George W. Bush

Republican Suicide As Result of Government Shutdown And Debt Ceiling: Long Term Damage!

Ronald 3 Comments

The Republican Party has seen 144 members of the House of Representatives and 18 in the US Senate voting for default on the national debt!

The Republican Party has seen itself held accountable for an increase in government spending caused by the shutdown of the government, to the tune of $24 billion, instead of having 800,000 civil servants working for 16 days, but now getting back pay rightfully for their forced period out of work!

The Republican Party has shown it does not give a damn for the economic and emotional turmoil it caused millions of Americans by their reckless, selfish, delusional behavior!

The Republican Party has shown it has no limits in its determination to destroy this President, but it has failed miserably!

The Republican Party allowed itself to be hijacked by Ted Cruz and the Tea Party Movement, and it has lost all respectability and credibility to achieve control of the White House, the Senate, and at some point, the House of Representatives, as they have shown themselves to be no longer representative of a broad coalition needed to be taken seriously as a national party based on coalition and compromise!

Public opinion polls show the GOP in crisis mode, with the lowest ratings in recorded history for a major political party since polls began in the mid 1930s!

The only hope for a revival of the Republican Party is to:

Repudiate Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, James Inhofe, Marco Rubio and other Tea Party Senators.

Repudiate the Tea Party Movement in the House of Representatives.

Repudiate the talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel.

Repudiate the Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tanks, and come back to the moderate center which led to the elections of Eisenhower, Nixon, the Bushes, and yes, even Ronald Reagan, who would be mortified as to how right wing extremist the GOP has allowed itself to become.

But will the Republican Party take any or all of these actions? Do not hold your breath on this!

The Republican Party Assault On The Institution Of The American Presidency: Battle For The Past And The Future!

Ronald 7 Comments

The Republican Party brought about the evils of the Imperial Presidency under Richard Nixon.

The Republican Party expanded the American Presidency further under Ronald Reagan after weakening the office with their conservative attacks on Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in the White House.

Under Reagan, and the two Bush Presidencies, they expanded their power and influence over the Courts, particularly the Supreme Court, but also lower federal courts.

In the process, however, they forgot the middle class; alienated women; attacked the environment; undermined education; utilized racism and hate against African Americans and Hispanics and Latinos, and even Asian Americans; showed less concern than ever before for children, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor (often including these precise groups); leagued themselves with hate mongers on talk radio, and allied with powerful elite wealthy people to promote right wing propaganda that influenced many who were hurt by their policies and views, but did not realize it. And they set out to destroy Bill Clinton first , and now Barack Obama, including the boldness to attack a federal program (ObamaCare) that was backed by a majority in Congress, the Supreme Court majority, and the second term victory of Barack Obama!

The decision was to bring down the government by promoting economic chaos and anarchy, doing whatever had to be done!

And today, the Republican Party has 70 percent of the American people alienated by their tactics, aims, and practices, and sees the only way to survive is to assault the American Presidency, an office they have not won in the popular vote for five of the past six national elections, and have little hope of winning anytime soon in future Presidential elections!

So their goal is to continue to win state legislatures and congressional districts through gerrymandering, and weaken the Presidency, and stalemate the US Senate, which they also have little hope of winning in the future, with their agenda exposed for all to see through coverage provided by major national newspapers and liberal and progressive media that keep us informed as to the truth of what is going on!

The ultimate goal of the modern Republican Party is to wipe out, eliminate, destroy the great advancements under Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, even Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama!

This is a war for the future and the past of the American Presidency, and we cannot allow the systematic destruction of that office which has made for so much good in America in the past century!

Key Dates In Republican Party History 52 Years Apart-1860, 1912, 1964, 2016!

Ronald 10 Comments

The Republican Party has had its key elections which transform the party on a regular basis 52 years apart, and we are on the way to that occurring yet again!

In 1860, just six short years after the founding of the party in the upper Midwest, the Republican Party won its first national victory, gaining control of both houses of Congress, and electing Abraham Lincoln, even though he won slightly less than 40 percent of the total national popular vote. The party went on to dominate American politics for the next 52 years, only losing the Presidency twice to Grover Cleveland, in 1884 and 1892.

Then in 1912, the split between former President Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent President William Howard Taft, a conflict between conservatives and progressives, led to a disastrous defeat for Taft, the worst defeated President running for reelection ever in American history before and after 1912. This put the opposition Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, and gave Democrat Woodrow Wilson two terms in the White House, although coming close to losing in 1916. He proceeded to promote programs known as the New Freedom and the New Nationalism, stealing the second slogan from TR.

