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The Republican Whom Hillary Clinton And Other Potential Democratic Presidential Nominees In 2016 Should Most Fear: Jon Huntsman!

Ronald 41 Comments

Former Utah Governor, former Ambassador to China, and former GOP Presidential contender Jon Huntsman is on MORNING JOE as I write, and thinking ahead to 2016, one realizes that this is the Republican whom Hillary Clinton and other potential Democratic Presidential nominees in 2016 should most fear as a rival!

Huntsman is so SUPER qualified, it is a no brainer, as compared to ANY other potential GOP nominee for President! He walks all over Jeb Bush; has foreign policy experience which NO other potential nominee has; and has NEVER said or done anything to make him look ridiculous or looney, which cannot be said of any other potential nominee, including Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and the other wing nuts who are seen as potential nominees!

This man had a fantastic record as Governor of Utah, and is a foreign policy genius, and other Republicans show their total ignorance of the world out there, and seem to think that the only answer is either to send troops (a la Lindsey Graham and John McCain), or turn off the outside world (a la Rand Paul)!

If the GOP had their druthers, they would see that Huntsman is their best shot for the Presidency, and would give Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or any other Democrat a real run for their money!

And if, by chance, Huntsman were to win, we would have a sane, decent, mainstream Republican inheriting the Oval Office, and we could sleep at night, secure that our nation was in safe, experienced hands!

The Historic Dust Storm Of 1934, And The Heat Trapping Gas Milestone Just Reached: An Environmental Crisis Has Begun!

Ronald 2 Comments

79 years ago, the historic dust storm that swept across the Great Plains all the way east, marking the Dust Bowl beginnings that plagued the middle of the nation during the 1930s, occurred, and it is ironic that on this horrible anniversary, it has now been revealed that the heat trapping gas level that last existed three million years ago, has reoccurred!

We are now in the midst of a massive environmental crisis worldwide, and yet, our government has to fight the science and environmental deniers, including moronic Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who would rather threaten impeachment of President Obama than deal with the reality of the need to do something about the damage being done by our industries and mankind in general, to the future of human existence!

The carbon dioxide level is 41 percent higher since the Industrial Revolution. an alarming development. Of course, the US cannot solve the issue alone, and needs the backing of other nations, including China, but IF we are unwilling to do anything as the number one power in the world, then the future is gloomy indeed for the long range!

The Korean Crisis Could Be The Most Important Foreign Policy Moment For Barack Obama!

Ronald 2 Comments

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, along with other top administration officials, now face what is likely to be the most profound crisis in foreign policy of the Obama Presidency.

We could be on the edge of a major war in the Korean peninsula, with the potential for a massive loss of life in South Korea and Japan, and danger to our own troops, presently numbering 28,000 brave men and women.

Kim Jong Un is a young man who should not be in power, has nuclear capability, and is even worrying his neighbor, China, with his reckless statements and actions.

It will take all of the statesmanship and courage of our leadership to resolve this without a major disaster, and the prognosis seems grim indeed!

A Time For Foreign Policy Experts To Be Utilized Over Korean Crisis–Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, Jon Huntsman

Ronald 5 Comments

The crisis that has arisen over North Korea’s bullying and nuclear threats represents a danger to international stability in Asia, worrying not only the United States, but also South Korea and Japan, and even next door neighbor China.

Kim Jong Un, 29 years old, is clearly a wild card in the greatest description of the term, and could incite a major war that could devastate prosperous South Korea, and endanger US troops there and in Japan and the American territory of Guam, along with what seems like crazy threats to Hawaii, California, Texas, and Washington DC.

The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, have their hands full, and rationality and balance in response is required of President Barack Obama in what could become the major foreign policy crisis of his administration.

In the past, former Presidents and Vice Presidents have been utilized as contacts with North Korea—meaning Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, along with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Additionally, former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is an acknowledged expert on China and its neighbors.

