Day: July 20, 2011

Congressman Allen West Should Be Censured For His Vitriolic Attack On Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

Ronald 1 Comment

South Florida has a very large number of senior citizens, who will be affected by the Republican attempt to gut Medicare and Social Security.

Congressman Allen West, one of the most right wing conservatives in Congress, has come out for such cuts, and his colleague, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is also chair of the Democratic National Committee, criticized his action that will hurt his own constituents. She did not issue a personal attack on West, but when he heard what she had said on the floor of the House of Representatives, he went ballistic!

Already seen as a “loose cannon”, who was forced to leave the military in 2004 because of mistreatment of an Iraqi prisoner of war, West lashed into a bitter personal attack, saying Wasserman Schultz did not act like a lady, and he would not give her, therefore, appropriate respect ordinarily due a fellow member of the House!

West called his colleague “vile, unprofessional, and despicable”, and accused her of “heinous, characterless behavior” unbecoming a member of Congress!

What West needs to do, but will certainly not do, is look in the mirror, realize his temper tantrum was way overboard, and apologize to Wasserman Schultz and all women in America for his lunatic temper and lack of respect for women!

Why has West not learned to be civil, cordial, and congenial with those he does not agree with? Does he really think that hitting someone over the head symbolically with a hatchet is the way to solve disagreements?

West should be censured for his vitriolic attack, as unacceptable behavior! Wasserman Schultz criticized his policy views, while West did a character assassination, totally uncalled for!

However, no such censure will occur, and the best result will be the defeat of West in his congressional district by former West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel! This is certainly one of the most significant House races for 2012, even before yesterday’s events!

Time For Action On Debt Ceiling By Barack Obama: Invoke 14th Amendment, Section 4 Immediately!

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The Debt Ceiling Crisis, which has been building for weeks, is reaching a dangerous stage, with only 12 days left until the US government defaults, but Moody’s and other credit rating agencies are threatening action to lower the rating on government bonds before that date!

It is clear that the Tea Party conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have no concern about the default threat and the downgrading of government bonds by rating agencies!

The Republican Party is being criticized in polls for their intransigence, but seem unwilling to negotiate or compromise, even though the debt ceiling has been raised more than 100 times since 1917, and nearly ten times under George W. Bush!

They seem unable to understand that raising the debt ceiling is simply recognizing the need to pay OLD DEBT, just as much as all citizens must do the same to keep a credit rating, and have any ability to borrow money in the future!

The recklessness and irresponsibility being demonstrated is reaching a stage where Barack Obama MUST take action under his emergency powers, even if it endangers his Presidency and his reputation!

Obama needs to invoke the 14th Amendment, Section 4, and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, no matter what conservatives and Republicans advocate, as they have lost all rights to respect and being treated as a fair partner in negotiations!

The danger, of course, is that right wing whackos in the House will use such action as an excuse to impeach Barack Obama!

That would be tragic, but not fatal, as there is no way that two thirds of the Senate would convict and remove Obama from office, any more than that would happen with the unjustified impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1999!

Such a move toward impeachment would only give further evidence of how extremist and irresponsible the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan has become, and the American people would repudiate it in the Presidential Election of 2012 and the Congressional elections that would decide control of both houses of Congress for 2013-2014!

So Obama, by next Monday, with just a little over a week to go, and before Moody’s and other credit agencies take action, MUST assert his executive authority and let what happens to him occur, knowing the American people will be behind him all the way, and reward him with a second term, no matter what the Republicans do to counteract him!

A Day To Celebrate: 43rd Anniversary Of Special Olympics!

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Today, in the year 1968, with the full backing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her husband, Sargent Shriver, the sister and brother in law of President John F. Kennedy, the Special Olympics was created as a way for intellectually disabled people of all ages to compete in all kinds of athletic events and competitions!

Tim Shriver, the son of Eunice and Sargent Shriver, today heads the Special Olympics, which represents more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries.

Of course, the Special Olympics could not be as successful as they are, without the contribution of volunteers and sponsors in the United States and all over the world!

There are over 30 Olympic type individual and team sports that provide meaningful training and opportunities for competition.

With both Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver having now passed away, the great work of the Special Olympics continues to move forward in honor of their founders in the late 1960s!

Barack Obama After 30 Months In Office: A Man Of Courage Facing Innumerable Challenges!

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Today, July 20, marks 30 months, or two and a half years in office for President Barack Obama.

Obama has gone from one challenge to another nonstop in the past 30 months, having faced more issues and problems than any President since Franklin D. Roosevelt!

Obama has not done everything right or best, but he has shown courage and principle in facing multiple crises, often in the same time frame! He has proved the Presidency is not a job for a lightweight intellectually, and no one in their right mind can imagine John McCain doing anywhere near as well as Obama has performed!

Obama has had more grief from the opposition party than any President should have to face, but he has clearly made the American people understand he is on their side, not the side of the rich and the corporations! He has made many enemies, but his popularity has remained high. There is much frustration over the economy, but it is clear that the country at large does not see the Republican opposition as a better choice!

Obama may have alienated some who voted for him, but he has shown that he will make the tough choices no matter what effect it might have on his fortunes, and anyone at this point who really believes a Republican Party, with such a pathetic group of potential nominees to challenge Obama next year, is somehow going to beat Obama, needs to have his or her head examined!

Campaign contributions make it clear that Obama will win re-election, even if the unemployment rate is the highest since 1936, because just as much now as then, the American people at large are realizing that the Democrats offer the only hope in the long term, as the Republicans have painted themselves in a corner, catering to the FAR RIGHT social and Tea Party conservatives, and the country will not be crazy enough to put them into total control, no matter how much the corporations might spend, due to the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court in 2010!

Barack Obama will win re-election handily, and make the Republicans and the conservatives grin and bear it, as he is the champion of the majority of Americans who go to work every day and just want a fair shake from their government!