John F. Kennedy

Interesting Statistic: Obama Has Pardoned Four Turkeys, But No Human Beings Yet After 22 Months In Office!

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A very interesting statistic has been uncovered: President Obama has yet to pardon any human being, although he has pardoned four turkeys over two Thanksgiving holidays!

This is a bit odd, and it makes one wonder why there have been no pardons, one of the great powers a President possesses!

The question is why President Obama has not used the pardon power, with some wondering if it is because giving pardons so often is a political issue, causing new controversies for a President, making one think that giving pardons at the end of a President’s time in office may often be the best strategy, since it cannot affect the President’s agenda as he finishes his term!

But yet, other Presidents have used the pardon power extensively all through the time they are in office!

The records show the following since World War II:

Harry Truman 1913
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1110
John F. Kennedy 472
Lyndon B. Johnson 960
Richard M. Nixon 863
Gerald Ford 382
Jimmy Carter 534
Ronald Reagan 393
George H W Bush 74
Bill Clinton 396
George W Bush 189

It is interesting how the number of pardons has declined rapidly since the high point under Truman and Eisenhower, and the two Bushes together granted very few pardons, particularly the senior Bush!

According to records, a total of 1,140 pardon petitions have been received under the Obama Administration, with 247 closed without action!

Other information makes it clear that 71 requests for pardons were denied just in the last month!

It will be of great interest to see how long Obama goes without granting pardons, and how many eventually will be given over his time in the White House!

The “Nanny State” Attacks Of Sarah Palin And Other Conservatives: Promoting Hatred And Suspicion Of Government! :(

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Sarah Palin is on a tear, seemingly now attacking some prominent figure on a daily basis, or showing her total stupidity and lack of knowledge about what a candidate for President needs, to take on the burden of that office! 🙁

No sooner than attacking former First Lady Barbara Bush and being unable to distinguish North Korea from South Korea, the former half term Governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential nominee of the GOP in 2008 now is on the attack against our present First Lady, Michelle Obama, who has the highest approval rating of any public figure with 65 percent!

Why is this? It is because Michelle Obama is promoting an anti obesity campaign among the children of America, many of whom are overweight, make poor choices in what they consume, and are in danger of becoming diabetic in alarming numbers in the future! It is also a major problem among adults in this country who fail to consider that what you put in your mouth affects long term health!

This campaign comes after Nancy Reagan’s campaign against drugs in the 1980s and John F. Kennedy’s crusade for physical fitness in the 1960s!

Is it wrong of the national government to promote an anti obesity campaign, a war against drugs, and a physical fitness agenda? Any sane person would say, of course not, but not Sarah Palin, who accuses Michelle Obama of promoting a “nanny state”, a charge also leveled by conservative talk show hosts on radio and on Fox News Channel! 🙁

Under the same thought, it apparently is improper of state and local government officials, such as in California and New York City and elsewhere, to ban smoking in public places, and for the US government to be planning new, explicit pictures on cigarette packages of the damages of smoking! But is it such? NO, because it is obvious that human beings often make wrong choices which affect their health and well being, and the government is intervening to attempt to promote different behavior through the leadership of public figures who carry weight among our citizens!

Instead of applauding Michelle Obama, Nancy Reagan, John F. Kennedy, the California state government, the New York City government, and the Department of Health and Human Services for their promotion of good health, instead we are told that the “Know Nothings” who think parents always know what is best, should rule the day!

The answer is NO, as many adults make WRONG choices that affect the health and well being of their children for the rest of their lives! There is nothing wrong with promoting good health and good habits!

And, by the way, if Sarah Palin is such a good parent, then why is it she cannot teach the values in her children to avoid becoming pregnant when still teenagers and unmarried? And realize that if young women, less fortunate in their family assets than Bristol Palin, become pregnant, it often condemns them to a lifetime of poverty!

Should not the national government do everything it can through advocacy and example to avoid promoting poverty and bad health? Of course!

So what it comes down to is that Sarah Palin and other conservatives are simply promoting hatred and suspicion of government, as the Tea Party Movement has been doing! 🙁

That could be called libertarianism by many, or maybe it is actually anarchism in hiding? 🙁

47 Years After Kennedy Funeral, Has America Lost Its Idealism and Optimism About the Future?

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A half century ago, when John F. Kennedy was President, there was a sense of idealism and optimism, a sense of commitment to others, and a belief that challenges could be overcome and great things accomplished!

Today, there is little sense of these feelings in America, and we have become a very self centered, materialistic society, in which family life has deteriorated, and gloom and doom resonates! 🙁

There is cynicism, pessimism, fear, and hysteria present among a large portion of the population, and no longer do most people believe in the so called “American Dream” of happiness and success!

We are being told that we cannot sustain New Deal social programs, cannot promote a decent education system, deal with the energy crisis, create jobs for millions of unemployed Americans, and rebuild our infrastructure which is in desperate need of repair!

