Anything Smart: 2019

Monday, July 1, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #54 ~ 1-July-2019 ~ Jay Inslee on Building the Future

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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1-July-2019
Jay Inslee on Building the Future
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Welcome to Hearing the Falconer. This blog promotes independent thinking and political moderation. It also recommends good books that can help you sharpen your thinking skills and think through your own moderate political philosophy. It is smart, independent, moderates who will save the world! Let's get to work!

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announced his run for president on March 1, 2019 from a solar power facility in Seattle, Washington.

Jay says his top priority will be climate change, which he calls “the greatest threat to our existence.”

He has a good resume:

He got a degree in economics and then a law degree.
He served in the Washington State House of Representative from 1989-1993.
He was in the US House of Representatives from 1993-1995 and then again from 1999-2012.
In 1996 he worked with the US Department of Health and Human Services under President Clinton.
Since 2013 he has been the governor of Washington State.

During his time in the House, Jay voted for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and voted for Obamacare.

As governor, Jay legalized gay marriage put a moratorium on executions and promoted apprenticeship programs.

Jay was also the first governor to oppose Trump's Muslim ban so he is used to fighting against the current president which he will be doing in 2020 if he wins the nomination.

As president Jay has promised he will

increase the minimum wage
strive for 100% clean energy by 2035
legalize marijuana
expand background checks for gun purchases
ban assault weapons
and create millions of good paying jobs based on clean energy.

As a moderate Democrat I like Jay's focus on climate change, but especially the way he ties it to creating new and good jobs and growing our economy. I think that can be a winning strategy for Democrats in 2020.

Near the the end of his speech Jay says “we do not fear the future, we BUILD it!” That's a good line. I hope all Democrats will support this message of working on climate change in a smart and responsible way that will also increase prosperity for ALL Americans.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

If you want to support Hearing the Falconer please click on the book links in this post and make a purchase. These are excellent books that will help you sharpen your independent thinking skills and build your own moderate political philosophy AND, Hearing the Falconer will earn a commission. Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your support!

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Monday, June 24, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #53 ~ 24-Jun-2019 ~ Amy Klobuchar Starts Her Run

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

**********
24-June-2019
Amy Klobuchar Launches Her Campaign
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On Sunday, February 10, 2019, U.S. Senator from Minnesota Amy Klobuchar stood in swirling snow and announced she is running for President. Remarkably, she is now the fifth woman running for the White House in this 2020 campaign.

I saw an interview later where Klobuchar joked about the snow: she said it looked like she was aging during her speech as her hair got whiter and whiter.

I have heard a pundit say there should have been some sort of roof over Klobuchar, but others have said that standing in the snow showed her strength and determination. I think the latter is true, especially since she is competing for the chance to run against a man who once canceled a trip to a veteran's cemetery because of rain.

The crowd waved solid red "Amy" signs or solid blue "Amy" signs as the new candidate said she is running "for every parent who wants a better world for their kids" and promised that she is "running for every American."

One of the themes of the announcement was restoring democracy and Klobuchar called on the American people to "organize, galvanize, and take back our Democracy." She described her plans to:

Automatically register young people to vote when they turn 18,
Restore the Voting Rights Act, and
Push for a Constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision so we can get "dark money" out of politics.

Another theme of the speech was protecting the environment and Klobuchar promised that within her first 100 days in the White House she would:

Restore clean power rules,
Restore gas mileage standards, and
Invest in green jobs and infrastructure
And, she also promised that on "day 1" she would rejoin the International Climate Agreement the current President has pulled the United States out of.

On the themes of technology and jobs Klobuchar promised to:

Promote new rules to protect privacy on the internet
Promote net neutrality
Promote the training of workers for new jobs with a focus on certificates and two-year degrees
And, most dramatically, the candidate called for having every household in America connected to the internet by 2022.

