George W. Bush

Earth Day Number 44—The Constant Battle Against Corporations

Ronald 12 Comments

Today is the 44th Earth Day, first promoted by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, and endorsed by President Richard Nixon.

The environmental movement has had its successes under Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

At the same time, the environmentalists have had major setbacks under Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, particularly under Reagan and the second Bush, the two worst environmental Presidents of the last century, while Carter and Nixon stand out as the best environmental Presidents after Theodore Roosevelt.

The corporate world has been responsible for much of the damage to our environment since the Industrial Age, with their mad dash for profits and lack of concern for the health and safety of the people in the areas they produced steel, mined coal, drilled oil, and the myriad of other industrial activities that produced a massive wealth ending up in the hands of a small oligarchy. They exploited their workers and took advantage of consumers, along with destruction of the environment, and without any apologies. And they still have massive influence with both parties, and any ability to deal with the issue of environmental damage is always counteracted by the financial resources of corporations out to prevent any major changes in policy and regulation.

So while progress has been made over these years since 1970, there is still a massive battle for the future of the nation’s environmental health over the long term. Environmentalists cannot let up their battles on Capitol Hill and in the courts!

Terrorism Tax Essential To Deal With Threats To National Security!

Ronald 8 Comments

It is clear after the Boston Marathon tragedy that we will be dealing with the imminent threat of terrorism, whether external or internal, for many years, even decades.

At the same time, we have many who tell us we must cut Social Security and Medicare for the elderly, veterans, and the disabled. We are also told we cannot afford health care and education,. and that millions of Americans must be sacrificed on the altar of never raising taxes!

Well, it is time that those opposed to tax increases, in a nation with the lowest tax burden of any democracy in the world, start reconsidering.

So a proposal is to recognize the dangers that face us, and to see that we are engaged in a different kind of war, and in all wars except under George W. Bush, taxes went up to support the war.

So we need a “Terrorism Tax”, and it should be one percent on incomes under $25,000; two percent on incomes up to $50,000; three percent on incomes up to $100,000; four percent on incomes up to $250,000; five percent on incomes up to $1 million; and six percent on all income above $1 million, including unearned income!

The author knows he will be attacked for such a heinous suggestion as a “Terrorism Tax”, but our security and safety requires sacrifices from all of us, and those with higher income and assets should be expected to contribute more to the nation that has helped to give them opportunity to prosper!

As John F. Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address in 1961, all of us should share the responsibility of promoting our nation and advancing its agenda, that we cannot afford as citizens to sit on the sidelines and leave responsibility to others. Let us fulfill what Kennedy enunciated 52 years ago!

Politics Is An Art: Running A Government Is Meant For Those Who Have Been In Government!

Ronald 11 Comments

In recent years, the idea has developed that anyone can be a politician, even if no experience in government.

Therefore, we have had a businessman, Herman Cain, who operated a pizza corporation, and ran as a candidate for President in 2012.

We have been told that government should be run as if is a corporation, but government is NOT the same as business.

Now we have a brilliant neurosurgeon, Dr. Benjamin Carson, who is renowned for saving many children’s l lives, who is considering running for President in 2016, just as Herman Cain did in 2012.

Both, and others like them, are to be commended for their successes in their chosen fields, but neither, and often others, such as Donald Trump, who has flirted many times with running for President, are unwilling to work their way up through the state legislatures, state executive branch, the House of Represenatatives, or the US Senate, or working in a Presidential cabinet or major role in the military before running for President..

No matter how competent they are in their fields of business, medicine, or any other occupation, that does not mean that they should be seen as ready to jump into the fray, and believe, without ANY political and governmental experience, that they are qualified, or have any clue as to what runnning a government is all about.

It trivializes politics and government, as it would be if someone knowing nothing about history or math or science or whatever, goes in and teaches a class to college students, or someone who has never studied and practiced law or medicine or accounting or whatever, suddenly claims they are qualified to be engage in those professions!

This has nothing to do with whether it is Republicans or Democrats, or men or women, or people of different ethniciities or racial backgrounds!

The point is that many critics of Barack Obama claim he had too little experience in government, when he actually had TWELVE years in public office.

