Republicans

99 Years Since America Entered World Affairs In A True Sense, And The Future!

99 years ago, on April 6,1917, the United States Congress declared war on Germany, and America entered “The Great War”, World War I.

Woodrow Wilson, by asking for a war declaration on April 2, took a fateful step that put America on the world stage, and committed us to sending American troops overseas.

It began a century in which America would be engaged in seven wars, and face the headaches and responsibilities of world leadership.

Now, we are hearing candidates, including Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who wish for us to retreat from that commitment to world affairs, as there is total disillusionment with our foreign policy under both Democrats and Republicans.

The world is a dangerous place, and trying to figure out what is best for America’s future in a world of nuclear weapons being spread, and of terrorism a threat all over the globe , is daunting!

We tried a return to isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was an utter failure and a disaster.

But at the same time, we were drawn into wars that could not be won, including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

So we are in a quandary, with no easy or simple solution as to what our future relationship with the world should be!

Republicans In Congress Demonstrate Unbelievable Arrogance, And Ignore Public Opinion, Even Of Republican Voters!

The House Republicans are the most reactionary group seen in Congress in modern times, as evidence now shows that they are opposing not only general public opinion, but also that of voters of their own party, along with Independents and Democrats!

Issues where this is true include the following where some Republicans supported the proposed legislation in the Senate:

ENDA–the bill to stop discrimination in employment against gays and transgendered people, passed 64-32 in the Senate.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which passed the Senate 68-32.

At the same time, Republicans in both houses of Congress are fighting against the following, which are also supported by Republicans in polls, along with Democrats and Independents.

The Minimum Wage increase legislation to $9 an hour.

Background Checks on Gun Purchases

Who would think that a political party could ignore the views of its own voters and expect to stay in office? It makes one wonder how the GOP can believe it will keep power in the House and gain control of the Senate, as they seem to believe they can accomplish, when they have such a high level of arrogance as they are demonstrating!

The Developing Gender, Age, And Racial Gap In American Politics Will Determine The Future

What is becoming more obvious by the day is that America is facing a major split politically over the nation’s future. It will show up in the results of the Presidential Election of 2012.

A gender gap, already present, is growing, between the majority of women, who vote Democratic, and the majority of men, who vote Republican.

An age gap is also widening, as younger voters tend to trend toward the Democrats, while senior citizens seem afraid of the future, including the racial changes coming in the population, and are tending Republican, even though the Republicans should be seen as a threat to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

There is also an obvious racial gap, with the majority of whites voting Republican, while the majority of African Americans and Hispanics-Latinos are voting Democratic.

This split, along gender, age, and racial lines presents many challenges to the winner of the election, and indicates the stresses and tensions within the nation, as we see an aging white population, and an emerging, much younger and growing minority community becoming the major factor in the future of American politics. It also shows the growing conflict between men and women over their roles in American society, as women become the challenge to men’s dominance economically.

The old traditions are being upended by a changing dynamic that will affect policy making in the future. And it will also affect both the Democrats and Republicans as they come to grips with the political future. The party which accepts the future will dominate, while the party that resists the future will suffer!

The Conservative Attack On Michelle Obama’s Anti Obesity And Breast Feeding Campaign: The Accusation Of A “Nanny State”! :(

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy promoted Physical Fitness as a national goal, and no one complained that it was inappropriate intervention in the life of American families to do so.

Now, however, the Tea Party Movement and conservative “family” groups are condemning First Lady Michelle Obama for promoting good eating habits and encouraging breast feeding for new mothers as ways to promote good health in children. She is being accused of promoting a “nanny” state, having the government tell citizens what to do with their bodies, and what to ingest. To suggest vegetables, and to avoid sugar and fatty food, is seen as interfering with the rights of parents to bring up their children in the way they see fit.

Interesting, the word “fit” being used here, when one considers that a large percentage of American children are likely to have diabetes and other diseases, and are right now overweight in larger percentages than ever before. If children are not encouraged to eat well, and exercise, the health care bill in the future will be astronomical because of poor parenting, as it is parents who should be held responsible for insuring that their children are fed well and get exercise.

What it comes down to is whatever the President or the First Lady advocate, they will be attacked, and a lot of it has to do, sadly, with the refusal of many to accept that we have an intelligent, educated, attractive First Couple, who happen to be African American! 🙁

It is hilarious to think that a pill drug addict and overweight (tremendously) talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, and an alcoholic and drug addicted talk show host, Glenn Beck, are the leading critics of the First Lady promoting good health habits! 🙁

But even Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, both of whom are mothers, would rather ridicule and criticize on this matter, than join in promoting good eating and exercise habits! 🙁

What a sad commentary on the political scene in 2011! 🙁

A Revelation: The Founding Fathers Supported National Health Care For The Merchant Marine Sailors In 1798!

