Month: January 2011

In the Midst Of Domestic Political Debate, Growing Concern About American Foreign Policy! :(

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It is evident that the Tucson, Arizona tragedy of last week has been dominating political discussion and debate in the past few days, but it has become obvious in the past two days that American diplomacy is at a possible crucial moment that might affect the long term future of American foreign policy.

At the same time, we have the following realities:

Vice President Joe Biden went on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to take stock as to what is being accomplished there, in what is now the longest foreign war in America’s history.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting the Gulf States, and warning the Arab nations of the need to unite against the possible deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran in the near future, which would endanger them, as well as the nation of Israel. At the same time, Iran is gaining more influence in Iraq after all of our nation’s sacrifices there.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is now in China, just as they demonstrated a stealth airplane model for the first time, and he has expressed concern about US-Chinese relations, a week before the Chinese President is due for a visit to the United States. Gates has also expressed concern that North Korean development of nuclear power is a potential threat to the security of the United States.

When has a Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense all been overseas at the same time, pursuing foreign policy issues? Without being certain, the author would tend to think it has never happened.

So it is clear that foreign policy issues are starting to come back toward being the key problems that President Barack Obama must deal with, in the midst of an environment in which there is no civility or cooperation between the political parties and with elements of the media.

How this nation is to deal with Afghanistan, Iran, China, and North Korea are crucial to the future of America. And this is without thinking about relations with Russia, Pakistan, Venezuela and other nations that we must not take our attention away from, as they all represent challenges to the United States!

The Sick Psychology Of Sarah Palin: Always The Victim In Her Own Mind! :(

Ronald 3 Comments

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is proving day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, that she is totally lacking in the necessary credentials to be the President of the United States and the leader of the free world.

We are coming to realize more than ever that Sarah Palin has the wrong psychological makeup to be given power and authority, and to have to deal with the pressures of high public office!

She could not stand “the heat in the kitchen” as Alaska Governor and quit!

Well, she now needs to announce that she is NOT going to run for President, in order to save the country from the spectacle of a woman who has a SICK psychology, believing in her heart that she is a VICTIM!

You have to understand that Sarah Palin in her own mind is ALWAYS the victim!

The fact that she does not know how to answer a question as to her reading materials, or Supreme Court cases, is blamed on Katie Couric.

The fact that campaign personnel in the John McCain campaign criticized her ignorance and stupidity and prima donna nature leads to her attacks on them in her first book.

She cannot handle criticism at all, and has refused to communicate with the press, except through Fox News Channel, where she has people, including right wing extremists Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, fawning all over her, although on the sidelines we have learned that a lot of people at Fox News have made fun of her.

Now when a crisis arises, she refuses to come out and admit her errors and shortcomings, and instead has the gall to make herself a victim, instead of Gabrielle Giffords, and nineteen other victims, with six of them murdered in Tucson! 🙁

Sarah Palin is demonstrating that in many ways she is like Richard Nixon–not brilliant and intelligent like he was, but also seeing enemies, rather than opponents and portraying oneself as a “victim”; shutting herself off from the public when times get tough, as Nixon often did; and refusing to take responsibility for mistakes, similar to Nixon, and also George W. Bush!

It seems quite clear that were she to become President, she would engage in illegal and unethical actions, similar to some of the issues in Alaska which led her to resign the Governorship; and would be a real danger to this nation in international affairs, as she is totally ignorant about the world and would not understand how to deal with diplomacy!

But the good thing about this Tucson tragedy is that it is giving the nation the opportunity to see just what Sarah Palin is all about, and to learn from it that this is not a woman to give high public office to, as it would endanger the nation and the world!

The conclusion is that Sarah Palin, the “victim”, has major psychological problems and is too sick to consider for national leadership!

Arizona Does Something Right: Banning Of Westboro Baptist Church Hate Demonstration At Funerals Of Tucson Victims Of Mass Shooting!

