My Independent Voice

So after really trying to figure out how a collaboration party would work, I keep coming back to the notion that the party will never dictate how I (or probably many) Americans will vote. They are full of ideals and strategies to help drive the country in their respective directions. Even a collaboration party would be similar in nature.

My true learnings through this thought process has been to discover that there are really only two distinct “parties” that are currently driving the American electorate, and we are not even aware of it in most cases. The two parties are simply the party of doing the proper thing for the american people or doing the improper thing for them. Let me try and simplify.

Currently, there are multiple people on the list of indicted members of the current president’s administration. This is in stark contrast to the number of indicted members of the previous president’s administration. Now, that is not to say there was no wrongdoing or issues with the past administration, only to say that the difference is, one is doing the right things for the American people based on the guidelines of our constitution and democracy, while the other is all about lining their own pockets with the taxpayers and foreign money.

There are so many examples of the wrong doing that I am not even going to try and list them, I would rather have you look-up the indictments in the current administration and why they came about. PolitiFact has a good writeup on the current and past indictments.

Where this ultimately gets me is we have politicians that constantly are hypocritical in their stance on everything from reproductive rights to gun reform to whether or not a SCOTUS justice position should be filled some period of time prior to an election.

In the end we need to have laws that remove, if at all possible, the hypocritical opportunities from the decision process. We have a SCOTUS that is a good stop gap, but it needs to be built using consistent methods, not methods changed by those who wish to exert power. That is an example of not doing the proper thing for the American people.

In the end here is where I net out. We have two parties. The “Criminal party” lead by the current administration and we have the “Principled” party. To be clear it is not as easy as drawing down current party lines, rather there are elements of both in each party. This is why I will stay independent. However, the current “Criminal” party is effectively the Republican party at this point. Some members are resisting the criminality and this is to be applauded, however, the majority of Republican representatives in Congress are deeply embedded in this culture. The impeachment vote alone shows the depth to which Republican senators are embedded.

All of this said I will continue to look at each representative, regardless of party with the lens of hypocrisy, including the current presidential race. While I know this can be dependent on the issue, the character of individuals becomes apparent once you start to see the pattern of voting and rhetoric the individuals engage in. My hope is the rest of our country will start to engage in our future in this way and do what we need to do to restore America’s reputation in the world.

Here we go. So I am tired. I’m tired of fighting when all that does is cause strife and struggle. Winning a fight is a different example than that of delivering a product, service or solution. Remember that first term paper you completed and the accomplishment you had. THAT is why we need to switch things up, to change things in a positive way.

What I am switching to is change. Change needs to happen, change needs to happen to make us better, change is what our children need and change is the thing that will get us back to the right way of life. This isn’t a small change, although it starts that way. This change is to get our democracy, our national, state and local governments working effectively again.

So here’s what I envision. We need to have change happen similar to that of what many of the democrats want, large structural change, but done in a way that isn’t wholesale change. Nobody in this country does well with that. We’ve seen the pendulum swing over the last 30 years and it has had chilling effects. Our current administration is the result of of both underhanded election rigging, as well as years of progressively changing dynamics within our country.

Where we were once very collaborative in government and heck even in neighborhoods, we see more and more suspicion, concern and fear than ever before. We also have become numb to much of the negative change that has taken place over time. We have apathy when it comes to tasks that can be seen as mundane (for some, voting) even if those tasks come with a duty or responsibility as citizens of this nation.

So what I am proposing is that we take the next steps and do things in a small way to begin with and then build to the right level of change in every aspect of our government to improve it in the same ways we do other improvement s to organizations or products. Now I know some of you are thinking this is just some, “make government run more like a business” scheme. It is NOT that. Governments are NOT businesses and anyone that thinks they are should run for the board of a company. They just don’t work the same.

What is common to business and government is when you have groups of people that may not share the same exact values, perspectives or ideas, but they come together and work towards a solution to a problem. Now I’m not saying there isn’t fighting in some of those situations, but where that fighting occurs it many times is when perspectives are not understood or competing priorities come into play. This is why it is important to keep in mind that collaboration breeds compromise.

In the right context, compromise is not a bad thing. When we stop to look, listen and learn what someone from a different point of view is expressing, we can begin to find ways to compromise effectively. Without understanding all of the potential views on something it is impossible to accurately represent or build robust solutions.

