“Minorities”

The Hopelessness Of The GOP In The 2016 Presidential Election Is Clear Cut!

Ronald 15 Comments

Republicans and conservatives live in illusion and fantasy, and their horrible Congressional performance—working against women’s rights, college students, minorities, the middle class, the poor, young people, the elderly, gays and lesbians, the environment, labor—will insure that they will never become the majority in a Presidential election for the long haul!

One would think that after having lost the popular vote for President five of the past six Presidential elections, that they would have realized the wrong of their ways, but instead, they are doubling down, appealing to the Religious Right, the Neoconservatives, the Social Conservatives, and to the top two percent, as if that is a winning strategy. Somehow, they think the dwindling white older population will sustain them in the long term, and in that belief, they are truly delusional!

If they had any common sense or brains, they would realize that the Democrats have won 18 states and the District of Columbia over the past six national elections since 1992, and a total electoral vote of 242 electoral votes, and NONE of these states are likely to be lost in the future to the right wing GOP! So the “Blue” states are:

Maine
Vermont
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Delaware
Maryland
District Of Columbia
Illinois
Michigan
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Washington
Oregon
California
Hawaii

Plus, three other states voted Democratic five of the six national elections, a total of 15 electoral votes, bringing the total up to 257, 13 short of the 270 needed to win the White House, including:

New Hampshire (except in 2000)
New Mexico (except in 2004)
Iowa (except in 2004)

So the GOP, if it does not radically change its tune and quickly, will NOT win the Presidency any time in the next few generations, with the growing Hispanic-Latino vote, and the dying off of the white conservative senior citizens who wish to prevent the future, and are failing at that long term, in Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, and in the near future in Texas, Georgia, Arizona and Montana! The “Red” States are dwindling rapidly!

A Day To Celebrate Promotion Of Human Rights: 150th Anniversary Of Emancipation Proclamation!

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Today marks the most momentous day in all of American history, regarding the promotion of human rights! It is the 150th anniversary of the issuance by President Abraham Lincoln of the Emancipation Proclamation!

Lincoln had issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, five days after the bloody Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in the Civil War. His entire cabinet was opposed to what he did, and had doubts about the final issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation 100 days later.

But Abraham Lincoln had the guts, the courage, the conviction that ending slavery was an essential part of the advancement of American democracy, and would help promote the victory of the Union forces over the Confederacy.

Lincoln knew that the Emancipation Proclamation was only a pledge to end slavery, and that the only true way to bring it about was military victory, and the passage two years later of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, an event excellently portrayed in the movie LINCOLN, with Daniel Day-Lewis portraying the events leading to the passage of that amendment by the House of Representatives.

Slavery’s end did not mean an easy time or adjustment for African Americans or the nation, as racial violence and discrimination would be a sad part of the future, but it was a necessary step forward on the march of human rights, including later passage of the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, the 19th Amendment, the 26th Amendment, the various Civil Rights Acts (1866, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1968), and significant Supreme Court decisions on civil rights of women, minorities, labor, young people, and gays and lesbians.

The march of time has been toward the granting of greater human rights, but it all began with Lincoln’s courageous gamble, 150 years ago today, and for that, as so much else, all Americans should salute him today!

And it is inspiring to see massive lines at the National Archives in Washington, DC, as the Emancipation Proclamation is on view for a limited time to celebrate the event, but with the need to preserve a document which is in fragile condition after a century and a half of existence.

What Lincoln did in 1863 is connected to the whole long range story of American history, the expansion of human rights for all, and this is what draws foreigners to wish to come to America, the land of liberty and opportunity!

Barack Obama Should Be Added To List Of “Transformative” Presidents

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As 2012 nears an end, it is appropriate to add President Barack Obama to a short list of “transformative” Presidents, Chief Executives who have had a major impact on the nation in a way that makes them historic figures who have changed the politics of America for the long term!

The list of “transformative” Presidents is short and would include the following:

Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosvelt
Lyndon B. Johnson
Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama

Each of the eight Presidents listed above changed our political system in a way that lasted way beyond their time, and it seems likely that Obama will have the same impact electorally!