The Republican Party went on to revive itself from 1920-1932, but was then made the minority party in voter registration after 1932, due to the Great Depression, and only won two terms in the White House under Dwight D. Eisenhower, and two separate two year terms in Congress over the next 32 years.

After years of establishment Republicans losing, except for Eisenhower, the conservatives took over the party in 1964, again 52 years after the 1912 split, and nominated Senator Barry Goldwater, and suffered a massive defeat, insuring the biggest landslide victory in history for Lyndon B. Johnson, and the promotion of the Great Society.

While the Goldwater mentality in broad outline became the government under Ronald Reagan in 1980, the split between conservatives and progressives revived under the two Bush Presidents, as well as criticism of the Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney Presidential runs.

And here we are again with the right wing striving to take over the party, with Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, along with some others, trying to move the party to an extreme, more so than Barry Goldwater represented.

And one can be sure that 2016, 52 years after 1964, we will see another massive defeat, for the GOP, probably to Hillary Clinton, but with no certainty that the party, 160 years old in 2014, can survive as a viable political party opposition!

Five Years Since Financial Collapse, And What Has Been Learned? NOTHING!

Ronald 30 Comments

Five years ago this week, the financial markets on Wall Street collapsed, and America fell into the Great Recession, which many might consider the Second Great Depression, now five years long, despite claims the Great Recession is over.

Lack of proper regulation of Wall Street and the banking industry, a result of GOP control of Congress for 12 years, and a Republican President, George W. Bush for 8 years, along with some manipulation by leading Democrats, led to the worst economic outlook since 1941, and even now, five years later, with the improved economic conditions, employment will not return to pre 2008 levels until 2020 at the rate of job creation now existing!

A lot of this reality is due to refusal of the Republican Party to cooperate on legislation to create and encourage jobs, including infrastructure jobs and promotion of education training, and working to return overseas jobs to America.

But also, the Obama Presidency has not worked adequately to reform the banking structure and Wall Street, and the possibility of Larry Summers being Federal Reserve Board Chairman is precisely the WRONG thing to do, as he is part of the problem that led to 2008, and is an arrogant, overbearing, obnoxious individual who should be told to “take a hike”, with Janet Yellen the far better candidate to be the head of the Fed!

So if it going to take a grand total of TWELVE years from beginning to end for this Great Recession to be over, how is that different from the Great Depression which lasted from 1929 to 1941?

Meanwhile, a whole generation of people are suffering in terms of employment, something that will scar their future, and that of the American economy!

This is a very sad, troubling situation that must not be allowed to happen again, but it seems as if NOTHING has been learned!

Barack Obama’s Ultimate Crisis: Can He Lead IF He Loses On Syria Vote In Congress?

Ronald 7 Comments

President Barack Obama is now facing the ultimate crisis—repudiation by a vote of either or both houses of Congress on the issue of responding to Syria’s use of chemical weapons on its own people.

Obama could have gone ahead a week ago, utilized his Commander In Chief powers, used by every Chief Executive in the past thirty years, to initiate military action, but instead chose to promote Congressional involvement, not realizing that this divided Congress would not cooperate!

The Republicans, always vastly hawkish, are now playing politics, except for a few (including Speaker John Boehner, Senators John McCain and LIndsey Graham as the most outstanding examples), who are supporting Obama on what they see as a national security issue. People who would have backed George W. Bush without pause now are refusing to support Obama, in order to weaken him.

But even the Democrats are showing unwillingness to back Obama, and in so doing, are taking away his credibility as a leader.

So with the likely defeat of what Obama wants, a resolution backing the President’s use of force in Syria, it is putting Obama on the spot. Does he go ahead anyway, and do what he feels he must do? Or does he back off, and look like a “paper tiger”, who roars, but has no bite?

It looks now that whatever the eventuality, Barack Obama may have reached the point that his second term will be unproductive and unfulfilled on almost any issue, domestic or foreign, and that the Presidency has been greatly harmed by this ultimate crisis that could have been avoided by doing what Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush did—take action, and answer criticisms later!

So will Barack Obama go down as a failed President, allowing his domestic enemies to destroy him, and try to make his accomplishments, which are many, to be overlooked or even reversed over time?

What a mess we are in, and it makes one wonder, if what this author is stating, turns out to be basically reality, whether or not Barack Obama should consider resignation, giving Vice President Joe Biden the Presidency, and allowing him the chance to pursue the agenda of Obama, with his much greater ability to get along with Congress, and work with opposition leaders in the Republican Party, even though, of course, Biden would still face fierce attacks and challenges without any doubt!

