August 25, 2024

I created an essay (a PLEA) for Undecided/Independent friends and family and I want to share it.

PM me if you want it in Word or PDF format (where it retains some of the graphs that are missing here because I'm not cool enough to know how to insert them). PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: This is geared towards friends of mine that just DON'T pay attention, think "both sides are horrible", and are probably middle leaning (even slightly right leaning), so this was written strictly with that in mind. It would have been completely different for a different audience.

I welcome feedback & notes, but if you like this (and think it could work for friends/family of yours), PLEASE feel free to share it far and wide. I need no credit; I just want to help us WIN!!!

PS. If you do use it, you'll want to edit the ending (I provide a link to Arizona's Registration page, so obviously, update accordingly).

Without further ado:



If you know me, I don't normally do this.  Most elections come down to policy ("I think I'll have lower property taxes under this guy"; "I think the other guy will give more funding to Pell grants" ).  The "boring" stuff.

This election LITERALLY boils down to whether we want to continue to live in a democracy or a 1930's Germany style dictatorship.  I know, this sounds dramatic, and I dearly wish I was exaggerating, so I wouldn't come to you without evidence.  The following is my case for why it is incredibly important to vote for Harris/Walz in November.

Trump's Dictatorial Aspirations:

- Trump openly states he will become a dictator on Day One and praises autocrats and brutal dictators as "strong leaders" and "really smart guys", including North Korea's Kim Jung Un, Russia's murderous Vladimir Putin, and Hungary's Orban (while trashing our allies throughout the world as "weak" ).   https://www.politico.com/video/2023/12/18/6-times-trump-praised-authoritarians-and-dictatorships-1173789

- He openly states he will suspend, and even terminate, the Constitution.https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html

- Trump has recently (and increasingly) been saying at rallies that this is the last time his supporters will ever have to vote.  "We'll have it fixed so good that in four years you won't need to vote again."

- Trump-installed Supreme Court members (along with the majority Conservatives) recently ruled that a sitting or former President is immune from criminal prosecution for anything they do in office, effectively making a President a King.https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-due-rule-trumps-immunity-bid-blockbuster-case-2024-07-01/

- He praises rioters at the January 6th Insurrection on the US Capital as "Patriots" and vows to pardon anyone that's been prosecuted due to their role that day.  Please watch this clip to understand the danger and brutality of that day where a mob attempted to overthrow the US Government because they didn't like the outcome of an election: 

- Since before his election in 2016, he never committed to respecting the results of the election (saying that he'd only accept them "IF I win" ).  He never accepted the results of the 2020 election, despite his own Republican Cyber Security Chief calling the 2020 election "the most secure in American history" and despite losing over 60 court cases claiming fraud with no evidence to support it.https://apnews.com/article/top-officials-elections-most-secure-66f9361084ccbc461e3bbf42861057a5

- He uses dehumanizing language to speak about immigrants ("animals", "vermin", "poisoning the blood of America"... the exact same language used by Hitler to describe Jews and others he considered "less-than" in his rise to power).  He also promises a "bloodbath" if he loses this election.https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-migrants-not-people-animals-1234989117/

Project 2025: 

The conservative Heritage Foundation created a playbook for a 2nd Trump term called Project 2025. The goal is to make it so that Trump can hit the ground running on Day One, and clear out any opposition to him and his extremist agenda in brutal and precise detail.   (Although Trump recently has tried to back away from this, claiming he has "no idea who these people are" once this playbook became public and has become increasingly unpopular, he's very close with the Heritage Foundation President, 41 of the contributors were from Trump's Administration, and his own Vice President Candidate J.D. Vance literally wrote the forward to the associated book, so don't fall for that.)  

It's an 887 page plan. Here are just some of the "highlights": 

Pg 78-79: Purge civil servants (some 50,000 Federal Employees) that are not MAGA/Trump loyalists and replace them with only those loyal to Trump (eliminating any opposition to some of his more extremist ideas, dishonestly represented as "breaking impenetrable bureaucracy" )

Pg 319: Eliminates the Department of Education (destroying public schooling)

Pg 458-459: Resurrection of the Comstock Act of 1873 which would nationally ban contraceptives, ban abortion nationwide even in cases involving child rape, incest, and the life of the mother, while jailing providers (this also would limit or eliminate birth control and even pornography)

Pg 465: Eliminates lower price prescriptions (like the $35 a month cap on insulin for seniors that the Biden/Harris Administration just negotiated; this is disguised in this document as "Legacy Medicare Reform" )

Pg 584: Eliminates gay marriage protections
Over various pages:  Eliminates or severely limits overtime pay https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-cut-access-to-overtime-pay/


Economy/Inflation/Working Class:

It's a common misconception that Republicans are better for the economy than Democrats.  Consider the following:

- Measuring job growth just from 1989, there have been a net total of 51 million new jobs created.  There have been 6 Presidents since then (3 Democrats, 3 Republicans).  The score is 50 million new jobs created by Democrats to 1 million created by Republicans.

- Although the Biden/Harris Administration inherited an unemployment rate approaching 15% (in large part due to the pandemic), it is currently at the lowest rate in over 20 years (4.3%).

- Inflation was an issue for a while coming out of the pandemic (worldwide, not just here).  The Republicans claim that this is at the feet of the Biden/Harris Administration, but offer no credit now that inflation is back to pre-pandemic levels.

- The stock market hit a record high 40,000 this year and is still strong (check your 401K!).

- The Biden/Harris Administration not only created 15.7 million jobs (in just 3.5 years), but over 800,000 of those are manufacturing jobs, revitalizing the industry.

