Month: November 2010

Barack Obama, The START Treaty, And The Senate Republicans: Politics In The Offing? :(

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The Russians and the United States have negotiated a new START Treaty to lessen the danger of nuclear weapons spread, and to verify that each side is keeping the agreement to cut down nuclear stockpiles.

This is a good agreement to cut nuclear weapons stockpiles by thirty percent over seven years, and six former Secretaries of State–three Republicans and three Democrats–have supported ratification of the treaty, which requires a two thirds vote of the Senate!

Leaders of NATO, the national security community and the Joint Chiefs of Staff also support the treaty, but it seems as if the Republicans in the Senate are determined to delay a vote to next year, when there will be six more Republicans in the Senate! 🙁

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona seems to be the key figure involved in negotiations with the Obama Administration on the treaty, and it seems doubtful that, in the crowded congressional agenda in the lame duck session, that the treaty will get a full hearing and a positive vote, which could endanger US-Russian relations in the long run!

This potential stalling and possible defeat of the treaty next year, if not this year, would come despite support of some GOP senators, including particularly Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, an acknowledged foreign policy expert who is highly respected in the Senate by all of his colleagues!

Should politics get in the way of an important treaty such as this? No, but what else is new? 🙁

Quinnipiac Poll On Republican Presidential Race Puts Sarah Palin Ahead!

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A new Quinnipiac poll on the Republican Presidential race puts former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin ahead of four male opponents!

Palin leads with 19 percent, with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 18 percent, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at 17 percent, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of Georgia at 16 percent, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent!

Palin has been on Fox News Channel; on the Learning Channel with her reality series “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”; and her daughter Bristol on Dancing With The Stars where she is one of three finalists in the season finale this week!

But being ahead is really a “death wish”, as invariably being ahead in the polls after the midterm election is a sign that leads to defeat for the nomination 18 months later! This has happened on a regular basis going back many election cycles!

What is most interesting about the top five in the race is that only Tim Pawlenty is a new face, as all the others are retreads from the past campaign, except Gingrich, who has not been seriously in elective politics for twelve years, and instead has been making a living by being a political commentator and author!

So don’t count on Sarah Palin making it all the way to the nomination, although her opponents do see her as a threat, and the attacks will come thick and fast as these different candidates announce their bids in the next few months to be the GOP nominee for President in 2012!

Arrogance Of GOP Toward Media Should Lead To Public Repudiation! :(

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During the recent Congressional campaign, many Republican candidates took a hostile, antagonistic attitude toward the news media, refusing to be interviewed by or answer questions, except from “friendly” media.

This included Senate candidates Joe Miller in Alaska, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Notice that all of these candidates lost, and the American people should continue to defeat any candidate who is such a prima donna that he or she refuses to face the challenge of news media they do not like! 🙁

This refers to Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, both of whom have just made clear that they will not deal with liberal media sources, even though Barack Obama has had to deal with right wing media on a regular basis, despite their irresponsible and reckless manipulation of the news and of the truth! 🙁

As President, anyone has to deal with any challenge that comes his or her way, and if they are afraid or unwilling to deal with news media they do not like, then it indicates that they are not qualified to lead this great nation into an uncertain future!

Barry Goldwater, John McCain, And Gays In The Military: Vast Difference In Views!

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Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee for President, was the epitome of conservative Republicanism in the mid to late 20th century. No one would say he was soft on the military in any form!

Goldwater was succeeded by Senator John McCain, who was later the 2008 GOP nominee for President. Seen historically as a moderate, he has recently become much more conservative, due to his 2010 Senate race.

But McCain’s Republican roots and conservatism are clearly quite different than Barry Goldwater, who certainly believed in smaller government, but also believed in personal freedom from government in social ways, as well as economic!

So therefore, in his later years, when abortion became a hot issue, and then even later, when gay rights became a controversy, Goldwater spoke up in favor of abortion rights and gays in the military. As he said about gays in the armed services, what really mattered was whether a soldier could shoot straight, not IF he was straight!

Unfortunately, John McCain is now becoming one of the leading opponents of ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, despite studies and surveys that show a vast majority of military personnel have no problem with the issue, and with the knowledge that most European countries, Canada, and Israel have gays in the military without any complication!

