Open Letter to America

489 retired military, ambassadors, and national security officials published a letter as to why they are supporting Joe Biden. One basic reason: Biden is a good man, while Trump is a racist, a lying cheat and a poor businessman. America deserves better than Donald Jackass Trump.

NATIONAL SECURITY LEADERS FOR BIDEN

We are 489 retired Generals, Admirals, Senior Noncommissioned Officers, Ambassadors and Senior Civilian National Security Officials supporting Joe Biden for President.

AN OPEN LETTER TO AMERICA

September 24, 2020

To Our Fellow Citizens:

We are former public servants who have devoted our careers, and in many cases risked our lives, for the United States. We are generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We love our country. Unfortunately, we also fear for it. The COVID-19 pandemic has proven America needs principled, wise, and responsible leadership. America needs a President who understands, as President Harry S. Truman said, that “the buck stops here.”

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We the undersigned endorse Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States. He is the leader our nation needs.

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We believe that Joe Biden is, above all, a good man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He is guided by the principles that have long made America great: democracy is a hard-won right we must defend and support at home and abroad; America’s power and influence stem as much from her moral authority as it does from her economic and military power; America’s free press is invaluable, not an enemy of the people; those who sacrifice or give their lives in service of our nation deserve our respect and eternal gratitude; and America’s citizens benefit most when the United States engages with the world. Joe Biden will always put the nation’s needs before his own. 

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Those who have served know empathy is a vital leadership quality – you cannot do what is best for those you lead if you do not know their challenges. Joe Biden has empathy born of his humble roots, family tragedies and personal loss. When Americans are struggling, Joe Biden understands their pain and takes it upon himself to help. 

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We believe America’s president must be honest, and we find Joe Biden’s honesty and integrity indisputable. He believes a nation’s word is her bond. He believes we must stand by the allies who have stood by us. He remembers how America’s NATO allies rushed to her side after 9/11; how the Kurds fought by our side to defeat ISIS; and how Japan and South Korea have been steadfast partners in countering North Korean and Chinese provocations. Joe Biden would never sell out our allies to placate despots or because he dislikes an allied leader.

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While some of us may have different opinions on particular policy matters, we trust Joe Biden’s positions are rooted in sound judgment, thorough understanding, and fundamental values.

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We know Joe Biden has the experience and wisdom necessary to navigate America through a painful time. He has grappled with America’s most difficult foreign policy challenges for decades, learning what works – and what does not – in a dangerous world. He is knowledgeable, but he also knows that listening to diverse and dissenting views is essential, particularly when making tough decisions concerning our national security. Many of us have briefed Joe Biden on matters of national security, and we know he demands a thorough understanding of any issue before making a decision – as any American president should.

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Finally, Joe Biden believes in personal responsibility. Over his long career, he has learned hard lessons and grown as a leader who can take positive action to unite and heal our country. It is unthinkable that he would ever utter the phrase “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

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The next president will inherit a nation – and a world – in turmoil. The current President has demonstrated he is not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office; he cannot rise to meet challenges large or small. Thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us. Climate change continues unabated, as does North Korea’s nuclear program. The president has ceded influence to a Russian adversary who puts bounties on the heads of American military personnel, and his trade war against China has only harmed America’s farmers and manufacturers. The next president will have to address those challenges while struggling with an economy in a deep recession and a pandemic that has already claimed more than 200,000 of our fellow citizens. America, with 4% of the world’s population suffers with 25% of the world’s COVID-19 cases. Only FDR and Abraham Lincoln came into office facing more monumental crises than the next president.

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Joe Biden has the character, principles, wisdom, and leadership necessary to address a world on fire. That is why Joe Biden must be the next President of the United States; why we vigorously support his election; and why we urge our fellow citizens to do the same.

Sincerely,

Go to the ORIGINAL for the list of signers.

7 Reasons

...to vote EVERY Republican OUT!