The claim by Tea Party activists and Republicans and conservatives that the Constitution does not allow national health care has been shown to be incorrect by the revelation that in 1798, the Founding Fathers passed legislation through Congress, signed by President John Adams, that provided for mandatory health care coverage on merchant marine sailors, paid for by a one percent tax on their incomes, in order to protect their health from illness and injuries, and therefore providing enough of a work force for the all important activity of foreign commerce!

Federal maritime hospitals were built in all the major American ports to provide medical services, and they were financed by the mandatory health care tax on the sailors!

Eventually, the service was expanded to cover commerce and ships on the Mississippi River and the Ohio River. Over time, it became the Public Health Service, which is still in existence today!

What the US government did in the 1790s is the method used by all European democratic governments today to insure that all citizens have health care, including the mandated taxes for their own good, to insure health care, rather than wait for an emergency and then deny health care to millions, or do it expensively at the cost of all taxpayers in emergency rooms!

So it turns out that the Founding Fathers were indeed “socialists” in the sense they mandated that people in the merchant marine had to take responsibility for their own health care and contribute to the cost through mandated taxes!

The author wishes to acknowledge that this tidbit of information came to him through the discovery on line of this revelation by his son, David Feinman, a true “chip off the old block” in so many ways! 🙂 Thanks, Dave! 🙂

Tea Party People And Conservatives Take Note: The Constitution Established A Strong National Government, And The Amendments Have Made For A More Liberal, Nationalist Nation!

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is spending taxpayer money to read the Constitution out loud, as a supposed lesson to the nation as to what the Constitution contains.

This is occurring due to the impact of the Tea Party Movement, but if that group and other conservatives really listen to and think about the words of the Constitution, they would realize what the Constitution is all about.

The Constitution was created to REPLACE the Articles of Confederation, a document that gave the states authority that led to chaos, anarchy and bankruptcy, and forced the hand of liberal nationalist Founding Fathers who realized that the country would not survive without a STRONGER NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

The Constitution gave the US Congress tremendous and specific powers in Article 1, Section 8, the ELASTIC CLAUSE–necessary and proper for the common defense and the general welfare–, creating vague language that could be interpreted broadly, and has been by the Supreme Court over 200 years since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Liberal nationalists brought about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

Liberal nationalists brought about the Civil Rights Amendments (13, 14, 15) in the years after the Civil War.

Liberal nationalists brought about the “Progressive” amendments on the federal income tax (16), direct election of the US Senate taken away from the state legislatures (17), and woman suffrage (19) in the second decade of the 20th century.

Liberal nationalists brought about the right of DC residents to vote for President (23), the end of the poll tax in all elections (24), and the 18 year old vote (26) in the decade of the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Constitution has been made the great document it is by the actions of the Founding Fathers and later generations of liberal nationalists, whether Federalist, Republican, or Democratic, and by Supreme Courts led by great Justices, including John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and many others!

No matter what conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party activists might say or believe, it is LIBERAL and PROGRESSIVE activism that has led to the Constitution and its amendment improvements over two centuries!

Liberals and progressives stand together in pride as to their enactment and expansion of the document which inspires people all over the world, the greatest constitutional document ever created by the will of mankind!

Independents Wanted Parties To Compromise: Instead They Have Produced Greater Polarization! :(

It has often been said that Independent votes decide elections, and certainly the majority of Independents supported the Democrats in 2008, and this time backed the Republicans in midterm elections.

Independents have always been those who condemn partisanship, and call for the two major parties to cooperate and work together toward compromise, but ironically, what they have done this time is to produce total stalemate, gridlock and polarization bound to be greater than the first two years of the Obama Administration! 🙁

The “Blue Dog” Democrats and some “mainstream” conservative Republicans have been defeated, and instead we have the most liberal Democrats and most conservative and “Tea Party” Republicans becoming dominant in their parties, which means no real chance of “crossing the aisle” and moving toward compromise! 🙁

So expect no real progress on the economy or other significant issues, but rather “fireworks” and heated rhetoric over the next two years! 🙁

The question is how Independents will vote in 2012 for Congress and the Presidency. Will they blame the GOP in the House of Representatives, or the Democrats in the Senate and the White House for the failure to deal with America’s problems? Which party will be in control of the Congress and the White House in 2013?

