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Wages Outpace Inflation Since May 2023
A Century of Republican Incompetence and Racism Versus Democratic Competence and Inclusion
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Debunking the Big Lies
Michael K. Cantwell
Trump’s claim that Biden destroyed “my
beautiful economy” constitutes a double lie. It wasn’t Trump’s economy
to begin with—he inherited the longest post-War expansion from President
Obama and then drove it into a ditch.
Click
here to continue. |
DeSantis’s Abortion Rights
Petition Intimidation Reminiscent of “Police State”
June S. Neal
“The experience has left me shaken” said Isaac Menasche, one of thousands
of registered voters who are being investigated by authorities after
signing the Amendment Four petition to put abortion rights on Florida’s
November ballot. Click
here to continue.
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DeSantis Wants to Turn Florida State Parks
into Golf Courses
Thomas Witkop, Candidate for Congressional District 21 Apparently, Florida does not have enough golf courses and hotels.
Thankfully, Ron DeSantis has found room for more on nine of Florida’s
state parks! Click
here
to continue. |
Deconstructing the Inflation Bogeyman
Michael K. Cantwell Had they looked beyond the headlines they would have learned that the
“Biden” inflation resulted from a
perfect storm for which Biden bore limited responsibility. Moreover, his steady hand
on the tiller is why the United States has had far lower inflation rates
than any other industrialized country. But they didn’t—and don’t—look
behind headlines, and so denied Biden the pass they gave to Trump. Click
here
to continue. |
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Rick Scott: The un-American Candidate
June Sandra Neal Senator Rick Scott stands for nothing. For more than thirteen years,
he’s enjoyed the privilege of serving as Florida’s governor and junior
senator, banking a lot of political power, power that was supposed to
benefit Florida and the nation. Instead, he abused it. Click
here to continue |
Worth Quoting “He said, ‘After this election, you will not have to vote anymore,’ as
if voting is a kind of burden. And so this is fascist talk, where the
fascist leader says, ‘I will free you from all decision-making. Just
trust in me and you will not have to worry about any problems anymore.’”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat commenting on Trump's July
26, 2024, statement to Christians to vote in large numbers
Click
here to
continue. |
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2024 Membership
Char Lane It’s late September 2024 and the November 5, 2024, General Election is
almost here. We have to elect Harris–Walz, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell,
Alexcia Cox, Joe Casello, and all Democrats up and down the ballot to
save democracy. Click
here
to continue.
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Yes She Can: Kamala Harris
Michael K. Cantwell
At the close of the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have
we got, a republic or a monarchy?” His iconic response, “a republic, if
you can keep it.”
Click
here to continue. |
Rick Scott Governed in the Shadow of Serious Conflicts of Interest
June S. Neal
When officials like Rick Scott support public projects that have the real
possibility of increasing their personal investments, the people have
not only the right, but the duty, to demand transparency.
Click
here to continue.
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“These Lies Are
Like Their Father that Begets Them, Gross as a Mountain, Open, Palpable”
Michael K. Cantwell For years, and dozens of times, Donald Trump has bragged that he
presided over “the greatest economy in history.” This is actually a
double lie. The economy about which Trump bragged was never his to begin
with. It was the one he inherited from Barack Obama, after Obama rebuilt
the economy from the ashes left by George W. Bush. And Biden’s economy
has been even better. Click
here
to continue. |
Florida Is in Play, But We Must Act Now
Thomas Witkop How do we know Project 2025 isn't an idle threat? Look to Florida, which
many have called the 'lab rat' for the Heritage Foundation's guidebook
of extremist policies. Ron DeSantis and his Republican supermajority
have had several years to implement these policies, and I’ve seen it
firsthand living in North Palm Beach, just 15 minutes from Mar-a-Lago.
In fact, these disastrous policies pushed me to run for Congress.
Click
here to
continue.
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Deus Ex Machina: Donald Trump Meets the
Greek Gods (Again)
Michael K. Cantwell Deus ex machina (“the god from the machine”) is a plot device by which
classical Greek tragedies resolved seemingly intractable problems . . .
America faced a seemingly unsolvable problem in early 2020, namely, how
to prevent Trump from being reelected and hammering the final nail into
the coffin of our Republic and what remained of our democracy. Click
here
to read them. |
Hoist With His
Own Petard, or Who’s Crazy Now?
Michael K. Cantwell For years Donald Trump has been claiming that President Biden was
senile. In light of Biden’s accomplishments to date (including presiding
over the most consequential legislative agenda since FDR), the charge is
ludicrous. Click
here
to read them. |
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Worth Quoting “A Mount Rushmore
kind of president of the United States. You have Teddy Roosevelt up
there. And he’s wonderful. I don’t say take him down. But you can add
Biden. Nancy Pelosi, speaking to Lesley Stahl.
Click
here to
continue. |
What We’re Reading Jennifer Rubin,
Trump’s decline: His interviews and
lies get worse,
Washington Post: Where does this leave Republicans? The MAGA party
is caught in a gloom-and-doom loop, forced to run away from the radical
Project 2025 plan, defend an increasingly irrational candidate and make
excuses for its unlikable, inept nominee for vice president. Click
here
to continue. |
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2024 Membership
Char Lane It’s August 2024 and the General Election is fast approaching. It’s time
for some serious work We need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz if we
are to save our democracy from Trump and his Project 2025 allies. We
also need to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, especially Debbie
Mucarsel-Powell. Click
here
to continue.
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2024 Membership More letters that
were published by our members in local papers. Click
here
to read them.
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An Extraordinary President
An Extraordinary Man
Michael K. Cantwell
Joe Biden has been the most
effective president of my lifetime. In three-and-a-half years, he
created nearly 16 million jobs, more than any president in history other
than Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, both of whom served two full terms.
His monthly average of nearly 400,000 is more than double Donald Trump’s
pre-pandemic monthly average, a time Trump was shilling that his was the
greatest economy in history. Click
here to
continue. |
Rick Scott: One of the “Most Corrupt Politicians Running for Reelection”
June S. Neal
It’s
been 14 years since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission “reversed century-old campaign finance
restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend
unlimited funds on elections.” Click
here to
continue. |
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New Florida Laws: The Push Toward
Evangelizing and Whitewashing Our Public Schools
June S. Neal Effective July 1, 2024, here is the good, the bad, and the truly ugly,
such as the Republicans’ obsession to turn Florida into a religious
autocracy, particularly their attempts to evangelize our public schools.
And their contempt for truth as they pretend racial bigotry and
inequality never existed.
Click
here to
continue. |
Short Cuts
Michael K. Cantwell Always Look on
the Bright Side of Life
♫♫♫
I know it must be a disappointment to The New York Times that
it’s a coronation rather than an open convention with the promise of the
clickbait from dozens of articles reporting on the race to the
nomination mere months ahead of the election that will determine whether
the Republic will hold. But look on the bright side. Click
here to
continue.
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Unfit: A Matched Pair
Michael K. Cantwell
Donald Trump is an existential threat to our Republican form of
government and our democracy. There is no question that he lost the 2020
election or that his claim it was stolen was a barefaced and brazen lie;
there is even evidence that Trump knew it was a lie . . . J.D. Vance has
promised that, if given the opportunity in 2028, he will do what Mike
Pence refused to do in 2020. He will violate his oath of office and help
steal an election.
Click
here to
continue. |
Our Mailbox (Outgoing, That Is) Between June Neal and Michael Cantwell, our members had seven letters
published in outside papers, including The New York Times, The
Miami Herald, and The Sun Sentinel. Click
here to read them. |
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Worth Quoting “In those roles, I
took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women,
fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for
their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Kamala Harris, at campaign HQ, describing her career as a prosecutor.
Click
here to
continue. |
What We’re Reading Paul Krugman, The
Matrix of Consumer Discontent, The New York Times: “What we see right
away is that claims that Americans are much worse off than the official
numbers say fail across the board. If consumers were really hurting on
average, they wouldn’t be spending so freely. They wouldn’t be telling
pollsters that their personal finances were in good shape. They wouldn’t
be upbeat about their own state’s economy. And if things were really
bad, you’d expect them to be bad for Democrats as well as for
Republicans.” Click
here
to continue. |
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2024 Membership
Char Lane It's July 2024 and the Primaries are next month on August 20, 2024, and
the extremely critical General Election is about three months away on
November 5, 2024. It’s time
for some serious work to elect Democrats up and down the ballot to save
our democracy from Trump and his Project 2025 allies. Click
here
to continue.
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The American Dream
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
My life is the embodiment of the
American Dream. Our mother brought my sisters and me to the United
States in search of democracy, freedom, and opportunity. She worked two
jobs—as a home health aide and cleaning peoples’ homes—to build a better
life for our family, and with her years of hard work she earned the
Social Security and Medicare benefits that she relies on today. Click
here to
continue. |
Flipping Florida Blue Runs Through Investing in Youth
Jayden D’Onofrio, Chairman of the Florida Future
Leaders PAC It is no secret to all of us the extreme political tide-change we have
experienced in the Sunshine State. From the election of Ron DeSantis as
Governor to the complete stranglehold Republicans possess over the
state’s legislature, Florida has become a breeding ground for radical
policy that provides no real solutions to the many issues everyday
citizens face. Worse, the past few legislative sessions have showcased a
concerted effort to attack one demographic in particular: Florida’s
youngest and most educated. Click
here to
continue. |
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Immigration Racism Rears Its Ugly Head Again
Michael K. Cantwell We are a nation of immigrants. That we are better for it is axiomatic.
Immigrants were welcomed for the first century after our founding,
perhaps because they had the “right” skin color, religion, and
nationality, namely, White, Protestant, and northern and western
European.
Click
here to
continue. |
A Few Words About Florida’s Future Leaders
Michael K. Cantwell When
I received an email several months ago announcing the Florida’s Future
Leaders (FFL) PAC, I was so impressed with the vision of its inaugural
chairman, Jayden D’Onofrio, that I immediately donated. Char Lane and I
went to hear him in person at a fundraiser at FAU and were blown away.
More donations followed.
Click
here to
continue.
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Biden Winning on Inflation and Jobs (Pass it on)
Michael K. Cantwell Inflation resulted from a
perfect storm for which Joe Biden bears only partial responsibility. A recent
poll
found that as many Americas (59%) blame corporate greed as blame
government spending for inflation, a 15% shift since January 2022).
Click
here to continue. |
Juneteenth and the Unrealized Promise of “Absolute Equality”
Editorial President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on September
22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863. Enslaved Texans
would not learn of their liberation for nearly two and a half years.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Trump and the Art of the Nazi Trope
Michael K. Cantwell
Trump has a
fondness for Nazi tropes—for example, labeling the press the enemy of
the people—but denies knowing that he was quoting Adolf Hitler when he
accused the latest wave of immigrants of “poisoning the blood” of
America. Click
here
to continue. |
The Chickens and the Colonel
Steve West
My name is Chicken Imnota King. I am the elected president of my
nation. My political party is the Chicken Livers Party. Our platform is
simple. We do everything to help all chickens live healthy and fulfilled
lives. Click
here
to continue.
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June’s Outbox
June S. Neal
The verdict against Donald Trump is a win for America’s sense of
integrity and justice. Click
here
to continue. |
Oops! Did The Heritage Foundation Just Prove There Is No “Voter Fraud”?
Michael K. Cantwell
Why did The Heritage Foundation publish a database that brags of “1,513
proven instances of voter fraud”
when it actually proves the reverse?
Maybe it’s because we are not their audience. They are targeting
the people who believed the 2020 election was stolen, namely, idiots and
innumerates unable to do the math: 1,513 cases ÷ 45 years ÷ 50 states =
0.67 proven instances of voter fraud per state per year. Click
here
to continue.
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2024 Membership
Char Lane It's June 2024 and the Primaries are just two months away (August 20,
2024) and the November 5, 2024 General Election is now less than four
months away. It’s time for some serious work to elect Democrats to save
our democracy. Click
here
to continue.
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Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago?
Michael K. Cantwell Ronald Reagan coined this question in 1980 and took it all the way to
the White House. It quickly became a meme and is asked in every
presidential campaign. At that time, the term “meme” had itself just
been minted.
Click
here to
continue. |
Wednesday’s Woman Is Full of Woe
June Sandra Neal May 1, 2024, will be remembered in Florida as Black Wednesday, when, at
the stroke of midnight, Florida’s repressive and potentially deadly
six-week ban on abortions took effect.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Will You Be Better Off in Four Years Than You Are Today?
Michael K. Cantwell Democracy was on
the ballot four years ago, and we dodged two bullets. Not only was Trump
defeated, but he was thwarted in his violent and illegal efforts to
overthrow the will of the voters, if only barely.
Click
here to
continue. |
Despite High Student Suicide Rates, DeSantis Sends in the Clowns
June Sandra Neal To
Governor DeSantis and the Republican legislators: What the hell were you
thinking? Allowing chaplains with no requirements for mental health
education to counsel students?
Click
here to
continue.
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Republicans Find a Way to “Out” Trans People
Through a Back Door
June Sandra Neal To Governor DeSantis and the Republican members of the Florida
Legislature: In January, you proposed HB 1639 which would “out” trans
people by forcing those updating their existing drivers’ licenses or
state ID cards to designate their sex at birth, instead of gender.
Click
here to
continue.
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Fascism, not Socialism, Is the Threat
Michael K. Cantwell
Rick Scott is right that America is facing a grave threat, but it’s not
from what he ludicrously calls “socialism,” and it’s not coming from the
Democrats. The real threat is fascism and it’s coming from the
Republican Party. Click
here
to continue. |
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Rabbi Barry Silver, Esq.
Michael K. Cantwell Barry was not
merely what Shakespeare called a “man.” He was a mensch, a complete
human being – a devoted father and husband, a fierce advocate for the
vulnerable and downtrodden, and an inspirational religious leader and
co-founder of “Cosmic Judaism.”
Click
here to
continue. |
My Teacher
Geoff Kashdan
Many years ago, I participated in a fund-raising 25- mile bike event.
The bike I had was old but with multi-speed settings, so I thought it to
be a more than O.K. Oh! Was I wrong! As the ride progressed, I was
surprised when so many others seemed to effortlessly pass me. The “so
many others'” included four-year-olds on trikes and even a zombie on a
pogo stick. Not only did I learn humility, but I was inspired to get a
new and lighter bike and then try again.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Cosmic Rabbi, Florida Representative, and Civil Rights Lawyer Barry Silver
Arlene Ustin As for Barry's
public positions as a Cosmic Rabbi, Florida Representative, and Civil
Rights Lawyer, the list of his efforts and accomplishments is very long.
We lost a deeply beloved friend and universal citizen.
