Endorsement of Joe Biden

 

I am a lifelong Republican. 

 I have donated money to most of our local Republican candidates, including Ben Cline, Emmet Hanger, Dickie Bell, Steve Landes, and others. I have never a single penny to any Democratic candidate.

 I marched in several parades to help Ben Cline get elected.

 I served as Vice Chair to the Augusta County Republican Committee.

 

I ENDORSE 

JOE BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT.

 

Why?  Because I believe in the principles and values outlined in our Republican Creed:

 

“That the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice”

 

Donald Trump’s withdrawal from trade agreements and his arbitrary and vindicate tariffs flies in the face of free enterprise, not to mention his disgraceful efforts to hurt American companies such as Goodyear and Amazon simply because they did not agree with his political policies. Donald Trump has failed us miserably, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President.

 

“That all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice, and opportunities and should assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society”
 

Almost every one of Trump’s words and actions are designed to enrich himself and his cronies at the expense of the good people of our country. Under Trump, millions of Americans have lost their health insurance.  He has used his power to pardon to reward those loyal to him. He has further sabotaged our already-broken immigration system by slashing quotas, dividing families, and instilling fear in many. Remember, our creed states, “All Individuals”, not simply all citizens.  For Trump, justice comes second to loyalty to him. He has rewarded those loyal to himself while punishing those that disagree or otherwise oppose him, not only by his words – think Twitter – but by his actions as well.   Donald Trump has failed us miserably, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President.

 

“That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government”

 Fiscal responsibility means paying your bills.  Trump promised to balance the budget and start to pay of our National Debt.  Instead, he increased both the deficit and national debt to historic levels during a time of economic boom, and that was well before the Covid-19 crisis. Sometimes it’s necessary to run a deficit to stimulate the economy in times of economic downturn, but during economic booms its equally important to be fiscally responsible by balancing the budget and repaying the debt that was incurred. Donald Trump has failed us miserably, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President.

  

“That the Federal Government must preserve individual liberty by observing Constitutional limitations”

 Trump has ignored Constitutional limitations by abusing his executive authority, issuing illegal executive orders, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, and actively obstructing justice on numerous occasions. Donald Trump has failed us miserably, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President. 

 

 “That peace is best preserved through a strong national defense”

 They key to a strong national defense is a strong system of allies.  World wars I and II were won be a strong collation of allied nations.  When we were attacked on September 11, 2001, our allies came to our defense as was required of member nations of NATO.  Trump has done everything he could to destroy NATO.  He has alienated our allies while embracing our enemies.  Worst of all, he abandoned our allies on the battlefield leaving them die.  Of all of his abominable actions, this is arguably the worst, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President.

  

“That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation”

 A true Christian leads by example, he does not use it as a weapon to attack others or as political props.  Christians use the lessons, values, and morals taught us in the bible to guide us as we live our lives. Trump has no morality, ethics, or willingness to follow those principles.  For him, everything is about himself. Donald Trump has failed us miserably, and this alone is reason enough to realize he is unfit for the office of President.

 

 We need a leader that we can trust.  Donald Trump has LIED to the American People over 20,000 times since taking office.  He repeats the same lies every after they have been totally debunked.  He endorses crazy conspiracy theories while ignoring the advice from our intelligence agencies, scientists, and learned scholars.  He has attacked the media, labeling anything that is not flattering to himself as “Fake News”.  He promised to “Drain the Swamp” by banning government expenses from working as lobbyists right after leaving government service, but issued waivers that excluded much of his own staff.  Even worse, in multiple occasions, he has appointed lobbyists to run the very agencies whose job is to oversight their industries.

 Donald Trump is NOT a Republican, he is a charlatan simply telling his followers what they want to hear so that they will allow him to ignore existing laws, obstruct justice, and divide our country solely to pursue his own personal agenda to enrich himself and his cronies.  He has ignored all of the principles and values under which our party was founded. 

 On the other hand, Joe Biden has a long and distinguished history of serving his country and upholding these principles. He has shown us by his actions that his morality and faith in God are not merely words spoken to gather votes, but are the guiding principles in his life.  His perseverance during times of extremely personal crises have shown us that he has the courage, ethics, and morality to lead our nation out of this time of darkness by uniting rather than dividing us.

