Month: June 2010

The Reality Of The Future: A Majority “Minority” Country Is Emerging!

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The Census Bureau has made evident what has been known for a long time, but is apparently accelerating: America is becoming a majority “minority” country by 2042 estimate, and has already become so among children under the age of 15 in nine states and the District of Columbia!

The nine states where the young are already more than half “minority” are Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas! Minority births nationally could overtake white births as soon as next year by some estimates!

This indicates the need to recognize reality, and to stop the promotion of discriminatory legislation, such as has occurred in Arizona, as it will only exacerbate tensions between the different ethnic groups that make up America!

Urgency Of Spending To Prevent “Double Dip” Recession!

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President Obama has asked Congress to agree to emergency spending this summer and fall to promote economic recovery, and prevent a “double dip” recession!

The spending would provide $50 billion to help state and local governments to avoid cutting educators, fire fighters, and law enforcement personnel, all areas that face the greatest cuts since the Great Depression! It is not just job losses that are the issue, but also service reductions that people take for granted, but would be lost if there is no federal stimulus money!

Also, more extension of jobless benefits, and tax credits and accessible credit for small businesses to allow them to expand and hire workers, would be covered by $80 billion of additional spending!

It will not be easy to convince a deficit conscious Congress to enact such measures, which were proposed earlier, but have reached an emergency level, with planning moving ahead for the new school year, and the realization that the earlier economic stimulus is running out, but was an important part of the slowly reviving economy!

But to do nothing would be acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand–refusing to have vision as to the short term emergency, but also to the long run effects of standing on the sidelines while conditions become worse!

Poverty Growing Among America’s Children!

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A recent USA TODAY article details the fact that more than one out of every five children in America in in poverty, and that it is the highest such percentage in two decades! 🙁

Eighteen percent do not have a secure source of food, and a half million are homeless! 🙁

This is, unfortunately, a state of affairs that leads to more health and education problems long term! Poverty also has a long range effect psychologically on children who suffer from it while they are growing up! 🙁

One would think that this would be an issue of urgency, but at least to the conservative Heritage Foundation, it is not, as one of its researchers states that poor families receive food stamps and housing assistance, although he does not point out that these aids are far from adequate! But the same researcher claims that government programs are ineffective in making lives of children better, and are just an excuse for more government programs and spending!

Somehow missing from this researcher’s assertions is any compassion for the harm done to children who are in poverty, and instead the emphasis on attacking government, even though private charities and groups have been proved inadequate in dealing with the problem of hunger and poverty!

The Afghanistan War: A Cause That Cannot Be Won!

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The Afghanistan War has recently become the longest war in US history, surpassing the Vietnam War, and the news coming from the war front is not positive! 🙁

Just this week, on ABC’s THIS WEEK, which lists all those who have died, almost all of the names listed were of young men in their early to mid 20s, who had their lives snuffed out in an interminable war in which the Taliban seem to be getting stronger, and the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai seems more resistant to the influence of the NATO allies fighting there, amidst reports that Karzai and his brother, who has been involved in the cocaine trade, are looking toward an eventual deal with the enemy!

The Afghan government has never really been interested in the plight of the average Afghan civilian, and the corruption and scandal in that country is endemic, and makes one continue to wonder how we can continue to sustain a war that has already cost more than 1,000 lives, plus even more than that number severely wounded! 🙁

This war is costing more every month in lives and cost, and it seems as if the best opportunity to win, back in late 2001, botched by the Bush Administration, has now made the commitment of President Obama to win there seemingly a pipe dream!

And meanwhile, young Americans continue to die for a cause that is not just, by any means, when one examines the facts! 🙁

The Righteousness Of The Passage Of The DREAM Act!

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A major problem area on the subject of “illegal immigration” are the children of “illegal” immigrants who are brought to this country, grow up in this country, and wish to receive a college education and begin a career in this country, but are dogged by their “illegal” status through no fault of their own!

A present case on this involves Eric Balderas, a Harvard student, with plans to become a cancer researcher, who was detained at the San Antonio airport this week, and given a date for a hearing at which he is faced with immediate deportation to Mexico, a country he has never lived in, and where he knows no one!

The proposed DREAM Act is cosponsored by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in April, calling for a moratorium on deportation of young people who could be saved from such action once this legislation were to pass. The DREAM Act would allow a path to citizenship for undocumented young people who serve in the military or attend college.

The DREAM Act is the acronym for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

The fact is that young Balderas was brought into the United States at the age of 4 to escape a domestic violence situation in Mexico, and this is the problem with the hardline “illegal immigration” crowd that just calls for the deportation of millions of undocumented people , most of whom have never committed a crime, have been law abiding citizens since they entered illegally, and are now living in fear and trepidation as to what their futures might be!

So it is good time to grant Balderas a waiver and to pass, as soon as possible, the humane DREAM Act, and have the President sign it in a public ceremony!

The Sad Ending Of The Career Of Helen Thomas

Ronald 2 Comments

Helen Thomas had a long, distinguished career at United Press International, and was the dean of the White House Press Corps, always allowed in recent years the opportunity to ask the President of the United States the first question at White House press conferences. She has reported on every President since John F. Kennedy took the oath of office!