Click
here to
continue. |
Remembering Barry Silver
Sheila Jaffe I
first met Barry Silver in early 1989 when I joined the local NOW
chapter. My printing business began preparing the newsletters for the
South Palm Beach County Chapter of NOW (National Organization for
Women). And here we are, 34 years later still working with NOW and other
feminists for human rights for all, especially women’s rights.
Click
here to
continue. |
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My Friend
Steve West I lost a dear friend to cancer this week. His name was Barry Silver. He
was a Rabbi, a lawyer, a social justice advocate, a musician, and a
strong family man. Barry had so much going on at one time I was
sure that he was triplets.
Click
here to
continue.
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The Farmer
Jack Goldstein
The world has lost a wonderful person, Barry Silver.
Click
here to continue. |
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Rabbi Barry Silver
Char Lane It was September
20, 2022. DeSantis was scheduled to attend an Educational Freedom Event
hosted by Florida’s Jewish and Faith Communities in Boca Raton.
It sounded like a good sign-wave opportunity so David, June,
Michael, and I headed there.
We had to stand across the street from the venue, and shortly thereafter
Rabbi Barry showed up, chatted with us, and then entered the den of
Republicans. Click
here to continue. |
Remembering Barry Silver
Debra Tendrich I
write this in loving memory of Rabbi Barry Silver, a dear friend and
dedicated advocate. Together, we championed causes such as protecting
the AG Reserve, standing up for Israel and Ukraine, combating racism and
antisemitism, and defending democracy. His passion and commitment will
be forever cherished and deeply missed. We will all miss Barry as we
fight the good fight.
Click
here to continue. |
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Here Comes the Sun
Michael K. Cantwell For nearly two
years, the corporate media was obsessed with the record inflation that
resulted from a perfect storm beyond President Biden’s
control.
They parroted economists who almost gleefully argued that inflation
could only be cured by causing a recession.
Click
here to
continue. |
“There You Go Again”
Michael K. Cantwell With the economy generating nothing but good news, get ready for
Republicans to begin yowling about the deficit. But they are the real
budget busters. Next to blowing up the economy, it’s what they do best.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Why Public Defense Matters . . . for Everyone
Daniel Eisenger The majority of
Americans will likely never need a Public Defender. Their family and
friends may never need a Public Defender.
Click
here to
continue. |
Who’s Worse, Robert Hur or The New York Times?
Michael K.
Cantwell There’s no doubt
that Robert Hur’s gratuitous and false swipes at President Biden’s
memory was the work of a toad, or that The New York Times
probably did more damage to Biden’s reelection than the entire rightwing
disinformation network by obsessively and meretriciously covering what
should have been dismissed as the work of a hack.
Click
here to
continue.
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Selling the Crypto-Fascists the Rope
Michael K. Cantwell Lenin never
actually said, “the capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them
with.” It’s likely a
paraphrase of a longer statement that concluded, “To put it in other words,
[the capitalists] will work on the preparation of their own suicide.”
Click
here to
continue. |
Ron’s No. 1 – In Inflation, That Is
Michael K. Cantwell
It’s bad form to further ridicule someone who’s just been humiliated,
but it’s worth making an exceptions for a man who “ has always loved
embarrassing and humiliating people,” as one of Ron DeSantis’s teammates
on the Yale baseball squad remembered him in a
New Yorker article. Click
here
to continue. |
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The Democratic Club of Delray Beach Is Going to All People's Day!
Char Lane The Club will have
a booth to offer Democratic information to voters, to register voters,
and to instruct voters on how to enroll or reenroll in the Vote-by-Mail
program. We'll have a
cornhole
game for players to qualify to spin our Prize Wheel that will offer many
great prizes. Click
here to continue. |
Woodward and Bernstein at FAU Remind Us of Journalism’s Importance
June S. Neal I
didn’t expect to feel so emotional. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were
sitting in front of me, crossed-legged, offering juicy anecdotes about
Watergate and jeremiads about the 2024 presidential campaign.
Click
here to continue.
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A Free Press Is Vital
June S. Neal
Congratulations to your editorial boards’
well-argued opposition to House Bill 757 (“Florida
anti-free speech bill would chill robust debate,” March 6).
Click
here to continue.
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Beating Rick Scott
Michael K. Cantwell Beating Scott won’t be easy. He has three advantages – he’s White, he’s
male, and he’s rich. In fact, he’s the richest man in the U.S. Senate,
and he’s not shy about buying his elections.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Thank Joe Biden
No
President has done more with less.
Click
here to see.
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2024 Membership Char Lane It’s March 2024
and the Primaries are in August and November’s General Election is only
eight months away. It’s time
for some serious work to elect Democrats to save our democracy. Click
here
to continue.
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Chill
Michael K. Cantwell I’m talking about the coming election, not the weather. Biden may not
win in the landslide he deserves, but he’ll win – whether or not Trump
is on the ballot. Republican hostility to women and love affair with autocrats will propel
turnout, as it did in 2022, when polls wrongly predicted a red tsunami.
Equally important, however, Biden will win on the economy.
Click
here to
continue. |
Talking Inflation
Michael K. Cantwell
The spike in inflation between June 2021 and June 2023
caused a good deal of pain, but for Republicans it was a godsend. It was
the only economic indicator they could attack. All others were
performing at historically unmatched levels . . . and continue to do so.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Fun Facts
Michael K. Cantwell If you blinked, you missed this. On December 8, 2023, the Wall Street
Journal
reported that “The University of Michigan’s consumer-confidence index surged
from 61.3 to 69.4, surpassing economists’ expectations of a 62.4
reading.”
Click
here to
continue. |
Walking the Line
Michael K. Cantwell
Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times’s invaluable columnist, recently
reported that “Joe Biden became the first sitting American president to
walk a picket line.”
Click
here to
continue. |
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Meeting Recap
Click
here to read
the latest. |
2024 Membership
Char Lane Can you believe 2023 is almost over and the General
Election is less than a year away?
It’s time to renew your DCDB membership for 2024.
Click
here to continue.
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It’s 2016 All Over Again
Michael K. Cantwell
The
So-Called Liberal Media is making a horserace out of what should be a
slam-dunk by obsessing on inflation and Biden’s age while ignoring what
has been a historic presidency.
Biden
has done far more than help the country recover from the economic and
moral train wreck that was the Trump presidency. He is the first
president in four decades to effectively challenge Reagan’s malignant
trickle-down economics. He’s accomplished more with less than any of his
predecessors. Click
here to
continue. |
Peace Proposal for Israel and the Palestinians
Respectfully Submitted by Rabbi Barry Silver
For the
Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel will announce its support for the
immediate creation of a free and independent Palestinian state in the
West Bank and will stop all further settlements there, once the West
Bank Palestinians acknowledge the right of the Jewish people to a
homeland in Israel with its capital in Jerusalem.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Abortion Access Petition Campaign Update:
We Are at a Critical Point but We Can Succeed!
Arlene Ustin
Once again Florida’s fascistic legislators
and Governor are seeking to restrict women’s rights. This time it’s in
terms of women’s healthcare, specifically, banning abortion access! With
inflation dropping and a government shutdown pending, it’s the perfect
time to drag out the deficit bogeyman. Click
here to
continue. |
What They’re Saying About Trump
“Trump’s antics bring to mind
the prediction of Sinclair Lewis in “It Can’t Happen Here” that if
fascism cane to America it would come wrapped in the flag and whistling
‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”
Click
here to
continue. |
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With Democracy Hanging in the Balance, Two Davids Desert But One Surprises
Michael K. Cantwell Recently three respected members of the So-Called Liberal Media
addressed the question of whether Biden is the Democrats’ best candidate
in 2024.
Click
here to
read. |
Letters By Our Members
So you think Joe Biden is too old to be
president again? . . . June S. Neal, Orlando Sentinel
The media’s coverage of President Biden is
the principal reason the latest poll shows him behind Donald Trump in
five of six critical states. Michael K. Cantwell, The New York Times.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Thank You, Joe Biden
The American Rescue Plan
Act; The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act; The Bipartisan Safer Communities
Act; The PACT Act; The Inflation Reduction Act; The CHIPS Act. Click
here to
continue.
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2024 Membership
Char Lane Can you believe 2023 is almost over and the General
Election is less than a year away?
It’s time to renew your DCDB membership for 2024.
Click
here to continue.
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“If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem”
Michael K. Cantwell Psalm 137 is set during the Babylonian exile, following the deportation
of the ancient Israelites to Babylon in the wake of Nebuchadnezzar II’s
levelling of Jerusalem and destruction of the first temple. Its most
well-known verses impose on the reader a duty of remembrance and have
been repeated through the millennia of the Jewish diaspora before the
founding of Israel.
Click
here to
continue. |
Florida’s Waters: A Vital Asset Facing Grave Threats
Sen. Lori Berman
Florida's pristine
waters have been an unparalleled attraction, magnetizing millions of
tourists with our breathtaking beaches, winding rivers, and mystical
springs. These treasures not only enchant visitors but also bolster our
state's tourism sector, contributing significantly to an industry that
exceeds $101 billion.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Enter the Deficit Bogeyman
Michael K. Cantwell
With inflation dropping and a government
shutdown pending, it’s the perfect time to drag out the deficit
bogeyman. Right on schedule, The New York Times (gleefully?) reported on
October 20, 2023, that “U.S. Deficit, Pegged at $1.7 Trillion,
Effectively Doubled in 2023.” This will be repeated ad nauseam as we
hurtle toward a default even though the article omits some critical
information. Click
here to
continue. |
Letters By Our Members
Consistency Is a Virtue, but Not When
You’re Always Wrong, by David Kulick
‘Safe Place’ Designation Has Historical
Precedent, by June S. Neal
Biden Impeachment Inquiry? Bring It On, by
Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here
herNo.
63 - October 2023/Individual Articles/Letters from our Members.pdfe to
continue. |
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Where Have All the Black Voters Gone?
Amelia
Rose, Ph.D In 2020, when it appeared that Biden would lose the election, Blacks
braved the rain, the cold, Covid-19 and long lines to put him in the
White House. Looking ahead to 2024, it remains to be seen if they will
help to keep him there.
Click
here to
read. |
Malice
Michael K. Cantwell
These people aren’t
stupid. Well, maybe Marjorie Taylor Green is, as one commentator called
her after she disgraced herself at the State of the Union, “a serious
contender for the stupidest person in the room,” but even Donald Trump
understands that a climate catastrophe is looming, and that their
actions are exponentially increasing the likelihood that their
grandchildren if not their children will inherit a virtually
uninhabitable planet. Click
here to
read. |
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Say a Little Prayer for Don
Michael K. Cantwell
I jest, but while some
people worry what will happen if Trump is on the ballot, I worry what
will happen if he’s not. Click
here to
continue.
|
The Democratic Contract with Florida
David Kulick Democrats in Tallahassee are as marginalized today
as Republicans were in Washington before Newt Gingrich’s Contract with
America helped them flip Congress. If we hope to flip the Florida
Legislature in 2024, we must explain what Democrats will do, if given
the majority. Here are some suggestions. Click
here to continue.
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Deals with the Devil
Michael K. Cantwell "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," said retired Israeli
official
Avner Cohen. When it emerged in the 1980s, Hamas was seen as a counterweight to the
PLO and its dominant factor, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Click
here
to continue.
|
Worth Quoting
Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist who spent many years reporting from
Gaza, “Gaza embodies the central contradiction of the state of Israel –
democracy for some, dispossession for others; it is our exposed nerve.’
Israelis don’t say ‘go to hell’, they say ‘go to Gaza.” Quoted by Adam
Shatz on the war in Gaza,
Vengeful Pathologies,
London Review of Books. Click
here to continue.
|
|
A Century of Republican Incompetence and Racism Versus Democratic
Competence and Inclusion
Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here to
read. |
2023 Membership Membership in the Democratic Club of Delray Beach is on a calendar year
basis and your dues help provide funding for operational projects, such
as The Delray Democrat, our meetings, other working supplies and
signage for our sign waving events. Click
here to join. |
|
Biden Has Gen Z’s Back and They Have His
Michael K. Cantwell Perhaps the best response to the pompous pronouncement by David Ignatius
that
President Biden should not run again in
2024 was the one by a
“Poster To Be Named Later”:
“I think David Ignatius
is TOO OLD TO BE WRITING THIS COLUMN!!!”
Click
here to
continue. |
Republicans Worry They’ll Be Blamed for Shutting Down the Government
Michael K. Cantwell
As we approach the
2024 presidential election, the So-Called Liberal Media has apparently
forgotten all it learned from having unwittingly helped to elect Donald
Trump in 2016.
Click
here to
continue. |
|
Letters By Our Members
Consistency Is a Virtue, but Not When
You’re Always Wrong, by David Kulick
‘Safe Place’ Designation Has Historical
Precedent, by June S. Neal
Biden Impeachment Inquiry? Bring It On, by
Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here to
continue. |
Are We Headed Toward Privatizing Florida’s Public Education?
June Sandra Neal
You have to give it to him. Gov. Ron
DeSantis’ scheme to weaken our public schools in favor of increased
private, religious and home schooling has worked. Click
here to
continue. |
|
A Century of Republican Incompetence and Racism Versus Democratic
Competence and Inclusion
Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here to
read. |
More Letters By Our Members
Keep Trump (the Gift
that keeps Giving) on the Ballot, by Michael K. Cantwell
Weaponizing Government,
by Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here to continue.
|
|
“Oh, You Can’t Scare Me,
I’m Sticking with the Union”
Michael K. Cantwell When Woody Guthrie wrote Union Maid in June 1940, more than 30%
of American workers belonged to unions. The right to unionize was won
only after a century of bloody battles in which workers were beaten by
Pinkertons and thugs hired by factory owners. Click
here to continue. |
2023 Membership Membership in the Democratic Club of Delray Beach is on a calendar year
basis and your dues help provide funding for operational projects, such
as The Delray Democrat, our meetings, other working supplies and
signage for our sign waving events. Click
here to join. |
|
Is It Fascism Yet? Part 2
Michael K. Cantwell
Is It Fascism Yet? Part One
looked at America’s two most recent brushes with fascism, during the
failed administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Unlike Bush and Trump, Ron DeSantis is smart, brutally focused, and
ruthlessly ambitious. If DeSantis becomes president, there may be a
different ending—for both our experiment in democracy and a sustainable
life on our planet. Click
here
to continue. |
Are We Headed Toward Privatizing Florida’s Public Education?
June Sandra Neal
Given Governor DeSantis’ elimination of income restrictions for school
voucher applicants, this just may be Florida’s trajectory. Now, even
wealthy families can get the state to pay for all or part of their
children’s private schooling. What was once a strategy to help poor
children exit failing
public schools is now a dark Republican scheme designed to destroy
public education while supporting private, religious and home schools
(PRH)—on the taxpayers’ dime. Click
here
to continue.
