Trump must pledge he won't be like Adolf Hitler

"Just like that, I'm fifty percent less Hitlerish," reported by Andy Borowitz.

My message to House Speaker Paul Ryan. When asked to endorse Donald Trump, be careful....verrrrrryyyycareful.  

As Speaker Ryan knows, his political decisions today are putting a young political reputation at risk.

So, let's get serious. In other words, pay attention to the satire writer Andy Borowitz! 

Donald Trump promises to sound less "Hitler like", wrote Andy Borowitz, for The New Yorker

Trump Promises Paul Ryan That He’ll Sound Slightly Less Like Hitler

In what is being hailed as a productive closed-door meeting between two leaders of the Republican Party,  Donald J. Trump promised House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday that he would try to sound slightly less like the former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. (This isn't very reassuring.)

Speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol after the meeting, the presumptive G.O.P. nominee said that Ryan had expressed concern that so many of the billionaire’s public utterances were reminiscent of the Third Reich.

“Paul basically said, ‘Can you help me out here? Can you not sound like Hitler all the time?’” Trump said. “And I was like, ‘Paul, I can absolutely do that for you.’”

As an example, Trump said, “Instead of saying I am going to round up people based on their religion, I’ll say that’s just a suggestion. Just like that, I’m fifty per cent less Hitlerish.”

Trump acknowledged that the challenge for him will be to sound somewhat less like Hitler to please congressional Republicans while still sounding enough like Hitler to avoid alienating his key constituencies of Nazis and white supremacists.

“Figuring out just how much like Hitler I’m going to be at any given time is the kind of thing I’ve always been fantastic at,” he said.

Okay, @RealDonald Trump, study this:

"In the first months of Hitler's chancellorship, the Nazis instituted a policy of "coordination"—the alignment of individuals and institutions with Nazi goals. Culture, the economy, education, and law all came under Nazi control. The Nazi regime also attempted to "coordinate" the German churches and, although not entirely successful, won support from a majority of Catholic and Protestant clergymen."

Of course, Borowitz notwithstanding, the brutal reality is that Adolf Hitler never delivered anything except social excrement. 

Donald Trump appears to have a gastrointestinal tract intent on delivering the same physiological outcome.

Republicans stand behind untethered 2nd amendment but childrens lives don't matter

Speaking as a Roman Catholic woman, I'm calling out House Speaker Paul Ryan. Shame! Childrens' lives matter!

Reports, post the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut, described the dead children killed by a gun carrying killer, as being stacked like cord wood. They were among the 28 people who were the victims of the deranged school shooter, a misfit named Adam Lanza. He was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and lived with his mother, said a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation.

Following the deadly and preventable killings, the US Congress became paralyzed about enforcing common sense gun regulations to help prevent future mass killings. Nothing worked because Republicans in Congress prefer to save 2nd amendment rights rather than protect people from being the victims of gun violence.

Finally, President Obama took executive action to strengthen gun purchase laws. He intends to create barriers for convicted criminals and terrorists, to help prevent them from using loopholes, whereby they can buy guns without background checks. Believe it or not, Republicans are screeching like wounded hyenas about this common sense executive action.

Hyenas screech when empowered to feast on their prey

Obviously, the Republicans who screech the loudest about common sense gun regulations, like "Trump the Chump", "Cruz to loose" (aka "Senator Cruz"), and now add Speaker Paul Ryan to the triad, don't have any children among those whose bodies were stacked like cord wood, after the tragic Sandy Hook slaughter.

I'm especially disturbed by the negative response to the President's protective executive actions by politically blinded right wing politicians, like Congressman Paul Ryan. These wrong minded politicians and their zealous followers are obsessed by second amendment rights and blinded by guns while they need to protect human life. 

Indeed, the second amendment right wing zealots who lack compassion for victims of gun violence are a national embarrassment!

Americans must support President Obama's executive actions to help protect public safety during a growing gun violence epidemic. At the same time, American voters must reject all Republicans who are supporting 2nd amendment rights to own weapons, rather than protecting human beings from gun-violence. 

Childrens' lives matter!  (Rep. Paul Ryan alert!)

