Month: May 2010

Who Gained From The May 18 Primaries? The Democrats And Progressives!

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It is interesting how many see the results of yesterday’s primaries as a defeat for President Obama!

Since Obama supported Senator Arlen Specter, because he helped the Democrats on important legislation after switching parties last year, it is argued that Obama lost! But actually, he gained in the long run by having the more “progressive” candidate and a “true” Democrat, Congressman Joe Sestak, defeat Specter!

Obama may have backed Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas in a party loyalty way, but the fact that the more “progressive” opponent, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, forced Lincoln into a runoff primary for June 8, by her failure to win a majority of the vote in the the three way race, is seen as leading to the likely nomination of Halter in the final two candidate election in three weeks!

The fact also that the moderate to conservative Democrat in the Pennsylvania district long represented by the late John Murtha, a former aide to Murtha, won the congressional seat by almost ten points over his Republican opponent, despite a large investment of money and advertising by the GOP, is also seen as a major Democratic win!

And although the Tea Party people feel they have accomplished a great victory with their libertarian candidate, Rand Paul, son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, over the “establishment” Republican candidate in Kentucky’s Republican primary, it will likely be a mixed blessing as the attack against the extremist views and statements of Rand Paul will be one of the highlights of the 2010 Congressional elections! This is NOT a great moment for the “Establishment” Republicans or Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell! Rand Paul represents an attack on just about everything that most Republicans profess in domestic and foreign policy!

It is noticeable that neither House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, nor Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, had much to say today about yesterday’s election results! It is obvious that they realize their party is being marginalized, while the Democrats have seen a swing to the left, but not a move toward anarchism, which will never solve the problems this nation faces!

The Anarchistic Nature Existing Today In America! A Great Danger! :(

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Yesterday’s results in primaries in four states has been judged to be a sign of anti Establishment and anti Washington, DC sentiment!

There is nothing wrong with the concept of “throwing the rascals out”! That was the design of our nation, that when the people are unhappy with their public servants, that they should be able to vote them out!

Turnover is good, and there are those who would think there should be term limits and age limits, although in no other occupation do such limits now exist, because they would be considered discriminatory! Experience and knowledge have always been thought of as virtues, except maybe in politics, ironically, where many citizens seem to think having “fresh blood” is always desirable!

Actually, a mix of experienced people and newcomers is what is best for a democratic system to operate efficiently! But try to tell that to the Tea Party activists, who simply are against all those who have served in government, in both parties, and against the federal government. The results in Pennsylvania are seen by many as the repudiation of Barack Obama, but the results in Kentucky are seen as the rejection of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from that state!

In the rhetoric they employ, in reality, the Tea Party Movement is bordering on anarchism! They want a complete turnover of government, and back to the pre Great Depression America, when state and local government were the dominant levels and spent the most money in governing the masses! Of course, that was a much simpler time which many would wish could return, but which will not occur!

The problem is that we cannot go back to 1929 and earlier in levels of responsibility of local, state, and national government! The more one examines the facts, we become aware of the reality that state and local governments are far more corrupt, far less representative, and far less competent to solve issues that government in a complex world must deal with!

The concept of states rights is so overdrawn as a virtue, but it was made clear 150 years ago that all citizens had to be treated the same, not be at the whims of state governments which in many cases treated its citizens in very different, unjust ways! History tells us that did not always happen, but that became the basic view that has been enforced in the past 50 years!

To be against Washington, DC is to be against our Constitution, which provided for a federal government to unite the people and protect them in the Bill of Rights! We are not a confederation of 50 states, all doing their own thing with a “go to hell” attitude toward the nation as a whole! We tried that with the Articles of Confederation from 1781-1789, and it failed miserably!

To wish to go back to the Articles of Confederation mentality denies the whole point of our national experience, and it is a move toward total anarchism! This fury and anger must be directed to necessary change, but not deny the whole purpose of our Constitution!