Now getting something like this off the ground where we can collaborate at the highest level of government seems like a daunting task to most. Where the change we need comes from is in this collaboration and how we execute it. By starting in local and state governments first, we can begin to fix problems we see by identifying something we are passionate about in a state or local government and be open to look at it and really understand what is going on. It doesn’t have to be a huge project, it could be something as simple as wanting to understand what it would take to start a reading group or sports offering for kids in an afterschool program. It could be an issue you see every day in a public location (park, street, neighborhood) that needs some attention. And it doesn’t have to be a governmental issue. If you see a neighborhood association or non-profit that has a form of governance or volunteerism, get involved there.

Collaborating begins at the root of all that we do. It happens all around us and we need to take it, understand it, make it work for ALL of us to make our country fulfill the greatness we know is there for ALL.

There’s more coming on this, but I need to sleep…

The movie, “On the Basis of Sex…” illuminated a very important part of our system of government. While watching the movie, Professor Freund, in a lesson to Harvard law students states, “A court ought not be affected by the weather of the day, but will be by the climate of the era.” This struck me in how true it is and how we should apply this to all of the mechanisms of measuring our political and social norms.

Not only are our laws in need of this continual review, but we need to be mindful in all aspects of government and politics of the ever changing social and technological climate we have.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (AOC)

When new members of Congress are elected, it is not because they posses some magic the other candidate didn’t have. It is because they were out-hustled, outworked or outsmarted with regards to what the constituency wants in that era. When I read stories where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex (AOC) is being told to get in line and pipe down with her ideas, due to the jealousy of Washington insiders, I realize this is the ultimate culmination of someone that not only out-hustled, outworked and outsmarted her opponent, she presents real challenges for even her own party, because she IS so in tune with her constituency, but she is so, due to her knowledge and leverage of mechanisms they are comfortable communicating and holding each other accountable in this ERA.

Google Hearings

Nowhere was the lack of knowledge on display more than in the Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. The lack of understanding about what the internet is and what the basics of something like Google search do was apparent, as was the lack of understanding of brands and how mobile phones actually work with location services. When Senators or Representatives have difficulty grasping the ERA we are in they are doomed to hold themselves and more importantly their constituency back. When their constituency realizes this, they will in some cases start to use the very technology which bears a lack of understanding by their representative to start the change in leadership, or more likely a challenger that DOES understand the ERA they are living in will come in to fill that void.

The Obama Campaign in the ERA of ecommerce

A good example of where an ERA was leveraged and utilized well is the 2008 presidential campaign, specifically the campaigns ability to generate so much fundraising from small amount donors. With embracing the new ERA of ecommerce, the Obama campaign was able to capitalize on the breadth of the Dmeocratic party and ask for such small amounts, even those making minimum wage felt like they could contribvute and have their voice heard. This was the Obamas capitalizing on the knowledge of the constituency within the ERA.

Trump Campaign in the ERA of Twitter and television news.

Another example of taking advantage (without any help from the Russians) was the ability to the Trump campaign to leverage every possible news outlet, including the most liberal, and getting loads of airtime (not ads, but stories) over the air and cable news networks. With a simple tweet (usually something provocative), Trump could incite hours of analysis on every network and even reach far left leaning liberals because of the knee-jerk reaction all of the networks had to his sometimes outrageous ideas or thoughts. When you see hours of Trump on MSNBC rather than Bernie or Hillary, and you see the same on FOX News, there is a campaign that new the ERA and whether right or not, leveraged that knowledge in both the Republican primaries and the presidential election. Even though I believe he was helped on the social media front, we have the sensationalist mongering media to thank for all of the promotion of the Trump campaign. The tradition or hard media outlets in some cases took on stories that were sensationalist in nature to just stay afloat in the news cycle.

Today

We have learned much from this latest ERA. We have learned that facts matter, words matter and telling the truth matters. I believe this is an ERA where having a grasp on how to connect with your constituency is important. Being up to date on technology and social media is important. Being in touch with businesses in your district matters. What we are up against now, and I believe the current presidency has ushered in, is an older ERA of intolerance. Gender, racial, global, federal law enforcement, and religious intolerance. We now need to figure out as a country where we land on these areas. What ERA do we WANT for these pillars of society?

We fell back in time to the 50s as far as I can tell and while some felt that was a good time, I much preferred the tolerance and civility of the 2000s.

It was reported way back that Michael Cohen would be the Finance Chairman of the RNC. This little fact should have been a clue as to why the Republicans in Congress are so unwilling to do anything with regards to Individual-1.
If Michael Cohen were doing things for the RNC like he was doing for Individual-1, there may have been other cover-ups for other candidates that required hush money, or if there were other deals that would clearly violate campaign finance rules.