Visual bookends- Congressmen Ryan and Cantor: Handsome ebay Facsimile Authentic Reproduction Bookends

Just in case anyone needs a visual definition of what stuffed white shirt bookeneds look like, below is the retail image with Ryan and Cantor.  Okay, maybe you'd rather pass, but just in case....what would these stuffed white shirt bookends sell for on ebay?

Key Republicans signal willingness to back down on effort to defund health-care law.

A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that only 28 percent of Americans view the Republican Party favorably — down 10 percentage points since September

By Karen Tumulty and Tom Hamburger, Published: October 9 

WP: Key GOP figures on Wednesday sent their clearest signals that they are abandoning their bid to immediately stop the federal health-care law — the issue that forced the government to shut down — and are scrambling for a fallback strategy.

Republican Party leaders, activists and donors now widely acknowledge that the effort to kill President Obama’s signature initiative by hitting the brakes on the government has been a failure. The law has largely disappeared from their calculus as they look for a way out of the impasse over the shutdown and for a way to avoid a possible default on U.S. debt.

Instead, they are regrouping for a longer battle over the health-care law. They also are trying to refocus the upcoming debt-ceiling showdown on fiscal issues, including entitlements and tax reform.

The strategy to defund the Affordable Care Act “needed a Plan B, and its authors, if they had one, didn’t share what it was,” said Heather R. Higgins, head of the Independent Women’s Forum and founder of a coalition of conservative groups seeking repeal of the health-care law.

The push to defund the legislation has cost Republicans politically. A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that only 28 percent of Americans view the Republican Party favorably — down 10 percentage points since September, and the lowest number for either party since Gallup began asking the question in 1992.

Democrats took a smaller hit in the survey, with 43 percent of respondents viewing Obama’s party favorably, down four percentage points from last month.

Some Republicans are aiming harsh recriminations toward those who had vigorously advocated linking the funding needed to keep the government operating to the drive to stop the health-care law. Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), who has become the face of that strategy, is the chief target of such criticism from within GOP ranks.

“I think it was very possible for us to delay the implementation of Obamacare for a year until Cruz came along and crashed and burned,” anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said.

But Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said: “The American people remain behind the defund effort. Americans deserve negotiations. They don’t want Obamacare. Public opinion is behind this, and that should be enough for Democrats to come to the table and provide relief for all Americans.”

House Republican leaders — who had been backed into the shutdown strategy by demands from Cruz and tea party forces — have been trying to recalibrate since the shutdown began Oct. 1.

The latest signs of the shift came in editorial columns Wednesday by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in The Washington Post and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in the Wall Street Journal.

Both implored Obama to negotiate the debt ceiling — but, tellingly, neither mentioned the health-care law as an item to be discussed. Instead, they focused on entitlements, and Ryan wrote that there are many potential areas of agreement between Obama and the Republicans.

The president has expressed a willingness to negotiate on long-term fiscal problems, but only if Republicans first vote to reopen the government and remove the threat of a federal default.

Congressmen Ryan and Cantor are stuffed shirts. The only  issue these two bookends can negotiate is how to prepare for their next pret a porter fashion shoot.  

Kudos and Blessings to Sister Simone Campbell - Nuns on the Bus: Commentary from National Catholic Reporter

March 25, 2103


Sister Simone Campbell (Nuns on the Bus) gives a lesson in compassion to Congressman Paul Ryan.  She deserves a private Papal audience, along with church support.  I would like to see Congressman Paul Ryan, who is a Roman Catholic, respond to this commentary by withdrawing the austerity budget he submitted to the US Congress.  Although Congressman Ryan creates a myth about our government somehow being unable to afford to pay people earned benefits like Social Security, Medicare and Veterans benefits, the fact is, middle class Americans can't afford to pay Congressman Paul Ryan.  He must be replaced.  Following is National Catholic Reporter Commentary from Sister Simone from the March 25, 2013 National Catholic Reporter:

http://ncronline.org/node/48416

"Last year, some of my sisters and I became known as the Nuns on the Bus. Together, we journeyed through many parts of America to raise awareness of the plight of working poor families and the threat Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's budget posed to them and to our country as a whole. Last week, Rep. Ryan unveiled his new Republican budget. It is a budget that rewards wealth instead of work; one that reflects the worst of Ayn Rand as it undermines the best of America. It will take from working poor families to spend more on the wealthy, and it won't even reduce the national debt.