National government IS necessary, and national government is the only level of government that can promote equality of opportunity and equal justice! Witness Arizona now, and many Southern states in the past, which have denied basic human rights! 🙁

The job of the Obama Administration, the Democrats, and “reasonable” Republicans, who do not wish to contribute to the downfall of a stable government, is to offer rational solutions to the many problems this nation now faces! It is a major challenge, but there have been crises before, and fringe movements have been overcome by strong leadership and measured response to national emergencies!

Arlen Specter’s 30 Years In The Senate Come To An End!

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Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has had his distinguished 30 year career in the Senate ended by Democratic primary voters, who elected Congressman Joe Sestak as a sign of change that they see as necessary!

Specter, who only switched to the Democratic Party last year, failed to accomplish his goal to have a sixth term in the Senate, but it is clear his time was up, as there was no realistic way that he would have been renominated if he had remained a Republican!

Always an individualist and maverick with the tendency to be moderate to liberal, depending on the issue, Specter often showed courage in his years in the Senate, and his willingness to back President Barack Obama on the economic stimulus and health care legislation was crucial to the passage of both bills!

For that, of course, Tea Party people and conservatives hated his guts, but Specter will go down as a man of great ambition and ego, and often demonstrating a difficult personality, but also at key moments doing what many would term the “right” thing to do!

His career was distinguished enough, and he dealt with enough controversial issues over three decades, that we can see that he will be well remembered, and will have historians and biographers want to research and produce scholarly works on the impact he had on American history!

Being already 80, and having survived two bouts with cancer, Arlen Specter can be described as a “profile in courage”, who will not be forgotten when the history of the last thirty years is written! May he enjoy a retirement that he deserves!

The Age Issue In America: The Young Versus Baby Boomers And The Elderly

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It is becoming more evident that there is an age issue in America–between those under 45 and the Baby Boomers 46-64, and even those older than the Baby Boomers.

The Baby Boomers grew up in an era where cultural issues were very different than today. As children, most never knew anyone who was an immigrant, and for the white Baby Boomers, most did not know many people who were minority, or those who spoke foreign languages as a primary language.

Many also did not know gay people or have to deal with the issue of gay marriage, since marriage was only possible between a man and a woman.

Most Baby Boomers did not have to deal with affirmative action, and often did not associate or socialize with many people of minority status on a regular basis.

Interracial marriage was unusual, and marriages between people of different ethnic backgrounds were limited mostly to Jews marrying Italians or Italians, Polish and Irish white ethnics intermarrying. The whole concept of true racial and ethnic mix was rare.

Now we live in an era of young people associating with others who are of immigrant status, different racial and ethnic mixes, and gay, both at work and socially.

Therefore, those who are young tend to be more open minded and to be against those who attack illegal immigration, civil rights, and gay rights in a discriminatory manner! They are much more tolerant, as a group, than their parents or grandparents!

The good thing about this chasm is that the future lies with the young, and therefore as more become engaged in voting and participation in their country’s government, the odds of acceptance of immigrants, minorities and gay people being treated in a way that makes the nation proud, grows dramatically!

A multicultural America with a “live and let live” attitude toward people who are different in appearance, language, and even sexual preference is around the corner, even if now it is a major cultural conflict! The future is clear, but it might take a while for this to emerge, meanwhile adding tension to social division in America!

But the party that recognizes the future has a long range opportunity to succeed, and right now, it is evident that the Democrats are that party!

The Problem Of Trust : A Crisis In American Politics! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

As Americans in four states vote today in party primaries and to replace Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania, it is obvious that there is widespread alienation of the average citizen toward their government, and it is not just one party or the other, or in fact, just the national government, but also state and local governments!