McCain’s opposition to abortion also separates him from his predecessor, the MR. CONSERVATIVE of the Republican party after the death of Senator Robert Taft of Ohio in the early 1950s!

So in retrospect, Barry Goldwater comes across as a more tolerant man on major social issues than John McCain, and that shows how far McCain has moved away from his former “maverick” status!

This is a sad commentary on John McCain, and will affect his reputation in the history of the United States Senate! 🙁

The Kennedy Assassination Anniversary And The Present Political Climate: A Warning Sign! :(

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Today marks 47 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas! 🙁

Anyone who lived through that horrific tragedy is still affected by it, but it is often forgotten that there was much hate and division at the time, a lot of it perpetrated by right wing extremists who preached that Kennedy was a Communist, or that his Catholic religion was a threat to the country, or that he was a threat to those opposed to civil rights and other reform activities that were making the federal government more involved in the daily lives of all Americans!

Today, we have a similar situation which is indeed very scary, to say the least!

We have an African American President, Barack Obama, who is depicted as NOT born in the United States; being a Kenyan or Indonesian citizen; being a Muslim; being a Communist, Socialist, Nazi or Fascist; trying to organize concentration camps against his enemies; hating the United States and everything it represents, etc, etc, etc!

We also have active hate being promoted by Fox News Channel and a whole cadre of right wing talk show hosts who will stop at nothing to spew their poison and to incite unstable people about the dangers of the President who “hates whites”! 🙁

It is a well known secret that Barack Obama has more death threats against him than any other President, although no specific cases have come to light!

This poisonous rhetoric is dangerous, and could lead to another tragedy on the level of John F. Kennedy!

Whenever a President comes in promoting major changes, and particularly when he is different, as with his religion or race, all the nutbags come out of the woodwork, and endanger the entire nation by their rhetoric and accusations which incite others!

Today is therefore a day to reflect on the past tragedy, and organize to work against the hate mongers who have no aim other than the destruction of constructive dialogue!

It is also a day to pray for the health and safety of our President and his family, and call for an increase in sanity within America, at a difficult time!

Barack Obama’s Strategy To Deal With The Opposition Republicans: Should He Compromise And Alienate His Liberal Base? NO! :(

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The midterm elections of 2010 have set up a difficult situation for President Obama, as he faces the next two years with a split Congress, only the eleventh and twelfth years since 1900 that this odd situation has occurred!

There are those who say he should follow the example of Bill Clinton who compromised with an opposition Congress on some issues, and yet was trashed by them in a very vicious way over the six years of their shared relationship!

Or he could fight with the opposition Congress, as Harry Truman did in 1947-1948, giving them “hell”!

Of course, both these Presidents had opposition in control of both houses, so really, comparing Obama to Clinton and Truman is not a precisely similar situation!

Rather, Obama’s situation is similar to William Howard Taft from 1911-1913; Herbert Hoover from 1931-1933; and Ronald Reagan from 1981-1987. But actually, there is no precise comparison to these Presidents either, as all three had a Democratic House of Representatives and a Republican Senate, the opposite of what Obama faces in 2011-2012!

History tells us that both Taft and Hoover had unhappy years under a split Congress, and both lost re-election in a landslide, so they are not good models!

The Ronald Reagan comparison is more relevant, and went on for six years. Reagan had his principles, and while not always able to gain his agenda, he never really wavered in promoting his goals, and this was seen as making him a man of honor and principle!

Whatever Obama does is a tough choice and will affect his rating in history, but it seems to the author that he came in wanting to be a “transformational” President, and the only way to do that is to stand up and fight, stop caving in to GOP opposition, recognize that they wish him failure and have said so, and unite his liberal base by insisting on doing whatever can be done to advocate political, social and economic reform, along the lines of his very productive first two years, the most accomplished since the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson!

We do not need another Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton; we need another Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Woodrow Wilson who will fight his opponents and challenge the nation to greater goals!

Obama should use the powers of his office through executive orders, not give a damn about his conservative critics, and remember that he was elected by the American people to bring change, not just muddle through and waste his mandate of 2008!

