Month: March 2012

Barack Obama Advice From Yogi Berra: “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over”!

Ronald 1 Comment

There will be the tendency for Barack Obama supporters to feel good after Super Tuesday, and feel that Barack Obama has a second term in the White House in the bag.

That would be the worst assumption possible!

On paper, yes, things are looking good as the GOP race for the Presidential nomination continues, and Mitt Romney looks in trouble, and Rick Santorum, who most logical people cannot see having any chance to win the nomination or election, continues to do well, particularly in the heartland of the nation.

Eight months to go until the election, and the world can turn upside down and inside out, in less than that amount of time.

We could have a major war in the Middle East against Iran, or another economic downturn, which could be triggered by that war with Iran.

Unforeseen circumstances we cannot imagine could occur, and the tides could turn.

Remember that Thomas E. Dewey was ahead of Harry Truman in 1948; Richard Nixon ahead of John F. Kennedy in 1960; Jimmy Carter ahead of Ronald Reagan in 1980; Michael Dukakis ahead of George H. W. Bush in 1988; George H. W. Bush ahead of Bill Clinton in 1992; and Al Gore ahead of George W. Bush in 2000 to the end, but not considering the electoral vote issue that would help Bush in the end.

There is plenty of work ahead for the Obama team, and they cannot afford to be cocky.

They need to remember the admonition of Yankee great, catcher Yogi Berra, who is famous for his line about baseball games: “It ain’t over till it’s over”!

No more true statement can be expressed regarding politics, as well as sports!

There Will Be NO President Romney! The Demise In Process!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is now certain that there will be NO President Mitt Romney taking the oath of office on January 20, 2013.

It is also very likely that there will be someone other than Mitt Romney as the GOP Presidential nominee, after the Republican National Convention in August in Tampa, Florida.

Mitt Romney is loved by NO ONE other than his family and his paid workers, sorry to say.

Mitt Romney is not liked by many Americans because he is simply too rich, and wears his wealth constantly. Even his wife says she does not feel wealthy, imagine that!

Mitt Romney is distrusted by conservatives and Tea Party activists because they see him as a Massachusetts liberal who promoted RomneyCare, very close to the ObamaCare that he now condemns.

Mitt Romney is not liked because he is a Mormon, and evangelical Christians have a large impact on the heartland of the nation, and think of Mormons as not being Christian, but instead as a cult.

Mitt Romney is distrusted because he is the most massive flip flopper, and could be redefined in the vocabulary with his name meaning that term!

Mitt Romney has shown he cannot win the heartland of the nation against competition, having lost Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Colorado at this moment of writing to Rick Santorum, as well as losing South Carolina and Georgia to Newt Gingrich, and Tennessee to Santorum. Mitt Romney is NOT going to win the Atlantic Coast or the Pacific Coast, and he is not going to win Massachusetts or Vermont in the election, and will have a major struggle in Virginia, which, if all candidates had been on the ballot, he likely would have lost as well!

At this point, Mitt Romney’s only areas of strength are New England, the section he lived in for 40 year and served in government; Michigan, where he was born and grew up to adulthood; and Mormon areas in the Far West, including Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. And he is unlikely to win any of these in November, except maybe Arizona, Utah and Idaho, but not Nevada!

Mitt Romney has shown that despite all of his fantastic wealth, that does not give you the White House, and in fact, most Americans would feel uncomfortable with someone as filthy rich as Romney, who is worth more than the last eight Presidents combined, and assuming he lives to age 85, twenty years from now, he would be the first billionaire President, just from interest on his quarter of a billion fortune over a generation!

Mitt Romney does not represent America, and never could do so in any form!

The demise of Mitt Romney is in full bloom, even with Ohio still out at this writing, but with Rick Santorum leading, by 2,500 votes with 84 percent of the vote counted.

A reminder: EVERY Republican President has won Ohio, but if Romney either loses or only wins by a bare margin over Santorum in Ohio, how can anyone think he is able to win Ohio over Barack Obama in November?

With exactly eight months to the election, this Super Tuesday is good news for Barack Obama, above all!

Super Tuesday: End Of The GOP Presidential Race? Don’t Bet On It!

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Super Tuesday should see the end of the Presidential nomination race, as it often has in recent Presidential cycles.

However, it was not so for the Democrats in 2008, and it is unlikely that it will be the end of the Republican race today.

There is a good chance that Rick Santorum will win Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahoma tonight, and that Newt Gingrich will win the biggest state in delegate totals, Georgia.

If that happens, or most of it, then Mitt Romney cannot “close the deal” and start to look to the Fall Presidential campaign, and if that is what happens, then the Republicans face further turmoil and division.