There are constant revelations of sex and financial scandals, and of lying about one’s background and credentials! This happens on a regular basis in many states across the country, including in South Florida as recently as the past 24 hours! 🙁

Within the last day, we have discovered that Connecticut Democratic Senate nominee Richard Blumenthal, the state Attorney General for 22 years, lied about his Vietnam service, a stunning revelation for a person who has been the chief law enforcement officer of his state for a generation! This will make it impossible for him to have a clear shot at winning what was thought to be an easy election to succeed Christopher Dodd!

But also just occurring is the revelation of an affair of Republican Representative Mark Souder of Indiana, and his announcement that he will resign from the House of Representatives!

Can the American people ever again believe in their office holders in governments at all levels, when there has been an epidemic of scandals and lies that seems never to stop? 🙁

When again will we be able to imagine that those who represent us can be believed and respected and trusted to govern us? 🙁

This is the question of 2010, but really of any year, and is troubling for those who have children and want them to believe in the reliability and truthfulness of adults, not only politicians, but also entertainers and sports figures, who constantly set a bad example for the future generation! 🙁

Hawaii Settles The Issue Of Barack Obama’s Birth: He Was Born In Hawaii! :)

Ronald 1 Comment

The “Birther” movement has been very active and refusing to concede that President Barack Obama was, indeed, born in a hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.

This craziness has continued despite contemporary newspaper reports of his birth to his parents. All kinds of people, including some members of the Republican Party, including Michele Bachmann, have been unwilling to drop this farce of an issue!

Orly Taitz, the California dentist and lawyer who has been the titular leader of the “Birther” movement, refuses to give up the fight to declare that Obama is not eligible to be President, because, according to her, he was born in Kenya!

But now, the Hawaii state government, led by Republican Governor Linda Lingle, has made a public statement of the facts of Obama’s birth information, and she has said she personally saw his live birth certificate in the archives, and that no more will the state government react to the nearly 50 requests a month for proof about Obama’s birth!

Realize that this is no Democrat or liberal saying this! It is the REPUBLICAN governor of the state, certainly NOT a liberal, who says this!

So Orly Taitz, Michele Bachmann, and all of the other crazies who continue to promote this issue–it is time to cease and desist, or be considered certifiable for admission to a mental hospital! 🙂

Two Civil Liberties Decisions Of The Supreme Court That Make Sense!

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The Supreme Court made two decisions today on criminal law that makes sense, and protect civil liberties!

In one case, Graham V. Florida, the Court divided 5-4 with the four liberal Justices joined by Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the Court, who more often votes with the conservatives, but not this time!

The case involved the issue of whether a juvenile offender, who had committed crimes short of murder, could be imprisoned for life automatically, and the decision was to reject that. Justice Kennedy, the author of the opinion, said it was generally accepted nationally and internationally that such a viewpoint was wrong, with only eleven states and mostly Florida cases having sentenced juveniles to life without parole on non murder cases.

The fact that Kennedy used the international argument upset Justice Clarence Thomas, who said foreign practices are irrelevant to our laws and Constitution.

The struggle over whether foreign law should have any impact on our courts is a heated one, and it shows just how important Justice Kennedy is on the Court, as the truly “swing” vote on the Court, which he has been for many years now, with a tightly divided Court!

In another case, US V. Comstock, the Court by 7-2 declared that a sexually dangerous convict could be held beyond the terms of his sentence, as a way to protect the public from him being a menace on the streets of the country.

While at first thought, it would seem that this is a denial of civil liberties, it seems fair that if someone is seen as a threat to the public because of inability to control sexual impulses, based on clear and direct medical and psychological evidence, then the protection and promotion of safety of citizens must be foremost!

Interestingly, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were in the minority on this case! It proves once again that both Justices are indeed hard to understand in their thinking!

The Republican Party Has Lost Its Roots! How It Has Changed For The Worst!

Ronald 1 Comment

The Republican Party has lost its roots in recent years, and when one looks at the principles of its leaders over the past 156 years, it has very little similarity to the viewpoints of its most famous political figures!

