Arkansas

The Potential For A Massive Hillary Clinton Landslide Of Historic Proportions In 2016!

Ronald 7 Comments

The Republican Party is managing, by its rhetoric, including most recently, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, to insult women about their libidos, and that only helps the Democratic Party and its likely Presidential nominee in 2016, Hillary Clinton.

Between the issue of women, and also alienation of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, gays and lesbians, labor, environmentalists, the struggling middle class, the poor, those who believe in science’s validity over religious dogma, and those who have an open mind on social issues, the GOP is continuing to promote its own suicide, and the potential is there for a massive Hillary Clinton landslide of historic proportions, particularly for a Democrat!

The assumption is that Hillary Clinton can count on the 26 states and the District of Columbia which voted for Barack Obama in 2012.

Additionally, the potential for Indiana and North Carolina, which voted for Obama in 2008 but then turned “Red””, to go back to the Democrats, is seen as highly likely.

Then, the states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas in the South, along with Arizona and Montana in the West, and Missouri in the Midwest, (usually a bellwether state but not so in 2008 and 2012) to go Democratic in 2016, particularly with the growing Hispanic and Latino population, is seen as possible, or if not in 2020 for sure.

That would make 34 states, and then there is the issue of five other states which went for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but then turned “Red”, so the question is could the wife of Bill Clinton, because of the Clinton brand 20-25 years ago, by 2016, be able to convince those five states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana) to switch over to the Democrats, with those states also having growing numbers of Hispanics and Latinos? After all, Arkansas is the Clintons’ “home” state, and Tennessee was Vice President Al Gore”s “home” state, while the other three states, all extremely poor and deprived, were Democratic in the 1990s!

So the maximum number of states could be 39, plus the District of Columbia, leaving only eleven states which were solidly Republican in the 1990s, and have remained “Red” ever since—Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska.

So were those eleven states to vote predictably, which is extremely likely, the GOP nominee for President would have ONLY 55 electoral votes, meaning Hillary Clinton would have won a grand total of 483 electoral votes! Imagine an election of 483-55 for the Democratic Party, which would certainly make for a Democratic dominance in the Senate and a majority in the House of Representatives, as well, as such an electoral vote landslide would insure a “coattail” effect!

Three Significant Events In 24 Hours 41 Years Ago!

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Forty one years ago, on January 22-23, three significant events occurred, all of which had a massive effect on the history of the United States!

Lyndon B. Johnson, the architect of the “Great Society” domestic reform programs, the greatest since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, died at age 64. Much of his Great Society remains part of our lives today, including:

Civil Rights Act of 1964
Voting Rights Act of 1965
War On Poverty (some elements of the program)
Medicare and Medicaid
Federal Aid to Education
Environmental Laws
Consumer Protection Laws
National Public Radio and PBS

Additionally, just hours after his death, the Vietnam War came to an end by a peace agreement in Paris, ending the combat role of American troops after twelve years of war under John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. The war had divided us, and still has an impact on the veterans of that war today, but at least the US now has diplomatic relations and trade with Vietnam, something that seemed impossible to imagine four decades ago, after the loss of 58,000 Americans in that war, and over a million or more in Vietnam itself.

The third event that transformed us was the Supreme Court decision in Roe V. Wade, allowing women control of their reproductive lives and their bodies, in the first two trimesters of pregnancy, as well as promoting contraception to avoid pregnancy.

The so called “Pro Life” movement, really anti abortion, has worked very hard to limit the rights of women, trying to cut the period of allowance of an abortion to as low as six weeks in Arkansas and 12 weeks in North Dakota, as well as 20 weeks in many other states, but thankfully, federal district court and circuit court judges have prevented the enforcement of such illegal limits. But the battle for women’s rights goes on.

So January 22-23, 1973, was indeed a very big day, a moment in history of tremendous significance!

The Greatest Rockefeller In Public Office, With The Least Fanfare!

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A long unsung hero in American politics and the US Senate is West Virginia’s former Governor Jay Rockefeller, who is retiring as Senator after thirty years of service at the end of 2014.

The only Democrat in the Rockefeller family political history has been an outstanding Senator for one of the poorest states, and will be remembered for how much he has done to promote the economic future of his state.

Jay Rockefeller could have replaced Senator Robert F. Kennedy by appointment of his uncle, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, in 1968, but refused the opportunity and moved to the poor state of West Virginia, with the intention of bringing reform and change to his adopted state. He also refused to allow his father in law, Illinois Republican Senator Charles Percy, to use his influence in any way.

