The Party . . .

(from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-we-re-party-health-care-dems-we-re-party-n987746)
". . . Trump tweeted that the GOP will be "the party of health care," but Republican senators who met with him said the president offered few details on what their policy would look like if Obamacare were struck down. . . In fact, there was little sign of outward enthusiasm for Trump's latest move among elected Republicans. The party paid a steep price for repeal efforts in the 2018 midterms — voters named health care their top issue in exit polls, and 75 percent of those who did supported Democrats. . ."

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Issue . . .

. . . of tremendous gravity . . .

. . . a non-political organization pulling a political stunt and a president who is preoccupied with professional athletes and a song . . .


(https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2018/06/05/man-kneels-national-anthem-donald-trump-white-house-nfl/674505002/)
". . . Instead of welcoming the Philadelphia Eagles to the White House on Tuesday, President Trump held an event to "celebrate America" and play the national anthem. . . a man in a light-blue shirt is kneeling as the United States Marine Band plays The Star-Spangled Banner. The man. . . applauds and stands as the song ends. . . The playing of the national anthem was followed by brief remarks from Trump, who spoke for about three minutes about the importance of standing for the national anthem. Trump did not mention the Eagles or the NFL in his remarks, but he said the event was “even bigger than we had anticipated.” . . . "

(https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/eagles/2018/06/05/eagles-nfl-white-house-donald-trump-sarah-sanders-national-anthem/673900002/)
". . . White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders ripped the Philadelphia Eagles in a news conference Tuesday afternoon, accusing the organization of pulling "a political stunt" that she said resulted in the cancellation of a Super Bowl celebration on the South Lawn. . . Sanders claimed that the Eagles tried to reschedule the event to a time when President Donald Trump would be out of the country and later offered to send "only a tiny handful of representatives" to Tuesday's celebration, reiterating claims that she had provided in a written statement earlier in the day. She also blamed the Eagles for the last-minute change and defended the president, who routinely has criticized the NFL. . ."

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Happy . . .

. . . to see that our President is firmly focused upon the most pressing issues concerning the citizens of the United States of America . . .



(http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/trump-tweets/)
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!
Jun. 29, 2017, 8:58 a.m.

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Ah, Trust (again) . . .

. . . wonder WHY this continues to be an issue . . .


(from http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/clinton-claim-small-donors-mostly-false-politifact-finds-n542621)
". . . Following (several recent) victories . . . Hillary Clinton thanked her supporters — especially those who have given small amounts of money to her campaign. . . "Keep contributing at hillaryclinton.com. Please, please join the 950,000 supporters who already have contributed, most less than $100, because our campaign depends on small donations for the majority of our support," Clinton said. . . Candidates like to play up their small-dollar donations because they are a sign of grass-roots strength. For instance, the Bernie Sanders campaign often talks up its large small-donor base and small average donations. . . And in fact, of all the 2016 candidates, Sanders has done the best in this regard: Through Jan. 31, Sanders raised $67 million from small donors, or a whopping 70 percent of all the money he took in from individuals, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent group that tracks campaign finance data. . . If one defines "the majority of our support" as dollars, then Clinton is wrong — small donations accounted for 17 percent of all of her individual donations, which is well short of a majority. In fact, the Campaign Finance Institute calculated that a clear majority of the funds Clinton had raised through Jan. 31 from individuals came from donors giving $2,700 — the legal maximum that anyone can give. . . We rate (Clinton's) statement Mostly False. . ."

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The Case . . .

. . .  for electing Hillary Clinton President of the United States of America. . .



(from http://harpers.org/archive/2014/10/stop-hillary-2/ by Doug Henwood)
". . . boils down to this: She has experience, she’s a woman, and it’s her turn. It’s hard to find any substantive political argument in her favor. She has, in the past, been associated with women’s issues, with children’s issues — but she also encouraged her husband to sign the 1996 bill that put an end to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), which had been in effect since 1935. Indeed, longtime Clinton adviser Dick Morris, who has now morphed into a right-wing pundit, credits Hillary for backing both of Bill’s most important moves to the center: the balanced budget and welfare reform.1 And during her subsequent career as New York’s junior senator and as secretary of state, she has scarcely budged from the centrist sweet spot, and has become increasingly hawkish on foreign policy. . . "

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My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

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Casualness and Formality . . .

