Plenty of guilty Trump evidence about creating The Big Lie- Lock Him Up

 No evidence of #TheBigLie

Opinion echo letter published in The Hawk Eye, newspaper in Burlington, Iowa.

It is beyond incredible that #FormerGuy Donald Trump is still trying to convince people he won the election.

His FBI director, his attorney general, the Homeland Security cyber security team, and election officials in states all over the country agreed that the 2020 election was one of the most closely scrutinized and error-free in history.

Trump's personal lawyer (disgraced Rudy Giuliani) has lost his law license for making false statements, and the US Supreme Court found so little merit in Trump's claims that it refused to hear them.

Remember when Trump tried with no evidence to convince the country that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya?

Jerry Parks, Burlington, Iowa

Senator Kamala Harris offers hope for America's futre and shows off Joe Biden's character

Senator Kamala Harris's wise choice  shows Vice President Biden's progressive vision for America!

Democartic Presidential designee Joe Biden's excellent choice of Seator Kamala Harris as his running mate says a few important things about the former vice president that should give Democrats, and Americans at large, cause for hope. 

This opinion was published in The Hawk Eye, an Iowa newspaper, by Rekha Basu,, who is a columnist who writes for The Des Moines Register.

https://www.thehawkeye.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/08/12/basu-opinion-kamala-harris-presence-in-presidential-race-makes-fight-for-americas-soul-more-attainab/113081758/

 

In fact, the choice of Senator Harris says to America that Mr. Biden has got enough class and confidence not to hold a grudge over having been upstaged by Harris when she criticized him in a primary debate for his position on voluntary school busing in the 1970s.

At that time, she was a child being bused for school integration. But asked later, in Des Moines, about her own position on voluntary busing, Harris didn't disparage it, calling it a tool in the toolbox. Each one later called the other's claims unfair. But neither is petty enough to bear a grudge. It should tell you something that Harris, in fact, is secure enough to invite the ex-wife of her husband, Doug Emhoffer, for dinner. They're friends, she told me in an interview last summer.

Also, to his credit, Biden doesn't fear appearing alongside such a strong, charismatic second-in-command. He might have answered the growing call for female and African American representation by picking someone with less experience who avoided the limelight. But he clearly wants Harris' energy and oratorical skills, her powerful style of speaking truth to power. 

I can hardly wait to see Senator Kamala Harris debate Vice President Mike Pence about women's reproductive rights!

Many factors clearly went into this choice in 2020, the year that saw the most diverse pool of Democratic candidates in history. 

It was hard for many voters who had expected Hillary Clinton to become the first female U.S. president to see Donald Trump get that job. It has been much harder to see Trump's toxic, contradictory and self-aggrandizing style in office.

Then, with Biden on track to win the nomination, the prospect of a more progressive ticket that is more representative of America was at risk. Biden has taken flak for being too old school in his cultural references and too casual in his interactions with women. 

At this pivotal moment in America's reckonings with racial injustice, sexual violence and the looming question of what binds us together as a nation, Mr. Biden stepped up. He shows us that he's listening and learning at a time when America is hungry for moral leadership that inspires us to dream bigger. He's chosen to attempt to put the first woman, the first African American, and the first Indian American in the direct line of succession for the presidency.

Even the Republicans, the GOP partisans, seem to be unusually gingerly in the reaction to the choice of Senator Harris, careful not to swing too hard when history is being made.

In Iowa, the state's Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann in a news release kept his response generic and pro forma, saying, “Iowans have already rejected the radical policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, like free health care for illegal immigrants and raising taxes by $4 trillion to pay for their far-left agenda." But neither Biden nor Harris was regarded as especially left of center, a place staked out by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Some comments posted on the Black Lives Matter Iowa Facebook page are celebrating Harris VP choice of "a progressive Black woman" while others challenge her record as a prosecutor in California.

In an interview last summer, Harris told me she and her sister, Maya, were raised as Black American kids, but hers is also an intercultural American story. It's similar to Barack Obama's, and similar to my own children's. Theirs is a generation so steeped in diversity from birth that race and ethnic differences are taken for granted, if not assumed.

