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The Importance Of Higher Education Over A Lifetime Worth The Investment!

Ronald 2 Comments

Propaganda has been going around, promoted by conservatives and Republicans, that higher education is not worth the investment, that many students end up with a debt that will take many years to pay off, so that, instead, it is better to avoid college education. Their goal, ultimately, is to promote ignorance and apathy among the masses, so as to advance their agenda of impoverishing the middle class and the poor!

Yes, college debt is a major problem, and the interest rates charged are ridiculous, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wants to promote legislation to lower rates, stating that an investment in the long term future should not become victim of greedy lenders!

While it is true that many college and university graduates cannot find work in their chosen field, and that it has become particularly difficult for recent college students to find appropriate work, one must think in the long run, not the short run, and the evidence is clear that a college education, over a lifetime, pays dividends in higher pay, a better lifestyle, and a much more enlightened citizenry!

College graduates on the average make at least double the income of non college graduates, and over a lifetime, about a half million dollars is lost if a person has not attended and graduated a four year degree.

Also, the level of satisfaction at work, and the knowledge base of a college graduate, is far greater than a non college graduate. A four year college degree is still the best ticket to the middle class for anyone who is struggling to make ends meet!

Fifteen Most Right Wing States In America: The Candidates

Ronald Leave a comment

As America moves forward on so many issues socially, the “hinterland” of the nation languishes in its revelry of backwardness, allowing themselves to be influenced by Christian fundamentalists and business tycoons who do not give a damn about the rights of women, the rights of children, the rights of gays and lesbians, the right to safety from gun extremists, the right to labor protections, the right to promotion of the environment, the rights of minorities, the rights to basic health care, the rights to a public education, and the right to basic civil liberties for all citizens and non-citizens.

Instead, there are many states who are working to outlaw abortion completely within their boundaries; to deny poor children free breakfast and lunch; to refuse to recognize same sex marriage protections; to expand the rights of gun enthusiasts at the expense of public safety; to refuse to expand unemployment compensation and the minimum wage for workers; to undermine environmental protections and fight the federal government on the creation of new national parks and monuments; to imprison and execute minorities on a much larger scale than whites; to refuse to expand Medicaid or provide any kind of health care for the poor and disabled; to promote privatization of schools and charters and cut spending on public schools; to teach creationism as science in public schools; and to give police undue power to shoot and kill when uncalled for in many domestic situations that arise as part of a troubled social structure in America!

Trying to make a list of fifteen most right wing states is not easy, as there are numerous candidates for such dubious honors!

It is as if we live in two Americas–the progressive, modern, secular, advanced states of the two coastlines and the upper Midwest; and the backward, 19th century mentality, theocratic, backward states of the “hinterland”, resentful of a changing America that includes large numbers of people of very different backgrounds and agendas than these mostly rural, isolated states, many with much smaller population, but having influence through the US Senate, and the Tea Party ability to create barriers in the US House of Representatives.

Here is a list of states that the author believes have the unique distinction of competing for the most backward, reactionary states in America in the 21st century. These states are not being ranked, but just listed at this point.

Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky
West Virginia
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma
Idaho
Utah
Wyoming

Notice nine of the fifteen are the old South or border South; three are the Great Plains; and three are the Mountain West.

The author welcomes discussion of this list of most right wing states, and he will make a judgment later on which state is the most backward in 2014!

Economic Revival And Success Of Health Care Law Should Favor Democrats In Midterm Elections Of 2014!

Ronald 4 Comments

More than ever, many public opinion polls seem to indicate that the Republican Party is to have a major success, gaining seats in the House of Representatives, and winning control of the US Senate!

But polls have been wrong before, and it is very hard to believe with economic revival reaching the recovery of the number of jobs lost in 2008-2009, plus the clear success of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) after a difficult start, that most of the eight million and more people who have signed up are going, either to sit home, or to vote against their own economic interests!

If the polls are correct, then the people are at fault, either for failing to exercise their right to vote, or can simply be told that they have, out of lack of knowledge and understanding, voted against what makes common sense, support for the Democratic Party!

The old saying is that people get the government they deserve, so if millions of people choose to support a party that has undermined the middle class and the poor, nothing else can be said except maybe, some day, they will learn their lesson, and realize the mistake they have made, that has only enriched the very wealthy at their expense!