(from Joseph and his Brothers by Thomas Mann)
". . . They approached the matter about which they had come together, however, only reluctantly and with shrugs, skirting and backing off the issue several times, as if each side wished to suggest to the other that it would be better not to speak of it-precisely because the topic to be addressed, the matter at hand, was a subject about which it was necessary to maintain the appearance of disdain for the sake of a higher humanity.  For, ultimately, it is the luxury of exaggerated objectivity, a pretense of priorities honoring refined formality, including a generous casualness about wasting time for formality's sake, that defines what is worthy of humankind: those things that are more than merely natural and therefore civilized. . . "

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My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

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Birth . . .

 (from Born of a Woman by John Shelby Spong)
". . . These are the issues that are argued among the scholars. No one in scholarly circles that I know of, however, is willing to defend the historicity or the literalness of the virgin birth story! Continued belief in a literal, biological virgin birth for Jesus of Nazareth is based only on a faith or a dogmatic commitment. It cannot rest on the evidence. Such a belief is no longer defended on the basis of Scripture, not even by Roman Catholic scholars, who have much more invested theologically in this possibility than Protestant Christians do.

The fact that these ideas are commonplace among the biblical scholars of our world and yet are all but unknown among the average worshipers in either church or synagogue is, in my opinion, scandalous. It cannot help but be a reflection of the ecclesiastical hierarchy's fear that such knowledge, if broadly shared, would render the faithful faithless.  Conservative bishops and priests content themselves by asserting that biblical scholarship is an ever-changing, inexact science that cannot be counted on for final answers. They argue that we must, therefore, trust the church's historic teaching authority. It is a weak and almost pathetic argument. . . "

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Leveling . . .

Michael Bloomberg will use his personal fortune to fight, or at least counter, the efforts of the National Rifle Association. $50 million will be dedicated to his new group Everytown for Gun Safety, an umbrella for his two other gun control groups: Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

The new organization will battle the NRA on its own turf and with its very own tactics. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Actions says Women, and more particularly mothers, will be the key demographic in the outreach to curb gun violence. "Moms are afraid that our children will be taken away. In the end, that's the emotion that's going to win."

Influencing those in charge of writing gun policy though, will be the ultimate goal beginning with creating a political action committee to elect gun safety candidates to office and a 501(c)(4), an IRS classification used to raise unlimited amounts of money to influence voters. It aims to motivate a million pro-gun safety voters to go to the polls in November. The group will also submit a gun safety questionnaire to candidates and keep a score card of how elected officials vote on gun-related issues, another NRA tactic.

By matching the NRA's financial heft, Bloomberg makes the challenge to the NRA a little less daunting. The NRA has spent more than $30 million lobbying elected officials since 1998. Its efforts have been very successful in Congress over the past decade, defeating attempts to ban assault weapons and expand background checks.
(Thanks to http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/15/us/bloomberg-gun-safety-initiative/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)

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Wrong tree? . . .

(Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/17/opinion/colinvaux-irs-taxes/index.html)
Roger Colinvaux, associate professor of law at Catholic University of America and former counsel to the U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation

The noise about IRS 'targeting' procedures should not be misinterpreted.  The real issue at hand is disclosure of donors, not tax-exempt status.  Something tells me that liberal and conservative groups are equally suspect when it comes to revealing donors, but that's just ME.

The IRS is actually in the 'targeting' business.  They are an enforcer and are supposed to go after scofflaws, cheaters and dodgers.  The guilt lies in the searching of tax returns for names like "tea party", which is clearly a specific group. What they should have done was searched for all such groups as a class, irrespective of political affiliation.

Roger Colinaux writes, ". . .  But the extra scrutiny here is less because of tax exemption and more because of other tax benefits that flow from tax-exempt status, such as the ability to receive tax-deductible contributions. Importantly, charitable organizations are not allowed to engage in any political activity, because Congress long ago decided that charity and politics are incompatible. . ."

It's campaign finance law and NOT tax law that dictates public disclosure of donors for political groups but not for social welfare organizations.  Mr. Colinaux again, ". . . After the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, it became possible for a 501(c)(4) organization to engage in unlimited amounts of political spending. It thus also became possible for a political organization to use the tax law to hide the identity of donors. After Citizens United, the abuse the IRS is tasked with policing is whether an organization that claims to be a "social welfare" organization is in reality a political organization in disguise. . ."

So its yet another polarizing issue (guess there wouldn't be so much polarization if we weren't limited to only two poles.) and also again, an issue of many barking up the wrong tree.

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