It isn’t a case of the Democrats now going off soul searching, it case of total revamp from top to bottom after Trump’s win last Tuesday. The Amazing Democrats’ advice very early on to the Clinton Campaign (and some of those comments were posted on our social media platforms as far back as the late summer  of 2015) went unheard unlike when we worked for the Obama/Biden campaign in 2012. It is time DNC to fire all your overpaid pollsters (who got it so wrong), consultants and the like. The DNC should of known in their hearts of hearts that after Bernie Sanders won twenty-two states with so little money against Hillary Clinton, their candidate of choice would be in serious trouble if the Republicans got a candidate who could storm the mainstream and social media which Trump did and of  course got a bit of luck along the way with that first letter released by the FBI Director that certainly damaged Hillary in early voting and gave a huge boast for Trump with his base. Yes, a lot of questions will be asked as to how the FBI were allowed to influence an election so openly. But this was far from the only reason Hillary lost even if the DNC die hards believe it to be so. The DNC and Democrats have lost their way and have been now for a long time. Their obsession only seems to be with fundraising not the core principles of what the party was founded on, Trump was able to tap into that huge hole in the DNC. It was a party that once cared for the low income, the homeless, our veterans, the poor people of America and not the massive billions of dollars in fundraising which was totally wasted trying to take Trump down. Just think today how many homeless people that billion of dollars plus would do to help house the homeless crisis in our major cities which should have been a top issue for Hillary.

 

Hillary campaign interviewed myself and members of The Amazing Democrats, for the record we call ourselves The Amazing Democrats as we not die hard Democrats, we wouldn’t have followed Hillary in to the fires of hell if she was wrong and we wouldn’t be silent either even if it meant we were fired from the campaign, that’s the way worked in the Obama/Biden 2012 reelection campaign and we were amazed how we survived not to be fired (nearly maybe once or twice when we really  overstepped our mark and criticized some of the President’s polices publicly). The interviewing process went back as far as January 2016 to join her campaign. We were subjected to rounds and rounds of interviews, back ground checks, etc. Months would go by and we heard nothing and then it would start all over again. It was by late August this Editor  got interviewed for the sixth time, more back ground checks and then was offered four important positions in four different swing states and one of this offers came directly from  the DNC. All this was paid employment and not volunteer work. That last weekend in August for me was were I suffered so much turmoil as I had to give them a decision by the following Monday.  It meant dropping everything in my life and getting on a plane to Pennsylvania. What was most troubling in my mind was I could sense there was panic setting in for the Democrats and Hillary’s campaign. I didn’t sleep that weekend. I went back to the old formula that the Obama campaign thought me and even though I didn’t have access to data like we did when worked for Obama,  never the less, I ran the data all weekend long. It is a long and laborious process that you can see today that both the pollsters and media don’t do, why? Maybe they just are too lazy to do it, who knows? You have to run every state’s county’s data county by county, you have then figure in the data available from both the candidates’ primary wins or loses, a lot of mathematics but in the end you get a somewhat overview, be it very rough. Also you have to take into account that I had been tracking the swing states every week since  both primaries ended last year. Not good for Hillary and her team I could see, in fact the Wednesday before the election I was gloomy, I could predict Trump was going to win Ohio  by three percent (he won by five percent so I was only out by two percent) and as you know, no Presidential candidate can take their place in The White House if they don’t win Ohio. With all this, it was the hardiest email I ever sent, declining the positions to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign.

 

As we move into the Trump Presidency, it’s going to be a very dark lonely path for the Democrats. Yes, there is the mid-terms in 2018, but if the DNC works as it has for the last twenty years, they are a very slow climb back up on Capitol Hill as remember this Presidential election in 2016 had the lowest turn out of voters in years, which helped Trump but destroyed Hillary’s chances of winning, nearly 50% of the electorate didn’t bother to vote and historically mid-term voting has a very low voter turn-out. Also if Trump makes any small success of his first term and as everything  Trump touches turns to gold, whether you like his manner and process or not and as it very hard to unseat a sitting President, as we all know, Trump going for a second term, then the DNC and Democrats could be looking at the wildness for next eight years at least, that’s 2024, a very depressing thought I know, but maybe a fact unless the DNC make radically chances and that starts today, not six months before the 2018 mid-terms.

 

In the 2006 mid-terms under George W. Bush, the Republicans got wiped out in the House and the Senate. All the media said at that time that Republican Party need to reinvent itself and stop been the “party of no”. Did they? Of course not, in fact under Obama as President and because of their hatred of him, they became the “party of no, no, no” on every bill he sent to the House and Senate. Now  look where they are ten years later. The power of Washington again with the Democrats hanging onto their coattails and the sad thing is, Trump gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice. If he gets two terms, who knows, with three more justices ready for retirement in the next few years, he might even hit the golden jackpot of nominating four Supreme Court justices, a very scary thought. The Democrats however can’t do as the Republicans did in 2006, which was nothing to change their image and beliefs but the Democrats aren’t so lucky. If the DNC go back to business as usual, it will be a very dark long road for the Democrats back to the shining lights of The White House. It is simply the base. The Republican base and the Democrat base is so so much different and as Trump said decades ago when he was a registered Democrat, pro-choice and donated a lot of money to Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaigns: “If I was to run as President, I would run as a Republican as their voters as so dumb and easy to fool, I would lie and lie to them until I got numbers”. That’s all he had to do for this Presidential campaign and he is the winner today not Hillary Clinton.

