Month: June 2010

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! 🙁

The Republican Party And The BP Gulf Oil Crisis: A Total Disgrace! :(

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It is indeed shocking, but not surprising, that Republicans past and present are working very hard to back British Petroleum in any way they can, and to have them avoid full financial and legal responsibility for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico! 🙁

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Bush Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Congressman Don Young of Alaska, and House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio are among the GOP leaders who are working behind the scenes, and also in public statements, to whitewash BP’s legal and moral responsibility, and to make it out that the environmental disaster not be totally placed on BP stockholders by a loss of dividends paid by the corporation! 🙁

When one wants to think that the GOP is maybe worth some slack, the party leaders work very hard to make it impossible to have such sympathies! 🙁

How can any of these leaders, and others in the party, have other than total outrage at BP? And yet they go about their merry way justifying, defending, belittling criticism, and conspiring to help the oil company and put the burden of the disaster on the American people! 🙁

The Republican leadership has lost all morality and decency, if they ever had any! 🙁

Carly Fiorina’s Pettiness And Childishness: Who Is Talking About Whose Looks? :(

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Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has proved to have a loose mouth, both when she was an adviser in the John McCain Presidential campaign in 2008, and now as the Republican nominee for the US Senate in California! 🙁

Fiorina is not exactly the model of decorum, to say the least, but after having suffered a bout with cancer and losing all of her hair temporarily, and not looking all that hale and hearty as a result, it would be expected that she would have greater sensitivity than most on someone else’s appearance and looks! 🙁

But instead, Fiorina, on camera in an “off moment” that she probably figured would never “make the light of day”, made fun of her opponent, incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, regarding her hair and appearance in general, saying she was “so yesterday”! 🙁

This marks Fiorina as extremely snobby because of her tremendous wealth, and extremely infantile, like a middle schooler who makes fun of someone’s looks! This is NOT the behavior expected from someone who wants to lead us! It is extremely shallow and, quite frankly, stupid behavior, and Fiorina needs to, at the least, apologize, but she has said she will not, as she was, supposedly, quoting one of her friends! 🙁

This may seem minor, but it is not going to help her campaign for the Senate, as it shows she is an arrogant, nasty, petty individual! 🙁

Proof Of The Power Of Money And Television: The Case Of Florida! :(

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Whatever one thinks of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is competing for the Republican nomination for Governor, and Florida Congressman Kendrick Meek, who is running for the Democratic nomination for Senator, it has to be said that both have dedicated years of service to their state in public offices!

It was assumed that both would easily be on the ballot for the Fall 2010 elections, but now that assumption has been totally upended by the wealth and television ads of two extremely rich, non politicians, both of whom have had “shady” backgrounds in the business world! 🙁

Rick Scott is now ahead of McCollum by 44-31 percent in a Quinnipiac poll, despite the fact that he was involved in a massive Medicare scam in the 1990s, which helped to enrich him to the point of being an extremely wealthy multimillionaire! He seems to be cocky enough to believe that he is qualified by his business corruption experience to run the state government of Florida! What gall this man has, to say the least! 🙁

Jeff Greene, who was involved in real estate dealings during the Wall Street crash in 2007-2008, and is a BILLIONAIRE, but has no government experience, trails Congressman Meek by just two points, 29-27 percent, which is considered a statistical tie!

So the power of “deep pockets of money”, massive television advertising, and being seen as an attack on the “establishment”, have catapulted both Scott and Greene to what can now be seen as likely nominations for Governor and Senator, respectively! 🙁

Is this good for Florida, and since similar situations are occurring in other states, for America? Can we expect these businessmen with shady backgrounds to bring about “miracles” and effective change?

Anyone getting away from emotional reactions, and thinking rationally, must have serious reservations that this is a positive trend! But it certainly follows along with the direction of the conservative Supreme Court, which is doing everything possible to promote the power of rich people and corporations over the American political system! 🙁

If these candidates, and others like them elsewhere, triumph, one should expect quick disillusionment, when it is recognized that there are no “magic” answers or quick, easy solutions! The author would prefer to have people who have been committed to public service to manage our government at the high level of Governor and Senator, rather than “rookies” who are arrogant enough to think that because they are wealthy, automatically, that qualifies them to lead the American people, who are overwhelmingly middle class, but with a growing percentage of poor people, who also need some consideration, which is highly unlikely from those who wield such wealth and live in their own “parallel universe!”