Instead, Jay Rockefeller worked his way up the political struggles to become a member of the West Virginia state legislature, Secretary of State, Governor of the state for two terms, and now finishing five terms in the US Senate.

Unlike his more famous uncle, Nelson Rockefeller, who sought the Presidency three times and was Vice President under Gerald Ford, Jay Rockefeller was satisfied to have an influence on his state, and to promote liberal Democratic ideas. He is now also actively engaged in investigation of the Chris Christie scandal, and is unafraid of challenging the status quo and the establishment’s leaders, always having supported and promoted progressive causes.

Jay Rockefeller has turned out to be more significant in many ways than his uncle Nelson, hard to believe, and certainly more so than his other uncle, Winthrop, Republican Governor of Arkansas in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And his career has been much longer, without any interest in seeking the Presidency in his younger years.

So Jay Rockefeller will be much missed when he retires from his distinguished career in the Senate at the end of this year!

The “New” South Vs. The “Old” South

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The American South has undergone a lot of change in the past half century since the March On Washington in 1963.

Many Northerners have moved South; many people of African American and Latino heritage have grown up in an environment where segregation and open prejudice is gone: and we have seen Southern Presidents who completely represented a different image of the South.

So we have President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who overcame his past and his heritage, and promoted the Civil Rights Revolution, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We have Jimmy Carter of Georgia, the first Southerner elected from outside since Zachary Taylor in 1848, representing the “New South” Governors elected in 1970, including Ruben Askew of Florida and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. Carter promoted advancements in civil rights and human rights, and demonstrated then, and right up to this moment, that he is a very principled, decent man.

And we have Bill Clinton, elected Governor of Arkansas, representing the New South tradition after Dale Bumpers had initiated it in Arkansas, and being a major promoter of civil rights and equality during his Presidency, as much as Johnson and Carter.

And we have John Lewis, the only surviving speaker at the March on Washington, now 73 years old, and carrying on the tradition of his mentor, Martin Luther King, Jr. He has been an exemplary Congressman from Georgia, and truly the conscience of the nation on civil rights!

These four gentlemen, three Presidents and a Congressman, represent the best of the “New South”!

The “Old South” was thought to be overcome, particularly over time with the death of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and others of their ilk.

But as it turns out, the “Old South” mentality has survived even past these two GOP leaders who promoted segregation and hate, as the 2013 Republican Party, with the evil influence of the Tea Party Movement, is working very hard to back track on racial equality, racial progress, racial justice, and using code language to appeal to the bigots and racists who remain in America, whether in the South or Midwest or Great Plains areas of the nation, and hoping to repeal the progress of the past half century.

They do this without shame or embarrassment, and that is what is most troubling, and they even have their talk show hosts on radio and television and cable, who spew forth hateful and divisive propaganda with no apologies–Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity et al—and make millions on promotion of hate and division, rather than trying to bring us together and move forward!

So the “Old South” is, ironically, surviving in the party of Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and the other principled Republicans of 150 years ago, who fought against the “Old South” and slavery, and would, if they were here today, hold their heads in their hands, and weep over what the Republican Party they loved, has become!

Sad Independence Day: Reality Of Assault On Rights Of Women, Gays, Immigrants, African Americans, And Those Less Fortunate

Ronald 5 Comments

As we celebrate the 237th Independence Day, and appreciate what ir represents, there is an unprecedented attack going on in many states and among Republican members of Congress to take away the hard earned rights of various groups of vulnerable Americans, and to deny the freedom and liberty that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights represents!

Women’s right to their reproductive lives and their fundamental health are being assaulted by Republican state legislatures and Governors in a rapid, non transparent way, and shutting off opposition in states including Texas, Ohio, North Carolina at present, and in other states in the recent past, including Virginia, North Dakota, Arkansas and Kansas!

The attempt to deny equality of rights and privileges to gay Americans is in full swing in many of the “Red” or Republican states, and the level of hate against these groups by political and religious spokesmen is unprecedented!

The fight against dealing with the presence of immigrants who would have to meet strict standards to move toward citizenship, and with increased border security and building of a wall between Mexico and the United States, is in full swing, including assault on the courageous Republicans trying to resolve this issue in a fair and just manner, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has been subjected to extremist Tea Party types who have declared war on him.