Turning to health and safety Klobuchar outlined plans to:

Allow safe drugs from other countries to be sold in the United States
Lift the ban that currently prevents Medicare from negotiating cheaper drug prices
Require universal background checks for gun purchases
And, in another big move, Klobuchar called for universal healthcare.

In simultaneous nods to fiscal responsibility AND populism the candidate called for bringing down the national debt by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy while still making it easier for workers to afford childcare, housing, and education.

There was not much about foreign policy in this speech but, in a statement that also poked the current president, Klobuchar promised to respect our troops, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers by not running her foreign policy with tweets.

One of the closing remarks sounded like a very good over-arching theme for Klobuchar's campaign right at the beginning: "We all live in the same country of shared dreams."

It was a good announcement. Let's see how Senator Amy Klobuchar holds up in the political battles to come.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Friday, June 21, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #52 ~ 21-Jun-2019 ~ Marianne Williamson's Announcement Speech

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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21-June-2019:
Marianne Williamson Announces She is Running for President
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Marianne Williamson has had a very successful career as a lecturer and writer on self-development and spirituality topics. She has written 13 books, 7 were best-sellers, and 4 were #1 bestsellers.

She has also been involved in charitable work. Perhaps most notably with Project Angel Food which prepares meals for people too sick to prepare them for themselves.

In 2014 she ran unsuccessfully for Congress arguing that “humanitarian values should replace economic values as the ordering principle of our civilization.” I am not sure exactly what Williamson means by this. As a moderate Democrat, however, I believe that we need the powerful tools of free-market capitalism to create products and services and jobs and wealth, BUT we need those tools to be harnessed to the task of helping us achieve the humanitarian values that will ensure good lives and good societies all over the world. If that is what she means, I agree with her 100%.

Williamson announced her campaign for president on January 28, 2019. In her announcement speech she presents some good ideas, and she asks some important questions.

She speaks about the people we celebrate for escaping from poverty but then asks, why are there so may people who NEED to escape from poverty?

She argues that companies cannot be driven SOLELY by profit but also by ethical values and a sense of service to their employees and their communities.

Williamson supports universal healthcare and a $15 minimum wage. These proposals will help to reduce the economic despair that is leading to the authoritarian populism that is already on the rise in the United States.

She supports the Green New Deal and paying reparations for slavery. She actually promotes a version of reparations that could work: set aside $100 billion to be spent as black leaders feel will be most helpful in ameliorating the effects of slavery and racism.

Williamson wants to see “a new era of love for Democracy.”

I like Marianne Williamson. I think she is a good person who has done good things in her life and has had a successful career. I think she has good ideas about the problems America faces and about how to solve those problems.

Regretfully, I think we need a president with more political and government experience than Marianne has. But I think we also need a president who will LISTEN to Marianne, and LEARN from Marianne, and make sure Marianne is offered an important position in the next Democratic administration so she can do more to help is build a better America for the future.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Monday, June 17, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #51 ~ 17-June-2019 ~ Kamala Harris's Announcement Speech

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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17-June-2019:
Kamala Harris's Announcement Speech
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Kamala Harris's announcement speech seems to move through several themes as it progresses from section to section.

In the first section she talks about her career as a prosecutor and the theme is “No one should be left to fight alone.”

She talks about bankers who caused great economic harm as having an “arrogance of power.” She says she helped to pass one of the strongest anti-foreclosure laws in the country in California.

In the second section of the speech Kamala talks about the question “Who are we as Americans?” and her answer is “We are better than this!”

In this section she opposes some of the positions the current administration has taken such as:

bullying the free press,
separating children from their parents at the border,
attacking public schools,
working against universal healthcare,
and blaming immigrants for all our problems.

In the third section of the speech, Kamala focuses on the theme of truth. She says, “Seek truth, speak truth, fight for the truth.”

In this section she makes the very important point that we need unity, but we cannot use the word “unity” as a code word for stopping oppressed minorities from demanding their rights.