It is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans who founded the party in 1854, fought against the Confederacy in the Civil War, and promoted the end of slavery and advocated racial equality! Now the Republican party sounds more like the Confederate mentality, and has very little appeal among African Americans! The South is the strongest section of Republican support, when in the past, to be a Republican was anathema in the Old Confederacy!

It is no longer the party of Theodore Roosevelt, George Norris, Robert LaFollette, Sr., and other Progressive Republicans who wanted social and economic justice and regulation of big business in the early 20th century! Now, the word “progressive” is trashed, not only by Republican leaders, but by conservative talk radio and Fox News Channel hosts who make being a “progressive” a great evil! And certainly, the Republican party does NOT care for social and economic justice or regulation of corporations, as evidenced by the disastrous policies that have led to the Great Recession! 🙁

It is not the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate Republican, who warned against the “Military-Industrial Complex”, which was influencing our foreign policy, and committing America to a constant overseas presence in foreign conflicts!

It is not even the party of Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential nominee in 1964, who in later years warned against the growing influence in the party of the Religious Right with its insistence on promoting moral issues in politics, such as abortion and gay rights and school prayer, issues that Goldwater believed should not be part of American politics. For this, years after his losing campaign for President, he was vilified by the Christian conservatives!

The Republican party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or Goldwater! For those reasons, the party has lost its moorings, and many worry it is rapidly becoming marginalized, as it alienates the growing Hispanic and Latino population by its support of the Arizona illegal immigration law; as it campaigns to repeal health care; as it continues its battle against financial reform on Wall Street; and as it wages its refusal to support environmental legislation and energy alternatives–all issues that sum up the agenda of the future!

The Rapid Marginalization Of The Republican Party: Maine As An Example

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The Republican Party was born in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery, and for many party founders, opposition to slavery itself.

The Republican Party became the majority party of the nation within a few short years; won the Civil War under President Abraham Lincoln; promoted racial equality during the Reconstruction period; endorsed the development of industrial capitalism; gave us Theodore Roosevelt and the growth of the progressive movement; advocated bipartisan foreign policy during the beginning of the Cold War under President Truman; gave the country the moderate, internationalist views of Dwight D. Eisenhower; and continued to have a moderate wing, even in the times when conservatism under Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan won control of the party.

The Republican party also, sadly, pursued policies that helped to cause the Great Depression of 1929; promoted fear and hysteria during the the Age of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and advocated policies that led to economic excesses under Ronald Reagan, and economic and foreign policy tragedies under George W. Bush; and allowed itself to be hijacked by the religious Right in the last generation!

Now, in the past few years, at an accelerated rate, the Republican party has become more extreme and marginalized with the growth in power and influence, not just of the religious Right, but also the radio talk show and Fox News Channel crackpots who spew forth wild rhetoric which incites and fuels extremist movements, such as the Tea Party activists that are promoting conspiratorial views about liberals, progressives, and the Obama Presidency!

Witness not only the fact that a very conservative but respectable US Senator Robert Bennett is repudiated in the Utah state convention proceedings last week, not able to make it on the ballot for Republican voters to decide in a primary!

Witness not only the crazy rantings of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other right wing talk show hosts who promote the most extreme depictions of our President, and advocate ideas the most incendiary ever enunciated on the airwaves, enough to incite fear, hysteria and panic among people suffering from GOP policies that led to the Great Recession we are still trying to recover from!

But Maine, a state that has long had the image of being a moderate, reasonable state politically, last weekend had a state Republican convention, and came out of it sounding as if insanity had taken over! What happened at this convention?

The convention called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve; declared global warming a myth; called for sealing the border with Canada; denounced the idea of a one world government; stated that health care is not a right; called for the elimination of the Department of Education; advocated the arrest, detention and deportation of anyone here illegally immediately; and sounded as if the Maine Republican party had been taken over by the Tea Party Movement and Ron Paul!

