Day: October 7, 2009

Time For Use Of “Reconciliation” To Enact Health Care Reform

Ronald 2 Comments

The tactic of “reconciliation”, requiring only 50 votes if the Vice President breaks the tie, or 51 votes majority in the Senate to enact legislation, is ready to be utilized if the conservative Democrats, including Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Max Baucus of Montana, refuse to be loyal to their party and complicate the passage by not cooperating to overcome a filibuster.

The “reconciliation” tactic has been used before, as for instance to enact the two Bush tax cuts, so there is no reason why it cannot be used now to bring about the most important legislation in at least a generation.

Statements by Senator Nelson and Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma that such a tactic would be wrong is pure hypocrisy, and it is time to make it clear to both the GOP and the conservative Democrats that the party will ignore them and pass legislation over their heads if they refuse to cooperate!

Eight Years Of An Interminable War In Afghanistan: Enough!

Ronald Leave a comment

Today marks eight years since the invasion of Afghanistan after the attack on September 11, 2001.

For a brief while, President Bush’s decision to invade united the American people, and it seemed as if we would find Osama Bin Laden and overcome Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Then we messed up big time and were further diverted by deciding to go to war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq, and that war dragged on and took our eye off the ball.

Now after eight years, longer than any war in US History a month from now, we have had 865 Americans killed and 570 of our NATO allies, and we are no closer to victory, whatever that is.

The belief is that the war will drag on for years, with heavier losses and with mounting national debt, and without any guarantee or likelihood of victory. Can we continue to throw our money and our youth down the chute in what is basically an impossible terrain with a corrupt government which has never been able to unite the tribesmen of the area, a country which Alexander the Great, the British, and the Russians could not conquer?

The answer is NO, that it it time to cut our losses, simply use aerial bombing and drones and intelligence gathering to keep Al Qaeda and the Taliban at bay, but we cannot be the world’s savior, and at this time, many NATO allies are planning to scale back, and that is what this nation needs to do.

We can promote the defense of our nation without sacrificing courageous young men and women in a hell hole that no one can possibly expect to win. In fact, we have to ask: What would be a win anyway? Enough is enough! President Obama: Have the courage to say NO MORE and bring our troops home!