One thing is for sure: the great “theater” of politics will be in full swing, entertaining us and mortifying us at the same time, in 2011-2012! 🙁

The Tea Party: Analysis Of What Makes Them Tick! Not A Pretty Picture! :(

A New York Times/ CBS News poll last week examined the issue of what makes the Tea Party backers tick, what motivates them, and who they really are. It is all very revealing!

The poll shows that the Tea Party has 18 percent of the people behind them. It depicts them as more likely to be wealthier and well educated than the general public, and are very likely to be white, male, married and Republican. They are also older and define themselves as very conservative, and see Barack Obama as very liberal.

More than half feel Obama is more concerned about the poor than about them when it comes to policy making, and one out of four think that the administration favors blacks over whites.

The Tea Party people resent the Health Care overhaul and increased government spending, and think by overwhelming numbers that Obama is a Socialist, and do not like the President on a personal level. Many believe, wrongly, that he has increased taxes for most Americans.

And more than half hold a favorable opinion of President George W. Bush, and blame Congress for what has happened in the past two years.

They have the view that programs should be cut, by getting rid of “waste”, meaning those who are poor and deprived being supported by various social programs. But don’t dare cut Social Security and Medicare, while cutting spending and lowering taxes!

When one analyzes this poll date, it is obvious who the Tea Party people are. They are angry, white, upper middle and upper class people, who don’t like the fact that the country is changing so rapidly with growing minority groups, and they don’t want taxes to go up, but also don’t want their programs that benefit them to go down.

They are conservative and Republican in orientation, who have troubles dealing with a Democratic administration, which is led by an African American President, an African American Attorney General (Eric Holder), and has a Latina Supreme Court Justice (Sonia Sotomayor). They would be the first to applaud the new Arizona immigration law, failing to see it as what it is–a racist, discriminatory law, not all that different than African Americans faced in the South for more than a century until the Civil Rights laws were finally passed and enforced in the 1960s.

The Tea Party people want an America which is no longer that of their youth, and have trouble adjusting to rapid change. And they are certainly self centered and selfish, only concerned about “ME” rather than “WE”, the good of the nation at large! They would claim they are patriotic, but they are far from it, as they see the advancement of the nation only in the sense as to how they avoid taxation and have the least responsibility to their fellow men and women! And yet, many would claim to be “religious”–a mockery of the true meaning of having faith! 🙁

Obama, Wall Street Regulations, And Mitch McConnell

One would think the collapse of the economy in the Fall of 2008 would motivate everyone in Congress to promote strict regulations of Wall Street, so that what happened can never occur again!

It was lack of regulation that allowed the Wall Street abuses to happen, but apparently that does not affect the Republican opposition, most of whom seem dedicated to prevention of any real regulatory reform!

Well known as friends of Wall Street, they now are trying to play a shell game, and claim that all bailouts must be prevented in the future, when many of them backed the original bailout that took place under President Bush!

Despite Tea Party protests, it is a fact that the so called “bailout” saved the country from a worse economic downturn, and much of the bailout money has been paid back by the banks, insurance companies, and auto companies, and the rest will be paid back.

Would it have been better to do nothing, and let the economy slip into a total depression? Why is it that now when it is urgent that reform be accomplished, suddenly the GOP is acting like an innocent child, as if they had nothing to do with the lack of regulation during the Bush era?

It is good to see President Obama declare that, just like with the Health Care legislation, he will not allow GOP intransigence to stand in the way of essential reform! It is time for action, no matter what Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, or anyone else does to block reform! It has been the height of hypocrisy for McConnell to attack the legislation, when he is well known for being close to Wall Street financiers! What a disgrace! 🙁

Obama And The Nuclear Security Summit

President Obama accomplished a great agreement at a Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC last week.

47 nations agreed to track down all nuclear material over the next four years, and the goal of the meeting, a gathering of more nations than at any time since World War II, was to work together to promote the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons.

This comes on top of the Russian-US agreement to cut nuclear arsenals by one third, with verification means to insure that both sides keep the agreement.

What Obama did this past week is the fulfillment of what, ironically, President Ronald Reagan promoted as a goal, when he made arms agreements with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

This is something, therefore, that all should embrace, but instead, predictably, conservatives and Republicans are forgetting what Reagan enunciated in his second term in office, and already promise a battle over the strategic arms reduction treaty (START) when it comes to the Senate.

This will happen, despite the fact that Republicans from earlier administrations have spoken up in favor of the treaty and the move toward nuclear security. But rather than unite around the danger of nuclear proliferation and attempt to promote progress on this, the opposition would rather use it as a political issue, so the treaty will incite a new struggle! 🙁