The extreme thoughts, which may be clearly obvious as the Butina case becomes clear, is that in  some way the RNC (NRA, or other organizations associated to the RNC) laundered money for Russians, in a completely unknown way at first, but then as Individual-1 started to realize he had leverage over the entire party, he started to strong arm all of them. While this seems very House of Cards, it seems to be a very likely conclusion based on all of the dots that are out there. I hope the press can substantiate this as it really does seem like a no-brainer in the grand scheme of things.

I will admit, it sounds very conspiracy theory, but nothing in this world of Individual-1 surprises me anymore!

It is time. Time to start the plan to completely obliterate the Donald Trump (DT) campaign and be able to nail him on all of his lies and be able to catch him in a live debate, telling lies or flip-flopping real-time.

Strategy 1 – Fluster the Donald (aka fluster the duck)

It is pretty easy to see (without a ton of effort) DT getting flustered when pressed while he is telling lies. If you continue to pound the Russia investigation or tax returns he gets frustrated.  Calling him a white nationalist, or calling him on his fake numbers with regards to his approval ratings with different classes of people. The best way to frustrate him is to pound him on HIS fake news. He continually runs these numbers out like they are the gospel truth (“As if he knew what the gospels were!”, evangelicals that back him!) Repeatedly call on him to source his numbers… they are like his tax returns, he will never have an answer, but he knows he is lying.

Strategy 2 – Quote him and then fact check exactly what he said and call out exactly what you are doing and your data sources.

DT is a narcissist so to really get at him you need to play his game against him. He loves TV ratings… so using Ratings of any type and having them backed up will be a huge impact on him. First off, call out his network (Fox) as his Only source (it is) and call out the rest of the world’s perception of him as well as our own as unbiased polling and ratings as we can. Show that for every bit of his complaining about former presidents, they did it better. Golf matches, budget deficit, Number of times a US president has not attended a ceremony due to Rain, etc. He’s a complete slave to his own ratings so pummel him with the data of how horrible he really is and how he is a lying, cheating, son of a lying cheating prick. Oh, and don’t forget to call out how many people in his administration have actually been indicted or pleaded guilty to criminal action, especially the ones involving campaign meddling.

Strategy 3 – Call out the unsecured phone, and pranks, etc. that he is involved in, unlike any other US president in modern history.

DT is a complete moron and won’t change for anything because he is the big baby in charge and doesn’t want to do what he doesn’t want to do. Veterans day and he can’t be bothered to be out in the rain, so he bails on the entire ceremony. Big BABY!
His iPhone, unsecured, is still being used because he won’t have the same contacts on his secured iPhone. (My guess is he has pictures instead of words and some of them are not for anyone else’s consumption, including his wife.) So no other modern president in history has allowed a foreign country the ability to access unsecured communication channels until THIS one. Hammer him on communication like he did Hillary and do some digging to find out HE has an email server or account that he uses for his not-so-discreet communication.

Strategy 4 – Tax returns

Expose them. Get even a years worth out to the public. An audit is NO reason to not have them in the public eye. He is a horrible human being, and the NY Times article nails it! Again, every modern US president has done this. He’s just hiding criminality, we need to see it.

This is just a few. I will continue to update strategies and add the data to back up these items as well.

I have just watched a number of videos that are recordings of the first responders from 9/11 activities including the radio and phone recordings and the scenes of the outcomes from the attacks on this country at that time.

We came together as a country to do our best to secure our borders against violent attacks like these, but we also did our best to maintain as much of a normalcy as we could so we did not have our liberties and freedoms interfered with. There was compromise, but there were also some extremes hit with regards to measures taken for safeties sake.

Many of the most extreme precautions were rolled back to more measured lengths, but we were all changed. We were more aware of what was going on around us, but many of us also took that to extremes. We spat on norms of decency that had existed days weeks and years earlier, we suspected those that didn’t look like us to be extremists. What we failed to realize is that it made US extremists!

I am and always have been taught to be aware of your surroundings at all times. It has served me well throughout my life. I do however know that that doesn’t mean everyone that may NOT look like you or behave like you is evil. People are different in this country and that is what makes it “the great American melting pot”. I’ll be honest I was a lot more suspicious of people after the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building than I was of anyone of color after 9/11. Those extreme “white guys” took down a federal building with a bunch of fertilizer in a vehicle. We need to not be so knee-jerk reactionary when things like this take place, rather we need to be more accurately aware of our surroundings and the information that is passed on to us about the act.

That said, the above ties into my biggest concern of the current attack taking place on our democracy right now. We have a long time adversary, lead by a person that in a criminal manner took over the sovereignty of a whole nation, using his reach to impact our US elections, again. The signs are ALL around and they are in plain sight both in the things Mr. Trump tweets and in the actual discovery, prosecution and indictments against know Russian actors. We ALL need to be more aware of the “white guys” taking down a federal government with digital fertilizer from digital vehicles. They are doing it every day.