Just as Thomas Jefferson co-opted the Federalist Party agenda; Andrew Jackson created a party of the masses; Abraham Lincoln saved the nation in the Civil War and made the Republican Party the dominant national party; Theodore Roosevelt made “progressivism” a term and a movement that would be pursued by Woodrow Wilson and others later on; Franklin D. Roosevelt would save the nation from the Great Depression via the New Deal, and World War II, and make the Democratic Party the dominant national party; Lyndon B. Johnson would transform the nation on civil rights and Medicare; Ronald Reagan would make conservatism the dominant national ideology for nearly thirty years; so will Barack Obama transform the nation on health care, gay rights, the growing role of women and minorities, and in fighting the war on terrorism!

There were Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans; Jacksonian Democrats; Lincolnian Republicans; TR Progressives; FDR Democrats; Johnson Loyalists of the Great Society; Reaganite conservatives; and now Obama Democrats who will affect the future for decades, as his predecessors did!

We are, indeed, living in very historic times!

Census Projections In 2063: Four Of Every Seven Americans Will Be “Minorities”

Ronald 2 Comments

America is rapidly changing, and when one looks ahead fifty years, the Census Bureau projections are as follows:

43 percent Caucasian–three out of every seven Americans

31 percent Hispanic-Latino–one out of every three Americans

15 percent African American–one out of six Americans

11 percent Asian American or Native American–one of out every nine Americans

So four of every seven Americans will be nonwhite, and the party which recognizes this is the party of success long term.

And right now, that is clearly the Democratic Party, NOT the Republican Party!

Voting Rights Act Under Review, As Arizona, Florida And Other States Show Evidence Of Voter Suppression

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The Supreme Court has accepted a case on the validity of continuation of federal oversight of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with the argument that states can handle their voting effectively, without discrimination.

Are such advocates getting high on drugs?

It is CLEAR CUT that Arizona, Florida and other states were working to discriminate against people of color and poor people in the recent election!

Florida was unable to handle its voting process expeditiously, and was abusive in cutting down days of voting from 14 to 8, thanks to the GOP legislature and Governor Rick Scott!

Arizona has still not counted all the votes, and Governor Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio are the worst abusers of voting rights, and both promote intimidation of Hispanics and Latinos, and act as if they are above the law!

Other states have promoted intimidation of Hispanics and Latinos, including Alabama specifically, and many states have promoted voter suppression laws.

How could a reasonable Supreme Court do anything other than uphold the need for continued monitoring of voting?

And yet this right wing majority on the Court could very well destroy one of the path mark pieces of legislation under Lyndon B. Johnson, and bring us back to the age of “Jim Crow”!

It i s hoped that Justice Anthony Kennedy (often the swing vote), and or Chief Justice John Roberts will join the four liberal members of the Court in upholding the continued enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Roberts, having surprised everyone, with his decisive vote to uphold ObamaCare, hopefully will surprise us again with an open mind, and come through, even if Kennedy fails to do so.

To have advancements in American democracy endangered 50 years later is a true disgrace!

The Republican Jewish Coalition, Israel, And Barack Obama: A Total Failure To Change The Jewish Vote

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The Republican Jewish Coalition made every effort to defeat President Barack Obama, but failed miserably!

In 2008, 78 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic nominee; in 2012, after spreading lies and mistruths about Obama and Israel, the end result was that Obama received 70 percent of the vote, a total smack to the deception practiced by the RJC!

Why did 7 out 10 Jews remain loyal to Obama and the Democrats? The answer is that they knew that Obama had given more aid to Israel than any other President, including the IRON DOME missile system; that the Democrats were the party of social justice, as shown through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare, along with civil rights legislation, environmental legislation, and stood for women’s rights; and also that the Republican Party wished to cut back on all these accomplishments, including wiping out ObamaCare.

Additionally, many American Jews do not trust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it is now known that even people within his own government and military feel Netanyahu is too trigger happy, wanting to start a war with Iran before diplomacy has played its course, and that Netanyahu favored the Republicans and Mitt Romney from the beginning. So the question was: Should our President have to bow to every demand and detail that Netanyahu insists upon? Is he our President, instead of Barack Obama? And is it not true that Defense Minister Ehud Barak (former Prime Minister) and President Shimon Peres have raved about the support of Israel by our President?

