Month: June 2014

Joe Biden View Of Iraq Correct: Three States, Not One!

Ronald 4 Comments

Vice President Joe Biden, as a US Senator and Presidential candidate in 2008, projected that the best future for Iraq was for the three warring, contending groups to become separate states, as the Iraq created by the British and French after World War I was unsustainable.

Biden was ridiculed and attacked for his statement and view, but it now looks more than ever, with sectarian violence among the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, along with the national ambitions of the Kurdish people in the Northern part of Iraq, that the best hope might well be a three state solution.

The only problem now is that extremist terrorist groups in Iraq and neighboring Syria, where a civil war has raged for more than three years, endangers not only such a scenario, but also the whole Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as American interests.

Since the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam have been at war for more than a thousand years in the Middle East, the best that can be hoped for is such a three state solution, with the hope that the extremism and terrorism can be contained and lessened.

This is all the outgrowth of the unnecessary, unwise, inexcusable war initiated by the George W. Bush–Dick Cheney–Donald Rumsfeld administration on Saddam Hussein, who despite his horrible regime, was not a direct threat to the United States.

Now the Biden idea, with a quelling of the terrorism aspect, is the best hope for the future, so let us salute Joe Biden for, once again, more than one realizes, being perceptive in foreign policy.

We could do far worse than Joe Biden as our potential 45th President of the United States, as the man has great knowledge, vision, and perceptions that make sense in foreign policy!

Ted Cruz Gives Up His Canadian Citizenship! The Question Is Why?

Ronald 3 Comments

Texas Tea Party Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a clearly ambitious seeker of the Presidency in 2016, has given up his dual citizenship as a Canadian citizen.

Born in Canada of a Cuban immigrant father and an American mother, and living in Calgary for his first four years, Cruz has, therefore, repudiated the nation in which he was born!

The question is why, as it is not unusual for someone to be a dual citizen of two nations, and to be proud of where he or she was born, as well as where he or she lives in the present.

It is not as if Canada is an unfriendly nation, or a dictatorship, or that Cruz has bad memories up to age 4 in his homeland.

So it is clear that Cruz is doing this to try to make people forget he was NOT born in the United States, and hopes to bypass questions about his citizenship, and ability to run for President.

It is ironic that Cruz is worried about this, when his supporters claim there is no problem, while at the same time, these same “Birthers” continue to assert that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, despite the newspaper reports of his birth, and his Hawaii birth certificate.

It is not totally clear that Cruz can run, but since his mother is American, it is thought that he can run, based on his mother’s citizenship.

But it all comes down to this: Ted Cruz would give up his soul, if need be, to become President of the United States!

However, Senator Cruz, be assured that even if you, somehow, became the GOP nominee, with your hateful, divisive, despicable views on every subject imaginable, there is no way you are going to win 270 electoral votes, the number needed to become President.

So dream on, but you will remain in the Senate, until, hopefully, San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro, who is Mexican American, runs against you in the midterm elections for Congress in 2018, and retires you from public office as someone who contributes nothing positive to American politics. Rather, you are one of the most divisive characters in American politics since Joseph McCarthy, to whom you have an amazing facial resemblance, as well as personality!

Barack Obama Becomes Fourth Sitting President To Visit Indian Reservation!

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President Barack Obama yesterday became the fourth sitting President to visit an Indian reservation, an acknowledgement of his respect and concern for the plight of native Americans, who remain the most oppressed minority group in America.

Earlier Presidents to visit Indian reservations while in office were Calvin Coolidge, who visited the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in 1927; Franklin D. Roosevelt, who visited the Cherokee nation in North Carolina in 1936; and Bill Clinton, who visited the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in 1999.

Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation in North Dakota. Obama has taken more action on Native American issues than any President, including:

Hosting a Tribal Nations Conference annually at the White House

Used Executive Orders on American Indian and Native Alaskan Education improvements

Launched a campaign against childhood obesity on Indian reservations

Signed the Tribal Law and Order Act to give more law enforcement authority to tribal law enforcement authorities

Reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act to allow prosecution of non native Americans who assault native American women on the reservations

Promoted disaster assistance by direct application of native American tribes

Allowed health care coverage under ObamaCare to the tribal reservations

Obama has shown an in depth awareness of the issues facing native Americans, and a willingness to do more than make a speech!

The tribe that Obama is visiting, sadly, has 79 percent unemployment, and a myriad of economic, social, and educational issues, including high child mortality, suicide, and dropout rates.

So much more needs to be done for native Americans, and at least, a good start has been made by Barack Obama!

Tea Party And Right Wing Talk Radio Against Kevin McCarthy As House Majority Leader!

Ronald 3 Comments

Now that Eric Cantor is being forced out of Congress by his Virginia district, the battle is on over who should be House Majority Leader, and the Tea Party Movement and Right Wing Talk Radio has come out fighting against present House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California.

