Month: October 2012

PBS: $1.35 Per American—Is This Too Much To Promote Knowledge And Education?

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PBS has been part of American culture since 1965, when it was created under Lyndon B. Johnson as part of the Great Society programs, to promote knowledge and education.

Reaching nearly fifty years of age, and having lots of excellent programming, not just Sesame Street and Big Bird, and being made available in rural areas that have far fewer educational opportunities than metropolitan areas, PBS costs only $445 million annually to taxpayers, less than one thousandth of one percent of the national budget!

It comes down to $1.35 per person in America annually, and yet Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the Republican Party and conservatives want to force PBS to survive simply on the contributions of its viewers, which happen to be about 90 percent of the people at some point during the year.

While there are already contributions made by many to keep PBS able to promote its excellent programming, to use PBS as the “whipping boy” for the budget crisis that America faces is the height of hypocrisy, as it is literally a “drop in the bucket”, and it comes across as extremely petty to attack PBS, which offers so much good to the nation, and should not be subjected to becoming part of politics!

Education and knowledge should be our aim, and already, there are indications that the opponents of PBS are losing the battle of public opinion!

Could Joe Biden-Paul Ryan Vice Presidential Debate Be A Forerunner Of 2016?

Ronald 8 Comments

The Joe Biden-Paul Ryan Vice Presidential Debate this Thursday could be a forerunner of 2016!

If Joe Biden performs well, and seals a Barack Obama victory in November, he will be the frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016.

If Paul Ryan does a reputable performance, and is not harmed by Biden, even if Biden is declared the winner on points, he becomes the front runner for 2016 as the Republican Presidential nominee, presuming a Mitt Romney defeat in 2012.

In theory, both Biden and Ryan could be running against each other–74 year old Biden with 44 years of government experience, the most of any Presidential nominee or winner of the White House in history—and 46 year old Paul Ryan, who will have had 18 years in the House of Representatives by then, assuming he wins his House seat while being on the losing Presidential team!

Certainly, one or the other could very well be on the Presidential ballot in 2016, as Walter Mondale was in 1984, after the Mondale-Bush debate of 1980; as George H. W. Bush was after the debate with Geraldine Ferraro in 1984; and as Al Gore was after the debate with Jack Kemp in 1996.

CORRECTION: I discovered after writing the above that there was no VP debate between Bush and Mondale in 1980, so I stand corrected, and that means twice in VP debate history, one of the candidates was on the Presidential ballot in the following election, not three times!

Eleven Years Of War In Afghanistan And Counting: For What?

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Today marks ELEVEN years of US combat in Afghanistan, with over 2,000 Americans killed, and thousands more wounded, many severely.

George W. Bush messed up the whole involvement from the beginning, and it took nearly a decade to kill Osama Bin Laden, and weaken Al Qaeda dramatically, although they still exist in other nations in the area.

But the Taliban threat remains a power in Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai is one of the most corrupt foreign leaders we deal with, and is not even appreciative of American and NATO involvement and sacrifice! Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta expressed the total disgust of our nation with Karzai, and his constant criticisms of America, while he has done nothing to make life better for his people, particularly the women living under a medieval standard of behavior!

Barack Obama is committed to withdrawing in 2014, but the case can be made that if he wins reelection, he should speed up the withdrawal to end a year early, as Afghanistan is a nation that seems hopeless to reform, at the high cost of American lives and treasure.

It is impossible to accept that this is, by far, the longest war in American history, and it is time to declare it over, and bring the men and women home for good!

Vice Presidential Debates: Age And Experience Are Winners Three Times, And Probably Again!

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With the Vice Presidential debate in Kentucky between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan coming up this Thursday, it is worthwhile to look back at other Vice Presidential debates in which there was a much older candidate on one side.

This has happened three times, with the older candidate seen as the winner, including:

1988—Senator Lloyd Bentsen made Senator Dan Quayle look foolish.
2004—Vice President Dick Cheney overwhelmed Senator John Edwards
2008—Senator Joe Biden won over Governor Sarah Palin handily.

The same scenario is likely this time, as Vice President Biden is a skilled debater, and has no problem going on the offensive in a debate.

This is not to say that Paul Ryan cannot come across as knowledgeable, but Biden can attack Ryan on facts and truth effectively, and the expectation is that Ryan will have problems in that regard with a strong Biden attack, and that Biden will “win” the debate, as much as anyone can be said to “win”!

A Good Week For Barack Obama, Including Debate Performance!

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The first week of October has been good to Barack Obama!