We cannot just allow our Federal buildings in the form of the federal government to be blown up by these foreign adversaries. Be more critical of what you read about OUR government doing bad things and think very long and hard about believing a person that lives in the white house not named Melania. His track record PUBLICALLY is abysmal!

So, on this of all days, please take the time to be aware of your surroundings in a responsible sort of way and make sure there are no “white guys” trying to take you out with their shit, digitally or otherwise!

So a few things to get out of my head… first…

About Colin Kaepernick’s protesting… Please just think… PLEASE just THINK about what I am about to say.

If there were nothing to his protest, say, he was protesting the color purple, there would be no need for outrage, no need for anger towards him because nobody would give him the time of day for protesting a color. They would look at him like a complete moron and there would be no news story other than he’s a loon.

So here’s the twist… regardless of what he is protesting, he is doing so to provoke a reaction from you to better understand WHY he is KNEELING. So STOP thinking you know why because the NEWS told you and DO SOME RESEARCH on your own. STOP being the TABLOID TAUGHT minions you have become. The grocery store checkout line is NOT where you do research, neither is FOX NEWS or MSNBC!

The thing I WILL tell you is that there IS something to what he is protesting because the topic of Colin Kaepernick protesting is still around for MULTIPLE reasons, one of which may just be Police brutality towards young African American men! Do some fricking research and maybe ask Colin directly!

 

Now as for the person currently residing in the Whitehouse not named Melania… Donald Trump is absolutely acting like he is colluding even NOW with Russians. His latest attack is on previous and current members of the US government that have details on the Russian Government and the Russian MOB (if you believe they are not one in the same) which CLEARLY shows he is taking cues from Putin or other Russian interests that want to remove US resources that may continue to find and defend the US against Russian infiltration. This is NOT tough to figure out if you just pay attention to what is going on in Washington DC and on Twitter.

As for the Russian.. er um I mean the Republican Party that refuses to look at the facts of what their party head (at least the one in this country) is doing, they are basically complicit with becoming the Russian Party. I have no idea why they are still sitting on their hands with regards to doing anything to put the President in check other than the very real possibility that their party has been used (like the NRA) to launder Russian money.  (See previous Finance chairs of the party… Do the names Elliott Broidy or Michael Cohen ring a bell? )

So Republicans, if I can figure this out and it DOESN’T sound like a conspiracy theory (when you look at the public record your illustrious leader is spewing on twitter), then you all need to know this. Your base constituents… do NOT like to be called Communists. Nazi’s maybe… but NOT communists.

• Private owner and Gun show sales must go through same licensing as Retail/Public, if not the gun is forfeited.
  • Show required to deliver proof and auditable security record of all sales.
• Mandatory 14 day waiting periods which allows for completion of the following
  Federal requirements:
  • Firearms License – Required for all firearms (Similar to Driver’s License, and must have same vision check with retinal scan)
  • Minimum age of license/purchase is 21
  • Assault rifles heavily licensed with the following requirements
    • Certification required
    • Mandatory high-risk liability insurance
    • All owners listed on electronic registry available to law enforcement and other groups that would benefit from this (TBD)
  • Background checks
    • Similar to anyone that volunteers at a school
    • If a mental stability note found, not able to pass until psychologist signs off.
    • Should be electronic look-up
  • Domestic violence ban  – Similar to Drunk Drivers, but this is a 1 strike law

Gun Limitations:

• Gun lock requirements – Every gun must have an individual gun lock, biometric if possible
• 10 rounds magazine limit
  • Free recycle program for larger magazines
  • Larger magazines require high-risk liability insurance
• No bump stocks
• No cranks

 

#GunReformNow

If we pit the Insurance Lobby against the NRA, we could have cost prohibitive insurance as mandatory for anyone possessing a gun and we could legislate it just like we do auto insurance.

You should have to carry a minimum amount depending on the type of guns you own. If it can do more damage or shoot at a faster rate or can be “driven” by a less responsible person that rates could go WAY up like they do when you have more cars or more careless drivers!

There HAS to be a way to take care of this in a similar manner to DUI drivers and automobiles! We NEED STRICT CONSEQUENCES for OWNING AND DISTRIBUTING GUNS. JUST LIKE WE DO FOR VEHICLES!

I don’t get to just go out and drive a SEMI TRUCK!

Sheesh… this is NOT THAT HARD LAWMAKERS!