspiracy to defraud the American electorate that you simply can’t pile it all on your plate. You can’t digest it all in one meal. If I tried to ingest this immense, illegal feast all at once – I’d explode like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.
ME: What about Trump and his allies calling for an investigation of the origin of your investigation?
ME: Putin?
MUELLER: Trump’s mysterious man crush.
ME: Okay. Trump’s relationship to Putin is notably homoerotic – but let’s stay on point…
MUELLER: And your point is…?
ME: Are you going to indict President Trump for conspiracy with the Russians to manipulate the vote in the 2016 elections?
ME: Well, when?
MUELLER: Look. Here’s the thing. Because of what Comey did during the last Presidential election, I have to be careful. I can’t make any kind of public statement that might affect the mid-term elections.
ME: You can’t?
MUELLER: No. Think about it. If before this year’s critical midterms, I laid out the litany of crimes that I intended to charge Trump and his mendacious mob with — there wouldn’t be a Republican elected dogcatcher outside of Wyoming and the Dakotas.
ME: Would that be so bad?
ME: Is there any way you can tell us more about what you already know? Must we rely on Michael Avenatti to keep us informed?
MUELLER: I love Avenatti! I wish I could be like Mike!
ME: Really?
MUELLER: Of course! Mike’s a bull in the china shop. I can’t behave that way. But without giving away the whole game, I’m sure he and I will end up in the same place.
ME: Are you saying that President Trump and his minions are guilty?
MUELLER: Guilty of what?
ME: Of criminal conspiracy and everything else!
ME: Wow!
MUELLER: And to make money and effect policy during – and after — the campaign.
ME: That should be revolutionary!
MUELLER: It should be. But it may not be.
ME: Why not?
Donald Trump is a cheap criminal. And I’ve got the goods on him — in spades. I can’t wait to bring the hammer down on this un-Presidential prick.
ME: You don’t sound very objective…
MUELLER: I’m completely objective.
ME: So, do we American lovers of democracy have anything to fear in the near future?
MUELLER: A low turnout in the midterms.
ME: Why so?
MUELLER: Because, you liberal morons, if you don’t elect a Democratic majority in the House, they’ll never impeach Trump — let alone convict him in the Senate.
ME: Oh….
MUELLER: Sorry, I’ve gotta go. Jeff wants to push our breakfast meeting by a half hour (he’s texting Trump) – and move it from Denny’s Diner to the nearest Waffle House.
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