A nation that does not have dreams and goals, but instead practices the art of personal destruction of public figures in the name of partisanship, is a nation in a terminal state if we cannot revive faith in the future! 🙁

Could it be that 47 years ago, with the Kennedy funeral and burial in Arlington National Cemetery on this day,  our nation’s greatness had reached its peak?

Some would say absolutely YES, that the nation never has fully recovered from the horrors of the Kennedy Assassination, and that we are in a funk of our own making that will bring us down to a second rate power, unless we can restore the feelings and beliefs so prevalent when John F. Kennedy was President of the United States!

The Kennedy Assassination Anniversary And The Present Political Climate: A Warning Sign! :(

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Today marks 47 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas! 🙁

Anyone who lived through that horrific tragedy is still affected by it, but it is often forgotten that there was much hate and division at the time, a lot of it perpetrated by right wing extremists who preached that Kennedy was a Communist, or that his Catholic religion was a threat to the country, or that he was a threat to those opposed to civil rights and other reform activities that were making the federal government more involved in the daily lives of all Americans!

Today, we have a similar situation which is indeed very scary, to say the least!

We have an African American President, Barack Obama, who is depicted as NOT born in the United States; being a Kenyan or Indonesian citizen; being a Muslim; being a Communist, Socialist, Nazi or Fascist; trying to organize concentration camps against his enemies; hating the United States and everything it represents, etc, etc, etc!

We also have active hate being promoted by Fox News Channel and a whole cadre of right wing talk show hosts who will stop at nothing to spew their poison and to incite unstable people about the dangers of the President who “hates whites”! 🙁

It is a well known secret that Barack Obama has more death threats against him than any other President, although no specific cases have come to light!

This poisonous rhetoric is dangerous, and could lead to another tragedy on the level of John F. Kennedy!

Whenever a President comes in promoting major changes, and particularly when he is different, as with his religion or race, all the nutbags come out of the woodwork, and endanger the entire nation by their rhetoric and accusations which incite others!

Today is therefore a day to reflect on the past tragedy, and organize to work against the hate mongers who have no aim other than the destruction of constructive dialogue!

It is also a day to pray for the health and safety of our President and his family, and call for an increase in sanity within America, at a difficult time!

A Half Century Since John F. Kennedy Was Elected President!

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Fifty years ago today, John F. Kennedy was elected the 35th President of the United States!

Our youngest elected President, and the first and only Roman Catholic President to this point, Kennedy inspired the nation in a way that cannot fully be measured even after fifty years!

In a short Presidency of 1,036 days, ended by a tragic assassination which anyone who lived through it will never forget, Kennedy promoted the space program, the Peace Corps, civil rights, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the beginning of recognition that the Cold War confrontation needed to be changed in some way so as to avoid the kind of danger that the Cuban Missile Crisis represented to world peace and stability!

Kennedy gave us the thought of new beginnings and a sense of optimism, which sadly no longer exists in the highly charged world of American politics in 2010!

His memory should be honored by working toward unity and cooperation, but neither is likely anytime soon! 🙁

Divided Government: More Typical Than Atypical Since World War II!

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The fact that the 112th Congress will not be of the party of the President in at least one house, and historically often in both houses, is actually typical more than atypical, when one looks at the history of Congressional-Presidential relations since World War II!

In 38 of the past 66 years, we have had a divided government, with the only years it was not being: 1945-1947 and 1949-1953 under President Harry Truman; 1953-1955 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower; 1961-1969 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson; 1977-1981 under President Jimmy Carter; 1993-1995 under President Bill Clinton; 2003-2007 under President George W. Bush; and 2009-2011 under President Barack Obama!

So divided government has been much more common, basically 60 percent of the time since 1945, and therefore, is not the tragedy some think it is!

However, having both parties controlling one chamber each has only, as stated in an earlier entry, occurred in the first six years of Ronald Reagan (1981-1987), in the years since 1945, and that IS the problem–a divided Congress, more than a divided government where both houses are in the hands of the party opposing the President!

The Kennedy Era Really Ends With Passing Of Theodore Sorensen! :(

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The Era of the Kennedy Presidency has finally ended with the death of the President’s “alter ego”, speech writer and counselor, Theodore Sorensen, at the age of 82!

Sorensen had an extremely significant role in many key events of the Kennedy Administration, including: the Inaugural Address; the Space Program commitment to land on the moon; the Cuban Missile Crisis communication with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev; the Civil Rights speech; and the Cold War speech which called for lessening of tensions with the Soviet Union after the resolution of the Missile Crisis.

With his death, and the earlier death of Senator Ted Kennedy and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and with the earlier passing of all leading figures in the administration, John F. Kennedy truly passes into history totally, with no major survivors of the age of Camelot!

In many ways, this is a sad moment of recognition, just one week before the 50th anniversary of the election of John F. Kennedy on November 8, 1960!