Paul Ryan hasn't called me recently for advice on his budget, but the one piece of advice I wish he would take would be to remember that his budget is not about numbers; it is about people. It is not about charts but about God's children.

I wish he could have been with us on our bus journey when we met Billy and his wife in Milwaukee. They are two of the more than 20 million working Americans who earn so little that they still live in poverty. Both Billy and his wife work, but they make so little that they qualify for and use food stamps to help put meals on the table for themselves and their children.

Reading about Billy isn't the same as meeting him. He's not a name, not a number -- he is a young man working his hardest to support his family. But Paul Ryan has said Billy and his family shouldn't get food stamps because Billy is working.

Think about that for a second. Because he works, we should deny Billy's children a decent meal at the end of the day? Paul Ryan and others will say we can't afford these "handouts" to people like Billy. But when we invest in food stamps to make sure Billy and his family don't go hungry, we aren't just investing in Billy's family. We're investing in Billy's employer by ensuring it has a productive employee. We're investing in future employers by ensuring Billy's children have enough to eat, knowing the significant correlation between childhood hunger and poor performance at school and work later in life. We're investing in consumers because better work leads to lower prices.

In short, when we invest in workers like Billy, we not only invest in one of God's children but also in America. That concept of the common good is central to Catholic social teaching and is something Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan have never seemed to understand.

Paul Ryan sees government programs as evil. I see children sleeping in cars, pregnant women without health care, and the elderly unable to pay for their medication as the real evils. Yet that is the reality for far too many Americans, and Paul Ryan's budget would make it so for even more.

Paul Ryan and many Republican colleagues argue that we should cut government programs because churches should provide these services, an argument not based in reality. The need is simply too great. Bread for the World released a study last year showing that every house of worship in this country would have to raise an additional $50,000 in revenue each year just to be able to fill the void the Ryan budget would create -- $50,000 from each church, synagogue and mosque in America. That's a huge new tax Paul Ryan would place on all our churches, a burden many could not afford.

Ryan also completely ignores the fact that churches and faith groups like Catholic Charities depend heavily on government programs like food stamps to support their work and provide the services that help so many of America's struggling families. There is a powerful public-private partnership between our churches and government that fuels America's safety net. Without government, that safety net will fail and more children will go hungry in this wealthy nation. That is immoral.

As a nation, we must address both the suffering and its causes. Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, said we must work toward a society where each worker can earn enough to support his or her family. If we raised workers' wages instead of CEO bonuses, there wouldn't be as many working parents in need of food stamps. But Paul Ryan and his congressional allies are also fighting to prevent the minimum wage from being tied to the cost of living. Meanwhile, they champion more tax cuts on the bonuses CEOs get when the workers who create their wealth are laid off.

So I wish Paul Ryan would take my advice and think of families like Billy's who would be devastated by his budget. But perhaps if he won't listen to me, he will listen to the prophet Isaiah, whose words to his government leaders thousands of years ago feel especially apt for our Congress today: 'If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday'."

[Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, since 2004, is a religious leader, attorney and poet with extensive experience in public policy and advocacy for systemic change. She is also a leader of the Nuns on the Bus campaign.]

Sister Simone: Paul Ryan's budget undermines the best of America

Sister Simone Campbell (Nuns on the Bus) gives a lesson in compassion to Congressman Paul Ryan.  She deserves a private Papal audience, along with church support.  I would like to see Congressman Paul Ryan, who is a Roman Catholic, respond to this commentary by withdrawing the austerity budget he submitted to the US Congress.  Although Congressman Ryan creates a myth about our government somehow being unable to afford to pay people earned benefits like Social Security, Medicare and Veterans benefits, the fact is, middle class Americans can't afford to pay Congressman Paul Ryan.  He must be replaced.  Following is National Catholic Reporter Commentary from Sister Simone from the March 25, 2013 National Catholic Reporter:

http://ncronline.org/node/48416

"Last year, some of my sisters and I became known as the Nuns on the Bus. Together, we journeyed through many parts of America to raise awareness of the plight of working poor families and the threat Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's budget posed to them and to our country as a whole. Last week, Rep. Ryan unveiled his new Republican budget. It is a budget that rewards wealth instead of work; one that reflects the worst of Ayn Rand as it undermines the best of America. It will take from working poor families to spend more on the wealthy, and it won't even reduce the national debt.