His Gallup poll rating is at its highest since the fall of 2009, now registering at 54 percent! This is a strong indication of his upcoming victory precisely one month from today!

Many want to believe that his debate performance harmed him, without realizing that while he might not have been at his best, it really does not matter, as incumbent Presidents tend to do poorly on the first debate with a challenger, as indicated in an earlier post. After all, they have more on their mind than the campaign, such as governing and dealing with crises on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has done nothing for the past six years other than run for President, and he has had a multitude of mistakes and poor performances with his rhetoric and comments!

If Obama had come out charging in this first debate, he would be accused of being an “angry black man”, which terrifies many working class whites and uneducated people, who are accustomed to a different image of blacks, which is an unspoken sign of massive racism! So if he smiles and lets Mitt Romney hang himself as a phony, a chameleon, a liar on a massive scale, he is criticized, but Romney has added to the image that he is untrustworthy by his aggressive performance full of deceit and manipulation! Obama actually handled the situation well, and that will be seen as time goes by!

Now that Romney has proved again that he is a charlatan, Joe Biden will go on the assault against ideologue Paul Ryan, and then Obama will go after Romney in the last two Presidential debates. He will follow Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in recovering from a theoretical first debate that was unimpressive, to go on to electoral victory!

But also, the victories for voting rights in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the stopping of voter registration by Republicans in Florida and four other states, due to obvious GOP corruption, will upend the Republican attempt to cut out millions of potential Democratic voters in “swing” states.

And the economic revival that is going on, lowering the unemployment rate below 8 percent for the first time in his term of office, will help Obama, as most sane people will dismiss the conspiracy theories of conservatives and Republicans that the honorable and independent Bureau Of Labor Statistics is corrupt!

And the fact that Obama saved the auto industry; has seen the stock market double during his term; that manufacturing is reviving in America; and that energy production is up domestically without destroying the environment—-all this is further proof that this has been a good week on the road to ultimate victory one month from now!

Republicans Condemn Downturn In Unemployment, Claim Conspiracy, Condemn Bureau Of Labor Statistics As Corrupt: Showing True Contempt For Unemployed!

Ronald 1 Comment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics contains statisticians and economists who pride themselves on their work, and have a firewall to prevent any doubts about their work.

But it is easy to condemn government ‘bureaucrats”, and Republicans have now promoted a conspiracy theory, that Barack Obama is manipulating that revered agency, setting up lower unemployment numbers just in time for the Presidential Election of 2012. This is the theory promoted by Congressman Allen West of Florida, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and other irresponsible Republicans, angry over the dramatic drop in unemployment from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent, the first time unemployment has been under 8 percent since the Obama Presidency began, and occurring just a month before the election.

So when more people gain employment, that is bad news, as it works against the Republican attempt to prevent Barack Obama from having a second term in the White House. It also shows the contempt of the Republican Party toward those who are unemployed! Instead of celebrating the wonderful event, instead besmirch hard working, loyal federal government employees as Obama lackeys, tainting the whole Bureau of Labor Statistics!

But think about it: Why, if the Bureau of Labor Statistics is being controlled by Obama, did it take until now to bring unemployment numbers down? It could have been done a year ago, so as to make the Republican campaign more difficult, instead of giving them the economy issue that they could hold over the head of Barack Obama constantly! The whole concept of collusion is so preposterous that it reflects badly on West, McCain and others!

One could excuse the West statements, as he is a well known whacko in trouble in his Florida district, as his Democratic opponent, Patrick Murphy, is leading in many polls. But for McCain, Barack Obama’s opponent in the Presidential Election of 2008, it again indicates the dual personality of the Arizona Senator—sometimes responsible in his utterances, and other times, totally loony and nutty—a good sign that maybe McCain should resign, as his behavior is truly embarrassing, and maybe he should just retire and enjoy his family, and stop his reckless, conspiratorial accusations, with no backing, which embarrass him and remind us that his prime is past!

As has been commented by others, the true answer is that EDUCATION is the best way to bring down unemployment, and that there are seasonal variations up and down in unemployment. The idea, that employment numbers are finally starting to improve greatly, should be celebrated by any patriotic American, who should be happy that unemployment is down and employment is up!

But the Republicans only see it as politics, since they refuse to take responsibility for the fact that it was under their watch that the Great Recession occurred, just as was so with the Great Depression eighty years ago! George W. Bush was the updated Herbert Hoover, without the integrity and intelligence of Hoover!