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Finally, Arizona has done something right, by its state legislature passing in record time today a ban on demonstrations or picketing by the hateful, sick Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of the victims of the Tucson shootings last Saturday.

That despicable, so called religious group, which has picketed and demonstrated at the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan, because of the group’s hatred of gays, is finally being limited, as what they want to do is shameful! 🙁

So they will be allowed no closer than 300 feet, the equivalent of a football field, and additionally, there will be counter demonstrators dressed as angels who will stand in the way of these hateful crackpots, remaining silent, but blocking the vision of these sick, perverted members of what is primarily a warped group of family members of the so called Reverend Fred Phelps! 🙁

This action has already been followed in Ohio over a military funeral, although the case is now in the Supreme Court, has been argued, and we are awaiting their decision at some point later in this term of the Court.

It is hard to imagine that the Supreme Court would give license to this group by the argument of freedom of religion and assembly and speech, since they have no purpose other than to disrupt and cause emotional harm and suffering upon people who have suffered a loss of a loved one.

To think that the specific purpose of their demonstration is to condemn the Catholic faith of the nine year old child victim makes one want to mourn the loss in this group of what religion and Christianity are all about–to love thy neighbor!

If these are truly Christians, then they are a mockery of the faith!

Rush Limbaugh And Glenn Beck Keep On Escalating The Rhetoric: What Can Be Done To Shut Them Up? :(

Ronald 1 Comment

THe two greatest hatemongers on talk radio, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, are further escalating the rhetoric after the tragic events in Tucson, Arizona! 🙁

They are totally abusing the First Amendment, and proving just how despicable and uncaring they are about this great national tragedy! 🙁

The nerve of Limbaugh to say today on his radio program that the Tucson shooter is smiling in his mugshot because he knows that the Democratic Party is supporting him! 🙁

The gall of Glenn Beck to excuse Sarah Palin for her provocative words and deeds, and to use vitriolic language, upping the ante of confrontation and hate speech! 🙁

These talk show hosts are becoming a threat to domestic security and tranquility and national unity in a time of tragedy, and must not be allowed to continue their rampage of hate and division! 🙁

It is essential for all political leaders of the Republican Party to break their ties with these jerks and denounce them, or else the GOP will have lost all credibility that they care at all about what happened in Tucson! 🙁

These two men have stirred such animosity and gained the backing of enough loonies in this society that they are a menace to public safety and must be prevented from continuing to spew their poison, and destroy all civility in this society! 🙁

The Urgent Need For Some Limits On The Second Amendment!

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In the wake of the Tucson disaster last weekend, there is an urgent need for reasonable limits on who purchases guns, and the ability to acquire extended magazines for weapons, such as the one that allowed the perpetrator to fire 33 rounds without reloading. New York Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed on the Long Island Railroad, and whose son was wounded, in an incident in 1993, which led to her election to Congress in 1996, is proposing such a bill about the magazines.

A background check, which was part of the former Brady bill, which was the law from 1994 to 2004, needs to be reinstated.

Also, the need to ban weapons within 1,000 feet of a federal official, including members of Congress, is being proposed by Congressman Peter King, a Republican, who thinks he can get this through the House of Representatives, after this horrible tragedy in Tucson. Right now, there is legislation on the books preventing a firearm within 1,000 feet of any school.

At the same time, the thought that members of Congress might carry firearms at public events for self protection, as suggested by two members of Congress, is pure insanity, and sets a bad standard.

And the idea that universities and colleges should allow staff and faculty and students to carry firearms to prevent another incident equivalent of Virginia Tech in 2007, is also a terrible idea, and is sure to lead to more bloodshed and violence, as guns do not belong in an educational environment! 🙁

The Ultimate Fatal Flaw In Sarah Palin’s Potential Candidacy For President!

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Sarah Palin is being blamed by many for having incited violence that led to the tragic events in Tucson, Arizona, last weekend, particularly by posting a graphic last year with cross hairs on 20 Congressional districts, including Gabrielle Giffords’s, of Democrats who supported the Health Care Reform legislation.