 Perhaps most importantly of all, a President’s job is lead and unite the people.  We are, after all, the UNITED States.  Instead, Trump has divided us.  Every one of his words and actions are designed to enrich himself by dividing us.  He actions have done great harm to our moral fiber as a nation, and he is totally unfit to hold the office of President of the United States.

  

As a TRUE REPUBLICAN, I proudly ENDORSE JOE BIDEN for PRESIDENT of the United States.

 

 

Defunding the Police

I have seen protesters demanding that we defund the police, or even dismantle them.

I understand their frustration and desire for dramatic changes.

But demanding the defunding or dismantling of the police makes no sense.  If I see a mouse in my house, I’ll buy a cat or a mouse trap.  I won’t burn down my house.

What we need is more accountability and transparency from our existing police departments.  We need to eliminate the “blue wall of silence”.  Every policeman must realize that we WILL hold them to the highest standard because we are entrusting them with our lives.

Specific actions can be taken:

(1) Every department needs a civilian oversight committee, whose members are either elected or appointed to one or two year terms.  If appointed, these committees must be large enough to ensure that they reflect the racial makeup of their jurisdiction.  No person should be able to serve on a committee for more than one term.  This will ensure prevent a new “establishment” from entrenching itself.

(2) Mandate the use of video cameras on all patrol cars and persons on patrol. These videos must be made public as much as possible, without compromising investigations or citizens’ privacies.  The decision on when to release these videos should be made by the civilian oversight committee.

(3) Set policies that officers who witness serious misconduct must report it, and, when possible, actively intervene to stop it.  “Serious” misconduct would include any conduct that could result in a felony or civil rights charge against the officer.

(4) Identify officers whose attitude does not reflect the proper values and respect for all citizens that is required of them.  These officers should be terminated, or, at the very least, removed from the street until they have received counseling and additional training to correct the issues.  In larger departments, annual reviews for all officers should be conducted using an independent counselor or board.

(5) Every department needs to maintain statistics detailing the quantity and reason for all police/citizen contacts, arrests, complaints, prosecutions, etc., using a national standard that uniformly classifies types of encounters, broken down by race, sex, age, geographic area, etc.  We need a NATIONAL website that will make these statistics publicly available.  This website would not only let us look at any individual department, city, or even neighborhood, but would show averages for each category as a whole, and also broken down by state, city, and even city size.  Police departments that fall below par would be identified and correct measures taken.

(6) Emphasize community involvement.  The public should be encouraged to meet their patrolman, and given ample opportunities to do so.  “Ride a longs”, “Citizen Police Academies”,  and other such programs should be offered that allow the public to see not only how the police operate, but WHY they take the actions that they do.

BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!

We need to take actions to address the underlying social and economic problems plaguing our communities, such as poverty, hunger, healthcare including mental health, inadequate child care services, income inequality, below-par educational inner-city schools, gangs, the homeless, drugs, and other issues which lead to crime.

We need to stop treating drug addicts as criminals and offer them treatment and support. That includes programs to identify and enable early intervention.

It cost’s the taxpayers an average $31,000 per year to keep someone in prison, and the average inmate spends two years in prison.  That’s $64,000 every time we send someone to jail.  For far less than that, we could help them get back on their feet by making sure that they have food, a decent place to live, and providing meaningful job training and assistance.

We need to eliminate this fear of giving help to a community because someone might get something they don’t deserve.  We setup our current support and aid programs in a way that makes it difficult for many to get access to the services they need.  We are so worried about someone getting food stamps that doesn’t deserve it, we make it so that many people who DO need them don’t.  I would rather see ten people get them who don’t need them than one person who does need then get deprived.   (Of course, when we find those that do abuse the system, they do need to be held accountable.)

Most people DO WANT TO WORK.  There is tremendous satisfaction to being able to support one’s self and their family.  It builds self-esteem, and people NEED THAT.   It’s the lack of self-esteem and pride that leads many into a sense of hopelessness, and that is the major underlying cause of most of our social ills.

Let’s give people the TOOLS they need to success.  Let’s make sure that EVERY PERSON in the county has the CHANCE to succeed.