That's a far cry from the America in which Donald Trump and Mike Pence have surrounded themselves. This next presidential election will indeed be a fight for America's soul. Bring it on.

Rekha Basu is an opinion columnist for The Des Moines Register. Contact: rbasu@dmreg.com.

Democratic Iowa state Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, one of only a few elected African American officials in office in Iowa, says Harris was one of his top picks for the post. He believes she has the potential to bring African American voters to the polls if she gets out and connects with them.

Iowa's Indian American community weighed in with elation. Harris was born to an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, both academics who fought for civil rights. “As a member of the Indian American community and chair of the Indo-American PAC, this is a proud moment for me and all minorities," said Prakash Kopparapu. He previously headed the Iowa Asian-Latino Coalition to enable immigrant and minority groups to hear directly from candidates and encourage their political participation. "Senator Harris is a proven leader with an abundance of experience to lead the campaign and the nation, with much needed integrity and respect for the rule of law," he said. "Her energy will help Vice President Biden fight for the soul of our nation.”

Echo: A muted evangelical call from Iowa - shout out to scold Donald Trump

This is an unusually interesting opinion letter to the editor published in the Iowa The Hawk Eye newspaper. This echo message contains some Christian overtones in criticism of the Donald Trump tyranny.

‘This Is Not of God’: When Anti-Trump Evangelicals Confront Their Brethren- headline in The New York Times

Shane Claiborne at an early morning meeting before a Christian revival in Lynchburg, Va. To the leaders of Liberty University (he was seen as a menace to the campus). Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times

From Iowa:  Here is why the press deserves commendation for digging into Trump, the great deceiver. 

We continue to hear the Fox News pundits, aka white talking heads, who blame everyone except Donald Trump for the Russia investigation. Enough.

James Comey’s re-opening the Hillary investigation was the trigger that pushed the Democratic uncertain vote toward Trump.  And he is one of the fall guys because he had the legal training to document every word of suspicion the President threw at him? 

And of Hillary’s evil deeds, why was she cleared by full Senate probe? Assuming the story holds up, why was WikiLeaks acting in harmony with the Republican National Committee? Collusion exists, though the trail may be difficult to document in the layered deceptions, Trump’s dirty deeds done dirt cheap team of scofflaws Trump surrounded himself with, have spun.

Here is why the press deserves commendation for digging into Trump, the great deceiver. No national leader in our history has had such a history of cloistered business deceptions, trickery, and outright criminal fraud stealing hundreds of millions,from his horrendous history of rip off businesses. No one at this level has not been revealed by his tax trail, which we still need to crack open at year 3. Trump U, four casino bankruptcies, hundreds of small business contractors screwed, real estate investors in Panama for just one case, documenting gouging, lies, and outrageous over runs. Chronic profiteering conflict of interest from the misuse of Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago used to profit from state business, illegal security approvals to the highest placed number 2 in the Cabinet, his own son-in-law, who from the git go engineered a for personal profit giving away of top level Nuclear development technology to Saudi Arabia, a horrendous violation of National Security Council, and Congressional laws.

This is arms dealing, the game ending arms of nuclear annihilation, straight from Trump’s direction from the oval office with Prince murderer of Saudi Arabia (Kashogi was onto this racket), the first foreign visitor to Washington, who single highhandedly decimated Muslims of Yemen, conveniently tagged as terrorists. And where were 13 of the 911 terrorist attacks from? The same dictator we just empowered with nukes?

No doubt, 100 percent of the due suspicion aimed at Donald Trump was driven by his storm cloud of distracted diversions he drives daily, while he perpetrates the greatest criminal theft of national resources, oil, gas, coal, and Uranium in Utah and Alaska arctic shelf right in front of your noses, yet ever so carefully smothered by “National Shutdown” over the fake crisis at the border. Except that a small army over at Department of Interior were called back to hand over national resources in rigged bid dirt cheap auctions to his energy cronies he really works for.