The Republican Party establishment can only hope that the race is over, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn both endorsed Romney last weekend, hoping that the blood letting among the candidates would be over.

It is still reality that Mitt Romney remains unpopular among many Republicans, and many still wish there was some alternative to those in the race.

It will be a gargantuan task for Mitt Romney to keep discontented people in the party, as well as convince Independents and women in large numbers, to vote for him. The likelihood of success is very low!

The George Washington University Debate Between Ann Coulter And Lawrence O’Donnell

Ronald 4 Comments

In a rare case of a conservative and liberal commentator agreeing to debate each other in a public gathering, Sunday night witnessed a confrontation of conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter and MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

The audience, mostly college students, was shocked when Ann Coulter stated that college students should not be able to vote, and proposed raising the voting age to 26, when students have to pay for their own medical insurance!

She also stated that it would be better if women did not vote, as in every national election since the 1950s, women tend to vote Democratic, and claimed that only in 1964, would the Republicans have lost if the women’s vote had not existed. Of course, she forgot that Republicans elected since the 1950s included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush!

Many other issues were discussed, with the audience clearly in O’Donnell’s camp, but the above points were the most controversial assertions by Coulter.

Coulter continued to be consistent in being controversial in her views, setting out to provoke the audience, and smiling constantly through her purposeful attacks and assertions. This woman LOVES to be controversial, but one has to wonder if she really believes anything she says, or just expresses it to make money selling confrontational books with controversial titles and book covers!

Coulter seems more like an entertainer than a political expert, with her views often inconsistent, and working at bring outrageous and rude!

Rush Limbaugh, The Republican Party, And Responsibility For Loss Of Presidential Election Of 2012!

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When all is said and done, the Republican Party will look back on the loss of the 2012 Presidential Election and blame Rush Limbaugh for the turning point when the election was lost.

But actually it will be their own fault, since they allowed themselves to be held hostage for the past ten years by this bully, this egotistical windbag, this despicable human being who has no limits to his desire to destroy all opposition to his sick, twisted views of the world! And their cowardice and fear of Limbaugh that has prevented them from denouncing him en masse will, ultimately, cost them dearly in November!

George Will and Erick Erickson have recently declared that the Presidential election is over, and that emphasis must be placed on holding on to the Republican House majority and to regain the US Senate.

That is a warning to all who want Barack Obama to have a successful second term to fight tooth and nail, through every means possible, to gain a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and retain the US Senate.

The Republican Party needs a total defeat, a humiliating loss, to bring them back to the moderate center, and away from the influence of social conservatives and extreme right wing talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel!

The Republican Party And Rush Limbaugh: Time For Divorce!

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The Republican Party leaders are a bunch of total wimps, unwilling to condemn Rush Limbaugh for his outrageous attack on Sandra Fluke for her testimony on contraceptives.

What is wrong with Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum?

So far, only THREE Republicans have been willing to go out of their way to condemn Limbaugh–Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, and Arizona Senator John McCain, the 2008 GOP Presidential nominee.

The Republican Party has for too long allowed Rush to dictate to them, and many have apologized to him in the past, absolutely outrageous behavior on their part.

Rush Limbaugh has been a bully, a disgrace to talk radio, an embarrassment to civil discourse, and has been given too much license to intimidate critics.

The GOP leadership needs to come out and openly condemn him, just as now eleven advertisers have withdrawn from his program. If not, the voters need to punish them and make their party a marginal party of insensitive, unprincipled male chauvinists!

And Limbaugh’s action to slander Sandra Fluke must lead to a pro bono law suit, not with the intention to enrich Sandra Fluke, but use what is gained in the law suit to support progressive causes that Rush Limbaugh hates. That would be just punishment for this excuse for a human being, who needs to be taken off the air for his transgressions!

The Republican Party Losing The Future: Suicidal Tendencies

Ronald 3 Comments

The Republican Party of 2012 is a shell of its old self, and has allowed itself to move out of the mainstream of American politics based on the extremism of religious zealots, greedy capitalists, and neoconservatives who believe American power must be waged everywhere no matter what the cost to the American economy.

The problem for the GOP is that the nation has changed so much from what it was, and the younger generation is alienated from these trends.

The younger generation is alienated from organized traditional religion that subjugates women.

The younger generation is alienated by the abuses of the wealthy, and are concerned what their future is in an economy that has decimated the middle class, and caused the loss of hope in the “American dream”.

The younger generation is alienated from the war machine mentality of neoconservatives and the Pentagon, which thinks that military force all over the globe is the only answer to world problems, and they want America focusing on its internal problems, rather than being a crusader all over the world, as they see American power as “imperialistic”.