 

Which brings what fundamentally went south very early on in the Hillary Clinton campaign:

 

1. NEVER EVER underestimate your opponent.

2. If he/she gets down in the dirt, you go down there with them. Hillary taking the high road was her downfall as political correctness (PC) means nothing anymore in the world of social media as we saw with Trump, the King of Twitter and Obama/Biden in 2008 as the King of Facebook. PC has gone way too far in the US and the rest of the world and Trump, no matter what you think, turned PC on it’s head in this presidential election and as he said on 60 Minutes last night, “it was nasty, very nasty but I am the one sitting here today talking to you and not them”. In fact 2020 and 2024 will be so so much nastier. Rumors were that Trump using his own money, paid pockets of supporters all over America to flood the internet with lies about Hillary and Bill Clinton and the secret? They could never be traced back to him or his campaign. Why didn’t the Hillary Clinton campaign do the same with the rumors about Trump’s ties to the Mafia? Why was this never floated all over the internet? PC I guess but he won and Clinton lost. The new trend now with Presidential campaigns as Trump has lowered the bar, is to win 2020 or 2024 the candidates from both parties to win, will have to get down in the mud and get dirty. Sad? Of course but no cares about the loser, they only care about the winner.

3. Dump the negative ads. One billion dollars was such a waste of money by the Clinton campaign and Trump barely spent a faction of that. We kept telling the Obama/Biden campaign and the DNC in 2012, negative ads don’t work anymore and only turn all the voters off. Pity they didn’t listen.

 

The Amazing Democrats are not all about criticizing without offering the DNC suggestions for the road forward:

 

1. Fire all your overpaid pollsters, consultants, lobbyists, etc..

2. Allow the progressive members of the party to take over. (I do not mean the loony left), members who understand the issues of the day to day worries of the lower income Americans (who sadly are too many), the homeless crisis in our cities all over America, our veterans living on our streets.

3. Get back to what a community organizer really is. I used get so annoy with new volunteers who joined our team who tried to tell the person forcefully on the other side of the phone why they should vote for Obama or donate to Obama’s campaign and the DNC. A community organizer’s job is to listen and listen well and then send what they hear up the line and hope they are listening otherwise you get a result like Tuesday’s Presidential elections.

4. As the advice to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, get off the negative ads obsession (turns all voters off).

5. And please with every email you sent, stop looking for donations all the time. It makes us feel you don’t care about anything but money and donations which we know to be true.

6. Find the soul of the Democrat Party again of FDR and John F. Kennedy.

7. And finally, listen. Never stop listening to those on the ground as we are the ones who can make the difference from the Democrats winning or losing an election.

 

Here is to the 2018 mid-terms, see you then and to 2020 Presidential election. Keep the faith and a sense of humor as The Amazing Democrats do and God Bless America,

 

Editor, The Amazing Democrats. 

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“No matter what side you’re on or not on, your opinion and vote does really matter”. – Be involved and be heard. 

by Nels Johnson (Marin Independent Journal)

Filmmaker George Lucas has proposed a 224-unit affordable housing complex at Grady Ranch.

Representatives of the “Star Wars” billionaire’s Skywalker Properties, calling plans for rental housing that accommodates seniors and local workers a “magnificent gift” to Marin County, said Lucas intends to pay for the entire project himself, without federal, state or other grant aid.

“The unique thing about this is George is financing it 100 percent,” said Gary Giacomini, former county supervisor and an attorney for Skywalker. The situation will leave Lucas in charge, and not grantmakers, while eliminating red tape associated with subsidized housing, Giacomini noted, saying units can be set aside specifically for teachers, local workers or anyone else who meets income guidelines.

Reaction to the latest plan for Grady Ranch was mixed, with Supervisor Damon Connolly citing worries about “the cumulative impact on the entire area” of a cascade of development proposals that can “literally and figuratively change the landscape in Marinwood and Lucas Valley.”

But Supervisors Judy Arnold and Steve Kinsey sounded optimistic notes, with Kinsey calling it a “wonderful opportunity.” Arnold noted that affordable housing is in short supply in Marin and “in this case we have the opportunity to be more creative.”

A plan that will be submitted to the county Community Development Agency this week calls for 120 two- and three-bedroom workforce residences in one four-story cluster and two two-story clusters on the site, and 104 one- and two-bedroom residences for seniors in a four-story cluster, as well as four parking garages. None would be visible from Lucas Valley Road.

The proposal includes a community center and pool, terraced gardens, an orchard and a “micro farm” or community garden, and a barn. It limits development to a 52-acre tract of the 1,039-acre ranch, 800 acres of which already have been dedicated as open space. Zoning allows as many as 324 dwellings on the site.