She entered the journalism field in 1943 when she was 22 years old, and therefore, had a run of 67 years in journalism, certainly the longest career anyone has ever had in print journalism, with only a few exceptions such as Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite, and Daniel Schorr in electronic journalism able to match her longevity!

But Thomas made a fatal mistake when she was recorded, and later spread on You Tube, asserting that the Jewish population should leave Israel for the Palestinians and “go back to Poland, Germany, America” and elsewhere!

This statement bordered on being anti Semitic, and it brought up the Lebanese Christian heritage of Thomas’s parents. It was a totally inappropriate and outrageous declaration by Helen Thomas, and it led to a firestorm of protest coming from such people as Ari Fleischer, former Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and the present Press Secretary to President Obama, Robert Gibbs.

Very quickly, Thomas profusely apologized, but the damage was done, and the Hearst News Service, her most recent employer, announced the end of her service with them, and she announced her retirement.

It is certainly time at age 89 for someone to retire, but not under such circumstances! It brings up the issue of how does one recognize it is time to leave any job or profession, and in a graceful way! Unfortunately, there are many examples of people unwilling to deal with retirement, including politicians of both parties who, like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd, resist the inevitable!

This is a growing issue for the future as America ages, and the need for counseling to understand when it is time to give others a chance to enter as you leave gracefully!

Excellent Evidence Why Strong Political Parties Are Essential For Democracy To Work!

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The nomination of Alvin Greene as the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in South Carolina against Republican Senator Jim DeMint is excellent evidence of the need for strong political parties, despite all of the attacks on parties evident in this year of disillusionment with politics on the part of many Americans!

The fact that South Carolina has an “open primary” system had led to shenanigans such as this one, where an unknown candidate is likely being put on the ballot by the dominant political party’s funds, and many registered members of the party “cross over” in the primary to set up the weakest possible candidate to oppose their favored nominee in their own party! An investigation has begun into what seems likely to be a GOP ploy, which would not be surprising, considering the history of the Palmetto State! 🙁

There is no way to explain such an inarticulate candidate, with no money, no campaign organization, no website, no campaign appearances, and no substance in his views, to have, somehow, won a nomination for an office that he is obviously unqualified for by any measure one employs!

How is Alvin Greene to conduct a campaign against Jim DeMint and take part in debates, when he cannot even explain in very basic terms how he has organized and run a campaign as the “stealth” candidate, coming literally out of “nowhere” to become a nominee for the Senate? 🙁

As bad as other nominees and winners of Senate elections have been in the present and past, Alvin Greene would likely stand out as the absolutely worst nominee ever offered on a fall ballot for the Senate in many decades, and possibly ever in the history of elections! The Democratic party wants him to withdraw, which he refuses to do, and it makes one think that he is indeed part of a corrupt “Republican plant”, making a mockery of the whole election process! 🙁

So, to say that “open primaries”, and the decline of strong parties that is being pushed in California, and already exists in Washington State and Louisiana, is a good thing is subject to much greater scrutiny!

It makes one wonder if democracy is being served with the call to deemphasize political parties, or whether it is promoting a lack of responsibility and commitment to principles that political parties have represented in the over two hundred year history of parties in our political system!

Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, And The National Media

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Two Tea Party favorites and Republican nominees for the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sharron Angle of Nevada, are purposely avoiding interviews with the national media!

This strategy is, supposedly, to avoid bad press about their extremist and whacky views on many important issues! But the problem is that it sets a bad precedent, as can these two possible future Senators expect that they are not accountable for what they have said and done? 🙁

Do they really think that avoiding the media will improve their image and public standing? 🙁

What are they going to do about public debates with their Democratic opponents, Jack Conway in Kentucky and Harry Reid in Nevada? Are they going to refuse to explain their views and to face the people they wish to serve? 🙁

Their avoidance of the media only adds fuel to the fire that they are both unfit for public office, and it makes the whole Tea Party Movement look even more ridiculous and outside the mainstream of American politics!

It will be interesting to watch both Paul and Angle squirm and evade over the next 20 weeks to November 2. It will be some of the best political entertainment in years! 🙂 LOL

Florida Governor Charlie Crist Defies His Former GOP Colleagues A Second Time!

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who left the Republican Party more than a month ago, and is running for the US Senate as an Independent, took one last swipe at his former colleagues in the extremely conservative GOP legislature yesterday, when he vetoed an abortion bill that would have mandated that all women wanting an abortion must pay and go through an ultra sound test, and see and hear the results, unless they signed a refusal form after paying and going through the procedure.

The only women who would have been able to avoid the procedure would be those who could prove rape, incest, human trafficking, or domestic violence.

The bill would also have banned abortion coverage from health insurance plans in any way supported by taxpayer funding.

Also, it would have been legally easier for Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor, to pursue his plan to sue President Obama over the new Health Care Reform plan passed by Congress in April.

Crist received more emails supporting the bill than opposing the bill, so he went against that trend, but at the same time, he probably has gained greater support from women, Democrats, and Independents, as he battles in the three way race shaping up this fall for the US Senate.

Crist had earlier angered Republicans when he vetoed the proposed teacher tenure bill back in April!

The ultrasound abortion bill will come up in the Florida legislature next year with a new governor, and if either Rick Scott or Bill McCollum is elected, it will certainly be signed into law. If Democratic nominee Alex Sink, however, is elected, she would clearly veto the legislation as Charlie Crist has done!

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! 🙁