Of course, no one is literally saying that Sarah Palin directly advocated violence, so her protests that she is against violence ring true without any question.

But Sarah Palin fails to realize that she has, along with others, including Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, created a toxic environment which can incite loonies to take action because of political conflict that they engender by their rhetoric.

Enough has been said about Sarah Palin’s inferior qualifications to be President of the United States. She has proven to be lazy, lacking in curiosity, ignorant of basic information, and unwilling to answer tough questions with news media that might challenge her.

But her ultimate fatal flaw has now been revealed: that she is unwilling to admit responsibility, that she has made errors, and allows herself to be defended by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. She is now shown to be outside the mainstream of American politics, a person who creates conflict, rather than bring us together.

We do not need another President like George W. Bush who was unwilling to admit shortcomings, and who is less informed than the former President!

We need a President who is willing to admit errors and shortcomings, and is in the moderate center of our political system. The fact that Obama is called every possible name, including Marxist, Communist, Socialist, Nazi, etc., as Franklin D. Roosevelt was, shows us that despite the loonies and their assertions, he is in the center, while Sarah Palin is not!

If the Republicans hope to compete in 2012, they must make it clear that Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck are NOT representative of what they offer, or they will end up in the dustbin of history! 🙁

Can The Ideological Divide In America Be Overcome To Avoid Incitement Of More Violence? Highly Doubtful! :(

Ronald 3 Comments

The attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and the murder and wounding of twenty other victims in Tucson, Arizona, should be a wake up call for the country at large, and the political leaders and media personalities in particular, but don’t bet on it! 🙁

The right wing is trying to deflect blame for the use of incendiary language, and trying to compare it to left wing criticisms that may ridicule and mock the opposition.

But it is the specific use of language of the right that is at issue, not the concept of criticism itself!

There can be a healthy, vigorous debate over ideas without promoting rhetoric that calls for revolution, asking citizens to be armed and dangerous, calling for direct action against a tyrannical government, and putting online a map with cross hairs targeting particular congressional district representatives.

There is absolutely no excuse for the rhetoric employed by Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and others on the right.

To compare it to the rhetoric of Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC requires a mentality that makes one wonder about the moral virtues of the listeners. These talk show hosts have never called for any of the above concepts that the right wing is infamous for.

The sad truth is that any possibility of change is remote, and tragically, we are on the road to greater bloodshed and violence on others, including the horrible thought of danger to our national leaders in the executive branch! 🙁

How can we tolerate this, and how can we even think of anyone backing any of these characters in public office, or supporting the continuation of talk show hosts who are only concerned about enriching themselves, and don’t give any concern about public safety or what is good for the national interest? 🙁

The answer is if violence escalates, lawsuits will have to be instituted against right wing talk radio hosts as having contributed to and incited the bloodshed, forcing them off the air and impoverishing them, to shut them up!

Again, speech matters, and if one shouts “fire in a crowded theater”, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, whether they are ordinary citizens, political leaders, or media personalities!

Arizona The Capital Of Anger, Hate And Bigotry: Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

Ronald 2 Comments

It is a telling factor that the Sheriff of Pima Country, Arizona, Clarence Dupnik, with Tucson as its major city, has declared that the state of Arizona has become the capital of anger, hate and bigotry in America. This was his reaction to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords!,

As the author stated just shortly before this tragedy, Arizona has become the new Mississippi or Alabama of the the second decade of the 21st century, with its promotion of right wing views on illegal immigration and health care legislation and its advocacy of insane gun freedoms without controls! 🙁

Can any Arizonian be proud of the racist, discriminatory legislation, which victimizes Latino immigrants, many of them Mexican-American? Can anyone be supportive of banning Mexican American studies in Tucson, as the state Attorney General has done, while permitting ethnic studies programs for Asian American, African American, and Native American groups?