Many other Presidents have had less experience than Obama, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. But all of them had some government experience. And Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ullyses S. Grant had years of military experience, which also qualifies as knowledge to operate a government. And even Mitt Romney ran the state government of Massachusetts before running for President!

Martin Luther King Jr. At 84: What Might Have Been?

Ronald 9 Comments

45 years ago on this day, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, ending his brief but eventful life at the age of 39.

Since his death, the vicious attacks on his nonviolent disobedience tactic in the civil rights movement has been rejected, except by the extreme right wing, which still contends that King and his followers were “communists”, the automatic accusation used whenever anyone challenges the establishment in any form.

King is now memorialized by the national holiday, and the King Memorial in Washington DC makes him also a national figure of massive proportions, as he was in life.

One has to wonder what King would have been like, had he survived until today at the age of 84.

Would his contributions have been greater, and would civil rights have advanced further than it has since his death?

Would he have become a factor in future elections in a way that might have changed the course of history?

What would have been his effect on the prosecution of the Vietnam War under Richard Nixon?

How would he have reacted to Jimmy Carter as the first Southern President since Zachary Taylor in 1848?

How would the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II Presidencies have interacted with him, assuming everything politically would have been the same?

And finally, how would King have reacted to Barack Obama and his leadership in the Presidency?

Would American foreign policy and domestic policy have been influenced much by a live Martin Luther King, Jr?

All of this is speculative, but it is clear the nation lost a great deal with King’s untimely death in 1968!

9 Of 10 Most Common Occupations Are Paid Wages That Are Disgraceful!

Ronald 12 Comments

We are in the midst of a middle class meltdown, which has been going on since 1973, when the middle class reached its peak!

For 24 of those 40 years, we had Republicans in the White House, working to undermine the ability of the middle class to make a liveable wage, and meanwhile, the elite kept on gaining tax cuts under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, making America the most stratified nation in the developed world!

It is unacceptable when nine of ten most common occupations give workers a wage that is unlivable, and often with no or meager benefits as well!

The following occupations pay their workers, on the average, less than $30,000 per year:

Retail salesperson
Cashier
Food Prep Worker
Office Clerk
Waiter
Laborer
Janitor/Cleaner

The following pay under $35,000 a year:

Customer Service Representative
Secretary/Administrative Assistant

Only Nurses ($68,000) make a real living wage of the top ten occupations.

This is a tragedy of massive proportions for the long term future!

Lyndon Johnson’s Withdrawal From Presidential Race 45 Years Ago Today Led To Five More Years Of Vietnam War, Tragically!

Ronald 13 Comments

On this day, 45 years ago, the nation was stunned by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s announcement that he was withdrawing from the Presidential race of 1968 to devote attention to an attempt to end US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Sadly, the action led to no such thing, as Richard Nixon was elected, and continued the war until 1973, gaining nothing permanently, as Vietnam would be unified under Communist North Vietnam in 1975.

Meanwhile, the number of American troops killed more than doubled to 58,000, with many more wounded, some permanently, and massive damage done by US bombing of South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and we are still paying for the cost of that war with aging veterans of the war who need medical and psychological care that is never ending.

It seems clear that had Vice President Hubert Humphrey been elected to succeed Johnson, US involvement in the war would have ended sooner than the beginning of the second term of Nixon.

And the Great Society of LBJ would have been continued and expanded on a massive scale with Humphrey, the premier liberal of his time, in the Presidency.

And had Robert Kennedy not been assassinated, and somehow became the Democratic nominee, instead of Humphrey, there would also have been a quicker end of the war, and an expansion of the Great Society.

America went from a nation at its peak in the 1960s, to a deterioration of the middle class after 1973, due to the investment in war spending that continued, leading to three major wars in the 1990s and 2000s, and eating up funding that could have been used for more social and economic change and reform.

The conservative counter revolution did great damage, and we are paying heavily now in our national debt which multiplied under Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, mostly in foreign policy and defense spending, while the top two percent became ever more massively wealthy due to major tax cuts on them, which did not promote stimulation of the economy!