It is very radical to suggest resignation, but one can make the argument that for the future of the nation, if there is total paralysis, and inability to have influence in either domestic or foreign policy, that it is something to consider, as much as this author loathes the idea, the concept, of “quitting”!

The Military Industrial Complex, The Republican Party, And Hypocrisy!

Ronald 3 Comments

The Republican Party has always been the major promoter of the Military Industrial Complex, condemned by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address in 1961, but pursued and courted by Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George Bush over the last 45 years of American history.

And Dick Cheney, Vice President under the second Bush, personifies the MIC perfectly!

But now we see Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, who already has thrown her lesbian sister, Mary Cheney, “under the bus” to win bigot votes in Wyoming’s Senate primary, even opposing her own dad and mom on acceptance of gay marriage and their daughter, also coming out against Barack Obama conducting a military strike against Syria for its chemical warfare action against civilians on August 21!

Imagine a Cheney taking such a stand–unbelievable!

But it looks as if most Republicans will vote in Congress against such action, overlooking chemical warfare, which is banned by international treaty of 1925, taking place in Syria.

But then Ronald Reagan overlooked chemical warfare by Saddam Hussein in his nation of Iraq, and against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. with the supplies sold for profit with the knowledge of the Reagan Administration!

So the GOP has shown evidence of not caring about war crimes now twice, by Iraq in the 1980s and Syria now!

The Republican Party, therefore, is hypocritical and morally bankrupt, while Barack Obama is principled and a believer in enforcing international law against war crimes!

So what the GOP is doing will undermine its future long term, and it makes one wish to vomit over the lack of principle and common decency in the party, once proud of Lincoln, TR, and Ike!

Ignorance Of History Mixed With Pacifism Leads To Disaster

Ronald 25 Comments

This author is totally amazed at so many intelligent people who are demonstrating an ignorance of history, mixed with pacifism, who seem to have no moral or ethical problem with the use of chemical weapons. They seem not to understand that if the world, led by the United States, does not react in some way to demonstrate that such immoral and illegal behavior will not be tolerated, then we will see Iran and North Korea and terrorist organizations and others who wish the civilized world ill, utilize chemical and biological weapons with impunity.

Having proved that use of force CAN be done in a surgical way and lead to good results in Bosnia and Kosovo under Bill Clinton, we do not need to have another Iraq, but if nothing is done, then another September 11 is much more likely, and how will Bernie Sanders, Robert Reich, and other intelligent liberals feel, or explain themselves, after such a disaster?

Lack of action is much more likely to lead to disaster than to assert basic moral and ethical principles, that we will not allow another Nazi Holocaust, whether against one’s own population, or a foreign population.

The world will be much more unsafe if nothing is done, than if the civilized world makes clear that there will be no tolerance of mass murder by corrupt dictators as we stand by and wring our hands!

President Obama has asked for input by Congress, but as Commander In Chief, he has the responsibility and good sense to take action, even if Congress votes no, and if the American people act in revulsion against him, so be it!

History will judge Barack Obama correct on this issue, even if it takes years of retribution against him, as sadly, the American people DO NOT always have the knowledge or good sense to know what is good for them and their future. This is the ultimate tragedy of what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld have wrought, and in the long run, they will be condemned in history, not Barack Obama!

What Republican Presidents Have Wrought: The Vietnam War Syndrome And The Iraq War Syndrome!

Ronald 5 Comments

The Republican Party loves to claim that they are the experts, when it comes to American foreign policy, that they are far better than Democrats in executing foreign policy.

But the facts of history tell us otherwise, as witness:

Before America entered World War II. who were some of the most powerful, most influential people advocating isolationism— Republicans such as Senators Robert Taft of Ohio, Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, Hiram Johnson of California, and Gerald Nye of North Dakota, with the latter two discussed in detail in the author’s book: TWILIGHT OF PROGRESSIVISM: THE WESTERN REPUBLICAN SENATORS AND THE NEW DEAL (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).

When America entered the escalation stage of the Vietnam War under Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, it was Republicans who backed the President in much greater numbers than Democrats, but even Johnson finally realized the need for America to get out of the war, and decided not to run again in 1968.