As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post stated: “The Maine Republicans a week ago rejected a platform proclaiming that ‘we believe that the proper role of government is to help provide for those who cannot help themselves’, that ‘we believe in ensuring that our children have access to the best educational opportunities’, and that ‘every person’s dignity, freedom, liberty, ability and responsibility must be honored.'”

Milbank states that the Republican Party is becoming unglued, and showing signs of cracking up, and that if this is what is happening in Maine and Utah, as well as in Arizona and elsewhere, that May 8, 2010 will be seen by historians as the beginning of the disintegration of a party once great and magnificent in many ways! 🙁 The problem is that there were clear signs of this before last week, but Maine being part of it is indeed shocking! 🙁

This should be an alarm bell ringing in the night, as Thomas Jefferson said at the time of the debate about slavery, which led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which, ironically, helped to create Maine as a “free” state in the debate over slavery expansion!

This extremist, right wing activity is a threat to freedom itself, and to every decent American who believes that this country is a land of opportunity and humanity! 🙁

Pat And Bay Buchanan And Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan

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The Buchanans, Pat and Bay, are at it again, stirring up controversy, and making many observers “roll their eyes”! 🙂

Pat Buchanan, the Nixon speechwriter and Reagan loyalist, who challenged the first President Bush for the nomination of the GOP for President in 1992, and then ran as a Reform Party candidate for President twice, even having an effect on the Florida election results in 2000, has commented on the fact that some think Elena Kagan is a lesbian, and also that she is Jewish, which makes for three Jews on the Supreme Court, all appointed by Democratic Presidents! The fact that almost all previous Supreme Court Justices, except for about twenty, have been Protestants, apparently is not an issue to the Buchanans! 🙁

Buchanan is not the only person in the Republican party to bring up the rumored homosexuality of Elena Kagan, and the Obama Administration has been actively criticizing the tactic!

But bringing up the fact Kagan is Jewish only smells of the old beliefs that Buchanan is anti Semitic, which has been part of the image that he has, because of his inappropriate comments!

But it is interesting that if one goes back to look at Democratic Presidents since John F. Kennedy, we find two appointments (Byron White who was Protestant and Arthur Goldberg who was Jewish) by JFK; two appointments by Lyndon B. Johnson (Abe Fortas who was Jewish and Thurgood Marshall who was African American); no appointments by Jimmy Carter, as no member of the Court left the bench during his term; two appointments by Bill Clinton (Ruth Bader Ginsberg who is Jewish and Stephen Breyer who is Jewish); and now two by Barack Obama (Sonia Sotomayor who is Latino and Elena Kagan who is Jewish)!

So when one examines Democratic appointments in the past half century, a total of eight, five were indeed Jewish, one African American, one Latino, and only the first one was a Protestant! This is certainly interesting information, but it should not be a plus or minus to judge Supreme Court nominees because of their religion or ethnicity!

But Bay Buchanan, Pat’s sister and a long term conservative activist, makes an even more ridiculous assertion about Elena Kagan! She declares that Kagan is totally unqualified simply because she has no direct judicial experience, despite the fact that many Supreme Court Justices never had judicial experience, but turned out to be superb members of the Court!

It is not that only Bay Buchanan has made Kagan seem to lack the experience and knowledge to be a Supreme Court Justice, but that she has, earlier in 2008 and ever since, claimed that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the GOP VIce Presidential nominee, was superbly qualified and talented to be President ofr the United States!

That comment makes any neutral observer come to the conclusion that Bay Buchanan must be drinking, or smoking something illegal, or is totally certifiable for a mental hospital! 🙂 LOL

Both Buchanans lose all legitimacy by their statements about Elena Kagan, who worked with two great judges–Abner Mikva of the Court of Appeals (1979-1994), and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991), who she clerked for! She is indeed a credit to both judicial giants and will be a star figure on the Supreme Court, once she overcomes the bias, prejudice, and pettiness being promoted by Republican opponents! 🙁