THE DONALD DOES IT AGAIN

Is he for real?  Now he fires his campaign manager who got him to where he is, but his family doesn't like Corey Lewandovski.  So, according to Lewandowski, he was working on Donald's campaign at 8 a.m. in the morning and then The Don called him to his office and told him "You’re fired". 

Why?  Nobody seems to know the truth but according to the Donald his family advised him to do so.

So, let me ask you a question.  The president gets himself carefully selected advisors who know a bit or two about National and International Security and who give their advice (in very measured thoughts and phrases) to the president, which the president then carefully evaluates and decides on.  Does this mean that we, the taxpayers will have to pay for the advisors, but the Don will rely on his children's advice and make his decisions based on their advice?   Give me a break!

Just think about how his advisors will feel!  Guaranteed, that if this happens too often the advisors will quit their jobs.  There will be a revolving door to the Oval Office.  And our national security will be compromised and at high risk simply because we doddle with our security.  This is not the way to run an airline!  You can not learn about international and domestic issues in a few minutes.  I often quote George Santayan who was a Greek-American philosopher and author who said: "Those who do not learn history are bound to repeat its mistakes". 

In case you do not know it, in World War II the Japanese caught the United States with their pants down when they attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  For six months the Japanese Navy gave America a run for its money.  The Japanese had a superior fleet of six aircraft carriers, whereas the United States only had three active aircraft carriers.  During the Battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942, the Japanese fleet sustained enormous, irreparable damage in part because the Japanese Admiral, Admiral Nagumo kept changing and re-arming his attack planes and wasting valuable time. 

Also, do you remember the Don telling his audiences that he is rich, very rich?  Well guess what!  Now he is running out of money!  Ha! Ha!  He was willing to spend $230 million for his campaign.  I forgot who said that it will take more like $730 million and he will have difficulty raising this much money.  He would lose his millionaire cronies because he offends a lot of people.

The Republican Party is also slowly deserting him.  Poor old Donald!  Don't you have pity on him?

In fact, the last First Lady before Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, President George Bush's wife said publicly that she would not vote for the Don, but that she would vote for Hillary!

Remember when big shot Donald Trump refused to participate in one of the debates, because Megan Kelly was to be the moderator of that debate?  Instead he tried to raise funds for our veterans.  All he was able to raise from his big millionaire buddies was close to six million dollars.  He himself contributed only $1 million dollars.  If you believe that he is worth $10 billion dollars then $1 million dollars is the equivalent of about 10 cents for us pee-ons!

Even the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, recently said that Republicans should vote with their conscience, meaning that The Don is not a good choice for America to its President.  Members of his party and of his retinue are urging him to act more presidential.  What are they?  Are they nuts?  If he does change and becomes more presidential what is to stop him from becoming crazy again?  Wake up America!

Red beans and ricely yours,

Effey

THE GREAT ALI IS PASSING ON

By Effey

No matter how great we are, we all must eventually pass on.  Ali claimed to be the greatest.  And indeed he was!  New generations will never know the magic spell he had on my generation, world-wide.  He was the Fred Astaire as well as the Shakespeare of the boxing ring.  No fighter was as nimble as he.  No other fighter generated the excitement in boxing as he did.  He didn't win all his fights, but even the fights he lost in some inexplicable way were magical.  He won the world heavyweight champion title three times!  That was unheard of.  And when he lost his fights, to his audience he still won.

People laughed at him when he predicted in poetic style in which round he would knock out hs opponents but he always came through as predicted.  He taunted his opponents and they fell into the trap.  When they opened up he took the punches, and when his opponents became over confident he finished them off, 1-2-3.  All in all, he won 56 fights lost 5 and knocked out 37 opponents!!  What a record!!!

But there was much more to "The Great One".  He spoke his mind and he also fought our government and won in the end.  He refused to serve in the Army during the Viet-Nam war.  The government stripped him of his title but the Government really lost, because in the end he won his championship title back again. 

But perhaps more important than anything else, he became a driving force in the Civil Rights Movement, as powerful in his way as Martin Luther King was in his way.

