Day: August 27, 2010

The Republican Party “Tea Party Eight” Senate Candidates: A Threat To The Dignity Of The Senate! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

The Republican Party already has members in the Senate that are among the most right wing extremists they have had in their history–Senators such as James Inhofe and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and David Vitter of Louisiana!

But these senators, with only Bunning definitely gone after this year, may be seen in the future as the new “moderates” of the party if the “Tea Party Eight” Senate candidates, now vying for membership in the upper chamber, achieve their goals of serving in the Senate!

The “Tea Party Eight”, all outrageous in their rhetoric and record of viewpoints and beliefs, are Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Mike Lee of Utah, Ken Buck of Colorado, Marco Rubio of Florida, Linda McMahon of Connecticut, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Joe Miller of Alaska!

Only Joe Miller is not definitely the nominee, as the absentee votes and mail in votes may yet renominate Senator Lisa Murkowski, a comparative moderate on the Republican side of the chamber! But all the others are definitely a threat to be elected and to make the Senate a body of crazies and loonies, destroying the dignity and historical image of that chamber that has included many of the greatest political leaders of American history!

It is essential that the Democrats who are running against these eight candidates take the gloves off, strike out against these candidates in an effective way, exposing their hypocrisy, their agenda to destroy many government programs, their loony and crazy behavior, and their lack of concern for the millions of unemployed people in this nation, brought about by GOP policies under George W. Bush!

This is not the time to be gentlemen and ladies, but rather to play hardball and fight to expose the truth, before the American people take action that will destroy much that is good and decent in our nation!

And this not only applies to the Senate, but to the House of Representatives, the state legislatures, and particularly the Governorships, as the future balance of power of the major political parties will be determined by reapportionment based on the census figures! That will be left in the hands of the dominant party in the legislature, and the influence of the Governors who are elected or reelected this year!

With the Supreme Court already favoring the Republican Party, if the political power shift favors that party over the next ten years in reapportionment, then the Democratic and progressive agenda will be seriously attacked and weakened, and that will be a bitter pill for the American people, who are not wealthy and upper class! 🙁

The Supreme Court And Democracy: Clear And Present Danger! :(

Ronald 4 Comments

The conservative Supreme Court has done an excellent job in the past decade of undermining democracy and a fair playing field, as shown by two specific situations among others!

First, in the year 2000, in Bush V. Gore, the Republican dominated Supreme Court intervened where they had no business interfering, by deciding to settle the contested Presidential Election of 2000 by stopping the vote recount in Florida, and awarding the electoral votes of that state to George W. Bush over Al Gore, despite the fact that Gore had a national popular vote lead of 540,000! For a Court that claimed to believe in limited federal power and strict interpretation of the Constitution, they claimed the right to decide a presidential election, an arrogant and revolutionary grab of power, which by precedent now, could be utilized again in the future if a presidential election is close! 🙁

Then in January of this year, in the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court decided to overcome nearly a century of laws that prevented corporate intervention in national election campaigns, as destroying a level playing field in politics! They decided that special interest groups should have no limit on campaign spending to manipulate elections in their favor!

Both cases helped to promote the Republican cause, instead of the Court acting as a neutral arbiter! And now the news comes that an estimated $400 million will be spent by corporate groups to affect the midterm Congressional elections, as corporations work to prevent regulation and taxation, and bring about a Republican Congress favorable to them! 🙁

If this manipulation of politics, that the Supreme Court has been engaged in promoting, is not somehow overcome by legislation, the likelihood is that Congress, and also the Presidency, may become a permanent GOP majority that will continue to promote the rich and the powerful, and set out to destroy the reform legislation and regulatory laws put into place under Democratic administrations and Congresses since the 1930s!

This country could revert to the Gilded Age and 1920s mentality, and negate the Progressive Era, New Deal, Great Society, and the Obama reforms of the past year and a half! 🙁

This country could potentially become a nation that destroys Social Security, Medicare, and programs that benefit average Americans! As ordinary Americans come to realize that the rich elite are exploiting them and undermining much that has been done to promote equality and opportunity and fairness, the danger of bloodshed and violence and civil war based on economics increases, and destroys the American dream that has sustained us as America has become a better place for all of us! 🙁