Day: November 23, 2009

Barack Obama Emphasizes Importance Of Math And Science

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President Obama is promoting initiatives to emphasize the need for America to educate its students in the crucial fields of math and science.

In comments today, the President said we need to improve our inferior world position on student achievement in math and science.

Obama’s visit to South Korea convinced him of the need to emphasize American excellence in both fields, and he said that hearing that South Korean parents demanded that their children work hard to accomplish good results was a good model for what American parents and educators should expect from our students.

Part of the new strategy is to promote excellence being rewarded by White House attention on the level of sports and entertainment, through the promotion of an annual Science Fair. Also, utilization of PBS’s Sesame Street to reach children at a young age is part of the plan.

Obama’s push to promote science and math education is to be applauded, and could really make a difference in the level of excellence in American education. Whatever resources can be utilized need to be employed in the accomplishment of these goals!

Competing Jobs Summits: Barack Obama And Newt Gingrich

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President Obama is holding a Jobs Summit, with representatives of business, labor, and academia next month, but will be upstaged to some extent by Jobs Summits being held in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jackson, Mississippi, a day earlier and the same day as the White House Summit.

The promoter of these competing Jobs Summits is none other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also flirting with a Presidential candidacy in 2012. Gingrich is trying to offer an alternative to the administration’s plans, which he calls inadequate and wrong headed.

Gingrich also has plans to hold additional summits next year as the political heat rises for the midterm election. This is just another indication of the rapidly accelerating presidential race in the Republican party, as numerous candidates make their case, and even talk show hosts get into the fray! 🙂

Rick Santorum Flirts With A Presidential Run

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Former Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who lost his reelection race to Bob Casey by 18 points in 2006, is visiting Iowa, Michigan, and South Carolina as he flirts with a 2012 Presidential run.

A very conservative senator, who was vehemently pro life and anti gay rights in his years in the Senate, Santorum was thought to be a possible candidate in 2008 until he lost his Senate seat after 12 years, capped by a statement that if gay marriage came about, the next thing would be that a man would marry his dog–that bestiality would become legal.

Making such a statement made him look ridiculous and also quite nutty, and Pennsylvania gave him a walloping defeat, but apparently his ego is such that he thinks the country needs him, so he will join a long list of potential nominees, certainly making the 2012 race ever more interesting!

Oh No! Is This For Real? Lou Dobbs For President?

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On top of Glenn Beck exploring organizing for political action in 2010 and 2012, interpreted by many as considering running for President himself, now we have a much more bold move by Lou Dobbs, late of CNN!

Dobbs told two talk show hosts, including former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, himself a presidential possibility in 2008, that he is considering a Presidential candidacy!

Imagine this: Now two talk show hosts, both extremely divisive and confrontational in tone, are flirting with a Presidential campaign! Have we gone totally bonkers when talk shows hosts who have no desire but to feed their own ego, and who have less government experience than Sarah Palin, are moving toward involvement in the next Presidential election?

Can one imagine Lou Dobbs making illegal immigration the center of his campaign, and Glenn Beck exploiting the insecurities of his listeners, competing for votes? They would have to attack each other, as well as promote demagoguery on a massive scale.

Is this what America has come to, that it leans on ideological talk show hosts who are out to enrich themselves, as serious presidential possibilities? This potential will make the election campaign of 2012 even more weird than having Sarah Palin considering a run. It is absolutely amazing what the “land of opportunity” that is the United States has become!

Congressman David Obey, Afghanistan And Domestic Reform

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Long time Wisconsin Democratic Congressman David Obey, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has called upon the President to ask for a war surtax if he intends to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

His argument is that the Afghan War will cost $40 billion more per year if we send 40,000 more troops there, which is the proposal of General Stanley McChrystal being considered by President Obama. Obey says we cannot afford that cost, and that it will destroy the entire domestic reform agenda of the President, as we cannot sustain escalating the war and also pursue domestic change.

So Obey suggests that it is time for us to pay for an escalation of the war by taxing the American people, instead of just the troops sacrificing their lives, and taxpayers not having the responsibility as in past wars to pay taxes as their sacrifice for the war.

I think David Obey is absolutely correct in his statements. If we as a people are for this war, then let’s pay the taxes for it, instead of just waving the flag but otherwise making no sacrifice for the war we supposedly believe in.

Of course, a better answer is get out of this war and promote the domestic agenda. Isn’t it interesting how Republicans have no issue with spending for the war, but tell us we cannot afford a domestic reform agenda? However, is this really new, or just the old GOP hypocrisy about government spending?

Let’s remember that most of our national debt is due to militarism and war, not domestic reform, and that most of the national debt occurred under Presidents Reagan and Bush II. And yet the GOP has the gall to claim that the Democrats are the big spenders!