The move of many Southern states toward creating new barriers for people to vote, with the aim to cut the vote of minorities, the elderly, the disabled and college students, is in full swing forward since the Supreme Court ruled that there was no more racism or discrimination in voting in those states, when it is clear what the motivation of those states really is! The states of Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas are already, rapidly, working toward new restrictions, free to do so, in their minds, because of what the Republican Supreme Court majority did last week!

And, of course, 23 states, at least, are refusing to expand Medicaid for those less fortunate, who have no health care coverage as things stand, except in emergency situations in emergency rooms, at a much more costly fee, and not necessarily available to all!

So the battle for freedom, human and civil rights, justice, and equality continues, even as we can celebrate the great experiment of the United States, seen as a paragon around the world, but still needing a lot of work to bring about the “more perfect Union”!

Former Presidential Contenders Who Have Gone Far Right Since: Mike Huckabee And Lamar Alexander

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When one looks back at past Presidential campaigns at the numerous Presidential wannabees who failed to gain the nomination, one realizes the evolution of some of them from a respectable moderate conservative view to an extremist far Right advocacy now!

It is astounding to see people the author once respected going off the deep end, in their desire to conform to the Tea Party crowd!

Two such examples are former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who sought the GOP nomination in 2008, and former Tennessee Governor and Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, who sought the Presidency in 1996 and 2000, and served as Education Secretary under President George H. W. Bush.

Huckabee has his own talk show on radio and a Fox News Channel show as well, and he sounds like a total right wing lunatic these days, instead of the reasonable, personable conservative he was as Governor and as a candidate for President. It is astounding how he has caved in to the Tea Party crowd in his mad quest to enrich himself by saying what his right wing audience wants to hear!

And Alexander, now a Senator from Tennessee, was someone to be respected, but now is off the wall in his views, including wishing to end the minimum wage, which is already way behind the cost of living, but yet he wants to keep low wage workers in permanent poverty!

Both should be ashamed of themselves, as their legacy will be the destruction of their reasonable moderate conservative image, which at the time of the Presidential Elections of 1996, 2000, and 2008, made them decent alternatives to Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain!

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee Has Become A Total Lunatic By Predicting That Barack Obama Will Not Finish Second Presidential Term!

Ronald 11 Comments

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was one of many Republicans who sought the Presidency in 2008, and while not winning the nomination, he came across as a strong conservative with somewhat reasonable views, seen as in the mainstream of the party for that election year. He even came across as likeable and pleasant in personality.

However, once Huckabee gained a radio talk show and an hour on the weekend on Fox News Channel, he went berserk, the best term that can be applied to a man who moved to the “hard” right and has emerged as a delusional and whacky man in his statements, making him a lunatic to any reasonable, rational human being!

And now, Huckabee has declared that the Benghazi, Libya tragedy makes it likely that Barack Obama will be impeached, and be unable to finish his second term as President!

Think about just how loony that statement is! Could Obama be impeached by the Republican controlled House of Representatives? YES, for certain, similar to the 105th Congress under Speaker Newt Gingrich which impeached Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998!

But Clinton ended up, even with a Republican controlled Senate, having votes to remove him from office on two impeachment counts, with a 50-50 tie and a 55-45 vote to remove, making it 17 and 12 votes short of removal from office by a two thirds vote!

And now, the Senate is Democratic 55-45, and even if a Senate trial came in 2015 or 2016, with a possible Republican controlled Senate, there would still be no more than, say, 53-54 Republican Senators, and where would the GOP gain anywhere from 13 Senators then to 22 Senators this year or next to convict and remove Obama from the Presidency?

Huckabee is a true lunatic, therefore, and even if it were to happen, all it would do is give Vice President Joe Biden the Presidency, and an edge for the Presidential Election of 2016, which no one should think would lead to his likely defeat as a sitting President. So what would be gained by the GOP removing a term limited President?:

The answer is, simply, race hatred, pure and simple! There is NO justification to impeach and remove Obama, anymore than there was for Bill Clinton, and just as with Clinton, an impeachment would besmirch Obama in history, but he would still survive in office, and leave more popular as a result, just as with Clinton, who has become a “rock star” in his post Presidency!

The Senate In Crisis A Century After The 17th Amendment

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The US Senate was a very undemocratic institution a century ago, controlled by special interests, including the oil, steel, banking and other trusts and monopolies, and its membership selected by the vote of corrupt state legislatures across the nation.

The Senate was exposed for its faults and corruption by David Graham Phillips in his article in 1906 in Cosmopolitan Magazine, which has been reprinted in 2012, an article of 108 pages, a small book, exposing the corruption of Senate Majority Leader Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. This was followed up by other articles in muckraking periodicals, exposing the corruption of other US Senators.