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Got Inflation?
Michael K. Cantwell
Florida does. In fact, we’re No. 1!
Florida boasts the metropolitan
areas with the greatest increases in year-over-year
inflation. Click
here
to continue. |
Florida Schools: The New Beaver Cleaver Laws ’s Public Education?
June Sandra Neal
Yes indeed, Florida’s schools are now governed by a package of laws that
Beaver Cleaver would find familiar, thanks to Governor DeSantis and the
Republican legislative lemmings. Click
here
to continue.
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Trump Bragged About Manufacturing Jobs, Biden Is Delivering
Michael
K. Cantwell
Trump bragged that he’d add manufacturing jobs, but 170,000
manufacturing jobs disappeared on his watch. By contrast, Biden promised
to create one million manufacturing jobs, and midway through his third
year, there are 793,000 more manufacturing jobs than when he took
office. Click
here
to continue. |
A Looming Disaster
Jeffrey Kash
Children swept away, five people dead, when more than four inches of
rain fell in two hours causing a flash flood to inundate a road in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. Click
here
to continue.
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Bidenomics
Michael K. Cantwell
Here’s how Gregg Coodley of Portland, Oregon responded to a
New York Times
op-ed
that asked, “Have you met anyone truly excited about Joe Biden running
for re-election?”: “I am wildly enthusiastic about President Biden, who is the best
president in my lifetime.” Click
here
to continue. |
Letters
Letters to the Editor are an excellent way to influence NPAs and give
comfort and information to Democrats. Here are the latest. Click
here
continue. |
|
Thank a Democrat/Thank Joe Biden A list of all the programs for which Americans would be grateful to Democrats and Joe Biden, if only they knew. It's our job to remind them. Click here to continue. |
2023 Membership Char Lane If you’re a member of the Democratic Club of Delray
Beach and haven’t yet renewed, please do so. If you’re not a member of
the Club, please consider joining.
Click
here to
continue. |
|
Is It Fascism Yet?
Michael K. Cantwell
I first encountered the provocative question in the
title on a handwritten sign carried by an elderly woman at an anti–Iraq
War rally in DC in September 2002. With the rise of single-party rule in
Florida, led by book-banners, nativists, racists, and crypto-fascists,
it’s a question worth examining in the context of the events of the last
20 years. Click
here to continue. |
President Biden Stands Strong Against
Russia’s Threat to World Peace
Conor
R. Moore.
In a
move that would make one of our greatest presidents, Harry S. Truman,
proud, the United States has sent more than $75 billion to help Ukraine
in its fight against Russia.. Click
here to continue. |
|
Juneteenth
Michael K. Cantwell The editorial reprinted below was published prior to passage of the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.” Making Juneteenth a federal holiday is symbolically huge but does nothing to protect Black America from Republican voter suppression laws. Click here to continue. |
Juneteenth and the
“Absolute Equality”
The
Editorial Board
President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22,
1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863. Enslaved Texans would not
learn of their liberation for nearly two and a half years. Click
here to continue. |
|
Biden Bucks Are Powering Florida Forward
State Sen. Lori
Berman
We often hear
Governor DeSantis bragging about Florida’s robust budget. For years,
he’s toured the state announcing funding for new infrastructure and
water projects, first responder bonuses, raises in teacher salaries, and
other necessary investments . . . But how many of these investments are
attributable to President Biden and the federal government, rather than
the Florida Legislature? Click
here to continue. |
DeSantis Legislates His Vision of Florida: White, Native, and Christian
June Sandra Neal
Republicans hypocritically rail against any interference
with businesses…except when it irks the NRA. Click
here to continue. |
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Biden Smacks Another Home Run
Michael K.
Cantwell
Nothing better
illustrates Joe Biden’s experience than his handling of the so-called
debt crisis. Click
here to continue.
|
Biden’s Not Just “Better than
the Alternative”
He’s Better than Most of His Predecessors
Michael K.
Cantwell
When Joe Biden says, “Don’t Compare Me to the Almighty,
Compare Me to the Alternative,” he is selling himself short, as does
much of America. Click
here to continue. |
|
Letters by Our Members
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was right to call Gov. Ron
DeSantis a “small, pathetic man.” Click
here to continue. |
2023 Membership
Char Lane
Membership is on a calendar year basis and your dues help
provide funding for operational projects, such as The Delray
Democrat, our meetings, other working supplies and signage for our
sign waving events . . . Become a member of the DCDB by completing and
mailing the below application or going to
https://www.demclubofdelray.org/membership
|
|
Hypocrites, Blackmailers, and Political Terrorists
Michael K. Cantwell
There are three
things to know about the debt ceiling “crisis”:
(1) every penny of the $31.4
trillion of debt we will exceed on June 5 was authorized by prior
Congresses in legislation signed by prior presidents; raising the debt
ceiling is thus not a subject for negotiation but rather a question of
whether Republicans will welch on our country’s debts;
(2) before Newt Gingrich became
Speaker in 1995, the ceiling was raised more than 100 times, always
without attendant drama; and
(3) since then, it has morphed
into a crisis every time a Democrat occupied the Oval Office and never
when a Republican was president.
Click
here to continue. |
Get Behind Biden and Kindly STFU
Michael K. Cantwell
A recent poll
reported that only 25% of Democrats want Joe Biden to run for
reelection. Nearly half (44%) would have preferred a different nominee
and the remainder had no preference.
This means that
75% of the Democrats polled either don’t want or don’t know if they want
Biden to run. That’s damaging and idiotic.
Click
here to continue. |
|
Republicans Can’t Create Jobs but They Sure Can Create
Debt
The debt chart is
based on data provided by the
U.S. Treasury, and the jobs charts are
based on data provided by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. The links are active. MKC. Click
here for the charts.
|
Look at His Record, Not His Age
Jack Goldstein
I hear people
talk about Biden’s age and ignore his enormous accomplishments as
president. He has brought civility, experience, and respect to the
executive branch, and once again is the United States looked upon with
respect and admiration by the free world. Ignore President Biden’s age
and focus on his achievements and goals for the future. Click
here to continue.
|
|
Biden’s Economic Engine that
Could
Notwithstanding ten interest rate increases over 14
months, the economy is still producing jobs. This is no doubt a source
of irritation to Republicans, who are plotting to cause a worldwide
recession by refusing to raise the debt ceiling (even though they
created the bulk of the debt). MKC. Click
here for the charts. |
2023 Membership
Char Lane
Membership is on
a calendar year basis and your dues help provide funding for operational
projects, such as The Delray Democrat, our meetings, other
working supplies and signage for our sign waving events. Meetings are
at 7 PM on the third Thursday of each month at the Palm Beach County
Democratic Party office, located in the Congress Office Park, 220
Congress Park Drive, Suite 140, in Delray Beach.
Our meetings are hybrid so you can also join via zoom.
|
|
DeSantis Plays, Florida Pays
Michael K. Cantwell and Char Lane
Governor DeSantis
does like his
clichés. In his ongoing attempt to punish Disney for exercising its First
Amendment rights, he’s warned “there’s a new sheriff in town” and
promised “you ain’t seen nothing yet” and, most recently, insisted that
he’d win, “come hell or high water.” Click
here to continue. |
Re-Enroll in Vote by Mail
By Phone: (561) 656-6208
Online:
https://palmbeach.electionsfl.org/vrservices/mbrs#
By Email: votebymail@votepalmbeach.gov
By Fax: (561) 656-6230
Click
here for more.
|
|
Trump the Grifter, DeSantis the Opportunist
June Sandra Neal Given Donald Trump’s precarious legal status headlining this issue, many Republicans are looking at Governor Ron DeSantis as the better choice for their party’s presidential nomination. After all, he’s more disciplined, appears more controlled, and he can complete a sentence. Click here to continue.
|
Worth Reading
Senator Bobby Powell,
Labeling Problems “Woke” a Whole Lot
Easier Than Fixing Them, Palm Beach Post: “Unfortunately, Florida’s governor has
long-since checked out from the problems that keep my constituents up at
night, eyeing instead how to take out Donald Trump for the Republican
presidential nomination. Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, Gov.
DeSantis dreams up ways to keep himself in the national news while
storm-battered Floridians watch the mold grow along with the cost of
their policy renewals.” Click
here to continue. |
|
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Michele Gitu DEI is under siege and being attacked all around the state of Florida. Misinformation is a leading factor, as is frequently the case when new terminology enters our common speech. Click here to continue
|
The Case for Voting By Mail
Janet Zweiback Campaigning and voting for Senator Barack Hussein Obama for President was a thrill for me and I couldn’t wait to be in the voting booth. Shortly after midnight on November 2, 2008, I was taken to the hospital for emergency, lifesaving surgery. As nurses were rushing me to the OR, I feebly said that I had to vote in two days. Click here to continue. |
|
We Don’t Vote, We Lose
Michael K. Cantwell
I have often ridiculed White working-class Republicans for
voting against their economic interests. But what about Democrats who
vote against their economic interests by “not voting”? Click
here to continue.
|
Worth Quoting
“Whenever you
happen to be in Florida, focus on your actual job: Running a massive
state government where people are dying every day of drug overdoses and
mass shootings that you barely acknowledge. Where school boards across
the state are grimly awaiting the final price tag of the economically
reckless voucher bill you just signed. Where insurance rates are
skyrocketing and damage claims from back-to-back hurricanes are being
summarily denied. Where, every day, we’re discovering more cracks your
machinations have inflicted on the fundamental integrity of Florida’s
own government.”
Orlando Sentinel
Click
here for more.
|
|
DeDoofus Punked by Disney
Michael K. Cantwell
Like
Icarus,
Ron DeSantis flies too close to the sun. He runs Florida like his
personal fiefdom, lashing out at anyone who criticizes him. Picking a
fight with Disney may be his Waterloo, however. Click
here to continue. |
Donald, Get Ready, There’s a Trial A Comin’
Michael K. Cantwell
“If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now.
If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.” Hamlet
It
is now, Donald, but it is also
to come.
Alvin Bragg is the first but will not be the last. Fani Willis and Jack
Smith are waiting in the wings. Click
here to continue. |
|
The Democratic Contract with Florida
David Kulick Democrats in
Tallahassee are as marginalized today as Republicans were in Washington
before Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America helped them flip Congress.
If we hope to flip the Florida Legislature in 2024, we must explain what
Democrats will do, if given the majority. Click
here to continue. |
The Validity of the U.S. Debt “Shall
Not Be Questioned”
Michael K. Cantwell Under the scary headline
Debt Default Would Cripple U.S. Economy,
The New York Times reported that Moody’s Analytics had estimated
the immediate impact of the first government default in American history
would be the loss of one million jobs and a recession. Click
here to continue. |
|
Let’s Go Make History
Steve Franklin Most people think “reality” is a handful of people trying to survive on
a tropical island. The rest of us know that reality, for millions of
people, is trying to survive on lower-than-poverty wages in an
increasingly expensive world. Click
here to continue. |
The New
Political Geography:
It’s
Whole Foods Against Cracker Barrel!
June Sandra Neal
Way back in 2011, political analyst
Dave Wasserman coined this cute metaphor for America’s growing red v.
blue political migration. He
and others tracked the point gap between Democratic and Republican
candidates starting with President Obama’s 2008 election onward and
found Whole Foods and Cracker Barrel establishments to be significant
markers in political clustering. Click
here
to continue.
|
|
Democrats Poised to Take Control of
Wisconsin Supreme Court
Michael K. Cantwell Conservatives have controlled the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 2008.
That may change on April 4, when voters chose between Daniel Kelly, a
MAGA Republican and former justice who lost a reelection bid in
2020, and Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal County Court judge. Click
here to continue.
|
What We’re Reading Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull,
The False Promise of ChatGPT,
The New York Times “The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its
ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on
hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely
conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question
. . .” Click
here to continue.
|
|
Worth Repeating “The real criminals in this society are not all of the people who
populate the prisons across the state, but those who have stolen the
wealth of the world from the people.” Angela Davis. “Public relief is a sacred debt. Society owes maintenance to unfortunate
citizens.” Paragraph 21 of the 1793 Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen — the ultimate statement of the ideals of the French Revolution. Click
here to continue.
|
2023
Membership
Char Lane
It’s 2023 and time to renew your DCDB membership if you’ve not already
done so or join us if you’re not already a member.
Membership is on a calendar year basis and your dues help provide
funding for operational projects, such as The Delray Democrat, our
meetings, other working supplies and signage for our sign waving events.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Who’s Afraid of Roberto Clemente?
Michael K. Cantwell Base runners
trying to go from first to third or score from second on a single to
right field had good reason to fear Roberto Clemente’s rifle arm.
Pitchers had good reason to fear his powerful bat whenever Roberto was
at the plate. Even a half-century after Roberto died on a mission of
mercy, Ron DeSantis and his minions fear him, although their reasons are
self-serving and wicked.
Click
here to continue. |
Messaging
Michael K. Cantwell Not to put too fine a point on it, but Democrats suck at messaging. Our
last good slogan was Obama’s “Yes, We Can.” Click
here to continue. |
|
Biden Agita
Michael K. Cantwell Democrats are suffering from Biden Agita. Michelle Goldberg
urges
Biden not to run again, even though he has been “a great president.”
Republicans started calling Biden senile in 2019, which is just too rich
when three of the last four Republican presidents had difficulty
constructing actual sentences. Click
here to continue. |
2023
Membership
Char Lane
It’s 2023 and time to renew your DCDB
membership if you’ve not already done so or join us if you’re not
already a member. Membership
is on a calendar year basis and your dues help provide funding for
operational projects, such as The Delray Democrat, our meetings, other
working supplies and signage for our sign waving events. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
|
|
It’s a Clown Show, but There’s Nothing
Funny About It
Michael K. Cantwell Immune to serial
humiliations and grinning like a clown, Kevin McCarthy pounded the gavel
that it took him 15 ballots and 5 days to secure. Showing that the
universe can sometimes have a dark sense of humor, his “victory”
occurred on the second anniversary of the attempted overthrow of the
American government. Click
here to continue. |
Florida
Senator Lori Berman Following the horrific Parkland massacre in 2018, the Florida
Legislature passed common sense gun safety legislation. Included among
the provisions was a procedure known as the Risk Protection Order, which
allowed law enforcement to remove guns from individuals who were a
danger to themselves or others. Click
here to continue. |
|
How Has Biden Responded to Republican
Threats?
How Should He?
