Day: June 21, 2011

The Walmart Supreme Court Case: A Blow Against Labor And Women’s Rights!

The Supreme Court, becoming more right wing and reactionary by the year, has again struck at the heart of democracy, and promoted corporate rights and plutocracy at the expense of labor and women’s rights in its Walmart decision this week!

Walmart, the largest retail corporation in the world, has been discriminating in pay and benefits and promotions of women for many years, and everyone who pays attention knows that fact!

But the company claims there is no conscious effort to discriminate, and the Court ruled that the class action law suit was too large and complex, covering more than a million workers all over the nation.

So the Court gave this giant corporation, which has become a monster which eats up all small business everywhere it goes, a free ride, and shown once again that the “little people” do not matter, and that only wealth and the top few percent of the population have any real input to what the Court does!

The conflicts of interest of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are legion, and they have no shame! They have both proved to be corrupt in their dealings, but the only way to get them off the Court, impeachment, is not available with the House of Representatives Republican majority ready and willing to back these two conservative Justices if they were ever in danger!

The idea of “Equal Justice Under Law” has been damaged, and the concept of constitutional law ruling has become a mockery!

Could Barack Obama Win The South Against A Mormon (Mitt Romney Or Jon Huntsman)? A Mind Boggling Possibility!

With the growing feeling that either Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman, both Mormons, could have the best chance to be the Republican nominee and compete with President Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential Election, the question is arising: can a Mormon win the South, which is heavily Baptist, Evangelical Christian, and even with mainline Christian groups, highly religious as compared to the rest of America?

Imagine this: Our mixed race Black President, Barack Obama, winning the South! Winning because religion may become more of an issue over the controversy that the Mormon Church is not Christian and is a cult, according to the views of many devout Christians, than race!

Could this REALLY happen? It would be mind boggling to say the least, and makes trying to analyze the upcoming political contest all the more fascinating!

The Collapse Of The “Bully Governors” In Public Opinion Polls

The “Bully” Governors, Republicans in six states, have seen a total collapse of public opinion toward their hard line, mean spirited governing method of arrogance, anti labor, anti education, anti health care, anti elderly, anti poor, anti children initiatives, and sense of entitlement to do whatever the hell they want without consideration of its effect on their states! The Quinnipiac polls show tremendous declines by all six in ratings!

Governor Chris Christie is down to 44 percent support, and yet, there are those who want him to run for President! And he had the gall to tell a constituent in a public meeting that it was none of her business why he sent his children to private schools while cutting funding for public schools in New Jersey!

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, out to destroy public workers rights and social needs of the state’s population, has a public opinion rating of 39 percent!

Ohio Governor John Kasich is down to 37 percent, while Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan is down to 35 percent!

Maine Governor Paul LePage has a public opinion rating of 31 percent, and has alienated many tourists by eliminating a painting portraying the struggle of organized labor historically in the Labor Department Building in Portland. He has an attitude of being in your face constantly, and has upset more than two thirds of the state by his arrogance and lack of diplomacy and tact in dealing with the news media and citizens!

And the all time low rating goes to the disgraceful Governor Rick Scott of Florida, with 29 percent rating, undermining education and health care in the state, and convincing those college professors who can leave the state, along with other talented people, that the pastures are better elsewhere, and that their children will not be able to get a decent education in the Sunshine State after he has destroyed it! The author personally knows two colleagues with young children who have decided to go elsewhere, and get out before the state totally collapses in regards to social services!

The only good thing about all this is the following:

All six states–New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Maine and Florida–went Democratic for Barack Obama, and with the kind of misgoverning of these “Bully” Governors, and the alienation being shown in public opinion polls in all six states, the likelihood is that all six states should remain Democratic, and hopefully, reverse their mistakes on the Governorships in New Jersey in 2013 and the other five states in 2014!

The only question is how the unfortunate citizenry of these states will survive the assaults on them by the “Bully” Governors!

The Privatization Of America Will Lead To Plutocracy, Instead Of Democracy!

A very disturbing trend emerging in America is the growing privatization of government functions on the local and state levels in many municipalities and states.

An example is Chicago, which sold control of its parking meters and parking lots to private interests, and the result has been rising costs for travelers, consumers, and businessmen, making the cost of living much higher for the average resident or visitor to Chicago–all this for a quick fix on budgeting, but affecting parking for the next 75 years!

This is a horrible development, and it must be prevented, simply by people taking responsibility for higher taxes and lower services, but not just lower services!

If we continue to allow our infrastructure, as a state road in Indiana as an example, to be sold to private banks and corporations, it means that eventually all or most public services will be under the control of private business, which basically will be able to “blackmail” all of us, and destroy our democracy!

Many think already our country has become a plutocracy–rule of, by, and for the few–and this MUST stop, or else we risk a massive public uprising and riots on the level of what is going on in the Middle East!

Progressives want a return to democracy and the goals of progressivism, originally enunciated a century ago by Robert La Follette, Sr. and many others–political democracy, social justice, and economic regulation and intervention in the public interest!

What is going on today is the antithesis of everything this country is supposed to represent, and the movement to privatize everything must be halted dead in its tracks, as it is private corporations and banks and financial interests on Wall Street who have put us in the mess we are in, and now wish to finish the job of strangling American democracy!

Mormon Vs. Mormon: The Real Battle For The Republican Presidential Nomination of 2012!

This morning, at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, former Utah Governor and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy for President, and made it clear he wanted to mount a high level campaign without personal attacks, but just arguing that he can do a better job than his former boss, President Barack Obama. He plans to focus on New Hampshire and Florida as the way to gain an early lead in the race against Mitt Romney, his major rival.

Huntsman begins his campaign with many assets: good looks, good speaker, nice family, outstanding record and popularity in Utah when he was Governor of the state, knowledgeable in Mandarin Chinese, great experience in foreign policy in Asia in his role as Ambassador to China and Singapore as well as being a missionary in Taiwan, business background in his billionaire father’s chemical business, and image of being a moderate in a field of extremely conservative opponents except for Mitt Romney, a fellow Mormon.

Huntsman’s negatives are that in a right wing party he is a moderate by comparison; is also seen as very much a clone of Mitt Romney, but with less public exposure; he is, like Romney, a Mormon; and he worked for President Obama, and now wants to criticize him in a gentlemanly manner after having raved about his leadership, and the fact that he worked for Obama is seen by many as a reason to reject him.

It seems to the author with Huntsman recently repudiating the Obama Health Care reform, the Economic Stimulus of 2009, stating his opposition to abortion, and asserting he supports the privatization of Medicare proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan, all points that upset the author and led to his statement a few weeks ago denouncing Huntsman’s changes of heart, that he has lost credibility.

And yet, Huntsman could very well bend on these statements, as all politicians do, and is still saying he believes in climate change and global warming, and supports civil unions for gays.

In other words, Huntsman is not preferable to Barack Obama, but among all Republican candidates, he offers the best hope for someone who will be, if elected, acceptable within the mainstream, but with a critical eye on his evolving views.

It is said that Barack Obama is most concerned about Huntsman, and it is clear that Mitt Romney is also very concerned about Huntsman.

Face the facts: Huntsman has the backing of “Establishment” Republicans led by the Bush family, and by implication, Senator John McCain, and Romney is seen as unacceptable to them.

So Huntsman has some major advantages, including in addition, being almost a generation younger then Romney (13 years) and being “newer” as compared to Romney who ran and lost the nomination in 2008, and gained the enmity of both John McCain and Mike Huckabee, his major rivals.

So, the contest may well be Mormon Vs. Mormon, unless the evangelical Christians are able to stop both dead in their tracks, to the detriment of the Republican Party!