She makes the point that when we help people who have been held back, we are really helping everyone. In her most dramatic statement of this principle she says, “When we lift up the women of our country, we lift up the children of our country, we lift up the families of our country, and the whole of society benefits.”

Kamala calls for Medicare for all because healthcare is a fundamental right and also calls for debt-free college because education is a fundamental right. As a moderate Democrat I think this goes a little too far. We should aim for affordable healthcare and affordable college because that will benefit society. I don't think we should try to guarantee healthcare and college as fundamental rights, but we should try to make them affordable and help people who need help getting ahead.

Harris closes her speech with a couple of simple statements: “I will treat all people with dignity and respect” and “I will speak the truth.” It is a powerful testament to the dysfunctional times in which we live that these relatively bland promises come off sounding like a call for revolution!

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Friday, June 14, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #50 ~ 14-June-2019 ~ Should We Impeach Trump? **

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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14-June-2019:
This article makes the case for impeaching Trump: should we do it?
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If we just want to impeach every president we don't like, or every president we disagree with, that is too extreme in one direction.
If we think it is NEVER right to impeach a president that is too extreme in the other direction.
How can we find a smart and moderate position on impeachment?

Strictly speaking, there is only one thing we NEED to impeach: a majority of the votes in the House of Representatives. So that is our first rule for a smart and moderate position: to impeach you need the votes in the House. That rule comes straight out of the Constitution.

But even if we have the votes in the House we should not impeach unless there is some good reason to impeach. The Constitution requires a “high crime or misdemeanor.” It is the House that decides if there is a high crime or misdemeanor but they should make this determination carefully and in good faith. Impeaching a president for trivialities would weaken our country, and it would also be unconstitutional.

Our third consideration is, do we have enough votes in the Senate to remove the president from office after he has been impeached? Obviously, the House can impeach the president even if there are no votes for removal in the Senate, but SHOULD they?

An impeachment is like an indictment and the Senate proceedings are like a trial. Should we indict someone if there is no chance they will be found guilty? Most people would say no. I think we should follow that same rule here, don't impeach unless there is a reasonable chance the president will be removed by the Senate.

Our final rule should be to have the support of the people. Just as we should not go to war without a majority of the people behind us, so, we should not attempt to impeach and remove a president without a majority of the people behind us. This is not a legal or Constitutional requirement but I think we should not do something so extreme as removing a president without showing respect for the will of the people the government is supposed to serve.

So those are the four rules I propose for a smart and moderate position on impeachment:

You must have the votes in the House.
You must have a high crime or misdemeanor.
You must have a reasonable chance the Senate will remove the president.
You must have the support of a majority of the people.

Now if we apply these rules to the current problems with Trump, what do we find?

I believe we do have a high crime and misdemeanor in the Trump case. Mueller was appointed to investigate real and serious crimes of Russian interference in the 2016 election. These crimes included hacking into American computers, and these crimes resulted in the indictments of several Russians. As the American people saw on the news almost every day during the investigation, and as Mueller documented in his final report, Trump repeatedly tried to interfere with the investigation of these real and serious Russian crimes. That interference by the president, that obstruction, is a high crime.

So we have the high crime now, but we still do not have the votes in the house to impeach, we still do not have the votes in the Senate to remove, we still do not have the support of the people for impeachment and removal.

For those of us who believe Trump's high crime SHOULD result in his removal from office what we have to do now is PERSUADE.

We have to persuade the House to vote for impeachment.
We have to persuade the Senate to vote for removal.
We have to persuade the American people to support the impeachment and removal of the president.

And if we can't do that, we have to persuade the American people to vote him out of office in 2020.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Monday, June 10, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #49 ~ 10-June-2019 ~ Tulsi Gabbard and The Spirit of Aloha **

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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10-June-2019:
Tulsi Gabbard and The Spirit of Aloha
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Tulsi Gabbard made her announcement speech on January 11, 2019. Watching the video of her speech I was favorably impressed. Among other things, I like her delivery, quiet and calm, but still firm and confident.