It might be time to utilize Carter, Clinton, Gore, Richardson or Huntsman to figure out how to communicate with Kim Jong Un and resolve the tinderbox without war. President Obama would be wise to consider such diplomacy, in order to cut down the chance of war that no one can win!

Second Term Presidencies Taken Over By Foreign Crises: Will It Happen Again Now?

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Three American Presidents in the last hundred years have been faced by foreign crises leading to war, and disrupting their domestic intentions for their second term of office. All three hoped to accomplish much more internally, but were distracted and diverted by major wars they could not avoid.

Woodrow Wilson had accomplished the most domestic reform in American history of any President until his time, but then World War I intruded, and his second term was dominated by the war and its aftermath.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had surpassed Woodrow Wilson in domestic accomplishments in his first term with his New Deal, but his second term became one of growing concern over the threat of the Japanese Empire to our territories (Hawaii, Guam, The Philippines) in the Pacific, plus the growing threat of Fascism and Nazism represented by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in Europe—leading to concern of its effect on our traditional European friends if not formal allies, Great Britain and France. Although America would not enter World War II until FDR’s third term, the threat of war was ever present, and divided this nation in a massive way between internationalists and isolationists.

Harry Truman had a much more difficult time domestically, and had to deal with the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but hoped to promote a Fair Deal in his second term, but instead had to deal with the Korean War.

Now, Barack Obama faces the growing threat of real war with two nations who have lunatic leadership, and are capable of provoking major wars, emboldened by their nuclear intentions—Iran and North Korea.

Iran moves ahead on nuclear development, unaffected by the major nations bringing pressure and economic sanctions on them, and still seen as potentially able to threaten the survival of Israel, and cause a major cut off of oil in the Straits of Hormuz. While President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is leaving in June, it is clear that the Ayatollah Khamenei and the extremist Shiite Muslim leadership really dictates policy, and that anything is possible, including war.

North Korea, under its new young (30) leader, Kim Jong Un, has now declared that the truce agreement which ended the Korean War sixty years ago is null and void; has been testing nuclear weapons against international outcry, including China; and has threatened this past week that it might launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on South Korea and the United States. This all seems bluster, but who can say for sure?

So our need as a nation to face the possibility of war with two international outlaws makes the whole budget issue much more complex, and makes the odds of more domestic reform activities all the harder to accomplish.

Much like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, Barack Obama may face being a war President against his will, and his Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will be sorely tested over the next four years in their hope to avoid a war, just as we are trying to exit a war in Afghanistan, after having done just that in Iraq!

Transformative Presidents In Diplomacy And Foreign Affairs

Ronald 3 Comments

With Presidents Day coming up on Monday, this is a good time to assess the Presidents who were transformative in diplomacy and foreign affairs.

The Presidents who truly made a difference in foreign policy would include the following, chronologically:

Thomas Jefferson—who presided over the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 negotiated with France, and the handling of the Chesapeake Affair of 1807, avoiding war with Great Britain, but causing decline in public opinion about Jefferson as he left office, due to the economic decline caused by the Embargo Act.

James Monroe—who, with the brilliant leadership of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, was able to gain control of Florida in 1819, settle much of the Canadian boundary in the same time frame, and promote the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, a major part of American foreign policy in the future.

James K. Polk—under whom the Pacific Northwest was gained by negotiation with Great Britain, and the American Southwest and California by war with Mexico between 1846 and 1848.

William McKinley—under whom Hawaii was added as a territory, and America gained an “Empire” by engagement in the Spanish American War in 1898.

Theodore Roosevelt—under whom America fully engaged with the outside world, including foreign crises and wars in Europe and Asia, as well as growing intervention in Latin America between 1901-1909.

Woodrow Wilson—under whom America fully entered into international war involvement in the First World War in 1917, and then rejected internationalism as Wilson left office in 1921.

Franklin D. Roosevelt—who took America out of isolationism in the late 1930s, and presided over our involvement in World War II between 1941-1945, and the growth of America as a super power by 1945.

Harry Truman—who led us into the Cold War with the Soviet Union after 1945, with transitional foreign policy leadership that set the mold for the next half century until 1991.