Michael K. Cantwell What President Biden accomplished in his first two years is remarkable,
given Democrats’ five-seat majority in the House and an evenly split
Senate (with one senator in the pay of fossil fuels and another in the
pay of Big Pharma and hedge funds). Click
here to continue. |
Makeover versus Takeover
Michele
Gitu
You
hear a lot of things if you take the time to move in different circles
of humanity. This “Boomer,” being somewhat new to the political scene
related to Democrats in Palm Beach County, has watched a serious drama
play out from the Gillum race in 2018 to the wrestling match for power
and control of the DEC meeting last month.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
For the Record, the DCDB Censures Dave
Kerner
Michael K. Cantwell Last September, Dave Kerner betrayed both the voters who elected him and
the Democratic Party by endorsing Ron DeSantis. Unlike like those of us
who toil in the trenches for the Party, he was not bound by any loyalty
oath because he is an elected official. Click
here to continue. |
Charts: Biden’s Record on
Jobs Remains Unmatched
Michael
K. Cantwell
Biden’s
average monthly job increase is far and away the best ever. Unemployment
is at a level last seen when Nixon was president. And the broader
picture – looking at Biden and his seven predecessors – shows that
unemployment falls when a Democrat is in the Oval Office and rises under
Republican administrations
and that Democratic administrations have created more than three times
as many jobs as Republicans . . . despite having been in office fewer
months.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
2023
Membership
Char Lane
It’s 2023 and time to renew your DCDB
membership if you’ve not already done so or join us if you’re not
already a member. Membership
is on a calendar year basis and your dues help provide funding for
operational projects, such as The Delray Democrat, our meetings, other
working supplies and signage for our sign waving events. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
DeSantis Moves to Quell
Political Dissent
Florida
Senator Lori Berman
Freedom of speech, the linchpin of any democracy, is
under attack in Ron DeSantis’ Florida. The Governor’s Department of
Management Services (DMS), which oversees the Capitol complex, has
proposed new rules that would empower Capitol Police to remove
individuals exercising their first amendment right.
Click
here
to continue. |
Democratic Gardens;
Republican Jungles
Michael
K. Cantwell It’s said that anything put in the ground in Florida grows. But gardens
need to be cared for. Otherwise, as the Bard wrote, they go to seed, and
“things rank and gross in nature” consume them utterly.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
The Republican “Not See”
Party Threatens America
Rabbi
Barry Silver
The Republican “Not See” Party
threatens America as it pretends to “not see” that Trump’s “America
First” slogan was first used by fascists and Nazi sympathizers such as
Charles Lindbergh who sought to keep America out of WWII so Hitler could
slaughter the Jews.
Click
here
to continue. |
Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies
Michael K. Cantwell Long
before Twitter, and years before the World Wide Web was launched, local
bulletin boards and Usenet groups offered a platform from which people
could anonymously demonize others from the safety of their own homes.
Click
here to continue. |
|
The Greatest Speaker of
the Modern Era
Michael
K. Cantwell As we welcome a new Democratic leadership team in the House, we should
also give heartfelt thanks to Nancy Pelosi, the greatest speaker of the
modern era. Click
here to continue. |
Thích Nhất Hạnh
Susan
Berkowitz-Schwartz
Thích Nhất Hạnh was a Vietnamese
Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet and teacher
known as the "Father of Mindfulness" and was a major influence on
Western practices of Buddhism. Click
here
to continue. |
|
2023
Membership
Char Lane
We are
fast approaching the end of 2022 and it’s time to renew your DCDB
membership for 2023. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
How The DeSantis Saved
Democracy Jeff Kash
On the eighth day, God
created a fighter and that fighter unwittingly saved democracy.
Only four years ago,
21.25 million people lived in Florida. Of those, 4,718,720 were
registered to vote as Republicans. That year, DeSantis received
4,076,186 votes, narrowly beating his Democratic opponent. Click
here
to continue. |
The Red Wave that
Wasn’t . . . and the One That Was
Michael K. Cantwell
Democracy dodged a bullet for the third election in a row. Not since the
1962 midterms has a Democratic president done better in his first
midterm.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
The Winds of War
Steve Fradkin
Ever stop to think about how the next American Revolutionary War will
begin? Forget Lexington and
Concord. Forget Bunker
Hill. No, this one will
start differently.
Click
here
to continue. |
Protect Women’s Rights in Florida By
Amending the Constitution
David Kulick When
the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs overturned the 1973 Roe vs Wade
ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, it gave Democrats a potent
issue for the November midterms. Click
here
to continue. |
|
Letters
We’re very proud to count among our members state senator Lori Berman.
Here’s a letter she recently published in the Sun-Sentinel.
Click
here to
continue. |
Atonement
Michael K. Cantwell
Whenever I’m subjected to Ron DeSantis’s poisonous lies about Critical
Race Theory, I’m reminded of a trip my wife and I took through Central
Europe in 1984.
Click
here to
continue. |
|
A More Perfect Union
Michael K. Cantwell The drafters of
the United States Constitution would be sickened by the slogan, “Make
America Great Again,” which sounds more like a translation of
Deutschland Uber Alles than anything intended by the Founders whom
Republicans so repeatedly and hypocritically invoke.
Click
here to continue. |
“Clear and Present
Danger”
Michael K. Cantwell
Testifying before the January 6 Committee, the highly respected, very
conservative appellate judge J. Michael Luttig described Donald Trump
and his allies as “a Clear and Present danger to American democracy.”
Click
here
to continue. |
|
2022 Membership
Char Lane
We are fast approaching the end of 2022 and it’s time to renew your DCDB
membership for 2023. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
The Once and Future
Governor
Michael
K. Cantwell
Most fundamental is that
Crist, like Biden, is a decent, competent man running against an
indecent, incompetent narcissist. The race between Crist and DeSantis is
a race between a mensch and a miscreant. Click
here
to continue. |
What’s It All About
Steve
Fradkin
It’s not about ideology. It’s not
even about money. It’s bigger than that. More critical than the issues
of the day, or even of the century.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Hurricane Ian Brings the
Day of Judgment to America
Rabbi
Barry Silver
Mother Earth has brought Judgment Day
to America as Hurricane Ian slams into our coast with a vengeance and
warns of even greater catastrophes if we fail to atone for our
environmental sins.
Click
here
to continue. |
Atonement
Michael
K. Cantwell
Whenever I’m subjected to Ron DeSantis’s poisonous lies about Critical
Race Theory, I’m reminded of a trip my wife and I took through Central
Europe in 1984.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Why This Year is
Different
Rob
Resnick
For as long as I have studied law and
politics, I have consistently believed that in the grand scheme of
things it didn’t matter who appointed a judge, at least a federal judge.
Click
here
to continue. |
What We’re Reading
Poor People Will Be Voting for Their
Lives in the Midterms,
Reverend William J. Barber and Tope Folarin, Newsweek: “With
Congress failing to extend vital safety net programs created during the
pandemic, poor and low-income people will be voting for their lives in
this year's midterms.”
Click
here
to continue. |
|
2022
Membership
Char Lane
If
you’re not a member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please
consider joining. If you’re
already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed, please renew for
2022. Click
here
to continue. |
How the Founders Viewed the
Constitution
“I know also that laws and institutions
must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that
becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made,
new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of
circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the
times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which
fitted him when a boy, as civilised society to remain ever under the
regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
Thomas Jefferson Letter to Henry Tompkinson
|
|
Why the November Election
Is Once Again “The Most Important Election of Your Life”
Michael
K. Cantwell
The last three federal
elections were billed as “the most important in our lifetime.” It is not
crying wolf or hyperbole to apply the same label to the upcoming
midterms. Click
here
to continue. |
Godspeed Merrick Garland
and DOJ
Rob
Resnick
It is simply impossible to make up a
better story. I hope the Trump team and Trump Congressional enablers
keep talking.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
If Mikhail Gorbachev Had
Had a Real Partner
Michael
K. Cantwell
Shortly before Mikhail Gorbachev came
to power, Richard Barnett (co-founder of the progressive think tank
Institute for Policy Studies) debated Ronald Reagan’s nominee for
Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, the execrable and
unqualified Ernest Lefever.
Click
here
to continue. |
What to Tell the
NPAs—Republicans Are the Real Extremists
Michael
K. Cantwell
Republicans win elections by falsely labeling Democrats as extremists,
but the true threat to our values, our democracy, and our planet is the
Republican Party itself.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Charlie Crist Will Be
Florida’s Joe Biden
Michael
K. Cantwell
A year ago I
suggested
that Charlie Crist could be Florida’s Joe Biden. A month ago the claim
would have been greeted with howls of laughter, and perhaps will be so
greeted even today. It would be “the laughter of fools.” Click
here
to continue. |
Letters
Writing to local papers is a way to influence NPAs and gives comfort and
information to Democrats. Here are the latest. Click
here
to continue. |
|
DeSantis As Nixon, Part 2
Michael
K. Cantwell
Actions such as the removal of state
attorney Andrew Warren is the latest indication that it’s a mistake to
characterize Gov. DeSantis as merely a Donald Trump clone. He’s not just
our “Pint-sized Trump in Tallahassee” or “Trump with a Brain” or “Trump
with Table Manners.” Click
here
to continue. |
From “Little Ronnie
Reagan” to Little Ronnie DeSantis
Michael
K. Cantwell As
much damage as Trump has done to American democracy and discourse, no
president has been worse for American workers than Ronald Reagan. Click
here
to continue. |
|
2022
Membership
Char Lane
If
you’re not a member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please
consider joining. If you’re
already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed, please renew for
2022. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
American Exceptionalism
Is Dead. Republicans Killed It
Rob
Resnick
American Exceptionalism has been around for generations.
Conceptually it represents that the US is a beacon to the world for
democracy and a shining example to the world of how to operate the
complexities of a democratic republic. Click
here
to continue. |
Democrats Deliver.
Republicans Put Party Before People, Country, and Planet
Michael
K. Cantwell
After Senate Democrats passed
America’s largest-ever investment in combatting climate change, Paul
Krugman asked, “Did
Democrats Just Save Civilization?”
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Rather
Than Adding More Justices to the United States Supreme Court, Some
Justices Should be Impeached As Unfit.
Here’s
Why
Rabbi Barry Silver
The Supreme Court justices selected
by Donald Trump have shown themselves unfit for that exalted office by
decisions that reject nearly 50 years of precedent on abortion, and the
separation of church and state in America, that provide the mentally
deranged with assault weapons and that permit the ravaging of our planet
by stripping government agencies of the power to prevent excesses of
greed and exploitation.
Click
here
to continue. |
Republicans’ 50-Year
Assault on Education, Teachers, and History
Michael
K. Cantwell
As if speaking not just to his
contemporaries but to our own time as well, Thomas Jefferson warned of
the need for an educated populace if democracy was to endure:
“In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness,
some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and
wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and improve.”
Click
here
to continue. |
|
Letters
Writing to local papers is a way to
influence NPAs and gives comfort and information to Democrats. Here are
the latest. Click
here
to continue. |
Biden’s Big Economic Engine That Could . . . In Charts
Michael K. Cantwell
Click
here to view. |
|
See You In September
Michael K. Cantwell
To
those of us of a certain age, it’s feeling like the summer of ’74. What
had been unimaginable only months earlier, following the publication of
Woodward and Bernstein’s first piece on Watergate, moved swiftly to a
stunning conclusion – Richard Nixon waving goodbye from the helicopter
that was poised to carry him into retirement and ignominy. Click
here
to view. |
2022
Membership
Char Lane
If you’re not a member of the
Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining.
If you’re already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed,
please renew for 2022. Click
here
to continue. |
|
The Gigante Defense
Michael K. Cantwell
If you lived in New York during the latter
decades of the last century, you’ll remember Vincent “the Chin” Gigante,
the Mafia don who avoided prosecution for years by parading around
Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to
himself. Click
here to continue.
|
The
Passing of Pat O’Hearne Terrie
Rizzo It is with heavy
hearts that the Palm Beach County Democratic Party mourns the loss of
Pat O'Hearne, lifelong Democratic activist, PBC Precinct Committeewoman,
Zone Leader Emerita for Zone 8 in East Delray Beach, and Democratic
Party stalwart par excellence, who passed away on June 19 at age 84.
Click
here to continue. |
|
Based Upon Real Events
Jeffrey Kash A mother and her infant child were at the father’s home when he
threatened to kill her. The mother was 18 and the father 20 and he had
been violent throughout their relationship. He punched her and then got
his gun and beat her with it. Click
here to continue. |
2022 Membership
Char Lane If you’re not a
member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining.
If you’re already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed,
please renew for 2022. Click
here to continue. |
|
Lizzy
and That Wizard Of Ours — A Modern Fairytale
Steve West
Once upon a time there was a shining white city on a hill. It was ruled
over by a humbug Wizard whom, without any evidence, proclaimed himself
the wisest, smartest, least prejudiced, overall greatest individual who
ever lived. Click
here to continue. |
Letters
Writing to local papers is a way to
influence NPAs and independents while giving aid, comfort and
information to Democrats. Here are some letters published by our members
and friends in the last month. Click
here
to continue. |
|
This Is Only the Beginning
Rob Long Two weeks ago, I
was stripped of the office I’ve held for the last six years—the office I
was reelected to in 2020 by over 326,000 Palm Beach County voters. And I
wasn’t alone. Click
here to continue. |
The Republican Party and “Jewish
Ideals”
Michael K. Cantwell Did you see that Mike Pence claims that the “Republican Party has stood
for the ideals that have been characteristic in the Jewish community”?
For a moment, I thought I was reading The Onion or The Borowitz Report.
Click
here
to continue. |
|
The Shackling of Andrew Gillum
Michael K. Cantwell Prior to being released on his own recognizance,
Andrew Gillum was led into court with “his hands and legs shackled to a
chain around his waist.” Click
here to continue. |
Amen
Michael K. Cantwell “Three things in human life are important. The
first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be
kind.” Henry James, quoted in Leon Edel, The Master. Click
here for some other
final words. |
|
Juneteenth and the Unrealized Promise of
“Absolute Equality”
Editorial Board
President Lincoln announced the Emancipation
Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1,
1863. Enslaved Texans would not learn of their liberation for nearly two
and a half years. Click
here to continue.
|
Marco
Rubio: Driven by Blind Ambition, He’s Violated His
Oath of Office June
Sandra Neal Senator Marco
Rubio took this oath on January 5, 2011. He has since abandoned his post
more than he has served it and abdicated his responsibility to protect
the American people against their cardinal domestic enemy: murder by
firearms. Click
here
to continue. |
|
These Buttons Never Went Out of Fashion Michael K. Cantwell It’s a testament to the depravity to which this
country has succumbed since Donald Trump first announced his candidacy
that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are treated as elder statesmen and
not war criminals. Click
here to continue. |
Birds Aren’t Real, and Other
Conspiracies David Kulick I always
considered myself a bit of a conspiracy buff. I don’t think Lee Harvey
Oswald killed Kennedy. I don’t think James Earl Ray acted alone in
killing Martin Luther King. Click
here to continue. |
|
Vote
Out NRA Whores
Michael K. Cantwell
Marco Rubio is not the biggest NRA Whore in the United States Senate,
but he’s the biggest one who is running for reelection. Click
here to continue. |
DeSantis As Nixon
Michael K. Cantwell
It’s easy to mock Ron DeSantis as a
pint-sized Trump or Trump with table manners (Rebekah Jones might take
issue with that characterization . . . more on that below). Click
here to continue.
|
|
2022 Membership
Char Lane If you’re not a
member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining.
