Pennsylvania

Our 18th Century Political System No Longer Works In The 21st Century!

Ronald 10 Comments

The Founding Fathers of the late 18th century created a political system that worked for a long time, despite many crises.

Sadly, it no longer works when one realizes that we have a system where land counts more than people, as in the US Senate!

The top NINE states in the 2010 US Census had a combined population which is a majority of the nation—California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan! So two Northeastern states, three Southern states, three Midwestern states, and one Western state are where the population is most concentrated!

Also, the next eleven states,in total, have over 25 percent of the total population. So that means TWENTY states have over 75 percent of the entire population of the country in their midst!

Also, if you add states 21-30, it adds another 15 percent of the nation’s population, and that means 90 percent of the country is in 30 states, while the other 20 states have less than ten percent of the entire population combined!

Also, 70 percent of the American population lives on TWO PERCENT of all of the land of the country!

Despite this, we have the 30 percent of the population living on 98 percent of the land, and 41 states out of 50, having the ability to dictate most actions of the Senate, and the House of Representatives!

And 30 states, having less than 25 percent of the total population, can, in theory, block action, or bring about action through the filibuster, in the Senate, with their 60 votes!

There is no immediate or long range solution to this reality, but it is important that people realize that the Founding Fathers, as brilliant as they were, could not, possibly, conceive how the nation would change over 225 years!

Advancements On Gay Rights, But Plenty Of Struggle Ahead

Ronald 4 Comments

The vote of the US Senate yesterday to agree to overcome a potential filibuster, and allow a final vote on ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) is a great move forward on civil rights.

The proposed law, discussed for many years, would ban employers from firing, refusing to hire, or discriminating against workers or job applicants based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The procedural vote was 61-30 with 54 Democrats (all but Claire McCaskill, who was not present), and 7 Republicans (Susan Collins, Kelly Ayotte, Dean Heller, Mark Kirk,. Rob Portman, Orrin Hatch, and Pat Toomey) in favor.

So the bill will pass the Senate in the next few days, but disturbing is that 30 Republicans had the nerve to vote for continued discrimination, and 8 Republicans were not recorded as voting.

It will be interesting to see if any of these 38 Republicans will vote for the final bill, particularly such Senators as John McCain and Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and John Thune, who at times have shown some moderation as compared to most in the Senate Republican caucus.

At the same time, Illinois moved today toward final acceptance of gay marriage, making that state the 15th to have gay marriage, going into effect by the summer of 2014.

At the same time, other states seem to be moving in the same direction, including Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, although at different measurements of progress.

Regarding the ENDA legislation, IF Speaker John Boehner allowed an open vote, the legislation would become law, with most Democrats and enough Republicans to make it the law of the land , but Boehner has indicated that he will not allow a vote, which, if it is pursued all the way, would stop any chance to do what is morally right to do, stop job discrimination, So pressure must be brought to convince him to change his mind, and allow a vote even without a majority of his caucus.

Two Political Giants Pass From The Scene: Lindy Boggs And William Scranton!

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In just the past couple of days, two Political Giants, one a Democrat and a woman, the other a man and a Republican, have passed from the scene, and their deaths remind us of the fact that there have been quality politicians in both parties, but the number who are such is rapidly declining!

Former Louisiana Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, the widow of former Congressman Hale Boggs, and the mother of ABC journalist Cokie Roberts, died at the age of 97. One of the greatest women ever to serve in Congress, she won her husband’s seat after he was tragically killed in a small plane over Alaska, with his body never being found, in 1972. Lindy Boggs served almost 18 years in her Louisiana House district, winning the last few times as the only white Representative in Congress to represent a majority black district. She served as the Chairwoman of the 1976 Democratic National Convention which nominated Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. She was outspoken on the subject of civil rights, and was the first woman to serve in Congress from her state. Boggs also served as Ambassador to the Vatican, the Holy See, in the second term of Bill Clinton’s Presidency from 1997-2001.

And her daughter, Cokie Roberts, became a well known, outstanding journalist on ABC for a few decades, adding much to the profession of television journalism!