And again, a reminder, EDUCATION is the best guarantee of employment. So Asians have an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent last month; whites have 7 percent; Latinos have 9.8 percent; and African Americans have 13.4 percent. Also, college educated have an unemployment rate under 5 percent, while high school graduates are almost double that rate, and dropouts even higher!

So instead of complaining, what Republicans, Democrats and everyone who is independent should be doing is promoting EDUCATIONAL opportunities as the way to insure the future of the American economy!

Sesame Street And Education Vs. Wall Street And Mitt Romney!

Ronald 1 Comment

Mitt Romney jokingly talked about stopping funding of PBS and Sesame Street during the Presidential debate, and “Big Bird” and the educational community is up in arms over the pettiness of what Romney is promoting!

As Barack Obama said yesterday, we need a war NOT on Sesame Street and PBS, which represents one one thousandth of a point of the national budget, but to crack down on Wall Street abuses, and prevent more tax cuts to the wealthy!

PBS and Sesame Street represent the future of America—education and knowledge–and the Republican Party is only concerned about the elite wealthy, and yet Romney lies through his teeth incessantly that he “cares” about the “one hundred percent”, and claims the “47 percent” comment was just a slip in one of hundreds or thousands of statements or speeches during his campaign!

Of course, the “47 percent” speech was NOT to a politically rally, or to a journalist, but to a group of super wealthy contributors in Boca Raton, and one can certain that this shows the TRUE Romney, and that his statement is NOT a mistake, except for the fact it got out to the public, and has caused the rapid decline in Romney fortunes!

By making 27 lies in 38 minutes of the Presidential debate, and attacking Sesame Street and “Big Bird”, and then claiming the “47 percent” statement was a slip up, when it was not, and only is seen as so because the American people know about it, Mitt Romney has “shot himself in the foot” yet again, and his Presidential fortunes will be no better on November 6!

Barack Obama Ridicules Mitt Romney Day After Debate: Points Out His Contradictions And Lies

Ronald 3 Comments

Barack Obama may have been passive in yesterday’s debate, or just maybe, the goal was to allow Mitt Romney to hang himself with his own chameleon nature, his constantly changing views, his own contradictions!

So today, Barack Obama was in Wisconsin, ridiculing Mitt Romney and pointing out that he was a “new” Mitt Romney, totally talking differently about everything from what he was stating for the past year during the primaries!

So Romney has now been shown to have made 27 lies in his 38 minutes of the debate, enough to indict him as what he is–a damned liar, a phony, an untrustworthy man, who will say anything to be elected President, and seems to think that the American people as a whole are that dumb as to just accept his constantly changing views on a daily basis!

Romney may be cocky at the moment, but Barack Obama is on the attack, and Joe Biden will be, and Paul Ryan had better watch out in next week’s debate, trying to defend a newly moderate Romney, while Ryan himself is an ideological conservative who will squirm when try

Romney has not won the debate as much as people think he has! Instead, he is digging his own political grave with his dishonesty and lack of ethics!

Historic Record Of First Presidential Debates With Incumbent President Running: One Win, Six Losses

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We have seen seven incumbent Presidents run for reelection and participate in debates, and in the first debate in all cases but one, the incumbent President lost the debate, but three went on to win the election!

Gerald Ford in 1976; Jimmy Carter in 1980; Ronald Reagan in 1984; George H. W. Bush in 1992; George W. Bush in 2004; and Barack Obama in 2012 lost the first debate, while Bill Clinton won the first debate in 1996.

So far, the record for winning the election that followed is 3 wins, 3 losses—with Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush winning, and Ford, Carter and George H. W. Bush losing.

One forgets that Presidents have a lot of things on their minds, while Presidential challengers only are thinking of winning the debate and the election.

So be assured that Barack Obama, still close to having 270 electoral votes, will win the Presidential Election of 2012, and make the Republicans like it!

Romney “Victory” A Plus, As It Galvanizes Democrats And Progressives To The Struggle Ahead!

Ronald 6 Comments

It is in a time of crisis that courage and principles are put to the test!

So last night’s “victory” by Mitt Romney in the Presidential debate with Barack Obama will have the effect of galvanizing Democrats and Progressives in recognizing the battle that is ahead of us!

More contributions are needed for the campaign; more efforts by volunteers are needed; more commitment to voting is essential; more spreading the word of Romney’s lies and deceptions are called for; and more faith in the decency and good intention of most people to do what is right is something we all have to believe!

The progress made under Barack Obama is under attack, but as with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Bill Clinton, under attack by reactionary forces in the past, the battle has just begun!