Month: January 2014

Unemployment Compensation : Earned, Not Handout, And Stimulates Economy!

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It is sickening beyond belief to see Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians such as Rand Paul, who seem to think unemployment compensation is a handout, a welfare program, when it is precisely NOT that at all!

People who gain unemployment compensation have had to work to gain it, have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, have to prove they are looking for work to gain it, and it prevents people from losing their home, their food supply, their heat in the winter, their medicines needed to survive.

It stimulates the economy, and provides jobs, and works against the tremendous mental and physical stress that unemployed people go through daily.

Anyone who would say that people stay on unemployment because they are lazy are despicable human beings, and realize unemployed people are not living off the “fruit of the vine”, so to speak, but instead are dealing with absolute basics of survival!

No one should EVER be in a position where, because of hard economic times, that they go homeless, have to go for food to food banks, have no way to get medical care, or to stay warm. And that includes children, the silent victims of their parents’ bad luck!

A country that would cut unemployment compensation for those who deserve it, who would take away food as basic sustenance for human beings, but spend tons of money on their pets as worthy of their expenditure while ignoring the hungry, and would say that the minimum wage should never rise, and put human beings into a never ending cycle of poverty, is a nation that has a deep mental illness!

We cannot allow selfish, self centered, hard hearted, so called “religious” people to dictate that others should do without, all to avoid paying taxes, when one is fortunate, and owes more to his nation than those less fortunate.

We are talking about basic humanity and compassion, not about giving “free” stuff to people. We are talking about the whole point of human existence, to care about thy fellow man and woman!

My Lecture on the Presidency of Harry S Truman (VIDEO)

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On Tuesday, December 17, 2013, I lectured on the Presidency of Harry S Truman at Florida Atlantic University’s Jupiter Campus as part of their Lifelong Learning Society. Here is a video of my lecture.

Bush, Cheney, And The Iraq War: A Total Waste!

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The news that radical elements connected to Al Qaeda have seized and “liberated” Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities that so many of our Marines and other soldiers died for during the Iraq War, and that Iraq is back to the civil war that emerged after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, is enough to make one sick and disgusted, and to condemn the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, which took us into a war that was not ours to fight, and cost the loss of over 4,000 lives and over 30,000 wounded, many seriously!

This event, the return to instability of Iraq, in the midst of the Syrian Civil War, and the unrest in Lebanon, demonstrates that America has lost yet another war, after Vietnam, and is losing in Afghanistan.

Who benefits from this is the oil industry, and the defense industries, which enrich themselves on the corpses of dead Americans, as well as dead Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

It is clear that America cannot control what happens in the Middle East, and that the neoconservatives, who advocated engagement in Iraq, are the true traitors to the cause of what is best for America, and there is blood on their hands with the latest results of the failed war in Iraq!

And Dick Cheney is one of the biggest culprits, having enriched himself in the process, through his connections with Halliburton.

But now, thankfully, his disgraceful daughter, Liz Cheney, trying to be elected to the Senate from Wyoming, connected to the Tea Party Movement, and willing to throw her lesbian sister Mary Cheney under the bus, in her egotistical quest to become the female Dick Cheney, has bowed out of the race, well aware that she would be lucky to gain 25 percent of the vote in a primary against sitting Republican Senator Mike Enzi.

Good riddance to her and the theory of a Cheney dynasty, but so much damage has been done by Dick Cheney, who should be held accountable legally for his wrongdoings, but most certainly will avoid it, due to his massive connections to powerful interests!

Presidents And Alcohol Issues

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There are many ways that scholars and Presidential “junkies” evaluate Presidents, and one not often thought about is the problem of alcohol issues, Presidents who have had problems of drunkenness that affected their ability to do their job.

Three are well known for having major alcohol problems, and at least for two of them, it affected their performance in office.

Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) had a massive alcohol problem, made worse by the fact that his last and only child was killed in a train accident shortly before the inauguration in 1853. His Presidency is seen as one of the absolute worst, and his signing of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854 was a major step toward the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) was a great General who won the surrender of Robert E. Lee, and yet, it was well known that he drank too much, although it was claimed that he made better military decisions when drunk. But this massive drinking problem undermined his ability to do his job, and his Presidency became one of massive scandals, generally known as the Credit Mobilier Scandals, which along with the Panic of 1873, undermined his historical reputation.

George W. Bush was also a certifiable alcoholic, although it seems as if he had stopped drinking after his wife, Laura, threatened to leave him in 1986, when their twin daughters were still very young. But some have wondered about whether some of his decision making was influenced either by “stealing” a drink, or the damage done by the alcohol dependency that he had become captive of in earlier years.

Additionally, there are many who think that the following Presidents may have had too much dependency on liquor, while not maybe at the level of Pierce, Grant, and George W.

John Adams (1797-1801)
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
James Buchanan (1857-1861)
Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885)
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897)
William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)

The strongest cases would be Cleveland and Taft, both of whom were very overweight, and evidence of their extensive drinking is found in different sources about their lives. Also, it was known that Harding drank liquor every day in the White House, despite Prohibition being in effect

The evidence against Adams, Van Buren, Buchanan and Arthur is less extensive, but all three were known to be drinking a lot more than would be safe for one’s health.

The situation of Johnson and Nixon is more based on their personality traits, that under stress, they were likely to drink excessively, but not apparently an habitual problem.

At the same time, those who would be seen as least likely to lean on alcohol would include Rutherford B. Hayes, whose wife was infamously known as “Lemonade Lucy” for banning alcohol at White House gatherings; Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, who were vehement in their enforcement of Prohibition of liquor; and Jimmy Carter, who avoided alcohol, although his brother Billy was an alcoholic.

Threats Of Violence Against Barack Obama Grows: A New, Expanded Mental Illness Very Worrisome!

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Here we are ending the fifth year of the Barack Obama Presidency, and the hatred and racism and threats of assassination have not abated one iota!

Instead, it has become a new, expanded mental illness, very worrisome, all over the internet, on Facebook and Twitter, and even on cable news networks, led by Fox News Channel!

It includes so called “religious” leaders, college professors, law enforcement officials, legislators in state governments, military personnel, students, people of different racial backgrounds, and goes as far as calling for a national holiday for lynching President Obama!

This is extremely alarming, as the media reports of threats have multiplied, but it is clear that this is just the “tip of the iceberg”, and that there are a multitude of more threats than we are learning about.

The Secret Service, considered undermanned by many observers, is dealing with an estimated 30 threats per day, over 10,000 threats a year, and probably we are low balling those numbers, so they have to deal with threats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in all forms of ways, many of them not serious, but none able to be overlooked, as a mistake could be fatal.

The President must go about his daily business of getting around, both in the country and on overseas visits, but one has to be concerned about his safety, as one can be sure, that if something tragic was to occur, there would be celebration not seen widely when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, although there were some stories of applause in classrooms in Dallas after JFK was shot, a totally deplorable situation.

It is the responsibility of our media not to give undue attention to the perpetrators of this hate, so the decision of Lou Dobbs, who once was sane but has gone bonkers in recent years, to allow Professor Michael Scheuer of Georgetown University, to spew his hate and condemnation, and endorsement of assassination of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, on the Dobbs show, should lead to a boycott of Dobbs and all other right wing talk show hosts, who will stop at nothing in their exploitation of hate and racism, and advocacy of violence against our Commander in Chief!

Freedom of speech stops when it advocates violence, and Scheuer needs to be held accountable by Georgetown University, and advertisers need to stop support of Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, et al as an indication that such poison should not be supported on radio and television, as it is a disease that can promote tragedy and disaster!

Eric Cantor Declares War On The Unemployed And Poor: Bad Omen For 2014!

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Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who salivates to become Speaker of the House when John Boehner finally leaves, which may be this year, continues to prove how disgusting and disgraceful he is!