Richard Nixon—who moved America toward detente with the Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union, and opened up to mainland China between 1969 and 1974.

George H. W, Bush—who smoothed the end of the Cold War, was receptive to a unified Germany as a result, and created a coalition to prevent Iraqi domination in the Middle East in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Other Presidents who had an impact on diplomacy and foreign affairs in a major, if not transformative manner, would include:

George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George W. Bush

Sadly, Lyndon B, Johnson and George W. Bush were mostly negative forces in foreign affairs; Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were mixed in their results; while George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy were much more positive.

The Centennial Of Richard Nixon

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Today marks a century since Richard Nixon’s birth, and without any question, he is the most controversial American President of the 43 men who have held that office.

After barely losing in 1960, with the belief that his opponent, John F. Kennedy, had stolen the election in Chicago and in Texas, Nixon came back miraculously eight years later, and won a very close election over Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. He proceeded to win a massive victory over George McGovern in 1972, the greatest landslide in electoral votes since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, winning all but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. A year and a half later, he was the only President who, due to the Watergate scandal, resigned from office, with the certainty of an impeachment in the House of Representatives and conviction in the US Senate had he not resigned.

Nixon knew the peaks and the valleys of the Presidency like no one ever has to the same extent before or since. He is a great Shakespearean type character, a human tragedy, a man with great intellect, but also great personal demons; a man of great accomplishments in many ways, but also great hates, resentments, insecurities and a large level of paranoia; a man who in many ways was the last “progressive” Republican President, but also catered to the right wing narrow mindedness and mean spiritedness; a man who had many controversial moments in his public career, but was consulted by future Presidents over the next twenty years due to his knowledge and expertise in foreign affairs; and a man, who, while hated more than any President since Abraham Lincoln, and only surpassed in level of hate by Barack Obama since, stands out as, without a doubt, the most significant President in his impact in the half century from his coming to Congress in 1947 until his death in 1994 at age 81.

This author grew up with intense feelings against Richard Nixon and started his career in the time of the Watergate scandal. Only after Nixon’s death and a semester sabbatical devoted to the study of all aspects of Nixon’s life, did this author start to see Nixon in a different light. As often told to students, this author no longer despises Nixon, but rather sees him as a tragic figure, who did a lot of good, but had his demons overtake him and destroy him. So this author now has respect for the good side of Nixon, while still condemning his evil side and illegal actions in office.

Richard Nixon will always be remembered positively for:

Opening up to mainland China
Negotiating the beginning of “detente”—the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union
Preventing Soviet military intervention in the Middle East during the Yom Kippur War
The ending of the military draft
The Environmental Protection Agency
The Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Affirmative Action
Wage and Price Controls

Nixon will be condemned for:

Dragging out the Vietnam War for four more years
Taking sides with Pakistan in the War Against India and Bangladesh
Supporting the overthrow of Chilean democracy by Augusto Pinochet
Supporting the Greek dictatorship of George Papadoupoulous
Bugging, Wire Tapping, and Break Ins under Presidential Order
The Watergate Scandal

This is just a brief summary of Nixon’s Presidency, and there already has been a lot of research conducted, but there is plenty of room for further scholarly investigation and debate, but suffice it to say that Richard Nixon had an impact on America still being felt a century after his birth and nineteen years after his death!

Chuck Hagel And The Bloated Defense Budget

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Newly nominated Defense Department Secretary Chuck Hagel was a war hero, wounded in Vietnam, helping his brother in the war theatre, being himself an enlisted man and first Vietnam veteran to be nominated to lead the Pentagon, and now he faces the neoconservatives, many of whom NEVER served in the military, and have no real concept of what life is like for the average soldier in the war theatres, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or earlier in Vietnam!

As President Barack Obama said yesterday, Hagel can relate to the soldiers bleeding in the soil and mud of combat zones, since he experienced it himself. And Hagel knows that there is a lot of unnecessary waste, fraud, abuse in defense spending, and that America no longer can commit major combat troops all over the world, and that there is a need for a cutback in our defense spending, which has gone out of control since September 11, 2001.