If conservatives and Republicans wish to continue to be negative, so be it, and they will bring down on themselves the wrath of the American people in 2012 and beyond!

Their negativism, lack of care for the average American, and insistence on favoring the wealthy and the corporations will lead to a reaction in two years against them, and they will be repudiated, as they will be seen for what they are–obstructionists who do nothing to make the American economy improved!

Obama should wage a “war on the GOP”, and gain the nickname “Give them hell, Barack”, just as Harry Truman gained the nickname of “Give them hell, Harry”!

Tea Party Effect On Conservatism: Representative Bob Inglis And Senator Robert Bennett As Victims!

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The rise of the Tea Party Movement has had a deleterious effect on the Republican Party, leaving in its wake the defeat of a solid conservative Republican who dared to defy the extremists of the movement, who have promoted irresponsible rhetoric and advocated right wing populist ideas!

Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina is one of the victims of the movement, a person with a solid conservative record in the House of Representatives, but unwilling to go along with the irresponsible statements, actions and beliefs of this right wing populist movement!

Inglis will leave Congress at the end of this year as one Republican who refused to call Barack Obama a Socialist or contend Obama does not have a birth certificate! He also believes the politics of personal destruction is wrong, and that global warming really does exist!

Inglis does not believe in tearing down institutions or promoting character assassination, which he contends the Tea Party Movement is active in advocating! He calls the Tea Party right wing populism as similar to the French Revolution in its irresponsibility! They are acting in a demagogic way, and he worries that it is destroying mainline conservative values!

Another Republican similar to Inglis in views and attitude about the Tea Party Movement is the defeated Utah Senator Robert Bennett, who is being replaced by Tea Party favorite Mike Lee in January!

Many mainstream conservatives are concerned, as Inglis and Bennett are, that the Tea Party radicalism will lead to the destruction of the GOP, and that it is a danger to the political stability of the nation!

In many ways, it can be compared to the anti immigrant, extremist views of the American Party, known unofficially as the Know Nothings in the 1850s!

Ignorance, prejudice, nativism, and hatred, combined with extreme libertarianism and constitutional “originalism” in the direction of Justice Antonin Scalia’s 18th century views is a threat to the future of the nation, and we are now at a crossroads of potential division the most dangerous since the Civil War! 🙁

The Potential Candidacy Of Sarah Palin: Ignorance And Mediocrity Personified! :(

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Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has told Barbara Walters that she is seriously considering a Presidential run! 🙁

Sarah Palin is seriously delusional to believe she has the talents, abilities, knowledge, and insights required to be a President in the 21st century! 🙁

It might have been alright to have mediocrity in the White House in the 19th century, and even the early 20th century, but since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the years of the Great Depression, and the constantly complex world we live in since World War II and the Cold War, it is no longer conceivable to have a President who is not only mediocre, but ignorant!

Sarah Palin does not have a clue as to the complexities of the modern world! She knows absolutely nothing about foreign affairs or domestic affairs! She is a very ordinary, mediocre, ignorant American, which is fine, as everyone cannot be intelligent, educated, and knowledgeable!

It is perfectly alright to be an average American or average human being, but the Presidency demands much more than that!

Would we want just anyone to be a surgeon, an attorney, a college professor, an engineer, an accountant, or a dentist? The answer is NO, as we want the best in these professions!

Well, being President of the United States also requires that we get the best, at least someone who is educated, intelligent, and knows or has the interest in knowing what candidates for the Presidency need to be aware of–public affairs, economics, foreign policy–and has compassion for the less fortunate among us, not only those who have power and wealth, often by ill gotten methods!

It is not just the so called “liberal elite” who think that Sarah Palin’s potential candidacy for President is a mockery!

It includes Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who pointed out that Palin has no great interest in governing, as she quit the Governorship of Alaska after only a little more than half her term, and also lacks intellectual curiosity!

It also includes former Bush adviser Karl Rove, who said hosting a Learning Channel reality series does not make people think that Sarah is qualified for President!