If you’re already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed,
please renew for 2022. Click
here
to continue. |
What Is a Democrat?
Rob Resnick As we look towards the 2022 midterms and beyond, the Democratic Party
must campaign on its core values. Strong candidates will fit their
respective districts and the priorities of their voters, but also must
connect to national strategy based on these core values that unite
Democrats across the nation. Click
here to continue. |
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There Is No Such Thing
As “Not Voting”
Michael K. Cantwell
Every vote counts, but every vote not cast counts as well. That’s
because there is no such thing as “not voting,” as David Foster Wallace
explained: “you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and
tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.” Click
here
to continue. |
A Dangerous and Slippery Slope
Jeffrey Kash
We should be very concerned that the reversal of Roe v. Wade is
the beginning of a slippery slope turning back the calendar and
eliminating many of our rights. Click
here
to continue. |
|
2022 Membership
Char Lane
If you’re not a member of the
Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining.
If you’re already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed,
please renew for 2022. Click
here to continue. |
DeSantis Pushes for “Open Carry” Against Record Gun Violence:
“From My Cold, Dead Hands”
June Sandra Neal If we thought Governor DeSantis couldn’t be any more of a reckless ideologue . . . now he’s promised to make Florida a “no carry, no permit” state before the end of his term, with his so-called “constitutional carry.” Click here to continue |
|
A Very Personal Note
June Sandra Neal
I chatted on
the phone with Dawn Hochsprung in the evening of December 13, 2012 about
a caterer for a wedding reception. Her daughter and my son were engaged
to be married. I never spoke
to her again. Dawn was the beloved principal of Sandy Hook Elementary
School. The next day, Dawn, five other educators and 20 first-graders
were massacred by a crazed gunman who had access to his mother’s
firearms. Click
here
to continue. |
Florida’s Ludicrous Gun
“Against-Registration” Law
June Sandra Neal
|
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Icarus
Michael K. Cantwell Remember the myth of Icarus? His father, Daedalus, fashioned wings that he affixed to their bodies, enabling the pair to flee from King. Click here to continue. |
|
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Push Polls
Rob Resnick
With the 2022 Florida campaigns in full
swing, the effort to steal or subvert the vote has begun in earnest.
Click
here to continue. |
Keep the Immigrants,
Deport the Racists
Michael K. Cantwell
America has always been a beacon to those fleeing poverty and
persecution, as expressed in Emma Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,”
with its iconic but aspirational closing lines. Click
here
to continue. |
|
Public Defenders Are Not Soft On Crime.
They Are Strong On The Constitution
Jeffrey Kash
In my first class on my first day of
law school, a classmate asked our criminal law professor “how can you
defend a criminal?”. Her response was: “I don’t. I defend alleged
criminals.” Click
here
to continue. |
Is DeSantis Worse than Trump?
Michael K. Cantwell
I’m not sure
whether Ron DeSantis is actually a racist, but I am certain that he is
something worse. If he’s not a racist, that is, if he is just throwing
red meat to the wingnuts, then he’s actually worse than a racist. Click
here
to continue.
|
|
Florida “Education” Department Claims
Math Books Contain CRT
Michael K. Cantwell
That’s right.
Florida’s “Education” Department has rejected math books that it claims
contain Critical Race Theory but is refusing to provide any examples.
How dumb do they think Floridians are? Click
here
to continue. |
Do Not Pass Over the True
Meaning of Passover
Rabbi Barry Silver Many traditional Jews remove chametz (food forbidden on Passover) from their homes, but forget the
meaning of this ritual. Click
here
to continue. |
|
What We’re Reading
Thomas Piketty Thinks America Is Primed
for Wealth Redistribution,
David Marchese, New York Times: “All wealth is collective by
nature in the sense that it relies on the work of hundreds, thousands,
millions of engineers, technicians, the accumulation of knowledge. Click
here
to continue. |
Worth Noting Franklin Delano
Roosevelt: Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their
choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy,
therefore, is education. Click
here
to continue. |
|
|
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Republicans Are the Real Extremists
Michael K. Cantwell
The Republican claim that Democrats are
extremists who cannot be trusted is yet another in the endless litany of
lies in the Republican arsenal. It is not only palpably false but stands
truth on its head—for the Republicans are the real extremists who cannot
be trusted to govern. Click
here to continue. |
Republican Pandering Hurts Students, Parents,
Taxpayers, and Education
Jeffrey Kash It’s time to put Republicans on the defensive about their “Putting
Parents First Adjustment”.
This “adjustment” is just another bit of pandering to the
Republican “base.” Click
here
to continue
|
|
How Trump’s Criminal Network Set the
Stage for
Putin’s Attack on Ukraine
June Sandra Neal Vladimir Putin is
solely responsible for the horror he has inflicted on Ukraine.
But Republicans are responsible for Donald Trump, who aided and
abetted Putin for many years to help the dictator in his attempt to
seize control of the democratic Ukrainian government. Click
here
to continue. |
We Must Do More For Ukraine – But What?
Rob Resnick I watched Putin’s build-up for weeks knowing it was inevitable that he
would direct the invasion of Ukraine. There was simply no alternative
based on Putin’s world view. Click
here
to continue
|
|
Ten Ways We Know the Bengals Won the
Super Bowl
Rabbi Barry Silver
The Mainstream media continues to
promote the lie that the Rams won the Super Bowl. Here are 10 reasons
why the Bengals won the Super Bowl and should be declared the legitimate
Super Bowl champions. Click
here
to continue. |
2022 Membership
Char Lane
If you’re not a member of the Democratic Club of Delray
Beach, please consider joining.
If you’re already a member of the Club and haven’t yet renewed,
please renew for 2022. Click
here
to continue. |
|
What We’re Reading
What Americans Really Think About
‘Critical Race Theory,’
Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times: “For Democrats, then, this is
a culture war they can win. They just have to fight it.” Click
here to continue. |
Worth Noting
Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
“We used to say, ‘Monday is a hard day. There is a war in the country.
So every day is a Monday. Click
here to continue. |
|
June’s Outbox Our June Neal has
already notched two letters in local media this month. Click
here
to continue.
|
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From Each According to His Gullibility
Michael K. Cantwell
Most Americans reject the so-called
communist creed: “from each according to his ability; to each according
to his needs.” Many of us also reject, but are powerless to reform, the
“crony capitalist creed” that defines our current economic system: “from
each according to his gullibility; to each according to his greed.”
Click
here to continue.
|
The Real Danger of January 6
Rob
Resnick
On January 6, 2021, a large armed mob attacked the US Capitol and the
police officers entrusted with its security. The amount of violence, the
serious weaponry (including chemicals), communications, planning, and of
course the motivation all clearly point to this as an insurrection,
perhaps even an attempted coup. Click
here
to continue
|
|
2022 Membership
Char Lane If you're not a member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining. If you're already a member of the Club and haven't yet renewed, please renew for 2022. Click here to continue.
|
Never Trump. Never Republican
Michael K. Cantwell
According to the Republican National
Committee, storming the U.S. Capitol, smashing windows, beating people
with flagpoles and fire extinguishers and threatening the lives of
public officials is “legitimate political discourse.” It is not.
Click
here to continue.
|
|
It’s the Republicans, Stupid
Rob Resnick Voting Rights legislation is critically important, so much so that it likely should have been the first issue the new administration and Democratic Congress addressed. Click here to continue.
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Was Marco’s Mama a Socialist?
Michael K. Cantwell
Socialism is defined as “collective or
governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and
distribution of goods.” Nothing ever advocated by any Democrat fits that
definition. Click
here to continue |
|
President Biden on the
Attempted Overthrow of Our Democracy
Rob Resnick
President Biden gave an incredible speech
that will likely be recognized throughout history for its critical
importance. Click
here to continue.
|
“It’s the Media, Stupid”
Michael K. Cantwell “It’s the
Economy, Stupid,” the meme coined in 1992 by James Carville, has had a
solid run. It’s the reason Donald Trump lost in 2020, and today it is a
drag on Democrats’ chances in the midterms. Click
here to continue
|
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Did the Dems Get the Media Game Wrong?
June Sandra Neal Forget the press
as the defender of Truth, Justice and the American way. For Moonves, and
other media leaders, Trump is good for business and damn the
consequences. Click
here to continue. |
2022 Membership
Char Lane
Welcome 2022 and Happy New Year.
It’s time to renew your Club membership, and if you’re not yet a
member of the Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining.
Click
here to continue. |
|
Big Lies and Greater Truths
Michael K. Cantwell
Donald Trump and the Republican Party do
not depend upon a single Big Lie but rather a series of
self-reinforcing, interlocking Big Lies. Click
here to continue
|
We Can’t Win; We Must Win; We Will Win
Michael K. Cantwell
Our democracy and our planet were on the
ballot in November 2020 . . . and they survived, barely. Biden won,
Warnock and Ossoff won, and we weathered the worst attack on our
democracy since the nation’s founding.
Our democracy
and our planet are back on the ballot this November, and this time the
party of the Big Lies will be aided by 34 voter suppression laws enacted
in 19 states, including Florida. Click
here to continue |
|
Debunking the Republican Big Lie That
Biden Has Been “Captured by ‘The Left’” Presidency
Michael K. Cantwell
If President Biden sounds more progressive
than the centrist Democrat he’s been for decades, it’s because he’s been
listening to what the American people say they need and trying to
respond to those needs. To conclude that he has been “captured by the
‘Left’” (scare quotes) simply because those needs happen to align with
policies advocated by progressives is to confuse correlation with
causation. Click
here to continue.
|
Have the Democrats Gone Too Far to the
Left?
June Sandra Neal Back in 2019, former president Obama was clearly worried that some of
the Democratic presidential candidates were situating the Party too far
left. Speaking to the
National Democratic Alliance, he was blunt.
“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it.” Nor agree with
“certain left-leaning Twitter feeds or
the activist wing of our party,”
referring to Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Click
here to continue. |
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Eliminate the Filibuster for
Legislation Affecting Constitutional Rights
Michael K. Cantwell Republicans don’t
like it when every citizen has an
opportunity to vote. It is called “democracy” but it is spelled
“defeat” for Republicans. Click
here to continue
|
The Supreme Court Gets Ready to Pile on
“the Stench”
Michael K. Cantwell At oral argument in the Mississippi abortion case, Justice Sotomayor
asked whether the Supreme Court could “survive the stench” of being
considered a political institution.
Click
here to continue.
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Thank a Democrat
1964 Civil Rights Act; 1965 Voting Rights
Act; Affordable Care Act; AmeriCorps; CDC; Family and Medical Leave Act;
Food Stamp Act; Freedom of Information Act; GI Bill of Rights; Medicare
and Medicaid; Minimum Wage Act; National Labor Relations Act; National
Science Foundation Act; National Voter Registration Act; Social Security
Act; Unemployment Compensation Act; Workers Compensation Act. Click
here to continue
|
2022 Membership
Char Lane
It’s already December and we’re about to
welcome 2022. It’s time to
renew your Club membership, and if you’re not yet a member of the
Democratic Club of Delray Beach, please consider joining. Click
here to continue |
|
Volunteer to Help Us Turn Florida Blue
in 2022
Char Lane We’ll be very busy next year as we work to elect a
Democratic governor and Democrat senator. There are many ways that you
can help us to achieve these goals. Please contact us if you’re
interested. Click
here to continue |
What They Need
Michael K. Cantwell Remember the Twilight Zone episode “What You Need,” in which a peddler
(able to see into possible futures) gives people what they need before
they even know they need it? Click
here to continue
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“Food for Powder” in the Culture Wars
Michael K. Cantwell Omicron is here. Vaccination and masking are the most effective tools in
the battle against COVID. Unvaccinated Americans are
5.8 times as likely
to be infected and 14 times as likely to die as are vaccinated
Americans. Click
here to continue
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It’s Not a Failed Presidency.
It’s a Failed Democracy . . . and a
Failing Planet
Michael K. Cantwell
If you get your information from the
corporate media, you’ll be surprised to learn that Joe Biden’s record in
office has been one of singular achievements, notwithstanding recent
setbacks. Click
here to continue.
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We Are Not Fighting to Save Our
Democracy; We Are Struggling to Get it Back
Rob Resnick
To those who think we
are fighting to maintain our democracy, think again. We lost it and are
fighting to get it back. Click
here to continue. |
|
Trump Has Been Defeated, but Trumpism
Is Alive and Ill
Rabbi Barry Silver It’s been a while
since I felt morally compelled to write about the disgraced loser
ex-President who staged an unsuccessful coup against America, but while
Trump has been defeated, the plague of Trumpism is alive and ill.
Click
here to continue
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Takeaway from Virginia
Michael K. Cantwell The number one takeaway from Glenn Youngkin’s election as governor is
that racism is alive and well in Virginia. Donald Trump threw away the
dog whistles wielded by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and began using
a bullhorn. Glenn Youngkin threw away the bullhorn and picked up the dog
whistle, as Ron DeSantis is attempting to do in Florida.
Click
here to continue.
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Worth Quoting
“Better the occasional faults of a
government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent
omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference,”
FDR. Click
here to continue
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What We’re Reading
The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the
Leaf Blowers, New York Times: “But the gasoline-powered leaf blower
exists in a category of environmental hell all its own, spewing
pollutants – carbon monoxide, smog-forming nitrous oxides, carcinogenic
hydrocarbons – into the atmosphere at a literally breathtaking rate.”
Click
here to continue |
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Are Republicans Deliberately Sabotaging
the Economy?
Are Blue Dogs Deliberately Sabotaging
Biden’s Agenda?
Michael K. Cantwell
These are rhetorical questions. Having
crashed the economy, Republicans’ only path back to power is to
undermine Democrats’ efforts to fix the mess they left behind. It works
because Americans have short attention spans. Click
here to continue.
|
Senate Afghanistan Hearing
Rob Resnick On September 29,
2021, Secretary of Defense Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General
Milley, and CENTCOM Commander General McKenzie appeared before the
Senate Armed Services Committee.