We have over $700 billion a year spent on defense now, more than the next THIRTEEN nations combined, and this includes many of our own allies and friends. But even China, with four times our population, has a miniscule amount of money spent annually on defense!

The question is why we need such a large number of bases all over the world, particularly in Germany and Japan, but also the multitude of bases in many other nations that most Americans are not even aware of the extent of our military commitment, which eats up money that could better be spent on domestic needs!

Chuck Hagel is the right man to cut back unnecessary bases and spending, as he is not beholden to the Defense establishment, and knows how to position our military to deal with threats in the future.

Barack Obama is perceptive in his choice of Hagel, and while there will be a battle over his nomination, the inconsistencies of his critics will be displayed in testimony, including laudatory comments by Mitch McConnell and John McCain and many others, who once thought Hagel was an outstanding colleague and showed regret when he chose not to run for another Senate term in 2008, in disgust at the partisanship and pettiness that existed.

Just because he chose to be an independent person, a maverick, is no reason to deny his capablities and talents to be Secretary of Defense, and politics should “stop at the water’s edge” when it comes to the operation of the Pentagon!

Hagel is worth fighting for, and despite opposition, the nation will be fortunate to have this courageous Republican maverick as the creative, reformist oriented leader that our Defense Department needs in the second decade of the 21st century as we face the need for budget reform and savings on expenditures!

Evaluating Woodrow Wilson A Century After His Election To The Presidency, And On His 156th Birthday Commemoration!

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Woodrow Wilson, our 28th President, was born on this day in 1856, and was elected President in the four way race of 1912, running against Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Eugene Debs, arguably the most exciting Presidential election in American History.

The President with the least government experience, only two years as Governor of New Jersey; the only earned PH. D. to become President; the first President elected who grew up in the South (Virginia) since the Civil War; the President to face the greatest war crisis since Abraham Lincoln; the President who emphasized the importance of international affairs and the need for an international organization to promote peace; the President who was the culmination of the Progressive reform movements of the early 20th century; and the President who promoted successfully his domestic agenda, and then took on Theodore Roosevelt’s even more advanced progressive ideas and made them his own—this President has also been bitterly attacked by many for his shortcomings in many areas, and particularly has been viciously attacked by right wing conservatives, including Glenn Beck and George Will, who have torn his image to shreds.

Well, the question is whether the attacks on Wilson are fair and just, so that requires a careful examination of the positive and negative aspects of his Presidency.

Let’s start with the negative points that can be made about Wilson, and they are plenty!

1. Wilson was a white supremacist, despite his stellar education, and failed to treat people of African, Asian, and Latin American heritage in a dignified way, whether in the nation or with foreign nations overseas. His treatment of China, Japan, Mexico, Haiti and governments of other nations outside of Europe were treated in an insensitive and unacceptable manner, and he issued an executive order mandating segregation of the races in Washington, DC, and failed to recognize the contributions of soldiers of other than the Caucasian race during World War I. He legitimized and set back mistreatment of African Americans for another thirty years, until progress was made by President Harry Truman after World War II.

2. Wilson, inexplicably, opposed the woman suffrage movement, and had suffragettes arrested for disturbing the peace in their marches on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. Theodore Roosevelt had proposed this constitutional change in his 1912 Progressive Party campaign, but Wilson never moved in that direction on his own. Despite his opposition, the 19th Amendment was added at the end of his term in 1920.

3. Wilson had a horrible record on civil liberties in wartime, promoting passage of the Espionage Act, Sedition Act, and numerous other laws violating freedom of speech and press. He displayed total intolerance toward critics, once America was at war, and is regarded as one of the absolutely worst Presidents on the subject of civil liberties overall for his eight years in office.

4. Wilson was intolerant of opposition in Congress, refusing to work with Republicans when events worked against him, and tended to see things in religious terms, with him having God behind him, and often invoking religion in his speeches and comments. So he was seen as manipulative and deceitful in his actions and words that took us to ultimate war in 1917, and refused to negotiate on the Versailles Treaty after the war.