Right wing radio critics, including Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham, who worked against Eric Cantor and for his opponent in the primary, David Brat, condemn McCarthy as part of the “Establishment”, as much as Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner, and the Tea Party is ready to fight anyone connected to any cooperation on any matter with Barack Obama. Despite strong opposition and criticism by Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy toward Barack Obama, they can all be accused of making some agreements with him, including ending the government shutdown, and planning some kind of immigration reform, although far less than Obama has wanted.

The fact is that McCarthy, as conservative as he is, comes across as “moderate”, less combative in rhetoric, more congenial, a more pleasant persona than either Cantor or Boehner. The fact that he comes from California is seen, however, as a negative, since the Tea Party gets its strength from the “heartland” of the nation.

The fear is that if McCarthy becomes second ranking House Republican, one is looking at the potential future Speaker of the House, as Cantor was thought to be, until his defeat this week.

So the civil war in the GOP continues to fester and boil over!

The Attack On Teacher Tenure An Attack On Education Itself!

Ronald 4 Comments

The decision of a California judge against teacher tenure in California is the alarm bell of attacks on public education, and really, educational standards itself!

There is no question that there are people in the teaching profession who should not be allowed to keep their jobs, due to incompetence, inappropriate behavior in the classroom, and refusal to update their skills and motivation to work.

There is, certainly, a need to give administrators the power to remove such teachers from the classroom and the profession, and therefore, there is a need for reform of tenure.

But the sweeping decision in California will promote right wing attacks on education itself, and will have deleterious effects as follows:

Veteran teachers who are at the top of the pay and benefits scale, after many years of hard work and dedication, could be forced out of the profession simply based on cost factors.

The ability of teachers to have academic freedom will be compromised, and it will discourage innovation and new ideas, out of fear of antagonizing administrators and parents.

The promotion of religion over science will be accelerated, creating a future of ignorance on the challenges that face us, and promoting instead a concept of obedience to the literal interpretation of the Bible, which already, one third of the American people believe in as fact.

The promotion of a flag waving patriotism, which sweeps historical reality and fact under the rug, and ignores the truth of our shortcomings and mistakes, is the promotion of a dangerous nationalism, which advocates the greatness of America, while showing lack of respect and knowledge of the rest of world history and civilization. This will also discourage the study of foreign languages and cultures, further isolating America from world affairs knowledge and understanding.

The movement to privatize education makes it a profit making institution, which education should not be, and will condemn generations of students to right wing propaganda, including attack on the institution of labor unions itself, which made America a middle class society, but now in danger of becoming an autocracy ruled by the top one percent of billionaires and millionaires for their own aggrandizement!

Happy 90th Birthday, President George H. W. Bush!

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Today is the 90th birthday of former President George H. W. Bush, whose wife, Barbara Bush, celebrated her 89th Birthday just four days ago! Bush is the third of four recent Presidents to reach the age of 90, along with Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and when Jimmy Carter reaches 90 on October 1, it will mean four consecutive Presidents have reached that magical age. Only John Adams and Herbert Hoover, of earlier Presidents, reached that age!

The Bushes are the longest lasting marriage of all Presidential marriages in history, and will reach 70 years early next year!

President Bush seemed close to the end just 19 months ago, at Thanksgiving 2012, but miraculously overcame the crisis, and now, despite being in a wheelchair full time, the 41st President remains active with family and intellectual matters!

Bush has now been out of office for 21 plus years, and his time in office began a quarter century ago in 1989!

Bush has become much respected and loved as the years have gone by, even though he suffered a bitter defeat to Bill Clinton in 1992, the second worst performance of an incumbent President running for reelection in American history.

The Bush Presidency continues to be an area of growing interest and debate, but Bush has become an elder statesman, much admired and appreciated.

So Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

29 Americans Killed In Afghanistan This Year, And 30 Killed In America By Firearms Every Day!

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It is depressing to know that 29 Americans have died in Afghanistan this year, as our troop involvement winds down, and with a total of over 2,300 killed over the 13 years of the Afghanistan War.

But 29 Americans killed in a war zone over six months, while disturbing, is nothing when compared to the reality that on the average day in America, 30 people of all ages, many of them children and teenagers, are murdered by firearms.

This means about 900 victims per month, or 11,000 per year, and that is only the deaths, not the injuries suffered by other victims.

We are the most violent society in the civilized world of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and it could be said the true war is here at home, not in Afghanistan!

74 school shootings have occurred since the Sandy Hook Massacre in December 2012, and yet no action of any kind, totally unconscionable!

We are witnessing mass murder before our eyes, and we are desensitized totally, a disgraceful situation!

Eric Cantor Defeat Most Stunning In Decades!

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An earthquake occurred yesterday in the rural Seventh Congressional District of Virginia, the home of Richmond Congressman Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader.

Every poll predicted an easy victory for Cantor against a more right wing opponent, Randolph Macon College Professor of Economics, David Brat, who was unknown, and only spent one dollar for every 25 spent by Cantor, and had a staff of two people,instead of the 23 that Cantor had in his Congressional offices in Washington, DC.