Click
here to continue
|
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Sue Thy Neighbor: Why All Americans
Should be Very Afraid of Texas’ Anti-Abortion Law
June Sandra Neal
Since the advent of Trump’s neo-Fascist
ideology in 2015, we’ve smelled menace in the air, a sense that our
hard-won human rights and social justices, though still works in
progress, could be eliminated.
Click
here to continue. |
How to Lose Florida Again
Michael K. Cantwell When I moved from New York to Florida in 2014, I looked forward to
having my vote make a difference for the first time in my life.
Click
here to continue.
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Environmental Racism and
Big Sugar
Michael K. Cantwell
Patrick Ferguson was our speaker at our
September meeting night for a presentation on “Environmental Racism and
Sugarcane Burning.” Click
here to continue
|
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New Profiles in Courage Confirm The
Time for Civil Disobedience Is Now
June Sandra Neal
Florida’s government’s failure to protect
its citizens is evil. Fortunately, we are witnessing acts of civil
disobedience that call out to the rest of us. Click
here to continue.
|
“It Don’t Mean A Thing if We Don’t Win
Tomorrow”
Michael K. Cantwell
It was the fourth game of the 2001
World Series. The Arizona Diamondbacks were ahead 3-1 in the ninth and
led the series 2-1. Click
here to continue
|
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Two Takes on Texas
Michael K. Cantwell
What happened in Texas was not inevitable
but it was predictable. It’s what happens when we allow “the perfect to
be the enemy of the good.” Click
here to continue.
|
It Is Class Warfare We’ve Been Losing
for a Half-Century
Michael K. Cantwell
Complaints that multimillionaires and
multinationals don’t pay their fair share of taxes are met with cries of
“socialism” and “class warfare.” Of course the socialism is for the
obscenely rich, who have been practicing and winning class warfare since
1970, as the chart below makes abundantly clear. Click
here to continue.
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How I Learned About Civil
Disobedience. A Personal
Story
June Sandra Neal
We’re not going to save ourselves with
traditional political weapons.
Or with people believing “it can’t happen here.” Click
here to continue
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Even in a Lineup of the Loathsome, Rick
Scott Stands Out
Michael K. Cantwell
It is difficult to stand out in the pack of grifters, miscreants,
toadies, vermin, traitors, and cowards that comprise the modern
Republican Party, but Rick Scott manages to get noticed. Click
here
to continue. |
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Hypocrites, Miscreants,
and Morons Unload on Biden
Michael K. Cantwell
When 241 Marines died in Beirut, the country
rallied behind Reagan. When the lives of 2,977 people were tragically
cut short on 9/11, the country rallied behind Bush. But when 13 Marines
are killed in a terrorist attack as President Biden seeks to extricate
the country from the quagmire that is Afghanistan, it’s difficult to
find even Democrats willing to defend him. Click
here to continue
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Putting the “Disappointing” Job Reports
into Perspective
Michael K. Cantwell
Republicans are in a frenzy and the corporate media in a dither over the
fact that the August job numbers fell short of estimates. But only a
fool or a paid professional liar would fail to notice that the 235,000
jobs reported in August are still significantly higher than Trump’s
pre-pandemic monthly average (180,200 jobs) and infinitely greater than
Trump’s numbers over his full term, during which nearly 3 million jobs
were lost. Click
here
to continue.
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We’re No. 1! Florida Leads the Nation
Michael K. Cantwell
Just a month ago, I expect Ron DeSantis was
feeling the same way Donald Trump felt in January 2020, contemplating a
second term. Click
here to continue.
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Cio-Cio San Cantwell
Michael K. Cantwell
Our beloved little butterfly is gone.
In her too-brief 16 years and 57 days, Cio-Cio brought more light and
love into the world than any creature we have ever met.
Click
here to continue
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POGO — the Project on
Government Oversight
David
Kulick
Among the things I inherited from my mother
were subscriptions. Many I already had, like the Southern Poverty Law
Center, People For the American Way, FAIR, and the Washington Spectator.
But others were things I usually read at her house, The Nation, The New
York Review of Books, and Americans United. But I picked up one that I
don’t recall reading called POGO – the Project on Government Oversight,
and that’s what I wanted to write about. Click
here to continue.
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Cio-Cio San Cantwell—A Tribute
Char Lane
Cio-Cio was a sixteen-year-old apricot
poodle who believed and acted like she was a puppy, though she often
seemed more human than dog.
She was an adorably obedient pup who was the queen of her castle and
enchanted everyone. She was
friendly, smart and sweet, with a mind of her own and eyes that would
melt your heart. Click
here to continue.
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Negate a Negative to Get
a Plus
Char Lane
A group of us from Delray and nearby got
together Sunday evening to have dinner at and show support to the owner
and employees of Ramen Lab Eatery after the owner, Louis Grayson, was
subjected to a harangue of hateful racist comments on July 15.
Click
here to continue
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Bob Moses – Organizer, Educator,
Polymath: “This Was a Man”
Michael K. Cantwell
Robert Parris “Bob” Moses was one of the greatest – and least well known
– organizers of the Civil Rights Era, a man whose courage was legendary
even in a movement studded with martyrs. Click
here
to continue. |
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American Exceptionalism
Is Exceptionally Ignorant and Dangerous
Rabbi Barry Silver
I have always been inspired by the Sioux
victory in Custer’s Last Stand, where the good guys for one brief moment
defeated those who waged genocide against them.
Click
here to continue
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GOP Sabotages Jan 6 Investigation –
Again
Rob Resnick
While Speaker Nancy Pelosi deals with the media fallout from her
unprecedented rejection of Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, two of Minority
Leader Kevin McCarthy’s five picks for the Select Committee to
Investigate the January 6 Insurrection, voters must focus on McCarthy
and the Republicans. Click
here to continue.
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Juneteenth and the Unrealized Promise of
“Absolute Equality”
Editorial Board
President Lincoln announced the Emancipation
Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1,
1863. Enslaved Texans would not learn of their liberation for nearly two
and a half years. Click
here to continue.
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The Fraud of “Voter Fraud”; the Reality of
Voter Suppression
Michael K. Cantwell
Recently, House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy was heard to complain, “I don’t think anybody is questioning
the legitimacy of the presidential election.” He’s twice wrong.
Click
here to continue
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Weaponizing Ignorance
Rob
Resnick
We seem to be in an era of pervasive
ignorance sweeping the US; at least I hope this is unprecedented,
suggesting it is temporary and fixable. School curricula throughout K-12
overwhelmingly fail to include sufficient education on American history
and government. Click
here to continue.
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“I’m Not Calling Mr. DeSantis a Racist, I’m
Simply Saying the Racists Believe He’s a Racist”
Michael K. Cantwell
Ron DeSantis launched his 2018 campaign
against Andrew Gillum with a warning to voters not to “monkey this up”
by electing Gillum. Click
here to continue.
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Rubio Should Resign
June Sandra Neal
Sen. Marco Rubio is a coward. He has
abdicated his responsibility to the people of Florida and to the
Constitution. He refused to convict Trump after he tried to blackmail
the president of Ukraine. He backed down when Trump was impeached for
inciting a crime against our country in the shameful Jan. 6
insurrection, although the whole country saw and heard the Liar-in-Chief
do just that. Click
here to continue
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As Governor, Nikki Fried Says She’ll
“Break the (Republicans’) Rigged System”
June Sandra Neal
Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried wants to be Florida’s
next governor and isn’t afraid to take on Ron DeSantis, who she
describes as an “authoritarian dictator.” If elected, she’ll end two
decades of disastrous Republican rule.
And she will make history as Florida’s first woman governor.
Click here
to continue.
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Is Charlie Crist Our Joe Biden?
Michael K. Cantwell
Just as Ron DeSantis is a
peanut-sized reflection of Donald Trump, the 2022 gubernatorial race is
likely to mirror the 2020 presidential race. Click
here to continue. |
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This Is What a President Looks Like
Michael
K. Cantwell
If you’ve attended a protest march anytime
during the past few decades, you’re familiar with this powerful Call and
Response: Show me what democracy looks like/This is what democracy
looks like!” Click
here to continue.
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Mothers, Don’t Let Your Children Grow
Up to be Teachers
(or Lies My State Told Me)
Lou Lifson
Do you remember when the state of Florida
was pitching The Lottery to us? The profits would go to “enhance”
education, not take the place of monies budgeted for education. Click
here to continue |
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DeSantis Threatens all Floridians
Rob
Resnick
Governor DeSantis signed an executive order
not only ending the COVID-19 health emergency in Florida, but went so
far as prohibiting all county, city, and local governments from
continuing or enacting ANY health and safety measures to protect their
citizens. Click
here to continue. |
Voting and the DCDB
Char Lane
Our voting rights are being threatened by
the predominantly white Republicans enacting state laws intended to
curtail the rights of voters such as those in Georgia who turned out to
elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the recent Senate election.
Click
here to continue.
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Living While Black Is Dangerous to Your
Health
June
Sandra Neal
Racism hurts.
And its scalding pain tears at the psyche as well as the body.
The medical world has long known that.
Click
here to continue.
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Michael K. Cantwell
I was pulled over for speeding a few years
ago on Lake Ida Road. My immediate concerns were how long I’d be delayed
and how much it would cost me. That I might pay with my life never
crossed my mind. Click
here to continue |
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“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together
in the Cafeteria?”
June
Sandra Neal
That was the title of Dr. Beverly Daniel
Tatum’s 1997 pivotal book on adolescent racial identity. Click
here to continue.
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Time to Leave Afghanistan
Rob Resnick
Although not cause for celebration, I wholly
concur with President Biden’s difficult decision to bring American
forces home from Afghanistan after twenty years, ending America’s
longest war. Click
here to continue.
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Bacon’s Rebellion and the Invention of Race
in America
Michael K. Cantwell
“No one was white before he/she came to
America,” James Baldwin pointedly observed.
As Michelle Alexander elaborated in The New
Jim Crow, “In America, the idea of race emerged as a means of
reconciling chattel slavery – as well as the extermination of American
Indians – with the ideals of freedom preached by whites in the new
colonies.” Click
here to continue
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Michael K. Cantwell
In the aftermath of the bloodiest battle of
America’s first Civil War, the man
considered one of our two greatest presidents spoke with his
characteristic eloquence of his hope that America would “have a new
birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The words are as timely,
and precious, today as they were then. Click
here to continue |
The New Golden Calf
Rob Resnick
On February 26, 2021, the Conservative
Political Action Conference
(CPAC) stooped to a new and blasphemous low. They unveiled a large
golden statue of Donald Trump and paraded it through the halls so
attendees could pay homage. Click
here to continue.
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How Florida Republicans Are Killing
Floridians
Michael
K. Cantwell It’s
not rocket science. Simple logic suggests that people lacking health
insurance are more likely to die prematurely . . . and unnecessarily.
Click
here to continue. |
The Former Republican Party
Rob Resnick
On February 26, 2021, the Conservative
Political Action Conference
(CPAC) stooped to a new and blasphemous low. They unveiled a large
golden statue of Donald Trump and paraded it through the halls so
attendees could pay homage. Click
here to continue.
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Shelly Petrolia for
Mayor, Mitch Katz for Seat 3 The Democratic Club
of Delray Beach and the editorial board of The Delray Democrat endorse
Shelly Petrolia for City Commission Seat 5 (Mayor) and Mitch Katz for
Seat 3. Click
here to continue. |
What Has Mayor
Shelly Petrolia Done Right? Plenty
Rob Resnick A colleague was
recently criticizing Mayor Petrolia’s leadership and “challenged” me to
offer one thing she has done well. When it comes to the important
challenges facing Delray Beach, Mayor Petrolia has been on the right
side of all of them. Here is the list! Click
here to continue. |
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Why I Could
Never Vote for Tracy Caruso
David Kulick My mother, Mariane
Kulick, started this club around 20 years ago. The idea was to be a city
club as opposed to an HOA-based club, although she also wanted to stay
clear of local politics. The club was always progressive, standing for
economic and social justice, and trying to make the world a better place
for everyone, not just the wealthy. Click
here to continue. |
Hate Cannot Drive
Out Hate, Only Love Can Do That
Rabbi Barry Silver I begin this first
article of the New Year with a quote from Congressman Alcee Hastings,
who often begins a speech by intoning “If I offend anyone, I assure you
it was purely intentional.” Click
here to continue. |
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Covering the
Post-Presidency of Donald Trump
Michael K. Cantwell Donald Trump broke
the mold for how a president should behave. Will he also break the mold
for how a former president should behave? – that is, as someone who is
rarely seen or heard and almost never critical of his or her successor.
The media has the power to prevent that from happening, and it’s
only fair to demand that they exercise that power. Click
here to continue. |
From Cradle to
College and Beyond: Village Academy on the Art and Sara Jo
Kobacker Campus
Compiled by Angela
Burns “Village, a vision
of hope shining for the world to see; Village, a beacon of light guiding
our community; Village, where dreams can grow into reality.” These words
are the first lines of the chorus of the school song at Village Academy
School. Click
here to continue. |
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Disunity
Mario Cattano Henry
The Biden administration is calling for a return to
unity and an end to the divisiveness that we have witnessed over the
last four years. He is appealing for bipartisanship. The appeal runs
counter to the interests and desires of powerful elements and
individuals within the United States. To understand why the nation is so
disunited we have to identify those who benefit from the division and
will endeavor to maintain it.
Click
here to
continue. |
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Healing a Nation,
from FDR to JRB
Michael K. Cantwell On January 6, 2021,
the traitors and crypto-fascists in the Republican Party, led by their
Criminal-in-Chief, failed to overthrow our democracy. Joseph R. Biden
will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. Click
here to continue. |
When FDR Led a
United States
Sandra Elaissen-Cantwell Some of us can
still remember the sound of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s voice during his
Fireside Chats or when he addressed the nation to announce perilous
actions across the globe that threatened this country’s existence, such
as the surprise and vicious attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
Click
here to continue. |
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Henceforth:
“Nine Pennies for Everyone!” And the People Were Happy!
June Sandra Neal Yes, Florida’s
minimum wage just went up from $8.56 an hour to $8.65.
Nine cents. Click
here to continue. |
Democracy Is
Holding – Or is it…
Rob Resnick The nation has
known all along that Donald Trump disfavors democracy while displaying a
clear preference for authoritarianism.
His supporters include extremists who share his more repugnant
and un-American views, as well as traditional Republicans, supporting
their party and its ideology while downplaying the danger Trump
represents. Click
here to continue. |
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#SecondBillofRights
Michael K. Cantwell He then proposed a
Second Bill of Rights, explaining
that the original had guaranteed “life and liberty” but that
failed to provide equality in “the pursuit of happiness.”