These articles motivated a reform movement, leading to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, establishing popular vote elections for the US Senate. It did not mean that every Senator elected was brilliant, or a positive force, but at least the people had the final say on who would represent them, as in the US House of Representatives!

Now, a century later, the US Senate is in paralysis, greatly due to the abuse of the filibuster system, which now requires 60 Senators to end a filibuster, while it used to be even worse, 67 before reforms in 1975. The filibuster was originally utilized to stop civil rights advancements, but now it is used to prevent any action on many nominations and many bills, effectively hamstringing any progress or change on anything controversial.

But also, it is clear that special interest groups, similar to those a century ago, but more such groups and more widespread, have made the US Senate captive again.

And with growing differences in population in coastline states, as compared to states in the interior, we are finding the concept of each state having two US Senators, whether they represent millions of citizens, or just hundreds of thousands of citizens, becoming one where states with few people, are able to stop what the majority of the American people want!

Four Democratic Senators, scared to death of the National Rifle Association, end up refusing to support the end of the filibuster on extended background checks on gun sales, and yet these Senators represent small populated states (North Dakota, Alaska, Montana, Arkansas) which represent only about 5.4 million people, out of a national total of 309 million people, meaning they represent 1.6 percent of the people, in a nation in which up to 90 percent, including gun owners, want extended background checks on gun sales.

We allow the 49th 48th, 45th, and 33rd states in population to hamstring the rest of the nation, absolutely insane when one thinks about it, and this is not just true on one issue, but many!

This problem of small populated states,the abuse of the filibuster, and special interest groups (including major corporations) is a situation which threatens resolution of ANY major issue facing the nation in the 21st century, unless, somehow, some kind of reform of an outdated system of the 18th century is brought about, which is extremely unlikely!

The Kermit Gosnell Case: Abortion Gone Mad, Totally Unacceptable!

Ronald 5 Comments

The Kermit Gosnell case, of a doctor on trial in Philadelphia, for the murder of seven children born alive in the third trimester, along with the death of a pregnant woman, is horrific and does the abortion cause no good!

The thought of a live child screaming in pain and having it slaughtered as if it was not a life that deserved to live is an image that is hard to absorb and to see as justified, no matter what the intention of the mother involved!

Abortion rights are granted under Roe V. Wade forty years ago, but it should not be allowed to include such butchery of a fetus which can survive outside the womb if it is given appropriate medical care!

The move in North Dakota to forbid abortions after six weeks, and in Arkansas after twelve weeks, is one extreme, while the Gosnell case is the other extreme, and neither extreme is acceptable by any means or rationale!

As Bill Clinton has said, abortion should be safe, legal, and rare–with emphasis on all three factors—and even if the life of the mother is at stake, every attempt should be made to save the life of the child once it has reached what is seen as viability!

To deny the dignity of a viable fetus is reprehensible, and we must move away from extremism of the anti abortion advocates, as well as the extremism of the pro abortion advocates toward common sanity!

Total Poverty, Deprivation, Lack Of Safety Net For Substantial Numbers Of Americans The Reality: The “American Dream” Denied!

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Despite the denial and lack of concern of many conservatives and Republicans about the tremendous maldistribution of wealth which has developed in the thirty two years since Ronald Reagan came to the Presidency, new statistics indicate just how desperate many Americans are, and how that desperation is particularly obvious in the South and in the Southwest parts of the United States.

Nearly half of US households, containing about 132 million Americans are in a dire situation, where they do not have any emergency funds for as little as three months, if a natural disaster, medical emergency or sudden unemployment occurred.

Think of the mental anguish these people go through if any of the above emergencies suddenly arise, with a feeling of no hope, and the possibility of homelessness, total destruction of personal credit, and the likelihood of becoming sick from stress itself!

Thirty percent of Americans do not have a savings account, and eight percent do not have any bank account at all.

In ten states, the poverty and hopelessness of a substantial part of the population is most evident, including in order:

Nevada
Georgia
Mississippi
Florida
Arkansas
North Carolina
Tennessee
New Mexico
Arizona
Louisiana

Notice also that only three states of these ten listed are “Blue” or Democratic (Nevada, Florida, New Mexico), while the other seven are “Red” or Republican.

With so many people in these states and others having little or no health insurance coverage, and low wage jobs predominating, and high credit card debt levels, one wonders how these unfortunate citizens cope with waking up daily, with such gloom and doom on the horizon! The “American Dream” is being denied!