She ticks off a number of issues such as supporting Medicare for all, protecting the environment and especially the oceans, protecting citizens from Wall Street banks, big pharma, and insurance companies, and opposing private prisons.

She stresses the need to stop giving advantages to the rich and to fight against greed and corruption in our public life. She accuses Trump of promising to “drain the swamp” but then creating a “cesspool of corruption” instead.

Beyond the individual issues major themes of the speech are peace, the virtues veterans learn, and the spirit of Aloha.

Tulsi opposes regime change wars and promises to meet with anyone, friend or foe, to promote peace. She says the United States has wasted trillions of dollars on wars and she is determined to stop that.

She says veterans learn to embody principles like service, dignity, honor, and respect, and she wants to bring those principles back to the White House.

I think the most powerful part of the speech is where she describes the “spirit of aloha.” She says this means “a spirit of respect and love for one another and for our country.” This seems like a refreshing change from the insults and bullying rhetoric we so often hear from the White House now!

At one point Tulsi calls fellow veterans her “brothers and sisters.” At another point she calls ALL Americans her “brothers and sisters.” Brothers and sisters! Imagine a president who talks like that!

Part of being moderate is to bring people with different ideas together, like brothers and sisters. For a moderate Democrat there is a lot to like in Tulsi's announcement speech. Let's get her on the debate stage and keep listening.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates

Washington: A Life

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

***

Friday, June 7, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #48 ~ 7-June-2019 ~ The Strange Run of Richard Ojeda

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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7-June-2019:
The Strange and Short Run of Richard Ojeda.
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One Democratic candidate for 2020 has already come and gone!

Richard Ojeda served in the army for 24 years, rising from enlisted soldier to the rank of Major, which sounds like a pretty good career. His political career didn't go so well.

He lost a race for the House of Representatives in 2014. In 2016 he was elected to the West Virginia State Senate, while supporting Bernie in the Democratic primaries and then voting for Trump in the general election.

In 2018 Ojeda lost another race for the House of Representatives. On November 12, 2018 he declared he was running for President. Then, on January 14, 2019 he resigned from the State Senate to focus on running for President but, within a few days, he tried unsuccessfully to rescind his resignation, and then, dropped out of the race on January 25!

Ojeda supported a teacher's strike in West Virginia, supported the legalization of marijuana, and Medicare for all. He said he was personally pro-life but supported abortion rights.

So that was the strange run of Richard Ojeda.

Next time we will get back to a Democrat who is still running.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

If you want to support Hearing the Falconer please click on book links you see here and make a purchase. Hearing the Falconer will earn a commission. Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your support!

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

***

Monday, June 3, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #47 ~ 3-June-2019 ~ Tim Ryan's Town Hall on CNN

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

**********
3-June-2019:
Since the video of the town hall is not yet available I am sharing a video of Tim Ryan's announcement that he is running for president.
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Tim Ryan appeared at a Town Hall meeting on CNN the evening of Sunday, June 2, 2019 and answered questions from the crowd. Here are my impressions and also some links to Tim Ryan's books so we can use those to learn more about his ideas.

Ryan represents an Ohio district in the House of Representatives and has been emphasizing the need to defend working people and bring them back to the Democratic party. This is one of the most vital messages Democrats need to focus on.

In the Town Hall Ryan talked about the latest mass shooting and called for banning extended magazines and silencers and for studying gun violence as a public health issue. As a moderate Democrat these are all things I can agree with.

Ryan says we have to tell workers the old jobs are NOT coming back but we have to develop new and better jobs in new technologies. We need to dominate in solar power and in wind power and in building electric cars.

Tim Ryan stresses the need for a national industrial policy that will produce better jobs for the future and get wages up. He intends to be tough on China for unfair trade practices and might even use tariffs but only as part of a broader and well-planned strategy.