Former First Lady Barbara Bush told Larry King this weekend that Sarah Palin is a beautiful lady who likes living in Alaska, and should stay there! 🙂

Sarah’s potential opponents have remained silent in public, but it is clear that they are appalled at her thought of running, as they know she will be a difficult candidate to handle, being backed by the ignorant masses that love the Tea Party movement! They see her as a danger to the Republican Party future, and as a total disaster were she to run against Barack Obama! But they also recognize it will be hard to campaign against her in the primaries and caucuses, and that she could win the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina primary in 2012, and therefore have “momentum”, making her hard to stop!

There is no doubt that Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, and all other potential nominees see her as a “nightmare”, but realize she is an imposing presence that they will have to, somehow, deal with if she decides to run!

The point is that all of the potential candidates, no matter how objectionable they might be to many observers, all have credentials, experience and intelligence to be potential Presidents of the United States!

Sarah Palin does NOT have these credentials, and she would do a lot of good for the country if she were to realize that she is hallucinating, as she is NOT qualified to be President of the United States. and her triumph would be a serious blow to American prestige and security in the world, and a sign that the American nation has been “dumbed down” to the most common denominator–the ignorant masses who pride themselves on NOT knowing public affairs, and have no clue as to what is good for this nation’s future! 🙁

Barack Obama And Afghanistan: Wrong Direction! :(

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President Obama is going the wrong direction on Afghanistan, and it could affect his re-election opportunities, as well as his historical reputation as President! 🙁

At the NATO summit in Portugal, the US government has made clear that while the summer of 2011 shall see the start of withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan, that combat will not end until 2014, and the President left it open that if the situation required it, we might see American combat troops beyond four years from now! 🙁

This is absolutely the WRONG thing to do, and it is interesting how many NATO nations are withdrawing their involvement, with the Netherlands and Canada already in the process of withdrawing, and Italy not far behind, and Great Britain making it clear that no later than 2014, they will withdraw their troops!

Already, American forces are over two thirds of all troops, and the percentage will be growing in the next four years!

The combat deaths are rising rapidly, and the expenses on the American budget are also rapidly adding to the national crisis over the deficit and the national debt!

For anyone to believe that NATO and the United States are somehow going to win in Afghanistan defies common sense and the history of that forsaken land!

Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union failed to win in Afghanistan!

Do we really want our nation to be affected in the same negative fashion as what was visited on the old Soviet Union, leading to its economic and political collapse? 🙁

And does Barack Obama really want a left wing challenge from a Russ Feingold, a Michael Bloomberg, or someone else that will weaken his candidacy, and lead to a right wing Republican becoming President by default in the 2012 Presidential election? 🙁

It is clear that the American people want our sons and daughters to come home, as this constant warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan over this past decade has done great harm to American society and accomplished almost no progress, while killing and wounding thousands of the younger generation, with no results worth defending!:(

Darrell Issa: Is He The New “Witch Hunter”? :(

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California Congressman Darrell Issa, soon to be the head of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is likely to be one of the most controversial leaders of the Republican party in the next two years, as he has indicated plans to engage in extensive investigation of the Obama Administration.

The Southern California Republican, the wealthiest member of Congress, with assets of at least $300 million, has issued statements that he plans to investigate the executive branch on numerous issues.

Issa has said he wants to hold hundreds of hearings, form new subcommittees, and has asserted that he wants seven hearings a week for forty weeks a year! 🙁

Issa wants to investigate the stimulus legislation, health care reform, the bank bailout, and some think each cabinet member under Obama who has made controversial statements or authorized contentious actions!

There are conservatives who wish to question Obama’s background and birth, but Issa has declared that is off limits.

Despite that assertion, the feeling has developed that Issa is looking to become the center of attention, and put the Obama Administration’s “feet to the fire”, adding to the burdens of the administration, already under tremendous assault by the opposition party for the past two years, and now having to deal with the reality that with House of Representatives control by the GOP, the next two years might make one look back on the past two years as tame by comparison!

Issa first gained notice when he mounted the challenge for a recall against Democratic Governor Grey Davis of California, which led to the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of the Golden State!

Issa is likely to be seen as a “witch hunter” and nightmare for the Obama Presidency! He will certainly be one of the most prominent Republicans over the next two years and will become a “household word” as a partisan attack machine! 🙁