- Trump's only major legislative accomplishment in his one term was a massive tax cut that overwhelmingly favored the very wealthy. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver

Border Security:

Democrats and Republicans teamed up (a rarity these days) in the Senate this year and wrote a strong, wide ranging border/immigration bill (expanding funding and authority for the Border Patrol, increasing the number of agents, raising the bar for granting asylum, and reducing border crossings in general). It was endorsed by the Border Patrol and enjoyed strong bipartisan support.

It was written by one of the most conservative Republican members of the Senate and negotiated by a team of Republicans and Democrats.  Trump ordered them to kill the bill; he didn't want any improvement to the border prior to the election because it would hurt his chances; better protection for the country be damned.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-block-border-security-bill-campaign-border-chaos-rcna153607

The Biden/Harris Administration has since done what it can through Executive Orders which have slowed border encounters and crossings, but little can be done by Order without Congressional approval.

Law & Order:

Again, Trump claims to be the "Law and Order" Presidential choice, but the facts fail him here as well.

- The actual trend for violent crime in the US, despite what the local news may lead you to believe with its choice of stories to run, is dramatically DOWN from 1993 to 2022. This trend is unchanged under the Biden/Harris Administration.  With that in mind, violent crime is down (not up) under the Biden/Harris Administration, while Trump still insists that our largest cities are "hellholes", "going straight to hell", and "more dangerous than war zones" under Biden.

- Trump has been found guilty by a jury of his peers in NYC on 34 felony counts of fraud for improper use of campaign funds to pay off a porn-star for an affair he had while his current wife was pregnant (done so to help his chances in the 2016 election, which is an illegal campaign contribution).

- Trump has been indicted in GA for election interference for calling the Republican Secretary of State in GA and asking him to "find" him 11,780 votes (the exact number by which he lost to Biden in 2020), along with 18 co-conspirators. He was trying to illegally overturn the election results in GA.

- Trump has been indicted in FL for illegally retaining more than 300 Classified (some labelled "Top Secret", the highest classification allowed, usually reserved for national nuclear secrets) at his home in Mar-A-Lago after he was no longer President.  Most were found in unlocked and unsecured areas.  The FBI only raided the residence after 16 months of asking for him to return them voluntarily.

- To contrast, Kamala Harris started her career in California as a prosecutor, became the elected District Attorney of San Francisco for 11 years, and then was elected as the Attorney General of California.  She oversaw the successful prosecution of mortgage fraud perpetrated by big banks, winning over $20 billion for homeowners that were defrauded.  She also targeted and took down several large transnational gangs, drug and human trafficking operations, and cartel members.https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-announces-arrests-and-seizure-meth-valued-2
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-announces-arrests-and-indictments-california

Biden/Harris Accomplishments:

- Guided us out of the pandemic by funding and running highly efficient vaccine sites throughout the country and providing economic relief to those out of work due to the pandemic.

- Negotiated the return of Americans wrongly held in Russia (VP Harris, now the Democratic Nominee for President, was heavily involved in the sensitive negotiations and critical to their success).https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-russia-prisoner-swap-biden-harris-welcome-paul-whelan-evan-gershkovich/

- CHIPS Act: A law that created over 115,000 good-paying manufacturing and construction jobs here in America.  There's even a giant microchip factory being built in Tempe, AZ!  This not only creates more jobs here, but makes us less dependent on foreign chips from China (which raises the prices on many things here, but especially vehicles).

- Infrastructure Bill: Over 57,000 projects have been funded across all 50 states to update crumbling infrastructure (something many Presidents have promised and never delivered until now).

- Finally passed a bill (many Presidents have tried this as well) to let Medicare negotiate lower prescription drugs costs (capping insulin prices at $35 a month for seniors and capping prescriptions costs in total to $2,000 per year; this has already saved my mom HUNDREDS of dollars as a diabetic; Trump promises to STRIP THAT AWAY if reelected).  This saves those that need the prescriptions AND the US taxpayer.

A Harris/Walz Administration will build on these successes and keep moving us forward on the economy, immigration, and personal freedoms, rather than driving us backwards.  I'd love to provide more detail on that if you wish (just ask me; I didn't want to bog you down in details with this essay).

Call To Action:

This election is going to be super close.  It will come down to a handful of votes per precinct in Arizona (just like the last couple of elections).  Please, if you care about the direction of your country, register to vote and vote for Harris/Walz this election.  It's SUPER easy.  

A. You click here and enter some information.  
B. Register as an "Independent" so that you won't be on any Republican or Democratic lists, so no one will come knocking on your door or asking for contributions.
C. Request to get on the Early Voter list so that they MAIL you your ballot early, you fill it out, and drop it into the self-address pre-stamped envelope way before election day.  

The entire process will take less time than it took to read this!  Please reach out to me if you have any questions, want any clarification, or just want more information.  I'm passionate about this and I'm here to help! 

November 16, 2012

President Obama (on the stump). President Obama's team on the ground. We seriously need the

Obama Machine in full swing for 2014. His motivation will be that this will end up being his LAST CHANCE to REALLY push an agenda in his final 2 years in office (assuming that he won't get TOO much done between now and 2014 due to Republican obstructionism, although I'm hopeful).

A quick glance tells me that the following races are EXTRAORDINARILY winnable (no Republican won their district by more than 4 points, some by LESS than 1 point):

Colorado 06
Florida 10
Illinois 13
Kentucky 06
Michigan 01
Minnesota 06
New York 27
Ohio 16
Pennsylvania 12

That's nine. We need to flip at least 7 more for the majority (assuming that we win the 5 outstanding House seats, and I think we lead in each).

So... President Obama + his INCREDIBLE Ground Machine + US (working our asses off) = a Democratic House in 2014. It's doable, and would be MORE than worth it. I'd love to do my part to make President Obama's last two years REEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAALLY count.