September 15, 2016: Vote for Hillary Clinton for President

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Forget about the current campaign headlines in what President Barack Obama likes to call “the silly season.” 

Instead, picture the candidates in the historic moments that have made presidents.

First, try picturing Donald Trump – a man who has insulted everyone who isn’t a white male like him – comforting the families of the bereaved as Ronald Reagan or Obama have. Try picturing Trump soberly addressing Congress about a declaration of war as Franklin Roosevelt did, or speaking to the nation about a military action such as the blockade of Cuba announced by John F. Kennedy.

Mr. “Art of the Deal” can’t seal that deal.

Now, picture Hillary Clinton doing those things.

It’s not a stretch. She’s been doing them for more than four decades – as a children’s advocate, First Lady of Arkansas and the U.S., senator and Secretary of State.

She should do them as the next President of the United States.

It’s no secret that she wears numerous battle scars from those four decades in public life – sometimes to her detriment. But given Trump’s detestable actions and words, this race shouldn’t even be a contest.

The real comparison should come between Clinton and Obama. She will continue many of his progressive actions on the environment and other domestic policies. She will, hopefully, improve what has been heavy handedness on education. And she plans to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act – having learned from some of those battle scars she suffered in 1993-94.

On foreign policy, she’s more hawkish than Obama – and perhaps that’s necessary. Many criticize Obama for not living up to his Nobel Peace Prize, but he’s actually shown himself to be a pacifist – too much of one at times.

A tougher hand is necessary with ISIS and North Korea. Hillary Clinton can provide it. Perhaps she can also give a needed kick in the figurative rear to those who would participate in the Middle East peace process.

She does not have Bill Clinton’s magnetism or Barack Obama’s gift with words. But a good president needs to be a hard worker. She certainly does that in spades.

And she lives up to the moments when presidents have to prove themselves to the public.

A number of times on the campaign trail, the media – which hasn’t exactly been her best friend in this election – has referred to her as “presidential.”

Indeed, she is. Make it official. Vote for Hillary Clinton for President.

September 14, 2016: NO Trump for President (with help from the Founding Fathers)

By Sylvia Gurinsky



I take inspiration and some language from the Founding Fathers in this “No” for Donald Trump to be President of the United States.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women in the United States are created equal. That they are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Donald Trump, who fancies himself a king, threatens those truths.
The history of this man who fancies himself a king is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, from housing discrimination as a young man to joining with the anti-Obama birthers to the disgrace of his current campaign -  all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good – especially the Constitution of the United States.
He has apparently broken laws with his businesses to cause governors - and currently at least a dozen state attorneys general – to investigate him.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, or those of different religions, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws – period.
He has affected to demean the Military and its heroes – starting with his aversion to serving in Vietnam and continuing with reckless foreign policy proposals that scare the daylights out of intelligent military leaders, not to mention U.S. allies.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws: Vladimir Putin.
For demeaning most Americans who don’t look like him, think like him or have money like him:
For threatening a hopeful American future:
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries – mostly Russian - to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.


In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince-in-self-regard only whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. That describes Donald Trump.