Ryan supports Medicare for all and wants to work on promoting better health and better food for Americans rather than just continuing to treat diseases.

Overall, Ryan seems to me to be a powerful, moderate, mid-western Democrat with an important message that will make America a better place. If he is on the ticket in 2020 he can help Democrats win Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. All those states voted Republican in 2016. Bringing all these states back to the Democratic party will help us take back the White House!

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

***

Friday, May 31, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #46 ~ 31-May-2019 ~ The Importance of Moderation

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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31-May-2019:
In Defense of Moderation
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Today I am sharing a nice little article about moderation from a man who also wrote a big book about moderation.

I believe moderation is the essential virtue that makes society possible. Unless we are planning to live all alone on a desert island we will need to develop some level of moderation to live in a society and to make that society successful.

One of the things we mean by moderation is just the ability to discuss an issue, and learn from people who disagree with you.

Moderation is the ability to compromise – to get SOME of what you want while giving your opponents some of what they want as well, to get SOMETHING done rather than NOTHING and shutting down the government or leaving it paralyzed.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was filled with examples of moderation and compromise. Without this kind of moderation the United States would not even exist.

It is moderation that makes society of possible, and it is moderation that keeps society safe. As our great Founding Father John Adams said “without the great political virtues of humility, patience, and moderation every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.”

We should always fight for what we believe in but let's also remember the importance of moderation, avoid extremes, and look for opportunities to compromise.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

***

Monday, May 27, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #45 ~ 27-May-2019 ~ Raising America's Pay

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

**********
27-May-2019:
Raising America's Pay
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One of the fundamental goals of any society should be to promote growing and widespread prosperity. If the median worker's wages and benefits only increased 7.9% between 1979 and 2013 while “economic growth and productivity” grew by 64.9%, that is a problem.

If we do nothing about growing and sharing prosperity I think that is too extreme in one direction. If we try to completely manage the economy that would be far too extreme in the other direction.

Other extreme positions would be to help business but not workers, or to help workers but not business. We all need to work together to increase prosperity for ALL.

I was happy to find this “Raising America's Pay” project that was launched a few years ago at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

The EPI is focused on:

Raising the minimum wage
Protecting the right to overtime pay
Protecting the right to collective bargaining

All these items are important but I think there are a few other factors that could be even more important:

We need to promote innovation so we can create new jobs
We need to promote increasing productivity so we can pay higher wages
We need to offer good educational and training opportunities so people can prepare themselves for better jobs.

By finding the right smart and moderate policies we can make sure prosperity in the United States keeps growing and that all citizens have a chance to participate in that prosperity.

We are all on the same team. Let's do what we can to make sure the whole team succeeds.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

***

Friday, May 24, 2019

Hearing the Falconer #44 ~ 24-May-2019 ~ Joe Biden: "Stop Fighting and Start Fixing"

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

**********
24-May-2019:
Stop Fighting and Start Fixing
**********

I listened to Joe Biden's official campaign launch speech from Philadelphia on May 18, 2019, and the more I listened the more I liked it.

He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and promised, “You will not hear me speak ill of another Democrat.”

When the crowd started booing a heckler he said, “Other campaigns do it this way. We don't do it this way.”

For me the key line of the speech was “Let's stop fighting and start fixing.” In seeming contradiction, Biden also says, “I know there are times when only a bare-knuckle fight will do.” He also reminds us that Trump deliberately tries to divide people and fill them with fear.

I think the point Joe is trying to make with all these statements is that we DO need to fight about politics, because we have real disagreements, but we also have to STOP attacking and demonizing our fellow Americans.

The current president is dividing us. Biden wants to unite us again. Other candidates are talking about policy details, and that is important. But Biden is talking about something even more important, he's talking about the kind of country we need to be, and how we can't get there until we get a new president.

As a moderate Democrat I am happy to see Joe running, and I believe he deserves to be in the top tier for 2020.

**********

The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

***