Republican President Richard Nixon ran his campaign for the Presidency in 1968, pledging that he would end the Vietnam War expeditiously, and saying he had a “secret plan” to end the war, which soon became evident did not exist, and Nixon made up his plan to end the war as he went along, and it took four long years to end the war, with a heavier loss of soldiers killed and wounded, than had been so under Johnson! Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, misled the American people and lied to them about the plans and strategies to end the war, and it created a feeling of unwillingness to engage in overseas crises as a result, what could be called the Vietnam War Syndrome.

And then under George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Republican run national government in 2003 lied to us, manipulated us, propagandized us, to begin a war in Iraq, with no plan to get out, and the war dragged on through the second Bush term, and into the Barack Obama Administration. No “weapons of mass destruction” were ever found, and it created an Iraq War Syndrome, which now has made many Americans reluctant to engage in a military action against an outlaw nation, Syria, which has utilized chemical warfare, only the third world leader ever to do so, after Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein!

So the Republican Party and its cynical, corrupt leadership in the 1969-1973 and 2002-2009 periods poisoned the political atmosphere of America, making it more difficult to engage in the shaping of a sane, rational foreign policy that would be in American interests.

And now Rand Paul and his kind, libertarian “Know Nothings”, promote isolationism all over again, back to the image of the GOP in the late 1930s before American entrance into World War II.

The damage that Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush have wrought is massive, and undermining America in 2013 from doing what it must do, react to the massive war crime of the Syrian government!

An Alliance Between Anti War Liberals And Libertarian Rand Paul? An Unholy Alliance!

Ronald 5 Comments

Are we about to see anti war liberals and progressives form an alliance with Libertarian Rand Paul and his ilk, on the Syrian chemical warfare controversy?

If that happens, then the left will be morally and ethically bankrupt, as to become isolationists is NOT the answer to all international involvement, as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky espouses!

Just because of the corrupt and manipulated action of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Administration in Iraq is NOT a justification to sit back and do nothing about the use of chemical weapons by Syria against its own civilian population, and if nothing is done to punish that government, then the likelihood of further such chemical warfare attacks is likely, and not only by Syria, but by other rogue governments!

And Iran will feel they can get away with nuclear weapons development with impunity, and the world will become a much more dangerous place!

Yes, we have an Iraq Syndrome, as we earlier had a Vietnam Syndrome, but to allow those experiences to dictate our reaction to outlaw governments utilizing weapons banned by international agreements dating back a century, would be tragic beyond belief!

And the fact that Barack Obama is asking for support from Congress should soothe those who worry that the Imperial Presidency is alive and well, as the only way for one to relate to this crisis, is the need to make clear the case for American response, with the understanding that it shall be limited to punishment, not to direct intervention in the Syria Civil War with ground forces.

America must be a moral leader in a world that has too many cynics who wonder if any nation is dedicated to preserving human liberty and freedom!

What We Lost In 2004: A Great Statesman Named John Kerry!

Ronald 6 Comments

Looking back now nine years, it is clear that America lost out when George W. Bush, who lied us into a war in Iraq in 2003, and was not keeping track of Al Qaeda before September 11 while on vacation in Crawford, Texas in 2001, defeated John Kerry in 2004 in a ruthless campaign based upon lies and deceit!

Senator Kerry had been an outstanding Senator from Massachusetts for 20 years, had been a courageous soldier in Vietnam, but had the “nerve” to oppose the continuation of the war in 1971 under Richard Nixon’s Presidency, after returning home from his war service.

For this, Kerry was pilloried by the Bush campaign, while Bush served in the National Guard, and was mostly absent, if not reading magazines, while on so called “duty”, gaining preference because of his dad!

So Kerry went back to the Senate, and continued a brilliant career, becoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, until he was tapped by President Barack Obama to replace Hillary Clinton in the State Department’s top post.

And now, just months into his time as Secretary of State, Kerry has already shown just how principled, how committed he is to international law, to morality and ethics, to common decency, and to concern for human rights and the lives of innocent men, women and children, who have been slaughtered by outlaw dictator Bashar Al Assad with the use of chemical weapons!

Kerry is a true statesman, a man who hates war due to personal experience, but knows that if nothing is done in this attack against humanity, it will embolden other dictators to think they can get away with this in the future, reminding us of what happened in the 1930s, as people stood by and allowed Adolf Hitler to take advantage of weakness!

But ultimately, the civilized world had to fight Hitler and Nazi Germany anyway, but it was just that much more difficult because of the delay in reaction, and the fear of taking action!

We are indeed fortunate to have John Kerry as our Secretary of State, a true statesman and historic figure, even if he was not elected President of the United States in 2004!