Real Americans, like my parent who served, like my cousin 30 foot from 911 Pentagon impact, like my Daughters of the Revolution connection to civil war, fighting to liberate a gang run breed of unpaid slave laborers, would be flocking to the Southern border to help the Christian and Catholic immigrants from strife torn Central America, be saved. God commanded this, to aid our fellow Christians, the poor, the weak, and the babies. That is your calling, your God commanded duty, not propping up the greatest deceiver who the light is absolutely going to call out as sure as the sun is going to rise. God ordered love your neighbor, not hate. Chew on that, then spit the liar out.

Steve Klein, Burlington Iowa

Echo ~ About lies and those who tell lies

It's highly likely that everybody lies. 

Indeed, anyone who claims they never lie are, well, lying.

Most people justify lying because they consider it a “white lie,” maybe done to spare someone’s feelings — “Oh, you look just fine” when a friend is looking rather haggard — or to avoid a lunch with someone you don’t want to eat with — “I’m sorry, but I have a conflict and just can’t make it.”The Hawk Eye
Longtime courts and crime reporter Andy Hoffman, who covered dozens of murder cases in the Kansas City area and now covers that beat for The Hawk Eye, (Iowa) is fond of saying, “Of course we report lies in . Everyone does.”

Ouch. Except he’s absolutely right. People lie to their spouses, to their children, to their parents, to their doctor and to their lawyer. So why wouldn’t they lie to a reporter? After all, reporters ask sources questions and then report what those sources tell them.

It’s also true, however, that journalists have built-in “smell tests” that raise red flags and often point them in a different direction to check out someone’s claim so they don’t publish lies if they can possibly help it. The old saying in journalism circles is, “If your mother says she loves you, find a way to confirm it.”

Lawyers, doctors, school teachers and ministers lie, but our current president has taken lying to a whole new level. 

Donald Trump lies about as often as he breathes, and he’s been a serial liar nearly his entire life. It’s his modus operandi.

Social scientist Bella DePaulo wrote an article headlined “I study liars. I’ve never seen one like Donald Trump,” for The Washington Post last December that was reprinted in the Chicago Tribune, both of which I assume Trump includes on his list of “fake news” sources.

DePaulo studied lies and liars for more than 20 years, and categorized lies as either self-serving to protect the liar from blame or some other undesired outcome, and kind, told to advantage, flatter or protect someone else.

She noted in the piece that according to the Post’s Fact Checker process, the president made 1,628 false or misleading claims, or outright flip-flops, in his first 298 days in office for an average of six per day. She noted that those are only the public comments he made, so if he also lies in private conversations that number could be far higher.

But she argues “the flood of deceit isn’t the most surprising finding about Trump.”

She cites a study of anonymous college students and community members who logged their lies and then broke them down as to whether they were self-serving or kind. 

By using that methodology, she wrote that 64 percent of Trump’s lies were self-serving, while under 10 percent of his lies were kind, told to advantage, flatter or protect someone else.

“Trump told 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind ones. That’s a much higher ratio than we found for our study participants, who told about double the number of self-centered lies compared with kind ones,” she wrote.

“The most stunning way Trump differed from our participants, though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump’s lies were hurtful or disparaging.”

And yet 75 percent of white evangelical Christians, those people who claim to be “values voters,” still support this president, according to a recent poll by Public Religion Research Institute.

In an interview with Salon, religion author Reza Aslan, who wrote the bestselling “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” — which is a very interesting read, by the way — attempted to answer the big question: Why do those people continue to support a clearly racist, sexist, lecherous, pathologically lying facist?

Aslan has the bonafides to explain it. He holds a divinity degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. It’s a bit complicated, but it makes sense.

With apologies to the author, I’m going to paraphrase his explanation: It’s partly because of fear in the white community that within two decades America will become the first nation on Earth to be a “majority minority.” In other words, white America will also be a minority, along with all the other races, ethnicities and religions in this great melting pot. That’s scary to many people with light skin tones and they’re looking for scapegoats, someone to blame. And along comes Trump, who plays to those fears and provides those scapegoats.