Face the facts: The RJC was more concerned about preserving the wealth of Boca Raton Jewish residents and others elsewhere who are extremely wealthy, and do not wish to pay their fair share of taxes, as evidenced by the meeting in Florida of wealthy Jews where Mitt Romney said his famous “47 Percent” statement that harmed him greatly in the end result!

Also, Orthodox Jews as a group have a problem with socially tolerant views of abortion and gay rights, and are not seen as great advocates of civil rights for other minorities, other than themselves, sad to say!

And it is not just the RJC that was disgraceful!

It was also House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, the only Jewish Republican on Capitol Hill, who has made it his mission to destroy ObamaCare and privatize Medicare, and is very mean spirited in his relations with the President, and is also well known for his attempts to undermine House Speaker John Boehner, who he would love to replace!

And also, House Republican candidate Adam Hasner of Boca Raton, who lost to Lois Frankel, has the same agenda as Cantor. And Josh Mandel, the GOP nominee who lost to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ran a nasty, undignified campaign, and made clear that his goal was to promote the Tea Party radicalism of his party, rather than be part of the great majority who see their faith as connected to social justice!

Fortunately, both Hasner and Mandel lost handily, and it would be no loss to the nation if neither ever runs again, with their agenda to help the rich and powerful, and ignore the needs and wants of women, labor, minorities, gays, and senior citizens!

Theodore Roosevelt’s 154th Birthday: He Would Mourn What His Republican Party Has Become!

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Today is the 154th Anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt’s birth.

TR is one of the most acclaimed Presidents, often listed as high as 4th all time, just below Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George Washington.

TR is certainly regarded as the second greatest Republican President of all time, behind only Lincoln, unless one chooses to believe the lunacy of conservative propagandist Glenn Beck, who constantly denounces TR, and would put Ronald Reagan higher than TR, and who also has reservations about Lincoln, because correspondence between Lincoln and Karl Marx has been uncovered, which makes some right wing nuts think Lincoln “might” have been a “Socialist”, or a “Communist”, or even the word “Progressive”, which is considered the same thing by Beck, Florida Congressman Allen West, and other right wing lunatics!

TR was a “Progressive” who promoted conservation and the environment; promoted the advance of labor rights; believed in regulation of big business; created the Food and Drug Administration to monitor safety of what Americans consume; and believed later in his life, when he ran as the Progressive Party nominee for President in 1912 that there was a need for health care and labor laws and other aspects of a social safety net. This made TR the forerunner of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama in advocating more government, more regulation, more social safety net, and concern about the environment.

None of the above is now believed by the Republican Party of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, who wish to repeal everything TR and his successors of both parties believed in!

So it is clear that TR, certainly not perfect but still exceptional in so many ways, would NOT be a Republican today!

But then Abraham Lincoln would not be a Republican today.

Neither would Dwight D. Eisenhower or even Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford, who were condemning the religious extremism of their party in their later years.

And right now, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, and former South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler have endorsed President Barack Obama.

And under the surface, not willing to speak up, but clearly uncomfortable with the GOP of 2012, are many other former Republican Governors, Senators, and Congressmen who feel that their party has been “hijacked” by an evil, selfish, greedy, nasty group of weirdos who wish to take away rights from women, labor, minorities, the disabled, the poor, and the middle class, and are refusing to come out openly and endorse Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

The party of Theodore Roosevelt and his “progressivism” and reform is long gone, and sadly, may never return!

The Developing Gender, Age, And Racial Gap In American Politics Will Determine The Future

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What is becoming more obvious by the day is that America is facing a major split politically over the nation’s future. It will show up in the results of the Presidential Election of 2012.

A gender gap, already present, is growing, between the majority of women, who vote Democratic, and the majority of men, who vote Republican.

An age gap is also widening, as younger voters tend to trend toward the Democrats, while senior citizens seem afraid of the future, including the racial changes coming in the population, and are tending Republican, even though the Republicans should be seen as a threat to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

There is also an obvious racial gap, with the majority of whites voting Republican, while the majority of African Americans and Hispanics-Latinos are voting Democratic.