The Civil Rights Act had not yet been passed.  When he fought in the ring he also fought for the legislation which ended the discrimination against the black community of the time.  The discrimination should have rightfully been ended at the end of the Civil War, but it didn't.  Ali earned the respect of the majority of white Americans and somehow through his personality helped bring about the respect for the African American community that it well deserved.  Ali's fight has now ended.  The Government has ended the discrimination against the African-American community, but the fight has not yet ended completely.  Much work still needs to be done.  But the Pioneers, Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King are gone.  Who will lead the rest of the struggle?

I had the pleasure of meeting Muhammad in person, together with his manager and coach, Angelo Dundee, his sparring partner Jimmy Ellis and Ali's biggest fan and promoter, the great sports journalist Howard Cosell.  I am still basking in the glory of that moment in my life-time, when I was a lot younger.

Ali, Thank You.

How easily we forget!!

My mother used to have a favorite saying: "Small children, small problems, big children, big problems."  You can take this wise truism and transfer it to many different issues.  For example: small accident, little damage, big accident, big damage.  Likewise: little exposure few critics, big exposure, tons of critics.

This is how I feel about Hillary Clinton.  She has had a lot of exposure, therefore many critics.  But there is another element involved when it comes to her critics.  Number one, she is a woman.  Number two, she is a Democrat.  So, her political enemies, the Republicans have slung all kinds of mud against her.  And she just ignores them and does what she has to do.  Move on forward and stand up against them all.

How many congressional hearings and inquiries have they wasted on Benghazi just to purge their on conscious?  Had Congress not cut the defense budget for embassy security, maybe Benghazi would not have happened at all.

Now they accuse her of having brought down Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.  You must be kidding.  Does anybody remember when in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 243 passengers and 16 crew members, plus 11 people on the ground?  We hated Gaddafi.  Or don't you remember when in January 1989, President Ronald Reagan ordered two Libyan warplanes to be shot down by the U.S. Air Force off the Libyan coast, because Gaddafi became too crazy for Westerners?  We had trouble dealing with such an erratic leader.  So when there was a chance to get rid of him, we helped.  We had plenty of reasons to help his opponents to overthrow him and to get rid of him.  Just like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Gaddafi was a loose cannon ball.

So Hillary did what we wanted and needed to do.  We had to encourage his opponents to overthrow him for Libya's own good.  And the Republicans criticize President Obama for being weak or not having a foreign policy or for being responsible for the weakness of our economy.  Think back.  It was not so long ago that we wanted out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan.  Who got us there?  President George Bush, a Republican.  Who got us out?  President Obama.  That is what the people wanted, that is what he pledged he would do if he would be elected and that is what he did.  Hillary was his first Secretary of State.  So now the Republicans are trying to find fault with her because she e-mailed unclassified e-mails on her private server back to the states.  Even the revered Colin Powell admitted that it is sometimes difficult to know which e-mails are classified and which ones are not because they only get classified when they arrive at the State Department.  So she did not break any rules.  They just did not exist.  And who s the first person ever to try to do something to provide healthcare for millions of people who were not covered by medical insurance because they could not afford any insurance.  It was Hillary when she was the first Lady.  And now much of the country is looking at another erratic potential president! 

How easily we forget!!!

"Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing".  (Luke 23-24).

Red Beans and Ricely yours

Effey

The Elections

Here is my assessment of the candidates running for the office of the Presidency.

Personally I like Bernie Sanders.a lot.  I have followed him for years on the Ed Schultz show where he offered his comments.  And I agree with him about the status quo in our government right now.  But I blame the Republican Senate and the Republican Congress for constantly undermining the president. 

When President Obama was running for President the majority of the country wanted us out of Iraq. 

So he got us out. 

But the big wigs in the Senate and the House are plain jealous that they don't have a Republican in the office and therefore they undermine everything the President wants to do.

Do we want Cruz, or worse, Trump in the oval office?  God, do I feel sorry for us if this happens!  Kasich is a good and decent man for the office, but unfortunately he does not do well in the polls.