Lindy Boggs was truly an elegant lady, and a woman who stands out as one of the best ever to serve in the halls of Congress!

Just today, news came of the death of former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, William Scranton at age 96, who became very prominent as a one term Governor from 1963-1967, after serving one term in the House of Representatives. A progressive or liberal Republican, and proud of that appellation, Scranton ran a last ditch Presidential campaign against fellow Republican, Senator Barry Goldwater, attempting to stop his nomination for President in 1964.

Scranton came from a wealthy family which had founded Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was an inheritor of a fortune made in iron, coal, and railroads. He brought about education reform, including the community college system in his state. He also served as UN Ambassador in 1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford Presidency, and also headed a committee to investigate the Kent State University and Jackson State College tragedies which occurred after the US invasion of Cambodia in 1970 under President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War! He also was asked by Nixon to be his Secretary of State, but declined, and was considered to be Gerald Ford’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1976, but passed by for Senator Bob Dole of Kansas!

The loss of two principled, decent politicians, such as Lindy Boggs and William Scranton, is a loss to American politics, and we can only hope for more people entering politics with the kind of stature and dignity that these two individuals personified!

Financial And Sexual Scandals Seem More Endemic Than Ever!

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Even for one who loves politics, it is becoming disillusioning how politicians seem unable to control their behavior, whether financial or sexual!

So just now, we see Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell facing the end of his political career, even as he is due to finish the one term limited office in his state, with the possibility of having to resign before the end of the term, facing possible prison time if put on trial for his willingness to accept massive gifts for himself and his family from corporate interests who do business with the state of Virginia, and dreams of being President going by the wayside!

And Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett seems to be facing similar accusations, and probable political destruction, proving once again that Republican officeholders are particularly obsessed with money, never having enough of it, and thinking that they are entitled to favors from their corporate friends!

But then Democrats have problems with sexual scandals, not unique to them, but right now the center of the political realities in San Diego and New York City!

San Diego Democratic Mayor Bob Filner, once a quite outstanding Congressman, hardly in his first term as Mayor, is obviously a male chauvinist, who is unable to control his behavior with women, is under fire to resign, refuses to do so, and instead is undergoing soon a two week course in how to behave, as if a 70 year old man with a major problem, can somehow resolve it almost overnight! To top it off, he is being sued for sexual harassment, and wants his legal fees paid by the city government of San Diego! What gall, and outrageous conduct, and Filner needs to be run out of town on a rail, so to speak!

And the biggest story in New York City is not the problems the city faces, but the inability of former Congressman Anthony Weiner to stop sexting, after having been caught at it two years, forcing him to resign, and claiming he had changed his behavior when he announced for Mayor, and then the discovery that he had continued to sext even recently, in an embarrassing charade for New York CIty, for his wife, and for his own reputation! And yet, he refused to quit the Mayoral race, leaving it to the voters in the primary in six weeks, to determine his fate! This man is eating up all the oxygen in the room, and the thought that he could be Mayor of the nation’s largest city is enough to make the whole concept of the importance of the Mayoralty a total joke! His wife needs to stop defending him, and push him out of the race, or else declare she is leaving him, divorcing him, and condemning him, as anything else only hurts the whole point of a suffering wife making clear she is not going to tolerate such public misbehavior any longer!

And ironically, this Weiner caper is undermining the Bill and Hillary Clinton reputation, reminding voters of the unfortunate willingness of Hillary to tolerate Bill’s sexual misbehavior, supposedly to promote her own political career, but demeaning the concept of what a wife’s reaction to her husband’s misdeeds should be!

Who can say that this Weiner disaster might not affect Hillary Clinton’s supposed status as frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination? Every day this goes on, it is as if it is dripping poison on the image of the Clintons, for those who believe in common decency in their politicians, something we are failing to see much too often at any point, but most notably right now!

150th Anniversary Of Battle Of Gettysburg: Turning Point Of Civil War!

Ronald 3 Comments

A century and a half ago, on July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, the greatest battle of the Civil War occurred in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the furthest north the Confederate armies of the South ever managed to reach during the war!