The Reviving Influence Of Bill Clinton

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Former President Bill Clinton has had his ups and downs in political influence since he left office nine and a half years ago.

Often seen as a burden on his wife, Hillary Clinton, during her run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, his stature has risen since she became Secretary of State!

He scored a great public relations victory when he fought against the labor unions and Moveon.org in the Arkansas Senatorial primary, being a strong supporter of moderate to conservative Senator Blanche Lincoln.

Now that he has triumphed on that front, the former President is attempting to influence the Nevada Senate race, promoting the reelection of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid!

The nomination of Sharron Angle, backed by the Tea Party activists, and holding weird views on many issues, should make the Reid reelection effort a whole lot easier! But it cannot hurt to have Bill Clinton on your side, and Harry Reid is happy to have his strong support!

Proposition 14 And The “New” Politics in California: Is It A Positive Reform?

Ronald 1 Comment

California adopted a new election system in its primary election last Tuesday, and it will go into effect in 2011. Only Washington State and Louisiana have a similar system to what California is putting into effect next year.

Under the new system, anyone can run for any political office, and party affiliation need not be put on the ballot or even discussed by the candidates. The top two in the primaries will be on the election ballot in November, making it possible in many cases that two Republicans or two Democrats or even two fringe candidates would be the finalists for the office being contested.

There would be no requirement that anyone reach any level of support of the electorate. Just the top two would be competing in the fall, which means that if there are a large number of candidates in the primary, the top two could have together a very small percentage of the total primary vote.

The theory is that more moderate candidates would win out, and there would be less confrontation between the liberals who control the Democratic party and the conservatives who control the Republican party.

But is this a realistic assumption? Most major candidates would still be identifiable as either Democrats or Republicans, and the chance of having more extremist candidates such as Rand Paul or Sharron Angle appealing to a small percentage of voters and ending up as finalists grows more likely!

The new system also promotes those with more name recognition and those with large amounts of money having an even greater chance of being the nominees. It also promotes the role of corporate interests in being able to get the candidates they want, who could have a small percentage of the total vote but enough to be the two favored final candidates for the seat in contention.

Does this new system promote “democracy”, or is it just an attack on political parties? Realistically, it is not “democratic”, but rather promoting the power of money more than ever, and undermining our long tradition of political parties!

As much as people condemn and complain about political parties, it is precisely those institutions that have promoted true debate and real changes over the two hundred plus years since Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson first organized groups, in face of the opposition of George Washington, to offer alternative choices and stabilize the political disputes that were obviously part of reality in America in the 1790s!

Political parties, despite much that has been asserted by many people who are ignorant of our history, are essential elements of the American democratic system, and deemphasizing them is NOT a good thing!

California will be an interesting experiment, but to say it will be a great success is being overly optimistic! The question is whether it will spread across the country, as often what starts in California is the beginning of a trend!

Hopefully, that will not be the case on this particular issue!

The Supreme Court Crisis: All For The Rich And Corporations!

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The conservative Supreme Court majority, a true model of an “activist” Court that supposedly conservatives and Republicans condemn, is at it again, as they continue to promote the ability of the rich and the corporations to have no limits at all on their activities in politics and elections!

On Tuesday, the Court ruled that public funding in Arizona was not allowed to be matched against wealthy candidates who spend their own money! This, on top of the Citizens United Case in January, which allows corporation unlimited rights to spend on politics, because corporations are defined as “persons”, is leading us back to the GILDED AGE mentality of the late 19th century! 🙁

It is as if the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society never occurred! We are moving backward, instead of forward, destroying the whole idea of a level “playing field”! 🙁

This is a year where obscene amounts of money are being spent by multimillionaires and billionaires, with just a few examples being Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in California, and Rick Scott and Jeff Greene in Florida!

It seems more likely than ever that the Obama Administration and the Democratic majority in Congress are on a collision course with the Supreme Court, with the first shot being Obama’s criticism, to their faces, of the Court’s Citizens United decision in his State of the Union Address in January, and Chief Justice John Roberts’ public criticism of Obama’s statement!

This may be the most confrontational time since FDR in the 1930s, who along with Lincoln in the Civil War years and Jefferson in the early 19th century, saw major times of conflict between the courts and the Presidency!