Barack Obama is trying to reverse the course that has been endemic since 1968, but is being challenged and obstructed at every turn, but even with that, already he has become the major Presidential reformer in domestic affairs since the retirement of Lyndon B. Johnson!

The Bush V. Gore Attorney Rivals Now On Same Side For Gay Marriage

Ronald 4 Comments

It is ironic that the two attorneys joining forces to fight for gay marriage and call for the rejection of Proposition 8 in California and the Defense of Marriage Act are rivals who fought the case for the 2000 Presidential election contest in the Supreme Court between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Now, Ted Olson and David Boies are working together after Olson won the case for George W. Bush, but both of them, one Republican and one Democrat, felt that the case for gay marriage was so strong that they were willing to overcome their rivalry, and fight for a basic human right, the right to marry, for all people, not just straight but gay as well!

It demonstrates that there is a case for both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives, to join together on an issue of fairness, equality, equal protection of the laws, and basic civil rights.

The gay marriage and gay rights movement could not have finer advocates for their cause than these two brilliant attorneys!

Ten Years Since Onset Of Iraq War: Worst Foreign Policy Disaster In American History

Ronald 6 Comments

It has been ten years since George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others took America into a war on false pretenses, a war in Iraq that turned out to be the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.

It was a war of choice, based on faulty intelligence, but backed by many major newspapers and by Democratic political leaders, as well as Republicans.

The Iraq War prevented America from winning the Afghanistan War, as it diverted our attention from the war against Al Qaeda..

It led to about 4,500 dead American soldiers and about 32,500 wounded. And the involvement was the longest war in American history, except for the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

The question is whether the United States has learned anything, and will not allow itself to be fooled and misled about intelligence in the future, as we face possible threats of war with Iran, ironically the more dangerous nation than Iraq, and emboldened by our war there to build up its nuclear potential.

St. Patrick’s Day: 22 American Presidents Have Irish Roots!

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and whether Irish or not, the nation tends to celebrate it, almost as if it is a national holiday.

It turns out that fully half of our 43 Presidents–a total of 22– have Irish roots, including:

George Washington
James Madison
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Chester Alan Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

It is interesting how exactly half (11) were in the Presidency before 1900, and the same number (11) since 1900, with nine of the modern eleven Irish Presidents with Irish roots since 1961!

Senator Rob Portman, Gay Marriage, And The Republican Party Future

Ronald 6 Comments

Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, former Budget Director for President George W. Bush, one of the few moderate conservative voices in the Republican Party in the US Senate, has come out in favor of gay marriage, making him the first Republican Senator to do so, and unlikely to have others follow him. This seems, clearly, due to the fact that his younger son Will is gay, and Portman wants his son to have a happy life, and the rights and privileges of marriage someday.

One could point out that Portman only spoke up because of his son, which is clearly the case, but it still took courage for him to do what he did.

And it is interesting to see former Senator Rick Santorum spew his usual narrow minded hatred, and one has to wonder what if one of his children came out as gay or lesbian. As a “devout” Catholic, he probably would do what so many “devout” Christians have done, sadly, and that is to throw out their child, disown him or her, have no more contact with him or her, act as if that child no longer exists, rather than understand that gays do not choose to be what they are. Why would anyone want to be facing hate, prejudice, discrimination, and bodily threats if one could avoid it?

So for anyone claiming to be “devout” and “religious” and act like Rick Santorum and so many others, is hypocrisy, and until and when the Republican Party stops allowing the religious Right to control the party agenda, it will never win over the vote of the younger generation, which is totally tolerant on the issue of sexual orientation.

Many non office holding Republicans have come out for gay marriage rights, and Ted Olson, former Solicitor General under George W. Bush, is leading the case to be presented before the Supreme Court, and there is a feeling that the majority of the Court, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who made for the success in the Lawrence V. Texas case in 2003, on gay privacy rights, will declare gay marriage rights to be constitutional throughout the United States, although churches and synagogues would not be required to marry gay people. Such a decision for gay marriage would involve the right of civil marriage alone.

The Republican Party needs to change its view, or else, like in many other ways, it will go into the dustbin of history!