Click
here to continue. |
Just My Opinion
Char Lane There will be
critical local elections on March 9, 2021, and the ballot will feature
three must-win Delray Beach Commission seats, including Seat #5 for
Mayor. The outcome of this
election will most likely determine the future of Delray Beach, and
whether it will remain the “Village by the Sea” or continue its
transformation into a “City by the Sea.”
Click
here to continue. |
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Rob Resnick
Democracy prevailed
in the early morning hours of January 7, 2021, when Congress rejected
the false objections to the 2020 Election and formally approved the
Electoral College vote. However, this ultimate act of our Constitutional
Republic was predicated by an unprecedented attack on our country by a
sitting President.
Click
here to continue. |
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It’s Not Socialism,
It’s Democracy
Michael K. Cantwell Donald Trump won
Florida easily because substantial numbers of voters believed the absurd
accusation that Joe Biden is a socialist.
Republicans are hoping to maintain control of the Senate by
spewing similar lies in Georgia, and we can expect Ron DeSantis and
Marco Rubio to spout the “S” word ad nauseam in 2022, regardless of
their challengers. Click
here to continue. |
Don’t Underestimate
the Danger of Trump’s Big Lie. Hitler, Mussolini
and Franco Told the Same One
June Sandra Neal |
|
I feel an unhealthy
nostalgia for George W Bush, a congenial guy who lied us into a war that
has had devastating consequences for the world. When Obama took office
and said that we were looking forward not backwards, I was outraged that
someone lying about the need to go to war and authorizing illegal
torture was going to get away with it. Click
here to continue. |
A Christmas Grift
for the Nation
Rob Resnick The Trump campaign
and many of his MAGA supporters continue to push the false and
ridiculous narrative that by some mysterious conspiracy Democrats stole
the election from him. Using the slogan, “Stop the Steal,” Trump has
raised over $200 million dollars in the month since election day and he
is still going. Click
here to continue. |
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Dear Mitch
Michael K. Cantwell Okay, you win, but
what about your legacy? Unlike George W. Bush, who said, “I don’t care,
I’ll be dead,” I suspect that you do care what history will say once
you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Click
here to continue. |
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Out of the Fire and Into the Frying Pan Yes, we averted an unmitigated disaster. It is doubtful that either our democracy or our planet would have survived another four years of Donald Trump. But can they survive another six years of Mitch McConnell, two of them as Majority Leader? . . . . Click here to continue. |
Obese Turtle v. Mexican Rapists, Fine Neo-Nazis, and Fat Ugly Woman
|
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Some of you may have known my mother, Mariane Kulick. She and her
partner Sam Lender founded the Democratic Club of Delray Beach many
years ago, and she restarted it the day after Donald Trump was elected.
Mom was not given to rash pronouncements or wild conspiracy theories so
when she said that if Trump were re-elected we would never have another
election, it was impossible to ignore. .
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2020—Biden Wins
but Dems Leave a Lot on the Table
|
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“Off the Table” A series of
national polls conducted between 2003 and 2009 showed support for a
universal healthcare system ranging from 59% to 75%. Yet Sen. Max
Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee charged with principal
responsibility for drafting the Affordable Care Act, declared
single-payer to be “off the table.” . . . Click
here to continue. |
Yer Mama's a Socialist H.L. Mencken
famously wrote that “no one ever went broke underestimating the
intelligence of the American people.” It’s not a lack of intelligence
that led 70 million people to vote for Donald Trump, however. It’s lack
of information, lack of education, and lack of a nose for a carnival
barker . . . Click
here to continue. |
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No, He Didn’t, and No, He Can’t Trump claims he built a beautiful economy and says that he can do it again. No, he didn’t, and no, he can’t. . . . Click here to continue. |
Will This Be America’s Last Election?
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SCOTUS 2020: Another Stolen Seat?
|
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid Fear is the most
powerful motivator. That’s why it is so widely employed in today’s
world, by everyone from advertisers trying to sell you deodorants to
politicians trying to frighten you into voting for them.
. . . Click
here to continue.
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The Paris Agreement
A Trump supporter told me that the Paris Agreement was a crappy deal,
partly because China wasn’t in it. Of course, China is in the Paris
Agreement, but it’s necessary to explain the different interests in the
Paris Agreement, particularly financial, and how those interests need to
be met.
|
Palm Beach Postal Union Chief Urges Confidence in Mail-In Balloting
Despite Trump’s attempts to cripple the US Postal Service, Kevin Young,
President of the Palm Beach Postal Union Local 749, says area voters can
have confidence in their mail delivery system. |
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The Fraud of "Voter Fraud"
Is it any surprise Donald Trump both despises and fears the United States Postal Service? Its workforce is unionized, earns a living wage, and is disproportionately minority and female. What’s not to hate if you’re a racist, sexist plutocrat? . . . Click here to continue. |
Meadows Says the American People Don’t Care. He May be Right
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Avoiding a Repeat of 2016
There are numerous reasons Donald Trump eked out an Electoral College
win in 2016 but most relevant this year are the lies and fearmongering
that duped some people into voting against their economic interests and
others into not voting or voting for a third party candidate with no
chance of winning. Here’s what to tell them |
Rem Jack Lieberman, a
fixture of progressive politics in South Florida for five decades, died
of COVID-19 on August 30, 2020. Dubbed “Radical Jack” and expelled from
Florida State University in the late 1960s, he wore the mantle proudly
and is remembered lovingly by the many whose lives he helped and changed
. . . Click
here to continue.
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John Lewis - A Man for All Seasons
June Sandra Neal John Robert Lewis didn’t have “the look.”... Yet, when the moment called, he could rock the room with the soaring lyricism of a Baptist minister. Those who knew him said he emanated courage and righteousness as palpable as heat from a radiator. Click here to continue. |
Honor Lewis’ Legacy by Allowing Returning Citizens to Vote Nancy Chanin
A day after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked Returning
Citizens from voting, the nation lost a true and steadfast champion of
democracy. . . . Click
here to continue. |
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I Felt I Was Praying With My Feet
June Sandra Neal
|
Donald Trump not
only preserved the conservative majority on the Supreme Court; he also
“flipped” three of the eleven federal Courts of Appeal during his first
term. Click
here to continue.
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Michael K.
Cantwell Shortly after
Donald Trump’s inauguration, Professor Noam Chomsky suggested that the
Republican Party had become “the most dangerous organization in human
history.” He immediately acknowledged “it’s an extremely outrageous
statement” but added, “the question is whether it’s true.” Click
here to continue. |
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“We Hold These Truths”
Michael K. Cantwell
It is easy to read The Declaration of Independence with a jaundiced eye,
contrasting the ringing declaration that “all men are created equal”
with the reality that many of the men who signed the document (including
its principal author Thomas Jefferson) were untroubled owning
other men.. Click
here to continue . . . |
The United States Post Office – The Early Years
Char Lane
The United States Post Office. We grew up in the years of daily mail
delivery and it’s always been an integral part of our lives . . . Click
here to continue. |
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Trump’s Threats
Against the Postal Service Are a True Danger to Democracy
June Sandra Neal Old Ben Franklin
was a man of many enterprises, including a publishing business . .
. Click
here to continue. |
Post Office Banks
Could Be a Win-Win
David Kulick There has been a
history of using Post Offices for banking services and perhaps the time
is right to do it again . . . Click
here to continue. |
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How to Destroy the
United States Postal Service Michael K.
Cantwell Why does the
Republican Party want to destroy the United States Postal Service?
Click
here to continue. |
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“It Can’t Happen Here.” America’s Flirtations with Fascism
Michael K. Cantwell
Sinclair Lewis’s Depression-era novel It Can’t Happen Here imagined
America’s descent into fascism after a populist demagogue is elected
president on a platform of making America great again.
Sound familiar? . . . Click
here to continue . . . |
DeSantis Places Politics Over People
Nancy Chanin
With coronavirus cases surpassing 56,000, an unemployment rate of nearly
13 percent, and a recent report indicating that state tax collections
plummeted nearly $900 million in April, one would hope that our governor
would be laser-focused on ameliorating the situation and safeguarding
taxpayer dollars . . . Click
here to continue. |
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Un-Masking is
Un-Remarkable
Rob Resnick The latest Trump
deception involves a bogus allegation about the “unmasking” of
Lieutenant General (LTG) Michael Flynn.
Click
here to continue. |
“Amendment 4”
Decision Opens Path To Voting for 1.4 Million Floridians
Michael K. Cantwell While Donald Trump
was spending his Memorial Day weekend on the golf course, Judge Robert
L. Hinkle was hard at work preventing Florida Republicans from
continuing to violate the U.S. Constitution. Click
here to continue. |
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Social Media: “We
Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges.”
June Sandra Neal On May 29, Donald
Trump took his ball and ran home because he didn’t like the ref’s call.
Click
here to continue. |
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“We Must Sink or Swim Together”
Michael K. Cantwell
As America was mired in our First Great Depression, the United States
Supreme Court issued its opinion in Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig,
Inc. . . . Click
here to continue . . . |
Register to Vote By Mail Now!
Even before the coronavirus pandemic the Florida Democratic Party
encouraged all Democrats to vote by mail because it is convenient, it
greatly increases turnout, and this year it is postage free in PBC . . .
Click
here to continue. |
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Trump Forces USMA
Cadets to Return
Rob Resnick President Trump
recently announced that he will travel to West Point to deliver a
commencement speech to the cadets.
. . . Click
here to continue. |
Seasonal Resident?
Vote Here! David Kulick Voters living in a
deep blue state, such as New York, can register to vote in Florida where
your vote will help decide critical elections. Click
here to continue. |
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You Don’t Need a
Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows
Michael K. Cantwell
And you don’t need a psychiatrist to know that our
President is not the “very stable genius” he both claims and longs to be
. . . Click
here
to continue. |
What We’re Reading
Fintan O’Toole:
Donald Trump has
destroyed the country he promised to make great again:
Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide
range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and
hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that
has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
. . Click
here to continue. |
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Insurrection Is not a Constitutional Right
Rob Resnick
Recently government
officials in states across the nation have faced angry protests
demanding an end to the “stay at home” orders issued to protect the
public’s health . . . Click
here
to continue. |
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The Republican Virus
Michael K. Cantwell
The Republican Virus is a metaphysical disease, one that attacks the
mind and soul . . . Click
here to continue . . . |
COVID-19 Meets the US National Debt
Rob Resnick
As the U.S. deals with the COVID-19 crisis, the reality is a medical
calamity wherein 150 million Americans may catch the virus with a real
possibility of more than 2 million deaths . . .
Click
here to continue. |
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Covid-19: The
Painful Price of Ignoring Health Inequities
Andrew Resnick, Sandro Galea, and
Karthik Sivashanker Coronavirus
disease (covid-19) provides a painful reminder of why inequities harm
all of us. Equity is widely misunderstood as a zero-sum game . . . Click
here to continue. |
“You’re Doing a
Heck of a Job, Donny” Michael K.
Cantwell A Facebook friend
recently shared a slick post (likely made in Macedonia) that read “All
my Trump hating friends you can send your Trump checks to me since he is
not your President.” Click
here to continue. |
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The Skyhook Soars
Again
David Kulick
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, for those who are relatively
new to the world, was a star basketball player in the NBA from 1969 to
1989 . . . Click
here to continue. |
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Where We Stand with Amendment 4
In 2019, the Florida Legislature passed SB7066 to “implement” Amendment
4.
Click here to continue
|
Michael K. Cantwell
Donald Trump has never taken responsibility for his own failures and has
always taken credit for others’ achievements.
Click here to continue
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Three years ago, I sat in a sociology class at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem atop MT Scopus, fighting to stay awake. Click here to continue |
The Survival of Democracy
Sandra Elaissen-Cantwell Last month the Democratic Club of Delray Beach invited Mark Schneider to discuss democracy and its constituent ramifications in a talk entitled “Is the United States a Democracy? Should It Be?” Click here to continue
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Vote Blue, No Matter Who Michael K.
Cantwell It’s some comfort
that many of the people who said Donald Trump was unelectable are saying
the same about Bernie Sanders.
Click here to continue. |
Vote Blue, No Matter Who Andy Kulick At this point, no
one knows for sure what would happen in a Sanders vs. Trump or Biden vs.
Trump election.
Click here to continue. |
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Corona Crash David Kulick Normally stock
market crashes, like the one that occurred last week and might continue,
leave me worried and unhappy since I’m retired and my 401k is what I
hope to survive on.
Click here to continue
|
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Michael K. Cantwell
The month Barack Obama was inaugurated, January 2009, the economy lost
more than 783,000 jobs, and America stood at the brink of a second Great
Depression.
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What We Learned from the Impeachment
Michael K. Cantwell
The impeachment shone a light on what is the most striking difference
between Democrats and Republicans.
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Rob Resnick
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Trump’s watery excuse for killing Iranian General Soleimani was as ridiculous as the black Sharpie circle he drew around Alabama ... Click here to continue |
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Monsters Michael K.
Cantwell In our November
issue, we extolled the heroes fighting to protect the promise of
Amendment 4 from Republicans hell-bent on preventing the “wrong people”
from voting.
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The Delray Election
Rob Resnick
Elections have consequences – all of them!
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here to continue |
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Spreading the Word
Steve Fradkin Abuse of
power…looming war in Iran…racism and hate…lies, lies and more lies…tax
cuts for the rich…obstruction of justice…unaffordable
healthcare…crippling reproductive rights… The list of reasons to defeat
Trump goes on and on.
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An Existential Election
Michael K. Cantwell
It’s a cliché to warn that an election is the most important in our
lifetime. That doesn’t make it less true.
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The Devil’s Enterprise at Christmas
Sandra Elaissen-Cantwell
The United States media are always at pains to tell us that Christmas is
the time of year to think about the beauty of giving . . .
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Lying Liars and
the Lying Liars Lying for the Lying Liars
Rob Resnick In 2 weeks of public, transparent, professional hearings, the House Intelligence Committee heard from almost 20 witnesses . . . Click here to continue
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Leave Behind David Kulick I had my annual
physical exam a little while ago, and part of that involves filling out
a form about my mental health.
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Can’t Tell the
Difference Between Democrats and Republicans? Michael K.
Cantwell For over a
century, Democrats have fought for ordinary Americans.
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Is the Economy
That Good?
Steve Fradkin The Trumpies are
fond of telling us that the economy is booming.
But is it really?
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Pensacola was
Preventable
Rob Resnick
There should never be occasion to question whether
the enemy has infiltrated our ranks, yet this was exactly the horrific
failure that led to the tragic shooting at the Pensacola Naval Air
Station.