This brings me to Hillary.  In my opinion she is a woman who has the gumption, the smarts, and the patience to put up with her opponents.  In the general election she can whip all of her opponents.  Remember, she is a lawyer by profession and she has a record for helping the poor and helping other groups.  So Bernie is attacking her for her speech to Lehman Brothers.  Doesn't he know that she was not in office when she gave that speech?  Over the weekend she held a fundraiser together with George Clooney, the actor.  This fundraiser was not for her own campaign; it was for the Democratic Party who wants to take back the Congress and finally get things done,

What can Bernie achieve?  He is looking for a revolution which will never happen.  There is an old rule; if you want to change something big, do it according to the appropriate bylaws fro within the organization.  And Hillary is just right for this because she knows how to bring about change and she also knows how to negotiate.  Remember she was Bill's private counselor.

Red Beans and Ricely yours

Effey

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HOW LIFE HAS CHANGED

We live in a fast changing world.  Some people have referred to it as the "Jet-Age" because things change as fast as the speed of light or a jet plane breaking the sound barrier.

I tried calling God the other day to elicit some help for our country.  With all the terrorism going on in Europe there is valid reason for fear of us being next in line for one of those terrorist attacks.  So, I wanted God to protect us from this scourge.

When I called God on my special 800 exclusive line, a machine answered my call.

"Your call is very important to God, but God is busy right now with other folks who need his help.  All of our angels are also busy but please don't go away.  We are here to help you.  There are 28 callers ahead of you, but please don't hang up.  If this is an emergency cal 911 right away.

I hung up in frustration.  I guess that is why the churches and synagogues are losing members.

Have a good one.

Red Beans and Ricely yours

Effey

Ominous Patterns

I have written a 400 page book: "Shanghai Before and After the Fall-Caught Between Two Chairs".  The book is about my life in the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto in the 1940's.  The book will be published by IUniverse next summer. 

In part this book is an autobiography.  But it is really much, much more.  It is an analysis of the different historical events which brought about World War II and with it various dictatorships.

I have done something which I believe no other author of an autobiography has ever done before.  I have analyzed the patterns which lead potential leaders or revolutionaries to become dictators or totalitarians and how these revolutionaries gained power without any previous political experience.  I have gone even one step further by showing what happens once they are in power and eventually their power is ended by external forces.  

These observations are based on the fact that I have grown up in China because of a ruthless dictator who persecuted my parents and millions of other Jews in Germany, namely Adolf Hitler.  

Then, once World War II ended, another dictator ruled China with an iron fist - Mao Zedong.  

I have also analyzed a number of other dictatorships.

Here, without going into much detail, as I do in the book, is a list of patterns which brings revolutionaries into power.

Frustration by the people with the status quo of their government's rule.

Usually there is high unemployment, as well as high inflation, followed by a breakdown of the prevalent culture.

The revolutionaries implore the people to trust them and their rule.

They claim, without being specific, to know what to do to rescue the country from the abyss.

They promise to abrogate previous agreements and contracts.

The State takes control over the individual's lives and promises jobs to the unemployed.

These dictators engage in major construction projects, largely statutes or monuments to their own glory.

They engage in a big build up of the military and subsequently once built up engage in foreign wars.

They silence or even remove the opposition by force.

They promise a better life to the masses.

They censor the press and largely silence the press.

They make some minority group the scapegoat for the countries' problems.

Once they have identified such a minority they persecute many of its members, imprison or make them disappear altogether and confiscate their wealth and assets to pay for the expenses of the construction and the build up of the military and the cost of the wars they have now engaged in.

In the end, the countries which they rule pay a high price for listening to these knights on a white horse in shining armor.

Look at what happened to the lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao-Zedong, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Juan Peron, Augosto Pinochet, Marshall Tito, Joseph Stalin just to name a few and how their lives ended!

Hitler's Germany got decimated by the Allies and Hitler himself, never willing to listen to his generals as well as the generals being afraid to voice their opinions, at the end committed suicide in a bunker in Northwest Berlin, when Soviet troops entered Berlin!

Benito Mussolini tried to flee to Switzerland when the American troops under General George S. Patton and the British troops under Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery landed in Sicily.  Mussolini was captured by partisans, shot and his corpse was subsequently hung upside down from the roof of a Gas Station.

Mao-Zedong killed thousands of bureaucrats who had worked for the previous Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek, before the fall of China.  While still under communist party rule, millions of Chinese starved but had no choice but to accept their fate until Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992), put down the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and opened China to new far-reaching market-economy reforms.  Mao himself was reviled and fell into disrepute by the party.

Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist but was overthrown by the United States forces when they invaded Iraq in 2003.  He was subsequently captured in December of 2003 and sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of thousands of Iraqis.

I am not claiming that Pinocchio (The Donald) will do all of the things mentioned above, but I do fear that the man is dangerous like hell!!!

Let me tell you what I see in him that might have escaped you.

A large part of our population is frustrated with our government's inability to stop American manufacturers from shipping their jobs overseas where the cost of labor is infinitely cheaper than here at home. 

Do you know how the Donald wants to bring back the jobs?  He wants to lower the minimum wage back to $7.25!!!  You heard right!!!  He wants to bring the minimum wage back to $7.25.  Just think of what it would do to his empire if he got to lower the minimum wage again!

President Obama has brought the number of unemployed down quite substantially from what it was but there are still a large number of people who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits and therefore fall between the cracks.  They are still unemployed and struggling to pay their bills.

Conventional jobs have given way to computers and robots.

But Donald still promises the people that he can fix the system, while he knows absolutely nothing about politics.  He forgets that, if elected to be President, he will still have to deal with Congress and the Senate who is very much opposed to him as they were to President Obama because of the Congress trying to act as if the members of Congress were the Commanders in Chief.  Instead of cooperating with the President, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have done everything they could possibly think of to undermine the President.

Donald talks big, as if he were in the gutter or even the sewer, but when it comes to specifics he doesn't explain how he will accomplish all his goals.  "Just trust" him he says.

He promises to abrogate the Iran Nuclear Deal and Obamacare.  He forgets that it took two years to negotiate the Nuclear Deal and that Iran was more or less in the driver's seat.  America did not give anything to Iran which wasn't theirs to begin with.  The money which Iran got was its own money which was frozen in American Banks!

And Obamacare has helped over 12 million people so far to get health insurance coverage.  Maybe the program needs to be tweaked a little bit, but it should not be torn to shreds.

He wants to build a 10 foot wall on the border of Mexico and the United States and Mexico will pay for it.  Happy Dreaming, Donald!

He wants to rebuild the Military.  It was Congress that refused to pay for a bigger Military.

When Meagan Kelly was scheduled to interview Donald in a Fox Debate he refused to attend, because she "didn't treat him nicely".  What about how he treated her?

She quoted him in his own words in the first debate when he shot back at her.

According to Pinocchio it is the illegal Immigrants from Mexico which are responsible for all of our ills, not Congress!

Gimme a break!

So he will round up 11 million illegal immigrants.  What happens to the Statue of Liberty?  Do we keep its torch burning?

In many ways he reminds me of a snake oil salesman.

But the people who believe in him trust him.  That's what they want to hear.  God help us.

I Worry about Trump

If you have followed me and my blog, you will have noticed that I do not think very highly of Pinocchio.  In fact, I have stated before that he is a Neo Fascist and that he displays all the behaviors normally displayed by future dictators.

Recently Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA has recently said: "Donald Trump's statements on national security have made the United States less safe."

"Trump is a bigger threat to national security than Hillary Clinton", said Hayden in an interview with Glenn Thrush on Politico's  podcast last Friday,  adding that he views Trump's current statements as erratic. "I just don't know what he's going to do."

Hayden said Trump's national security talk "is not so much wrong or overly certain.  It's incoherent and his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. "has made the United States less safe than it has to be."

Hayden said out of the remaining Republican candidates for president, he would trust Ohio Gov. John Kasich the most on national security.

However, in the "narrowly defined national security lane," behind Kasich, Hayden praised Clinton as the "best prepared from day one." Noting she was "a quick study," when he briefed her while she was secretary of state. 

"This is an experienced diplomat, an experienced woman, who seems to have taken these questions seriously," said Hayden.

Other experts agree with Hayden's views on Trump

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that Trump is "completely uneducated about any part of the world" and "when he doesn't know something, he just changes the subject."

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also agreed with Hayden, noting Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are both delivering, "irresponsible and dangerous proposals," according to ABC News

Columnist Eugene Robinson in a Washington Post article said Trump's "ignorance of government policy, foreign and domestic, is breathtaking."

Adding: "I'm appalled at how little he knows — and truly frightened."

So, you see, I was right on target.  Remember I said it first!!