Can anyone be supportive of gun laws that put basically no limits on gun ownership and carrying of weapons, and the push to allow such weapons on school and college campuses?

Can anyone be other than embarrassed at the failure to cover poor people who need transplants of all kinds of organs, putting the lives of 96 patients at risk, all over $1.2 million, a paltry amount of money that could easily be covered if state officials cared about poor, mostly minority patients?

Arizona’s state government should hold their collective head in shame! 🙁

Governor Jan Brewer and other state officials should be roundly condemned and be held accountable for the loss of any of those 96 lives of transplant patients and the two who have already passed away! 🙁

Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl should be censured for their total lack of concern for the racism, discrimination, and denial of medical care to needy patients, and their support of gun laws which will only raise the level of violence that occurred yesterday, leading to the tragic circumstances we now are reeling from! 🙁

If Arizona wishes to regain its respectability, it needs to change its course on these various issues, and start acting in a civilized manner!

Rhetoric DOES Affect Public Attitudes, And Incites Unstable People: Time For Responsible And Civil Dialogue Before We Have Greater Tragedy Emerge!

Ronald 3 Comments

The tragic events of yesterday, leading to the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords; and the slaughter of three senior citizens; a nine year girl born on September 11, 2001; a congressional aide of Giffords; and a federal judge, is a warning sign to everyone that the tone and content of rhetoric DOES have a real effect on all of us, and tends to incite unstable people to violent action!

Therefore, it is essential for everyone to tone down their language and promote responsible and civil dialogue, and it is time to DEMAND that Sarah Palin behave in a civil way when she utters her never ending statements on Facebook and Twitter; that candidates such as Sharron Angle who talk about “Second Amendment remedies” be, like she was, repudiated by the voters as reckless and irresponsible; that a local talk show host (Joyce Kaufman in South Florida) who talks about the use of “bullets, not ballots” be denied the right to use the airwaves to promote her hate and paranoid behavior; that national talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, who care not a whit about building up hatred and resentment as long as they enrich themselves, be denied the right to spew their poison over the airwaves; and that politicians of all persuasions be called to account if they spread hysteria, fear, and division through their rhetoric!

Does anyone have the right to “shout fire in a crowded theater” and claim it is freedom of speech? The Supreme Court, in Schenck V. US in 1919, said NO, and that should apply to people in public office, media people, and all of us, who need to understand that responsible and civil dialogue is essential, or one day, we will have a tragedy of greater magnitude emerge, on the level of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or a renewed concept of civil war, where everyone suffers because of irresponsible, reckless rhetoric!

The Recklessness And Irresponsibility of Sarah Palin: The Background Of The Shooting Of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords In Tucson, Arizona! :(

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Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin promoted a campaign against the Democratic Congressmen who voted for the Obama Health Care bill last year but whose districts also voted for John McCain in 2008, and used an advertisement on Sarahpac.com which displayed a graphic with crosshairs on a map.

One of those members of Congress was Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Tucson, Arizona, who was shot and seriously wounded today at a Tucson area supermarket while holding a Congressional citizen meeting with her constituents.

The graphic, having crosshairs on a map representing those congressional districts, was an extremely reprehensible action by Sarah Palin! 🙁

Just the suggestion of guns and violence is enough to place at least some blame on Sarah Palin for having encouraged violence against opponents of her views on health care or any other issue. No sane, responsible person would have done such a thing as she endorsed and backed!  🙁

If this does not by itself cause sane people to see Sarah Palin as totally lacking in judgment and sanity to be President, then indeed we are in for a disaster in the making that will be the greatest in our history! 🙁

There was absolutely no excuse for what Sarah Palin did during the 2010 election campaign, and there is no excuse for any future stupid, reckless, insane statements by this woman who should not be admired, but rather informed to go home to Alaska and leave this nation alone! She has done more than enough damage as it is, and if Gabrielle Giffords passes away, she will have blood on her hands by what she promoted by her sick rhetoric last year! 🙁