The only Jewish Republican in Congress, Cantor has become an embarrassment to open minded, compassionate Jews, who are shocked at his callousness and lack of concern for the unemployed and the poor.

Being a leading supporter of cutting food stamps, and against ever raising the minimum wage, he now has made clear that any extension of unemployment benefits, after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, is off the table, and that means, unless it is somehow overcome by Boehner calling a vote and willing to let the Democrats gain the majority of the total vote for extension, that millions of unfortunate Americans, who have worked hard all their lives, but have suffered from the Great Recession and its aftermath, shall be left in a situation with lack of food, inability to pay rent, unable to get medical aid when sick or injured, and with their children and senior citizen parents being truly deprived of basic needs! And yet, all workers have contributed to their unemployment compensation, and there is as much right to that as to Social Security and Medicare!

How can anyone with a conscience do this to fellow Americans? How can such people sleep at night? All this will do is increase the number of deaths of people unable to meet basic needs, and it also is an obvious threat that some desperate people will turn to violence to get basic needs met. There is no justification for violence, but it does not mean that it will not happen.

What makes Eric Cantor tick? He needs, desperately, a mental examination, as he is a man of mean spirit and lack of compassion, not native to the Jewish or any other religious spirit!

Bill De Blasio, The Clintons, And The Shift To The Left In The Democratic Party

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The inauguration of New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, sworn in on a Bible used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the oath being given by former President Bill Clinton, with Hillary Clinton also present, was a ceremony full of symbolism.

De Blasio, a Mayor in the tradition of Fiorello La Guardia and John Lindsay; a true liberal and progressive in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society; a Clinton Administration Housing and Urban Development official; the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2000; the head of an interracial family; and a man fully involved in the struggle of the poor in New York City, and fighting for the wealthy to pay more taxes for universal pre K education (as he said $943 a year or a small coffee cost every day)—this is a man to admire, to cheer, to be willing to go to bat for in any struggle that will occur over the next four years as he works to end the “Tale of Two Cities”, which allows the greed of Wall Street while a large percentage of the city cannot survive on a living wage!

Bill Clinton made the connection between Bill De Blasio and himself and his wife, and in so doing, made a clear shift to the left from the centrism Democratic image he cultivated during his eight year Presidency.

And that makes it very clear that Hillary Clinton has decided to run for President, and is embracing the leftward trend represented by Bill De Blasio, and is making clear to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, and others on the populist left, that she is not willing to cede any turf on the Democratic Party to any of her rivals on the left, or to Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, Mark Warner or anyone else thinking of running for President.

Many Significant Anniversaries In 2014

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As we enter the year 2014, we are reminded that many significant anniversaries, that have affected America and the world at large, are being celebrated this year.

In 1689, 325 years ago, we had the Glorious Revolution in England, which ended absolute monarchy and established the rule of Parliament, and the promotion of the English Bill of Rights, all of which would become the model for the American Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

In 1789, 225 years ago, we had the French Revolution’s beginning, with its promotion of the concepts of liberty and equality, and it would affect the concept of revolutions in other nations over time, and also advocate the concept of popular sovereignty and democracy.

In 1914, 100 years ago, we saw the beginnings of the First World War, which would kill over 8 million people, bring about America’s first major international engagement, and lead to the rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, Fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany, all leading to World War II.

In 1939, 75 years ago, we had the beginnings of a war that caused even greater loss of life and property damage, World War II, and would see the horrors of the Holocaust, and the rise of America to leadership of the free world against the Soviet menace, and the beginnings of the Cold War.

In 1989, 25 years ago, we would see the end of the half century Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, led by the United States, with the Berlin Wall symbol, which had been built in 1961, suddenly coming to a dramatic end, and the liberation of the Eastern European nations which had been part of the Soviet Empire, followed by the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

We will see a lot of attention paid to these anniversaries this year, particularly the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War, as they have shaped so much of world history and American history in the past century!