But Brat solidly defeated Cantor by 56-44 percent, by over 7,000 votes in the GOP primary, and it has totally shook up the Republican Party and the House of Representatives and its leadership.

It is not as if Eric Cantor was a “liberal”, but rather that he worked “tooth and nail” against Barack Obama for the last five and a half years, and helped to encourage the Tea Party Movement in the House of Representatives, often creating headaches for Speaker of the House John Boehner, comparatively more moderate in his conservatism than Eric Cantor.

But Cantor was not right wing enough, as he was moving toward support of some sort of immigration reform, and David Brat, a believer in Ayn Rand and her libertarianism, and with much of his graduate education being based on a divinity degree, decided to challenge Cantor, in an effort to make the Republicans more right wing than they have ever been as a party.

This man, David Brat, is far from a typical professor, and his candidacy makes him a star to the right wing talk show hosts on radio, and Tea Party groups, but he comes with an agenda that endangers the future of the GOP!

Cantor got what he deserved, as he was a mean spirited, narrow minded, bigoted leader of his party, unwilling to do any bargaining with Barack Obama, relishing in his plan to replace Boehner as Speaker.

Cantor repudiated the tradition of his Jewish faith, to do nothing to harm those less fortunate,and to be an advocate of social justice, and he is someone we can say with clarity–GOOD RIDDANCE! The problem is, however, that Brat represents a viewpoint even more objectionable than Cantor, and an extremist right wing Christian theology, that is very worrisome!

And Brat’s victory means the GOP is moving more than ever toward being more white, more male, more conservatives, more Southern, older, and more exclusively Christian, as Cantor was the only Republican of Jewish heritage on Capitol Hill!

The Republican Party, as stated many times before, is becoming more eccentric, more extremist, more radicalized, and more isolated from reality of what the future America is to be like–the growing role of African Americans, Latinos, women, gays and lesbians, the millennial generation, less religious, and desirous of government that promotes social justice, rather than ignorance, prejudice, racism, discrimination, misogyny, and narrow mindedness!

Right Wing Extremist Groups Multiply Eight Times Since Barack Obama Became President!

Ronald 2 Comments

With the tragic news of two police officers murdered in Nevada over the weekend by an extremist right wing couple connected to the Cliven Bundy showoff with the Bureau of Land Management two months ago, it is more clear than ever how dangerous so called “patriot” groups, white supremacists, secessionists, and racists are to the political stability of this country! This is the Ku Klux Klan, Nazi elements, and the John Birch Society remnants come back to life, as if they ever had disappeared!

Statisics show an over 800 percent increase in such groups since Barack Obama became President, and the Republican extremists in the House of Representatives and the Senate, plus the right wing talk shows hosts on radio and Fox News Channel and guests that encourage such bigotry, racism, and fear of the national government, are responsible for what is happening, as they make our President out to be the devil incarnate!

Respect for the government, for law, and for law enforcement officers, has rapidly declined, and more acquisition of firearms by extremists who plot against the government and the police, presents an alarming situation.

And as has been demonstrated by the Secret Service, and other sources, death threats against President Obama continue to multiply, increasing the chances that just one time, it might succeed, and lead to a horrible tragedy.

This author has stated this before, that we must stop the hate, the division, the bigotry, and condemn those who promote it, as we do not wish or need another tragedy, such as the tragedy a half century ago in Dallas, when our youngest President ever elected, and the first Roman Catholic, John F. Kennedy, was brutally assassinated, a tragedy we are still unable to recover from in a complete fashion!

Senator John McCain: The Warmonger And Total Hypocrite!

Ronald 5 Comments

Senator John McCain is off on a new tear, attacking President Barack Obama over the freeing of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdhal!

Four months ago, McCain was attacking Obama for failing to resolve the captivity of Bowe Bergdhal in Taliban hands for nearly five years, declaring that America NEVER leaves its soldiers behind, and negotiates to accomplish their freedom.

Senator McCain is, once again, being a total hypocrite, and he has well displayed that he is a warmonger, ready to send troops into every nation in the world that has revolution or turmoil, including Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Ukraine among others!

There is no military conflict that McCain seems to think America should and can avoid, despite the war weariness of the American people after 13 years of war in Afghanistan and almost nine years of war in Iraq, creaing the massive number of war veterans that now need physical and psychological care!

We can thank divine grace for the fact that John McCain was NOT elected President, and also that we were not cursed by a Vice President Sarah Palin, who continues to poison the political atmosphere with her stupid, inane, and divisive rhetoric! Additionally, with the advanced age of McCain, we would have to live with the nightmare possibility of a President Palin!

McCain should be condemned for his double standard, saying one view out of one side of his mouth, and another opposing view out of the other side of his mouth! Hopefully, he will NOT run for reelection to the Senate in 2016!