Paul Ryan hasn't called me recently for advice on his budget, but the one piece of advice I wish he would take would be to remember that his budget is not about numbers; it is about people. It is not about charts but about God's children.

I wish he could have been with us on our bus journey when we met Billy and his wife in Milwaukee. They are two of the more than 20 million working Americans who earn so little that they still live in poverty. Both Billy and his wife work, but they make so little that they qualify for and use food stamps to help put meals on the table for themselves and their children.

Reading about Billy isn't the same as meeting him. He's not a name, not a number -- he is a young man working his hardest to support his family. But Paul Ryan has said Billy and his family shouldn't get food stamps because Billy is working.

Think about that for a second. Because he works, we should deny Billy's children a decent meal at the end of the day? Paul Ryan and others will say we can't afford these "handouts" to people like Billy. But when we invest in food stamps to make sure Billy and his family don't go hungry, we aren't just investing in Billy's family. We're investing in Billy's employer by ensuring it has a productive employee. We're investing in future employers by ensuring Billy's children have enough to eat, knowing the significant correlation between childhood hunger and poor performance at school and work later in life. We're investing in consumers because better work leads to lower prices.

In short, when we invest in workers like Billy, we not only invest in one of God's children but also in America. That concept of the common good is central to Catholic social teaching and is something Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan have never seemed to understand.

Paul Ryan sees government programs as evil. I see children sleeping in cars, pregnant women without health care, and the elderly unable to pay for their medication as the real evils. Yet that is the reality for far too many Americans, and Paul Ryan's budget would make it so for even more.

Paul Ryan and many Republican colleagues argue that we should cut government programs because churches should provide these services, an argument not based in reality. The need is simply too great. Bread for the World released a study last year showing that every house of worship in this country would have to raise an additional $50,000 in revenue each year just to be able to fill the void the Ryan budget would create -- $50,000 from each church, synagogue and mosque in America. That's a huge new tax Paul Ryan would place on all our churches, a burden many could not afford.

Ryan also completely ignores the fact that churches and faith groups like Catholic Charities depend heavily on government programs like food stamps to support their work and provide the services that help so many of America's struggling families. There is a powerful public-private partnership between our churches and government that fuels America's safety net. Without government, that safety net will fail and more children will go hungry in this wealthy nation. That is immoral.

As a nation, we must address both the suffering and its causes. Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, said we must work toward a society where each worker can earn enough to support his or her family. If we raised workers' wages instead of CEO bonuses, there wouldn't be as many working parents in need of food stamps. But Paul Ryan and his congressional allies are also fighting to prevent the minimum wage from being tied to the cost of living. Meanwhile, they champion more tax cuts on the bonuses CEOs get when the workers who create their wealth are laid off.

So I wish Paul Ryan would take my advice and think of families like Billy's who would be devastated by his budget. But perhaps if he won't listen to me, he will listen to the prophet Isaiah, whose words to his government leaders thousands of years ago feel especially apt for our Congress today: 'If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday'."

[Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, since 2004, is a religious leader, attorney and poet with extensive experience in public policy and advocacy for systemic change. She is also a leader of the Nuns on the Bus campaign.]

Paul Ryan's St. Vincent de Paul Moment - Washing Clean Dishes

"Go to the poor: you will find God." - St Vincent de Paul

"Lord, help me to make time today to serve you in those who are most in need of encouragement or assistance." - St Vincent de Paul

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/paul-ryan-soup-kitchen-photo-dishes.html

Paul Ryan Scrubs Already Washed Soup-Kitchen Pots Because That’s How Much He Cares?

This photo op goes beyond a lack of judgement. It shows extraordinary insensitivity to the poor.

