Day: June 11, 2010

What Is It About Many Republican Women Politicians? :(

Ronald 1 Comment

The growing role of women in American politics is to be applauded, and it seems likely that we will see more women in the Congress and the Governorships after this fall’s midterm elections than we have ever seen before!

However, the thought that by having more women in office, that we will see more humanity and consideration of the needs of average Americans, may very well NOT be true, at least with many Republican women!

We have already seen the embarrassment that such Republican women politicians as Sarah Palin of Alaska, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, and Jean Schmidt of Ohio have proved to be, as a result of their nasty, mean spirited and often dense statements and actions!

Now we have the potential of even more such cases, as say, for instance, Carly Fiorina in California, Meg Whitman in California, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Nikki Haley in South Carolina, and already evident, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona!

In many ways, these Republican women already in office, and those competing to enter Congress and the governorships, make one wonder if women are any better than men when it comes to using good judgment, and showing compassion and concern for those not wealthy! At least, regarding many Republican women, the answer seems to be, unfortunately, NO! 🙁

Senator Tom Harkin’s Investigation Of “For Profit” Colleges Warranted!

Ronald 1 Comment

Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is planning hearings on the “For Profit” colleges in the nation, which are well known for their scandalous behavior in recruitment and financing!

The “For Profit” colleges are led by the University of Phoenix, ITT Educational Services, Inc, Career Education Corp and other corporations, which together receive more than $20 billion in grants and loans for students!

The problem is that the recruiting practices of these corporations encourage students to sign up for expensive career programs with no guarantee of employment, and the level of debt incurred leads to high levels of default, which puts the burden on the taxpayers of America! 🙁

The “For Profit” schools recruit mostly poor and minority students with great promises of success, but often do not do anything to help them find employment! Also the tuition is outrageously high, without adequate instruction and equipment and student services!

Nearly two million students are in the “For Profit” schools, but levels of emotional manipulation by recruiters are rampant against people who have no conception of the false promises that are being made to them!

The question of whether these “For Profit” schools are truly “educating” their students is an open question! A full investigation and exposure of this industry, already reported on by PBS, is essential, before there are more victims among students and taxpayers alike! 🙁

The Strange Case Of Alvin Greene In South Carolina: A Scandal Hatched By The GOP? :(

Ronald 3 Comments

Alvin Greene is an African American resident of South Carolina, 32 years old, unemployed, receiving unemployment compensation, and facing charges involving pornography that he must confront in court with a public defender as his lawyer!

But Alvin Greene is also the Democratic nominee for the US Senate against Senator Jim DeMint, just about the most conservative member of the Senate, and a likely candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012!

How did he afford the $10,000 filing fee? Beyond that, how is it that he managed to win enough support, without ANY political background at all, and showing evidence of being hardly articulate in the minimum sense, that he was able to come out of “nowhere” to emerge as the Democratic Party’s “best” candidate to represent South Carolina in the Senate? 🙁

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, himself an African American, is suspicious that Greene is a “plant” by the Republican Party, and Greene refuses to answer any questions about the filing fee, his arrest, or really anything else about himself, past and present! 🙁

It is not that anyone in their “right mind” really thought that a state as conservative as South Carolina was about to retire Jim DeMint, but it is obvious that Alvin Greene’s candidacy is a total mockery! It certainly requires a full investigation, and a possible removal of Greene from the Senate race, which he makes clear in halting, inarticulate language that he is not prepared to accept! 🙁

The Upcoming Oval Office Meeting Of BP Executive Tony Hayward And President Obama

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Next Wednesday, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward will meet with President Obama in the Oval Office!

Such a meeting should have been held earlier than 58 days after the Oil Spill Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico! 🙁

BP has lied and deceived on the amount of oil leakage, and has been unwilling to allow free access by the news media to report the disaster! This is totally unacceptable behavior by any corporation, when what has occurred is a tremendous economic and environmental disaster for the nation! 🙁

President Obama must be tough and demanding at this meeting, and must make it clear that if BP does not follow through on total responsibility, both legally and financially, short term and long term, then the long arm of the national government will come down on them with a sense of total wrath! 🙁

For too long, we have allowed powerful international corporations to manipulate our government at all levels, and to do great harm to the average American! 🙁 This must NOT be allowed to continue, and we know that the Republican Party will not do anything to harm their close association with these corporations, so it is essential that the Democratic Party and President Obama take a stand for the American people, and make the disciplining and tight regulation of BP and other corporations a priority! 🙁

Otherwise, the future of American democracy is at stake! We need our President to act like Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy conducted themselves in confrontations with big business, making it clear that they were not going to tolerate abuses by corporations against the American people! 🙁

Dick Cheney: Suddenly Quiet On The Oil Disaster In The Gulf of Mexico! :(

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney, already a divisive figure, who has had no trouble being critical of the Obama Administration on the issue of national security, has been strangely silent on the BP Oil Spill Disaster, as Newsweek Magazine points out!

Cheney has had connections with Halliburton in the past, being its Chairman and CEO from 1995-2000, and Halliburton was involved in the work leading up to this oil rig disaster! He is reported to be working with the oil industry to undermine those who want to hold BP totally responsible for the spill disaster in the Gulf! After all, Cheney in the past has claimed that the national debt is not an important issue, so what the heck–let the American people pay the costs of the cleanup is the apparent thought in his head! 🙁

It is the Bush-Cheney energy policy that helped to lead to the lack of regulation in the oil industry, which has created the atmosphere that permitted the kind of abuses that are now the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the United States! 🙁

Cheney seems not to care about an issue that in many ways undermines our national security, by its undermining of the Gulf economy and the sensitive environmental issues in the area, which will undermine the future of the Gulf States long term, not only short term! 🙁

Apparently, if it does not affect him personally in a financial sense, or is not a plus politically for him to get involved in commenting on it, Dick Cheney chooses to ignore the subject by his silence! 🙁

What happened to his well noted “patriotism”, which should make him furious over this disaster? It is obvious that Dick Cheney is totally self serving, and a crook and a despicable public figure who deserves the wrath of the American people! 🙁