Seven reasons to vote every Republican out of office

Opinion by Jennifer Rubin (a Republican) 

Sept 10, 2020

There are no innocent Republicans running for reelection to the House or Senate. Their grievous misdeeds, whether of commission or omission, were intentional. Their desire to maintain their good standing in the Trumpified Republican Party and avoid the wrath of President Trump’s deeply dishonest right-wing media allies overrode all considerations of decency, honesty and constitutional probity. Let’s review just a few of their disqualifying actions.

No Republican House or Senate leader tried to restrain Trump’s financial misdeeds, including his apparent receiving of foreign emoluments, promoting of his own properties, and his daughter’s and son-in-law’s serving in government while feathering their own nest. Congressional Republicans laughed off repeated possible violations of the Hatch Act and cheered a political convention that turned the White House into a GOP playhouse. Republicans facilitated corruption.

Republicans with rare exceptions (e.g., Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who wound up leaving the party, and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah) refused to acknowledge the evidence of obstruction of justice in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report. Other than Romney and Amash, no Republican would acknowledge the ample evidence presented in impeachment proceedings suggesting that Trump had violated his oath by extorting the Ukrainian president for personal gain. Republicans thereby enabled Trump’s abuses of power.

Republicans routinely echoed Trump’s Russia propaganda and castigated the U.S. intelligence community. They parroted a Russia-based conspiracy theory that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 election. They did not seek Trump’s removal or even censure for siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who falsely denied Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump has refused to raise with Putin the bounties that Russia reportedly placed on the heads of U.S. troops. Republicans subverted U.S. national security.

We have heard and seen Trump publicly slur American prisoners of war, ridicule commanders as warmongers and enlist the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a political stunt in which peaceful protesters were forcibly cleared outside the White House. We have heard him publicly call the late Republican senator John McCain a “loser.” We have seen unrebutted reports of Trump’s contempt for military personnel (“suckers,” “babies”) and his aversion to including wounded veterans in a parade. Republicans have supported a commander in chief unfit to lead men and women in uniform.

Trump has openly incited racism; tried to stoke White people’s fear that Blacks and other minorities will “destroy" suburbs; denied overwhelming evidence of systemic racism in policing; insisted on retention of military base names of traitorous Confederate generals; cheered White provocateurs who went into Portland, Ore., with paint guns; deployed camouflaged federal agents in unmarked vans to Portland, where they illegally grabbed protesters off the streets; singled out majority-Black countries for crude insults; and praised “very fine” people on “both sides” of a clash between White nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville. Members of his own party in Congress almost uniformly avoid repudiating Trump’s blatant appeals to racism. Republicans have thereby helped foment racial division and violence.

We have heard Trump admit that he understood the severity of the coronavirus threat but downplayed it to the American public. He refused to take prompt, aggressive action and peddled dangerous quack remedies. He goaded governors to reopen their states prematurely and scorned mask-wearing. Knowing that the virus was an airborne, deadly disease, he continued to hold rallies without social distancing or a mask requirement. His actions almost certainly contributed to the death toll of 187,000 Americans — tens of thousands of lives might have been saved by prompt, effective leadership. Republicans have indulged his prevarications and still refuse to hold him responsible for the deaths and economic ruin that have occurred on his watch. In short, Republicans have put their own political survival above the lives of Americans.

Trump has sought to delegitimize the November election in advance, fanning patently false claims of massive fraud in voting by mail and telling Americans he will not pledge to respect the results. He vowed to hold up funding for the U.S. Postal Service so "that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” Republicans have not condemned such utterances, let alone vowed to ensure Trump’s exit if he loses. Republicans have thus helped undermine the central attributes of democracy — free and fair elections, and the peaceful transfer of power.

There is no doubt that if President Barack Obama had committed any of these offenses and Democrats had been as derelict in their constitutional and moral duties as Republicans, the entire right-wing media and political universe would have called for Obama’s impeachment and removal, and for the defeat of every spineless member of his party. Over and over again, Republicans’ hunger to retain power at all costs has triumphed over their obligations to their fellow citizens. They have put Americans’ lives and the nation’s democracy itself at risk. In doing so, they have lost the moral authority to hold power. All of them.

Original.