This split, along gender, age, and racial lines presents many challenges to the winner of the election, and indicates the stresses and tensions within the nation, as we see an aging white population, and an emerging, much younger and growing minority community becoming the major factor in the future of American politics. It also shows the growing conflict between men and women over their roles in American society, as women become the challenge to men’s dominance economically.

The old traditions are being upended by a changing dynamic that will affect policy making in the future. And it will also affect both the Democrats and Republicans as they come to grips with the political future. The party which accepts the future will dominate, while the party that resists the future will suffer!

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rejects Voter Suppression Bill, Sends It Back To Lower Court

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A major victory for those fighting voter suppression laws was won this week in Pennsylvania, where the six member court of three Republicans and three Democrats sent the state legislature’s Republican sponsored voter ID law back to a lower court for reconsideration, meaning the likelihood that the law will not be able to be used for this fall’s election.

Two Democrats wanted the law declared unconstitutional, but one Democrat and the three Republicans decided instead to have it reconsidered by a lower court, a delaying tactic not as good as dismissing the law, but enough to make it ineffective for an election six weeks away!

This development, plus actions in courts in Ohio, Florida and Texas, make the ability of Republicans to prevent people from voting far less possible, and there has been a firing up of motivation by Democratic oriented voters to do everything they have to do to be able to vote, including spending the time to get necessary documentation, so that they cannot be denied the right to vote by any poll worker at voting sites.

But there is a conspiracy by the group called True The Vote to intimidate voters, particularly minority voters, by stalking them, making them feel they are being followed by police officers, making them afraid to vote, and challenging them at the polls as to their right to vote, even though they are not the poll workers!

The Tea Party Movement is promoting this, basically trying to bring back the Jim Crow segregation era, particularly in Southern states, but also in Republican governed states. If they cannot get the courts to back them up, they will do so by personal interference, and the promotion of fear among voters to prevent them from casting their vote.

So the battle for democracy, that everyone can vote without interference, has had some victories, but attention must be paid to the True The Vote and Tea Party activities, and everything must be done to expose and prevent any suppression efforts by this despicable group and their backers!

The Despicable Arrogance Of Mitt Romney And His Wealthy Boca Raton Supporters!

Ronald 2 Comments

Let this author start off by pointing out that he lives in Boca Raton, Florida, in the same zip code as the wealthy Republicans who live in gated communities, but lives in a “normal” middle class home without gates to keep out others!

He is personally embarrassed by the obscene gaudiness and arrogant attitude of multimillionaires who live in gated communities, and think they are better than the rest of us!

These are the people who mistreat the workers in supermarkets, drug stores, and all other local businesses, because, somehow they think their wealth makes them “entitled” to treat others not as fortunate as them, in an insulting, rude, demanding manner!

It is people like this who could sit in the home of a “privileged character” who could demand $50,000 campaign contribution from each participant, the average income of a family of four in America, and twice what many families earn in annual income!

They could sit there and listen to Mitt Romney say he did not care about 47 percent of the population, and the nerve of that 47 percent to think they were “entitled” to food, housing, and health care, and not one spoke up in opposition! Remember that the “47 percent” include veterans, senior citizens, single mothers and children, college students, minorities, and disabled people!

How low and disgraceful could any human being go in not giving a damn about their fellow human beings, and only be interested in the constant acquisition of wealth at the expense of others losing their jobs, their health care, and their homes!

How can these wealthy people look in the mirror each day and not feel that this is not the message of Jesus or Moses, to look down on fellow human beings, and just go ahead and exploit others for material gain without any conscience?

What has happened to America that wealthy people like these in Boca Raton, Florida, have so little concern about others, and can back a candidate who exudes selfishness, greed, and materialism in the most ugly fashion?

These wealthy people who met at a Boca Raton mansion should be ashamed of themselves, and if they claim, as many probably do, to be “religious”, they should meet the judgment of their deity in the afterlife with a strong punishment for their misbehavior on earth!

They have forgotten that the way one treats the “little people” in life, the ones who earn low income but do service for all of us in different ways, is the best judgment of one’s character, and on that test, all these Boca Raton millionaires fail miserably!