So it’s partly because of racism among white evangelical Christians, and it’s also partly because of the influence of the “prosperity gospel” of many evangelicals, ala Joel Osteen, who preaches material prosperity is a sign of God’s blessings and favor.

“This is the single most anti-scriptural version of Christianity you could ever come up with,” Aslan said. “Nothing could be further from what Jesus actually preached than ‘God wants you to be rich’.”

So some of that support is based on the fact that Trump is rich, so he must be blessed by God, right?

And here’s Aslan’s kicker: “There is nothing extraordinary or unique or permanent about the American system. It is hanging by a thread right now.”

Randy Miller is a retired city editor for The Hawk Eye. Readers can reach him at rmilleronmain@gmail.com.

Caravan asylum seekers must continue the quest for compassion

Migrant ‘caravan’ gathers on US-Mexico border

Evangelicals alert ~ "Blessed be the merciful for they shall obtain mercy":  Beatitudes Matthew 5:3-11

About 170 migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers have arrived in Tijuana, joining about 200 others on their final stop before entering the United States.

An opinion letter ~ echo published in the Iowa newspaper "The Hawk Eye"

Some label the caravan heading toward our border as immigrants, others as terrorists. A proper label would be asylum seeking political refugees. That is not PC it is just plain old C. Many have their documentation with them. Many intend to turn themselves in at the border to request the asylum process status. This being our nation’s current law and policy.

Remember, President Ronald Reagan spoke of our nation as the beacon on the hill. This was in reference as to why we are a nation of immigrants and others still seek our shores. They come believing in the noble and alleged greatness of America. The concept of open arms to the downtrodden and oppressed.

The people in the caravan need processed, some may be going back. The right needs to embrace the beacon of hope, justice and humane dignity. They need to climb the hill again and come out of the valley of fear mongering called Trumpism.

Anthony Gerst, Wapello, Iowa

Guns in America - Citizens United

Echo opinion published in the The Hawk Eye newspaper in Burlington, Iowa ~ Calling for a Constitutional amendment to recall Citizens United.

IOWA Opinion ~ The easy availability of assault rifles in America is rooted in is our political system’s failure to rein in the out sized influence of money in politics.

Limits on political donations by individuals, businesses and political action committees are rendered moot by the unlimited spending by so-called Super PACs, which can marshal the resources to relentlessly attack or boost candidates of their choosing.

In its 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court held it unconstitutional to limit the amount of money that unaffiliated groups, or so-called Super PACs, could spend on political campaigns. 

Other groups, often funded by corporate interests, spend money on political messaging without registering with the election commission at all because electoral politics isn’t their primary function.

As a result, more than 20 percent of the $6.4 billion spent in the 2016 presidential and congressional campaigns was from groups with no limits on the amount they could raise or spend, according to OpenSecrets.org, an online database of filings with the Federal Election Commission.

In the case of the National Rifle Association, its affiliated super PACs spent more than $52 million in the 2016 election campaign, most of it to support Donald Trump and six Republican candidates for Senate, five of whom won. Individual donors were limited to giving $2,700 to candidates in 2016.

In the wake of the tragic shooting deaths of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many people have tried to shame politicians for accepting contributions and support from the NRA, which advocates for Americans’ rights to guns, including the AR-15 rifles that have become the weapon of choice for domestic terrorists.

Had those candidates not taken the money, the NRA would have found a candidate who would, and thrown their weight behind them. Then their Super PAC could spend as much as they wanted to get that person elected.

Unfortunately, the NRA, the pharmaceutical industry, trial lawyers, or other groups spend as much as they legally can to advance their interests.

The blame lies with the political system that grants them this outsized power and influence.

It is within our power to change the rules. This could require a constitutional amendment imposing strict limits on campaign contributions and spending, something that will preserve the rights of individuals to advance their views, without allowing a few people or interest groups to dominate.

Only by imposing stricter limits on the role of money in our electoral process will average Americans be able to reclaim the power that is rightly theirs.

Shaw Media