Corporate Threats On Employees And Politics: 1896 And 2010! Back To The 19th Century! :(

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More than a century ago, corporations were dominating our politics and corrupting it in what was called “The Gilded Age”!

Many corporations pressured employees to vote for the Republican party as the party of big business and its belief in laissez faire capitalism. So when William Jennings Bryan was nominated by the Democrats in 1896, corporations became intimately involved in working to defeat him, depicting him as a socialist, a Marxist, a radical, and an extremist. Many corporations warned their workers that if Bryan was elected, the companies would be firing workers and eventually shutting down!

The tactic worked, and conservative William McKinley won the Presidency, continuing GOP and big business dominance of American politics. Only with his tragic assassination in 1901 did the nation gain Theodore Roosevelt, who represented the beginning of progressive change, including some of the ideas and visions of William Jennings Bryan!

Now, more than a century later, and thanks to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January of this year, corporations are again running amuck in their determination to defeat the Democrats, and reverse the reforms brought about by President Barack Obama! They are spending inordinate amounts of money, and promoting distorted commercials to scare and intimidate voters, either not to vote, or to vote out of fear and trepidation of what Barack Obama represents, a very typical depiction similar to that used against William Jennings Bryan more than a century ago!

But even more outrageous is what one franchise owner of a McDonald’s in Ohio has done–to warn workers that if the Republicans do not win the political races in the state, that their measly pay will be lowered and benefits will be lost! 🙁

This is just one example of how corporations are intimidating their employees and trying to fix the election results, and it is evidence of how labor rights hard won over the past century are now endangered by newly gained corporate powers that make us realize that the Supreme Court is setting the nation backward, before the reforms of the Progressive Era, to the traditional corporate dominance and abuses of the Gilded Age!

Are Americans going to sit back and allow a century of political, social and economic reform to be wiped out by the reactionary desires of corporate America, which caused the Great Depression and the Great Recession? 🙁

Will the Supreme Court be allowed to take us back to the 19th century Gilded Age, and repeal the 20th century? 🙁

One thing is clear: no matter what happens on November 2, the struggle for progressive political, social and economic reform, which many had thought had been won under Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, will have to continue!

We may have to redo old battles for reforms we thought were permanent, and the division that exists in this country may become greater than ever, as progressives cannot allow the return of the 19th century and the Gilded Age without continuing to fight for change!

Profile In Courage Needed By Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, And Lindsey Graham Against Tea Party Movement Threat To Honored Traditions Of GOP!

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In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his anti Communist rampage, promoting fear and hysteria in millions of Americans; destroying the reputation of many public figures in government, media, Hollywood, and the professoriate; and silencing most members of the Senate who feared to speak up against him and his witch hunt! 🙁

But early on, a courageous woman Republican senator, Margaret Chase Smith, spoke up against McCarthy when no one else was willing to do so!

Smith was the first long serving woman in the US Senate, ultimately serving four terms from 1949-1973 for the state of Maine! She was truly a “profile in courage”, the title of a Pulitzer Prize winning book by Senator John F. Kennedy a few years later, although Kennedy was unwilling to speak out against McCarthy, particularly because his own father was supporting and financing the Wisconsin Senator!

The kind of courage Smith displayed, showing she had principles and was willing to risk her career to speak out against McCarthy’s tirades, needs desperately now to be copied by several Republican Senators, who are decent, mainstream Republicans, and who in their heart and mind, cannot be imagined to be supportive of the Tea Party Movement trying to usurp power and take over the Republican Party! 🙁

I am referring to Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Graham has, actually, been courageous to express doubts and criticism about the Tea Party Movement, but the others have remained silent. It could be because Snowe and Lugar face reelection contests in 2012, while Collins and Graham face it in 2014.

Graham has set the standard and needs to convince Collins, Snowe and Lugar to condemn what is going on, even if the result is a challenge to their seats when reelection time comes!

Sixty years later, we need some reputable GOP Senators to uphold the honored tradition of the party at a time when the party is in deep trouble and about to commit potential suicide!

50th Anniversary Of Peace Corps Concept!

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Today marks 50 years since Democratic Presidential nominee John F. Kennedy proposed the concept of a Peace Corps, which became law in the first months of his administration in 1961, and has been the longest lasting legacy that he left behind!

The concept of a Peace Corps actually began with Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, who suggested it a few years earlier. Ironically, although Humphrey competed against Kennedy for the Presidential nomination in primary states and lost, his idea was picked up by Kennedy in the last weeks of the election campaign.

The idea that young Americans and others not so young would be willing to give up two years to do good deeds in the so called “third world” nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, instilled in the “baby boomer” generation the motivation to help others through involvement in road building, housing, health care, and education, and became part of the idealism of the 1960s!

The Peace Corps still exists today, and does good deeds which makes the US look a lot better than all of the military forces and economic impact that our country is more remembered for, often to our detriment overseas!

One of the best ideas and government agencies ever created, it is proper that we salute Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy for the Peace Corps concept and the good work it continues to do today! 🙂