The architect for the project is Robert W. Hayes of Sausalito, a designer who won acclaim for his Toussin Senior Apartments affordable complex at 10 Toussin Ave. in Kentfield. The project is being coordinated and managed by PEP Housing of Petaluma, which developed Toussin as well as affordable housing complexes at 13 sites in Petaluma, among other projects.

WHO WOULD QUALIFY?

Mary Stompe of Novato, executive director of PEP Housing for the past decade, said regulatory controls will be filed with the county ensuring affordability of the residences, with targets set so that workforce housing applicants earn less than 80 percent of median income, and senior renters falling somewhere between 30 to 60 percent of the median.

Aside from meeting income level requirements, renters must clear “an extensive background check” that includes a review of criminal and other records, as well as interviews with former landlords, Stompe said, adding her organization maintains a tight grip on tenants.

“We all are very proud to be part of this,” Giacomini said. “This will provide 224 families with places to live, and you’ll drive by and not be able to see anything.”

“It’s a huge public gift and I am confident the public will embrace it,” Stompe added. “We’re providing homes for teachers and others in the county.”

“The standard naysayers will be hanging around, but an awfully lot of people will support it,” Giacomini added. “We will have a healthy public process but it will not be one-sided,” he said. “There will be in-depth scrutiny.”

If all goes well, the development could break ground in 2018 and be completed the next year, Giacomini said.

Thomas Peters, CEO of the Marin Community Foundation, called Lucas’ plan an “extraordinary offer” that underscores the filmmaker’s commitment to the housing needs of the vibrant workforce that drives the region’s vitality.

LATEST CHAPTER

The latest chapter in the Grady Ranch saga unfolded two years after the foundation bailed out of a plan to join Lucas in developing affordable housing at Grady Ranch. Peters said at the time that after extensive study, the “considerable cost” of a $120 million to $150 million affordable complex of from 200 to 240 “beautiful and environmentally sensitive” dwellings was too daunting despite “the generous land offer by Mr. Lucas.”

When the foundation departed, Angelo Garcia, president of Lucas Real Estate Holdings, pledged to “start immediately to engage in discussions” with developers identified during the foundation study. These included PEP Housing. “George Lucas feels that affordable housing is necessary so that people who are important in this community such as teachers, home health care workers and nurses don’t have to live outside Marin,” Garcia said then.

Brian Crawford, head of the county’s Community Development Agency, noted the site and adjacent areas are targeted for residential development by county land use regulations.

A Lucas studio project was approved by the county in 1996, but when the filmmaker finally decided to proceed four years ago, he consolidated buildings and required new permits. A lawyer for neighbors opposed to the plan threatened to sue and disclosed that state regulatory agencies had concerns about a $70 million creek and watershed improvement planned by Lucas. The filmmaker, then in talks to sell his Lucasfilm enterprise to Disney, walked away, saying he could not afford more delay, and backed development of affordable homes.

Stompe noted the Skywalker Properties housing plan for Grady Ranch does not include a watershed improvement element.

 

by Adam NaGourney (The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — A group of San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies were captured on videotape Thursday repeatedly pummeling and kicking a suspect after he fell off his horse at the end of a bizarre chase through rough California desert.

The county sheriff, John McMahon, called the video “disturbing” and said he had ordered an investigation into the episode, in which deputies chased the man by foot, helicopter and off-road vehicles. They shot him with a Taser when he fell off the horse. Video taken from a television station’s helicopter shows about a dozen deputies swarming the man as he sprawled on the ground. The video shows a blur of kicks and pounding fists that appeared to continue after the suspect’s hands were tied behind his back, and lasted close to two minutes.

The suspect was identified as Francis Pusok, 30, of Apple Valley, a community on the edge of the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. He was taken to a hospital with undisclosed injuries, according to the sheriff’s office.

There were no other immediate details about the suspect. The sheriff’s office said the encounter began when deputies went to his home and sought to serve him with a search warrant on suspicion of identity theft. They said three deputies were hurt during the capture of Mr. Pusok; one was kicked by a horse and two suffered dehydration.

The emergence of the videotape, recorded by a news helicopter operated by KNBC-TV, came at a time of heightened scrutiny of the nation’s police officers, after the arrest of an officer in North Charleston, S.C., for fatally shooting a fleeing man in the back.

Sheriff McMahon said he dispatched the department’s Specialized Investigations Detail, which is in charge of investigating police shootings. He called it a “criminal investigation.”

“The video surrounding this arrest is disturbing and I have ordered an internal investigation be conducted immediately,” he said in a statement

The sheriff’s office said the incident began just past noon. Mr. Pusok fled in a car as the deputies approached his home. He abandoned his car and began running away, until he encountered a group of horseback riders and stole one of their horses, using it to ride through steep hills and rough terrain as he sought to escape, according to the sheriff’s office.

The KNBC video shows Mr. Pusok riding through the hills, a police helicopter buzzing over him and officers chasing after him on foot. It shows the deputies firing Tasers at him; the sheriff’s office said the device was ineffective because he was wearing loose clothing.

At that point, two deputies began punching and kicking him, before being joined by other deputies who had also been chasing him. They did not appear to give him any first-aid.

The horse that Mr. Pusok stole was also injured as he forced it through rough, hilly terrain while trying to escape capture, the police said.