5. Wilson had a supreme, and self righteous ego, and this made him blind to reality much of the time, as when he had a severe paralytic stroke, but refused, along with his second wife, to keep Vice President Thomas Marshall informed, or to consider resigning in 1919-1921 so that the nation would have a President capable of leading the nation in the difficult post war days, when Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer led the Red Scare or Palmer Raids, another massive violation of civil liberties, which helped to spur the creation of the Civil Liberties Union in 1920. The nation was basically leaderless for a period of 18 months, as Wilson slowly recovered and even thought of running for an unprecedented third term despite his poor health.

Now to the positive side of Woodrow Wilson!

1. Wilson was the most successful President in domestic policy achievements up to his time in office, and only surpassed later by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. He accomplished all of his original domestic agenda, including legislation that has stood the test of time, despite criticism by conservatives and Republicans over the years, including the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Anti Trust Act, as well as the first attempt at so called “free trade”, the lowering of tariff walls on foreign goods.

2. Wilson also accomplished the passage of laws originally promoted by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, including the temporary end of child labor, protection for some workers on hours, workers compensation, and the protection of the merchant marine workers who are employed on ships offshore. Also, the first real attempt at agricultural aid to farmers to encourage expansion of acreage and the buying of new equipment, was also an idea promoted by TR. Basically, Wilson adopted much of the Populist Party and Progressive Party agenda of earlier times, and brought Progressive reform to its peak in the period before the conservative 1920s.

3. Wilson dealt with a war that was the most massive for America in 50 years, and was skilled enough to keep America out of war for two years and eight months after World War I began in Europe, but his role in the eventual entrance of America is still highly disputed even today, seen by some as dishonest and deceptive, but praised by many others as the best one could have expected.

4. Wilson had a vision of a peaceful post war world, and saw an international organization, the League of Nations, as the most important accomplishment of the Treaty of Versailles, and was stunned by the rejection of the US Senate to any international commitment, with America going into isolation. But his vision came to fruition a generation after his passing, with the establishment of the United Nations, but with many conservatives and Republicans bitterly opposed today in the US involvement in that international organization.

5. Wilson comes across, despite his many faults and shortcomings as worthy, in the minds of most experts, to be rated in the top ten of all Presidents–number 6 in the C Span 2000 poll and number 9 in the 2009 C Span Followup poll, and this despite bitter condemnation by so many right wing sources who only emphasize the evil side of Wilson, and give him no credit for his accomplishments. There is no question, however, that he had an important impact on the growth of Presidential power, the exact reason why the right wing hates his guts.

This blogger and author understands the mixed legacy of Woodrow Wilson, but still sees him as an influential President, who still impacts America a century after his first election to the Presidency!

So Happy Birthday, President Wilson, a man we will hear a lot about as we commemorate the major events of his administration over the next eight years from March 4, 1913, to March 4, 1921!

Lowest Birth Rate Ever Recorded Since Statistics Were Kept: What It Means For America

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In 2010, we saw the lowest reported birth rate in America in its history, since statistics were kept, going back to 1920.

This includes all ethnic and racial groups, and even immigrants, notorious for having large families, are having smaller families.

This is due to many factors, including birth control methods, greater education of women, need of wives and husbands to work to survive and prosper, and recognition that quality of life is enhanced by having fewer children.

This means over time that the population of the United States will continue to age, and that creates a problem of how to take care of older people as there are fewer young people who work and pay taxes, so Social Security, Medicare, and other programs will be affected long term.

This puts America into the category of European countries which are over time on a trend to lose population as they age, and the reality that the mass of younger population will continue to grow in the “third world” nations, particularly in Asia, which already has 60 percent of the world’s population as it is right now.

So western civilization, as we define it, may be in a long range decline as the fulcrum of world affairs, being replaced by China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and other rising Asian powers that are constantly rising in population.