While Congressman Paul Ryan campaigned to become our nation's Vice-President, he set himself up for failing a St. Vincent de Paul moment. St. Vincent de Paul would give Congressman Ryan this advice:  "Lord, help me to make time today to serve you in those who are most in need of encouragement or assistance." - St Vincent de Paul. 

In other words, don't use the poor for photo ops.  If Ryan cares, he must not propose cuts to poverty assistance. Poor people who rely on St. Vincent de Paul services desperately need the help of programs Ryan proposes to cut.

Congressman Paul Ryan took advantage of a photo opportunity rather than sincerely demonstrating how he wants to help people who need the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio.  Did Congressman Ryan even ask how many people use the soup kitchen and why they need it?

When Congressman Ryan saw clean pots, he should have asked if he could speak with any of the clients who might be working in the Soup Kitchen. Instead, he faked a photo op, cleaning pots that didn't need washing. 

He should have done anything, rather than be witnessed in a photograph pretending to wash pots, just to deceive people into believing he and his wife care about needy people who rely on St. Vincent de Paul food services. 

Ryan should have spoken with the St. Vincent de Paul Executive Director about how cuts to food assistance programs have negatively impacted on the St. Vincent de Paul centers and services around the nation.

Rather than wash clean dishes for a camera, Ryan needs to remember one of St. Vincent de Paul's most famous quotes:

"The Poor Have Much to Teach Us"

Did Congressman Ryan ask any questions beyond washing clean pots and creating a St. Vincent de Paul embarrassing moment?

"The poor are your masters. You are the servant." - St Vincent de Paul  http://www.vinnies.org.au/st-vincent-quotes-nsw

Over Verbalization Strategy- Congressman Paul Ryan Tried to Soak Up All the Debate Oxygen

http://online.duriwsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578051533319607180.html

Republicans are miffed because Vice President Joe Biden wouldn't let Congressman Paul Ryan use over verbalization during their debate. Republicans who can't handle Biden being aggressively truthful in the debate are, frankly, full of malarkey.

In my opinion, the "keep talking technique" was a Republican strategy. Congressman Ryan intentionally soaked up his debate response time for the purpose of running over Vice President Joe Biden, but it didn't work. He couldn't over verbalize Biden.
The Wall Street Journal continues the whine:  "The vice-presidential debate Thursday night was full of interruptions (Joe Biden wouldn't let Paul Ryan finish a sentence) as both candidates (Paul Ryan interrupted too) tried to draw stark contrasts to rally their bases."  

Oh paaaleeeze, Wall Street Journal, get over it! What about substance?
I just don't know why telling the truth in a debate appears to be secondary to the presentation of the debaters. Of course, presentation, affect and respect are important attributes for debaters, especially for the President and the Vice-President of the United States. Yet, these attributes shouldn't trump truthfulness.

In my opinion, if Vice President Biden had been less animated than he was, the pundits would be calling him out for not doing enough to save the first debate performance of President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama made no mistakes in his first Presidential debate opposite Republican Mitt Romney, yet pundits and public opinion tells us he "lost" the debate. Governor Romney, on the other hand, walked right into an avoidable debacle about firing the Sesame Street character Big Bird, saying he'd fire the popular show including one of its most popular characters. This should have tanked Romney's entire debate performance, but it turned out to be an inconsequential artifact. President Obama is perceived as having lost the debate because he didn't interrupt, he wasn't theatrical and he didn't use exaggerated gestures.  "I was too polite," Obama said.

My point, made on the first night of the Presidential debates continues, for what it's worth. Truthfulness should trump style.  Ryan's over verbalization, soaking up the oxygen in the Vice-Presidential debate, doesn't compensate for the flip flops he made about what Romney's tax plan includes or how women will be able to access confidential health care services under a Republican administration.

Republicans were waiting for Vice-President Joe Biden to make an irreversible gaff during the one and only debate he had with Congressman Paul Ryan.  When the Republicans didn't get their way, when Biden took charge of the debate, they resorted to whining about too many interruptions.  

It's time Americans interrupt the Republican one sided lie campaign and demand truthfulness before being critical of style subtleties.