About 50,000 casualties occurred in those three days, and only on July 3 was it clear that the Union Army had triumphed, but at great cost!

This author has visited the Gettysburg historic site with his older son, and we were both sobered by the reality of that battle, and the amount of blood that was shed, and the ghosts that many claim still haunt the battlefield and the homes nearby that date back to that time period.

President Abraham Lincoln commemorated the loss of life in November of that year, and the commitment to human freedom, that those who fought on the Union side died for, while acknowledging the bravery and commitment of the Confederate soldiers who died in that sleepy Pennsylvania town 150 years ago!

This is a time to commemorate those who died and were wounded, and keep the commitment to human freedom and legal equality that is always under challenge in the modern world, both outside our nation, but sadly also still being an issue that divides Americans, and even the Supreme Court!

The Coming Battle For The GOP Presidential Nomination: Marco Rubio Vs. Ted Cruz, With Rand Paul As Wild Card!

Ronald 86 Comments

It is becoming increasingly clear that the battle for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2016 is going to be between Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky being a “wild card”!

The possibility of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, or Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be the nominee seems very distant.

So it will be two Hispanic (Cuban) Senators battling one another, one trying to work with Democrats on an immigration reform bill, and the other on the warpath against all Democrats, as well as Rubio himself, unwilling to make any deals or promote any cooperation with the “enemy” And hoping to benefit from the battle between Rubio and Cruz is Rand Paul, who with his libertarian bent, will have a major problem attracting many conservatives, including the neoconservatives and the Establishment Republicans of Wall Street.

In the end, it will not matter, as no Republican can overcome the Electoral College advantage of the Democrats, as outlined yesterday in a blog entry.

And the concept that Cuban American Senators, who represent three and a half percent of Hispanics and Latinos, will be able to convince large numbers of Mexican Americans, who are 65 percent of all those with Spanish heritage, to vote Republican, is laughable.

So it will be an interesting sideshow, the battle among Rubio, Cruz and Paul, but at the end, we are likely to have Hillary Clinton as our next President!

The Chris Christie Boomlet: Interesting, But Leading Nowhere!

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become a media “darling” lately, due to his courage and leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which did devastation along the shoreline of New Jersey and New York, and other damage to Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

Christie had the common sense to work with President Obama on surveying the damage, even though the alliance occurred a week before the Presidential Election of 2012, and caused great upset in the Mitt Romney Presidential campaign.

Also, Christie was quick to criticize the House Republicans and Speaker of the House John Boehner for their failure to pass an extensive Hurricane Sandy relief package in the waning moments of the 112th Congress, and blamed Boehner by name.

Now, Christie has become the cover of Time Magazine, named “The Boss”, and has continued to lobby publicly for quick action by the House Republicans in the 113th Congress on the disaster relief bill, pointing out that aid to Louisiana and Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, occurred ten days after the tragedy, and now it is more than 70 days since Hurricane Sandy.

Many see Christie as the ideal GOP nominee for President in 2016, without understanding that he does not represent the core constituencies of the present day party. He speaks his mind, and in many respects, he does not match the extreme right wing tilt of the House Republicans and even many Republican Governors. He is a Northeastern Republican, who has learned within limits to work with the opposition Democrats in the New Jersey legislature, while House Republicans are on the warpath, refusing to cooperate at all with President Obama.

To believe that Chris Christie will, somehow, magically, become the Republican nominee for President in 2016, and that he will defeat the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, is to be willing to gamble big time.

But as this blogger and author stated last month, there are still many reasons to believe that Chris Christie is highly unlikely to be the Republican nominee in 2016, and in any case, the odds of the GOP nominee becoming President are highly remote, not worth betting money!

The Jewish Members Of The 113th Congress

Ronald 4 Comments

In the 113th Congress, due to meet on January 3, there will be a total of 34 people of Jewish heritage serving over the two years of that Congress.