The GOP is losing women, African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, college graduates, those under 35, the struggling middle class, most major metropolitan areas, and the coastlines with large electoral vote states.

All they can attract in majority numbers are Christian and other religious fundamentalists, blue collar whites who have not attended college, the wealthy top two percent of the population, and the military oriented hawkish foreign policy advocates.

The Republican Party is losing the future in a nation more socially moderate, believing in economic opportunity, and wishing for more direct democracy by the masses, instead of all power in the hands of a powerful wealthy elite.

In other words, the nation is more progressive than conservatives and Republicans want to believe!

Rush Limbaugh’s Apology To Sandra Fluke: NOT Enough!

Ronald 3 Comments

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a disgrace for a human being, issued a personal attack this week on law student Sandra Fluke for her testimony on contraceptive availability, calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute”, and demanded that he and others get to see porn movies produced by her sexual activity!

What an insult and a humiliation for any human being to be so labeled by a reckless, irresponsible windbag and propagandist such as Limbaugh!

Only after Limbaugh lost six advertisers for his radio show did he issue a half hearted apology, but this is the manner that Rush Limbaugh uses regularly, and will continue to do so in the future.

The answer is to NOT accept the weak apology, and campaign to have more advertisers withdraw their commercial support of his program, and bring it down completely, unless Limbaugh decided to support his own program with his own fortune, which needs to be taxed much more heavily than it is!

And Sandra Fluke should sue Limbaugh, and attempt to take away as much of the ill earned fortune of Limbaugh as possible. It is certain that there are attorneys who will wish to make Limbaugh’s life miserable, and be willing to support Fluke, only earning their pay IF Limbaugh loses a jury trial for defamation of character.

This man needs to be shut up as a person who spews poison and promotes division for his own aggrandizement!

And we need to realize that Rush Limbaugh is a disgrace to any sense of morality and ethics, and has even outdone Newt Gingrich in having had FOUR wives, to Gingrich’s THREE!

And Mitt Romney’s refusal to comment on the whole matter is despicable, and demonstrates once again that he has no guts, no courage, no principle, other than his own advancement!

And for Rick Santorum to just use the word “absurd” for what Rush Limbaugh said is also disgraceful!

And kudos to Ron Paul for saying that what Rush did was in “poor taste”! He shows more guts than any of the other GOP candidates for President!

March 4: Traditional Presidential Inauguration Day Through 1933

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March 4 was set up in the Constitution as Inauguration Day every four years, and every inauguration through 1933, except for the first, was held on that day.

George Washington was delayed in reaching the then capital of New York City in 1789, and did not arrive for the inauguration until April 30, but every other elected President from John Adams to Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4.

Then, the 20th Amendment in 1933 changed the inauguration date to January 20, beginning in 1937 and every fourth year since.

So March 4 was historic, particularly with the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, at the two most delicate and dangerous moments in our history, the oncoming Civil War, and the worst moments of the Great Depression.

Other March 4 inaugurations which stood out historically include 1829, 1841, 1865, and 1877.

In 1829, the newly inaugurated Andrew Jackson invited the crowd to come back to the White House and celebrate, and a mob descended on the White House, and proceeded to break the windows, and commit other destruction since many were drunk!

In 1841, newly elected President William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in American history on a cold, rainy day, and contracted pneumonia, and died exactly a month later.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address became the most memorable such speech in American history, at least until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address in 1933.

And in 1877, President Rutherford Hayes was inaugurated, after only learning of his selection by the specially constituted Electoral Commission two days earlier, in a political compromise agreement known as the Compromise of 1877. Many had wondered whether a new civil war was in the offing because of the dispute over the Presidential election results.

So March 4 will always remain a particularly historic day in American history.

Comedian Bill Maher’s PAC Contribution To The Obama Presidential Campaign

Ronald 1 Comment

Comedian Bill Maher has been a strong critic of President Barack Obama over the past three years for being too moderate, and unwilling to take on the Republican opposition.

However, Maher has decided to give $1 million to the Obama PAC, Priorities USA, with his reasoning that, despite his disappointments with the Obama record, that he has made progress on many fronts, has many accomplishments, and that the alternative is going backwards.

Maher also points out that Obama or the Republican nominee will end up having judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and lower courts, and that this is a long range issue not getting enough attention, and that it affects the nation long term, not just for the next four years.

Also, Republicans seem ready to go to war overseas again, while Obama has a more measured approach to military action, trying to avoid disasters such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All of the points made by Maher are those the author agrees with completely, and has stated many times in this blog. One would just wish that the author had financial assets on the level of Bill Maher, so that he could contribute an amount to the Obama campaign, on the level of Maher. But oh well!