Jon Tester

Withdrawal Of Larry Summers For Federal Reserve Leadership A Victory For America!

Ronald Leave a comment

Larry Summers, the former Harvard President, Treasury Secretary for awhile under Bill Clinton, and economic adviser to Barack Obama, has withdrawn his candidacy for Federal Reserve Board Chairman to replace Ben Bernanke.

This is a major victory for America, and for fiscal sanity, and it now seems that Janey Yellen, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, will become the most powerful woman in American history, as Barack Obama moves away from what would have been a disastrous choice of Summers.

Summers is very bright and intelligent, no doubt about that, and one can be sure that he tells people of those traits on a regular basis!

Summers is a pompous windbag, who was arrogant as Harvard President, including saying women did not have the right stuff to be in the field of science; showed arrogance in his dealings with students and faculty; and as Treasury Secretary, and later, gave bad advice that helped to cause the Great Recession of 2008 to the present.

What drove Barack Obama to want him is beyond understanding, but thankfully, four members of the Senate Banking Committee, all Democrats, made clear of their dissatisfaction with Summers.

These four courageous Senators are Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jon Tester of Montana, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to them for helping to prevent the nomination of Summers.

The nation will be well served by Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve Board Chairman!

The Courage Of Pro NRA Senators Who Voted For The Universal Background Checks Bill

Ronald 8 Comments

Attention has been paid to those Pro NRA Senators who refused to support the Universal Background Checks bill, and who now have suffered drops in public opinion polls in their states, including Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, Nevada Senator Dean Heller, and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte.

Not as much attention has been paid to the Senators of both parties who did not let their basically Pro NRA viewpoints stand in the way of common sense and reality.

These include:

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico
Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana
Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Senator Jon Tester of Montana
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia

And shame on Democratic Senators Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Nick Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Max Baucus of Montana for voting against the Universal Background Checks, and a salute to Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who joined Pat Toomey in support of the legislation!

Final Projection On Presidential Race: Obama-Biden 332 Electoral Votes, Romney-Ryan 206 Electoral Votes

Ronald 6 Comments

This author has spent a lot of time and effort in studying, analyzing, evaluating the Presidential Election contest of 2012, and is now ready to project the final result.

Barack Obama has been long predicted to win at least 237 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 191 electoral votes, with nine states in play as “swing” or “battleground” states, all of which Obama won in 2008.

The prediction that the author wishes to make is that Obama will win ALL of the nine competitive states, except North Carolina, giving him 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206 electoral votes!

So Obama will win New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado, with a total of 95 electoral votes, added to the 237, making the final total of 332 electoral votes.

Romney, by winning the 15 electoral votes of North Carolina, will go from 191 to 206 in the final total of electoral votes.

It also means that Obama will have won every state he won in 2008, except Indiana and North Carolina, and a total of 26 states and the District of Columbia. Romney will win 24 states.

Also, expect that the popular vote will be close in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, Georgia, and Montana, with Romney winning, but with hints that Democrats will have a grand opportunity to win those states in 2016 and beyond, with the growing Hispanic-Latino vote. The first hint will be the likely victories for the Senate of Democrats Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, and Richard Carmona in Arizona.

Additionally, Obama should win about 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent of the vote for Romney, with Gary Johnson and other third party candidates winning slightly more than one percent of the total vote.

This means Obama will have won by a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes, but with the factor of reapportionment of seats due to the Census of 2010 changing downward many of the Frost Belt states which support Barack Obama, plus the loss of North Carolina and Indiana from 2008.

Still, overall, a very impressive performance can be expected!

Comments on this projection of the results are welcome!

Do Senate Democrats Really Have 53 Votes? Don’t Be So Sure! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

It is often pointed out that the Senate has 53 Democrats, and that there is no chance that the Republican House can get the majority of the Senate to go along with massive budget cuts or repeal of the Health Care legislation.

But when one examines closely the situation that truly exists with the upcoming Senate races of 2012, one wonders!

There are at least four Democrats, who are not retiring, as four have already announced (Joe Lieberman, Kent Conrad, Jim Webb, and now Jeff Bingaman), but are likely to be willing to work with Republicans more than one would imagine.

These would be newly elected Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia who must run again in 2012, along with two Senators elected in 2006 and facing tough fights in 2012–Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana–and veteran Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who also faces election in 2012.

If all four worked together with the GOP, there goes the Democratic edge, so the next two years will be interesting as a reality check of what it means to have a Senate majority, and yet maybe NOT have a Senate majority! 🙁

Sad Ending On DREAM Act: “The American Dream” Denied To Young Illegal Immigrants Who Wish To Contribute To The Only Nation They Know! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

A very sad development yesterday in the US Senate was the denial of an opportunity for young illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as babies or very young children, and never have done anything illegal, but are being denied the right to move toward citizenship by pursuing college or entering the military.

These children are not lawbreakers, even if their parents are, and they have no memory of their former homeland. They have been discriminated against, and just wished to pursue the “American dream” that we hear so much about, but the Republicans in the Senate, except for three courageous souls, refused to allow such an opportunity.

The only three Republicans who voted in favor of cloture to end the filibuster by their party on the proposed DREAM Act were Richard Lugar of Indiana, Robert Bennett of Utah, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

However, since the vote, with four Senators not present, was 55-41, we must also look at the five Democrats who voted against the DREAM Act–Kay Hagen of North Carolina, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana. These five Senators did not show reasonable justification for their votes, and should rightfully be condemned for their vote.

With this defeat, and with the reality of GOP control of the House of Representatives for the next two years, and fewer Democrats in the Senate as well, it is unlikely that the DREAM Act or anything similar to it will have any fortune in the next few years.

But the battle for immigration reform, including giving opportunities to children who have done no wrong except being born to the “wrong” parents, will continue, and with the growing Latino population in this country, eventually human rights and civil rights will come to these deserving children of illegal immigrants!