There will be 12 Senators and 22 House members, with the only Republican being House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The 12 Senators include newly appointed Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, just appointed and sworn in yesterday for a two year term, before Schatz has to run for the remaining two years of the term of former Senator Daniel Inouye.

The other eleven Jewish Senators include:

Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
Michael Bennet of Colorado
Ben Cardin of Maryland
Carl Levin of Michigan
Al Franken of Minnesota
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Charles Schumer of New York
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Among the House members are:

Henry Waxman of California
Ted Deutch, Lois Frankel, Alan Grayson and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida
Jan Schakowsky of Illinois
Sander Levin of Michigan
Eliot Engel, Steve Israel, Nita Lowey and Jerrold Nadler of New York

Jewish members of the two houses of Congress come from:

California
Connecticut
Colorado
Florida
Illinois
Kentucky
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New York
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Virginia
Vermont

Marco Rubio Revives His Future, Admitting Earth Is 4.5 Billion Years Old

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Florida Senator Marco Rubio has successfully revived his political career by correcting himself on his ridiculous comment last week about the age of the earth.

Rubio, trying not to antagonize the Christian Evangelical Right, which often contends the earth is 6000-9000 years old, stated that he was not a scientist, and did not know the age of the earth.

Yesterday, in an interview, he admitted that he accepted the earth as being 4.5 billion years old, while stating that theology experts disagree on the matter, but that he acknowledges the age of the earthy as being accurate.

This was a rapid recovery from what had made people look at Rubio as a moron, and his political skills have shown themselves to be brilliant, as everyone is entitled to a mistake, as long as a person does not double down on such moronic viewpoints, so Marco Rubio has a future, as long as he can control his tongue in the future, and avoid future flubs and gaffes that make him look like Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania Senator, who makes himself look dumber and more idiotic every time he opens up his mouth, and yet thinks of himself as a serious Presidential candidate in 2016, because he was the “runner up” to Mitt Romney in the primary battles of 2012!

Arlen Specter, A Senate Giant, Leaves Behind A Complicated Legacy As He Dies At Age 82

Ronald 1 Comment

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who died today at age 82, was, without a doubt, a Senate giant, who leaves behind a complicated legacy.

Specter was a Democrat in Philadelphia, turned a Republican, and then, at the end of his career, a Democrat again!

Specter was a liberal Republican who became a moderate, but fought against the conservative trend in his party.

Specter was one of the most influential Jewish Senators in American history, ranking on the level of New York Senator Jacob Javits, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Michigan Senator Carl Levin, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, California Senator Barbara Boxer, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, and New York Senator Charles Schumer. Only Javits was a Republican, other than Specter.

Specter was a giant figure on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, involved in 14 Supreme Court nomination battles, including the stopping of Robert Bork, and the defense of Clarence Thomas, and the impeachment controversy surrounding President Bill Clinton.

Specter was a prickly, ornery individual, who did not suffer fools very well, whether Senate colleagues or constituents, and became a major critic of the mindless Tea Party Movement in the Republican Party after the election of President Barack Obama.

Specter lost his seat in the Senate after 30 years, when he backed President Obama on health care, and switched back to the Democratic Party, giving them, for a brief period, a 60 member filibuster proof majority in the US Senate.

Specter was seen as a man of principle, but also an opportunist, who gained many enemies all over the political spectrum.

Specter was a key figure in the Warren Commission investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy, being on the staff of the commission, and promoting the viewpoint of a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, which became the official viewpoint of the Warren Commission, a viewpoint he never backed away from, despite the many conspiracy theories.

Specter may have been a “loner” in many ways, but in the thirty years he was in the US Senate, he gained a lot of respect and stature as one of its giant figures, who could not be ignored, overlooked, or mistreated, as he would always fight back, including his two courageous battles with cancer in his last decade.

Arlen Specter is a person who historians will have to wrestle with to understand American politics and history in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early 21st century! His effect on so many areas and issues will be a goldmine for scholars in the future, trying to decipher the controversies and issues going back even to the 1960s!

May Arlen Specter rest in peace, knowing he had a great impact on his nation that will not be forgotten!