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here to continue |
Imagine
Michael K. Cantwell
Imagine if every evening news program opened with
one of the following: Climate change is occurring earlier and more
rapidly than expected. Failure to act now, and act decisively, will lead
to irreversible and catastrophic changes to the planet.
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Heroes
One year following the passage of Amendment 4, the Florida Rights
Restoration Coalition (“FRRC”) statewide bus tour stopped in Palm Beach
County and announced a partnership with local leaders that will permit
returning citizens to register to vote even if they owe financial
obligations.
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Death of Baghdadi - Trump Turns Victory into Loss
President Trump authorized a successful raid that resulted in ISIS
leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi exploding himself rather than be captured.
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Democrats Can Do
(Much) More Than Chew Gum and Walk at the Same Time It did not take
long after the Democrats assumed the majority in the House of
Representatives this January for Republicans to begin accusing them of
wasting government resources attacking the President instead of
governing.
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Strange Bedfellows It’s difficult to
select just one oddity out of the insanity that is the Trump presidency.
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The Anatomy of
Trump Voters My neighbor, a
Chinese immigrant, came at me on our walkway.
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Greta Thunberg
Challenges Us All Below are excerpts
from the comments of the remarkable 16-year-old Swedish climate activist
Greta Thunberg speaking to the United Nations. She is the conscience of
a world that has no conscience.
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Trump’s Threat of Civil War May Be a
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
June Neal
We thought Trump couldn’t sink lower.
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How Can We Afford It!?
Michael K. Cantwell “How Can We Afford It” is the constant, sickening
drumbeat whenever Democrats pursue a progressive agenda designed to
benefit most Americans.
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Commander-in-Cheat Robert Resnick President Trump
has often touted his administration for “rebuilding our military” but
that is yet another lie.
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“Why Is Everybody
Always Picking on Me?” Michael K.
Cantwell It goes without
saying that Donald Trump’s tweets about coups and lowlifes and traitors
and foreign conspiracies are just crazy talk.
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Repeal the Second
Amendment David Kulick Most countries
have kids (and adults) playing violent video games, and all countries
have people with mental health issues.
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An Elephant in
Donkey Attire Bob Averack Ron DeSantis is
paying his tributes to the Mobster in Chief, the man who will soon be
facing the rightful scarring of impeachment.
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Looking Down the
Barrel – the Peril of Gun Safety Compromise Robert Resnick Our country has
been long overdue in passing essential gun safety legislation.
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This Just In (from the November 1866 Issue of The Atlantic) Michael K.
Cantwell In the
first issue of the revised Delray Democrat, I compared Trump to some
of his predecessors as follows:
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Florida Statute Claims to “Fix” Amendment 4 But Only Creates More
Ambiguity
Nancy Chanin
In the last election, voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 4.
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Universal Health Care and Race
Sandra Elaissen-Cantwell
President Truman failed in his effort to pass universal healthcare for
three reasons.
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Moscow Mitch and the Miscreants
No, it’s not a retro punk band.
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Millennials, Come Out
Not just to vote ... but to run for office.
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Abuse of Immigrants Is Good Business
June Sandra Neal
I know. Numbers are boring. But stay with me.
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There's No Such Thing as Not Voting
Michael Cantwell
Under what is essentially a two-party system, people who fail to cast a
ballot are effectively voting against the candidate whose values they
most closely share.
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Income Share Chart
The income share going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans shrank
between 1970 and 2017. Among the top 10%, the higher a person ranked the
more one's slice of the economic pie grew.
Click here to view chart |
Florida Wants to Turn Local Police into Federal ICE Agents
June Sandra Neal
Under what is essentially a two-party system, people who fail to cast a
ballot are effectively voting against the candidate whose values they
most closely share.
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The Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Michael Cantwell
During the “Lochner Era,” which extended from the 1890s through the
Great Depression, a bloc of fiercely conservative Supreme Court Justices
...
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Republicans – Do What Is Right for the Country in 2020
Three years of President Trump has led to the worst division this
country has ever seen.
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Democracy, Who Needs It?
Michael Cantwell
We do, of course, as do all Democrats and anyone who
believes in government of, by, and for the people.
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here to contiue
Is It Education or Economic Inequality?
David Kulick
Republicans have always believed that government is bad and that it’s up to free enterprise capitalism to run everything and make a profit. Click here to continue
Our Racist-in-Chief
Sylvia Gruber
It's very difficult to respond with civility to the rants of the xenophobic misfit who occupies the White House five days a week. Click here to continue
Call to Action: Seeking a Candidate for the Delray Beach City Commission
Bob Averack
The late, great, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill of Massachusetts, the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives is closely associated with an old political proverb: “All politics is local.” Click here to continue
Republicans’ Reckless Indifference Is Killing Thousands of Floridians
Michael Cantwell
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that lack of health insurance increases your likelihood of dying prematurely and unnecessarily. Click here to continue
Arming Teachers Promotes Gun Sales, Not Safer Schools
Robert Resnick
In large part as a response to the horrendous tragedy last year in Parkland, the Florida Legislature is plowing ahead with legislation not just allowing, but potentially mandating, teachers carrying guns in school. Click here to continue
Make America Great Again?
Michael Cantwell
Donald Trump has managed to Make America Hate Again. Click here to continue.
Come Together, Right Now!
Among the many elements that created the perfect storm that blew Trump into the White House was his ability to sow division and depress voter turnout. Click here to continue.
It Is Class Warfare, and They’ve Won
Michael K. Cantwell
If you complain that the superrich aren’t paying their
fair share, you’re accused of class warfare. Well, it is class warfare and it
has been going on for decades now.
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Corporate Welfare
Sandra Elaissen-Cantwell
An email from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders asks the question, “How does it happen …that the wealthiest man in the history of the world, Jeff Bezos, is also one of the largest welfare recipients in America?” Click here to continue
Republicans Returning to the Trough
David Kulick
Republicans now want to change the way capital gains are taxed. Click here to continue.
Trump Is the Symptom, the Republican Party Is
the Disease
Michael K. Cantwell
Just as a deep, localized skin infection erupts to form a boil, Donald Trump is a manifestation of the underlying disease that is the modern Republican Party. Click here to continue.
What Is a Democrat
Robert Resnick
As we look towards the 2018 midterms and beyond, the Democratic Party must campaign on its core values. Click here to continue.
America's Greatest Citizen
Michael K. Cantwell
Fifty years ago today, the man aptly called “America’s Greatest Citizen” and the “moral leader of our nation” was struck down by an assassin’s bullet. Click here to continue.
No One Is Coming for Your Guns, But Republicans Have Already Come for Your Health Care
Michael K. Cantwell
One can count on Republicans to be sympathetic and “prayerful” after yet another senseless slaughter made possible by our failure as a nation to reasonably regulate gun sales. Click here to continue.
The Greatest Danger We Have Ever Faced
Mariane Kulick
Donald Trump is the greatest danger to our country that we have ever seen. Click here to continue.
Time for Wayne LaPierre to Go
Robert Resnick
Long time National Rifle Association (NRA) leader Wayne LaPierre is an annual featured speaker. Click here to continue.
Lives vs. Toys: What the Gun Debate is Really About
Misha Nadel
Despite what the NRA would have you believe, the scope of gun-ownership that is protected under the Second Amendment is surprisingly narrow. Click here to continue.
Home Rule and Firearm Safety
Robert Weinroth, Boca Raton Council Member
Residents deserve to be heard by their local elected leaders who live in the same community with them and with whom they have easy access ... Click here to continue.
Republicans Declare War on the Middle Class
Michael K. Cantwell
Republicans are marketing the tax “reform” passed
in December as a middle class tax cut.
Click
here to continue.
Judge Mark Walker Steps Up
to the Plate and Knocks Rick Scott Out of the Park
Michael K. Cantwell
When former felon Steven Warner appeared before the Florida Executive Clemency Board to plead to have his voting rights restored, he told Rick Scott, “I voted for you,”... Click here to continue.
Nothing to Brag About
Mariane Kulick
While Republicans are
celebrating the passage of the tax bill much desired by their donors, the
majority of Americans understand that there is nothing to celebrate.
Republicans’ Favorite Fairy Tales
Michael K. Cantwell
When George W. Bush was exploding
the deficit with tax cuts for the rich, Dick Cheney infamously claimed,
“Deficits don’t matter, Reagan
proved that.”
Democratic Leadership Needed on Advocating for a Sustainable Future
Hal Stern
On December 14 and 15, the Southeast Florida
Regional Climate Change Leadership Summit held its ninth annual meeting in Fort
Lauderdale.
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
Michael K. Cantwell
Is It Time for a Maximum Wage
Law?
David Kulick
Most of us support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which when adjusted for inflation is still below the original minimum wage law. Click here to continue.
Greed Kills
Michael K. Cantwell
Unfortunately, and all too often, greed kills the needy and leaves the greedy laughing all the way to the bank. Click here to continue.
Saying “Yes” to Second Chances and Democracy:
Jeffrey Coltman-Cormier
Voting is dangerous. The simple act of indicating
one’s preference for any given candidate, political party, or choice in a
referendum can reshape political landscapes.
MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SINATRA, PRESIDENT DCDB
First, allow me to thank everyone who attended our first two program meetings, after a summer spent planning an informative and action-packed season for our club! Click here to continue
“Make America Broke Again"
Michael K. Cantwell
That’s the Republican mantra . . . and here they go again. Click here to continue.
A Psychologist’s View
Maxine Schackman
It’s been a mystery to me. The phenomenon of Donald Trump. Click here to continue.
Floods, Fires and Hurricanes
Mariane Kulick
Climate change is no longer an abstract thing dreamed up by scientists, as the Republicans would have you believe. Click here to continue.
Healthcare in Florida
Hal Stern
Over the last nine months, we have watched Congress repeatedly attack the healthcare safety net. Click here to continue.
Building on Virginia
Mariane Kulick
All of us are, of course, overjoyed with the results of the Virginia election results and the wins in many parts of the country. Click here to continue.
A Fall Cornucopia of Readings
Stephanie Braunstein
For those wanting something more than the television and internet “breaking news” versions of the state of our political affairs, this column will provide references to articles appearing in thought-provoking periodicals. Click here to continue.
The Art of the Hypocrite
David Kulick
I have to admire the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Under a Democratic government, Republicans never stop screaming about the deficit, but now they put forward a tax plan that explodes the deficit by trillions of dollars and they don’t even have the decency to blush. Click here to continue.
“IF YOU DON’T VOTE, YOU DON’T COUNT”
Michael K. Cantwell
“If you don’t vote, you don’t count” was both the credo and the epitaph of Vernon Ferdinard Dahmer, Sr., president of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, NAACP, who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan on January 10, 1966. Click here to continue.
MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SINATRA, PRESIDENT DCDB
The Delray Beach Democratic Club is back in high gear.
“People Get Ready,
There’s a Train (Wreck) A Coming”
While the media is focused on Trump’s multiple daily outrages against humanity,
Betsy Devos is hard at work wrecking (as a prelude to ransacking) our public
education system, Scott Pruitt is committing crimes against nature and the
planet, and Mitch (McConnell) and the Miscreants are quietly working on yet
another massive transfer of wealth from ordinary Americans to the already
obscenely wealthy.
On the Corners of Delray Beach
Shirley Johnson, City Commissioner and Deputy Vice-Mayor
This column will attempt to inform and educate anyone interested in the
governance of the City of Delray Beach.
Click here to continue.
Welcoming Cities’
Proposal for the City of Delray Beach
Arlene R. Ustin
On behalf of the PBC Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the League of Women Voters and several other organizations ... Click here to continue.
Mineral Riches Behind Trump’s Backtracking on Afghanistan?
Mariane Kulick
President Trump’s decision to continue, actually increase, the number of
Americans fighting in Afghanistan, goes against everything he said in his
campaign
Across the Street
Carol Gevirts
Our city’s ongoing commitment to education was a big factor in its receipt of
the prestigious All American City award (for the third time!).
Florida’s Voter Restoration Amendment
Michael K. Cantwell
Florida has the most punitive disenfranchisement policy in the nation.
Whose Identity? Whose Politics?
Stephanie Braunstein
Once again, it’s time to fight back against the trivialization of the left’s
traditional concerns over race and gender issues.
Rights and
Regulations
David Kulick
Climate Change and
Our Lives
Mariane
Kulick
Our president does not
believe in climate change. Neither does the head of the Environmental Department
he put in power.
Butchers
Michael K. Cantwell
The New
York Times recently
reported on a lunch meeting for Republican Senators held at a Chick-Fil-A during
which Colorado Senator Cory Gardner warned that the
Senate’s failure to repeal the ACA was drastically affecting campaign
fundraising.
Carnage
Michael Cantwell
When Donald Trump blustered, “this carnage stops right here,” he was not only lying about conditions in America. He was also announcing, “the carnage starts now.” And it has. Click here to continue.Foxes in Charge of the Chicken Coop
Mariane Kulick
The lives of our children
and our children’s children are now in the hands of a man who denies the
scientific evidence regarding climate change, something widely understood in the
science community.
Sandra Elaissen
The Truth Matters
Austin C. Yenne
Everybody lies. We all do. It’s in our nature. We can try to rationalize the lies, claiming that it’s not a “big” lie or its just a “small” lie. Click here to continue.
David Kulick
Sha
Michael K. Cantwell
Ever wonder what
Shakespeare, if he were alive, would have to say about Donald Trump? I do. In
fact, I’d argue that Shakespeare is alive, and that he’s already said it.
David Kulick
“Public
relief is a sacred debt. Society owes maintenance to unfortunate citizens.”
Paragraph 21 of the 1793 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen—the
ultimate statement of the ideals of the French Revolution.
Michael K. Cantwell
Were there ever any
doubt, Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate accords makes it
official: the Republican Party is not just the enemy of poor people, working
people, the middle class, and racial and religious minorities, it is the enemy
of the human race at large and a threat to all life on the planet.
David Kulick
It's sort of ironic. For decades the racists
have been saying that inner city black folks are lazy and that there are plenty
of jobs, that the men leave the women and just want to do drugs.
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Wealth Distribution in America David Kulick Few words in America are more feared than “wealth distribution,” other than perhaps “wealth redistribution.” |
Why Third Parties Never
Work in America Alan Milner but third parties can wreak havoc under the
Electoral College system. |
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Let's Get Started Michael Cantwell Democrats are
accustomed to cleaning up Republican disasters. We should be, we’ve been
doing it since the Great Depression. But now we are
facing the gravest threat to the Republic since . . . |
Too Young to Worry? Mariane Kulick |