South Florida Wars On Homeless And Voters: Signs Of Heartless Attitude Toward Poor, And Minority Right To Vote

Ronald Leave a comment

The Republican Party in the state of Florida has become as heartless and disgraceful in their treatment of the homeless, the poor, and minorities, as already demonstrated in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and elsewhere.

But now South Florida, where the author lives, has reached a new low!

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, center of Broward County, is now working to outlaw the homeless in their jurisdiction from having ANY personal items with them, including clothing, food, medicine, and personal items. These homeless are already degraded, but now they can have no personal possessions, an absolute outrage!

And Dade County is now setting up voting rules that will close all public restrooms on voting days, since many of them do not have adequate conditions for disabled people, so that means voters will have to wait on line for hours under restrictive rules for voting days and hours, and be unable to relieve themselves, thereby discouraging many voters from even getting on line.

What kind of community bars anyone from having personal posessions on their person or near them, and what kind of community cloes all restrooms as a method to cut voting numbers?

This is unconscionable, and the Department of Justice MUST intervene to stop both actions, and similar ones elsewhere in the nation!

How could anyone claim that the Department of Justice should not sue on these matters, as a violation of civil rights?

What kind of a nation are we becoming, when we take away all human dignity from the homeless, and have jurisdictions closing restrooms to prevent voting?

How can anyone justify this in the name of human decency and compassion and justice?

Widespread Sense Of Anger, Unhappiness, Discontent, Despondency In Electorate Favors Democrats!

Ronald Leave a comment

Many political observers seem unaware of a widespread sense of anger, unhappiness, discontent, and despondency in the electorate, and fail to understand that this favors the Democrats, not the Republicans, in the midterm elections of 2014.

The Republican Party in the House of Representatives has produced the most horrible record of lack of achievement, lack of concern for the middle class and the poor, and has simply come across as a party of obstruction in the past four years.

While the Democrats have far from a perfect record, they have been the party to bring about a health care plan that is covering millions of people for the first time; have fought for an increase in the minimum wage; have argued for an extension of unemployment compensation for the long term unemployed; have battled to make sure that the food stamp program is not gutted for the poor, the elderly, the children, and the disabled; have promoted the need for infrastructure spending and education, including a solution for students heavily indebted; have defended the need for environmental protection; have backed the need for strong labor protections; have supported fair treatment for gays and lesbians, including marriage rights; and have worked for immigration reform in a fair and balanced way.

For those who are angry, unhappy, discontented, and despondent to sit on their hands and do nothing, and NOT vote in the midterm elections, both state and Congressional, would be the height of stupidity, as no change can come if people stay home.

So the job of Democrats is to come out of their shell, fight for what they believe in, be proud of what they have done and stood for, stand proud, and motivate those who usually do not vote, to do so this time, and give the Republicans a well deserved defeat in the House of Representatives, keep the Democrats in control of the US Senate, and work to defeat Republican “Bully” Governors elected in 2010, who have been a literal nightmare for the masses of people who are not wealthy, and not part of the one percent oligarchy which is taking over American politics in an alarming way, while the middle class and the poor sit on the sidelines, lacking motivation to react in their own self interest!

The Worst Governor In Florida History: Rick Scott!

Ronald 1 Comment

Florida Governor Rick Scott may have gained less attention than other “Bully” Republican Governors elected in 2010, but he is, in many ways, the absolutely worst governor in America, and easily, the worst Governor Florida has ever had in modern history!

Florida has had some really outstanding Governors, including Leroy Collins (1955-1961); Reubin Askew (1971-1979); Bob Graham (1979-1987); Lawton Chiles (1991-1999); and Charlie Crist (2007-2011). Republican Governors Claude Kirk (1967-1971) and Bob Martinez (1987-1991) both lost re-election and were controversial. Jeb Bush (1999-2007) had his controversies, but did an excellent job dealing with eight hurricanes during his time in office.

Rick Scott came into office with the record of having paid a record fine for his Medicare corruption as the leader of the nation’s largest hospital chain, and should have gone to prison instead, for his misdeeds. He won the Governorship by only 50,000 votes, the smallest margin in Florida history.

Scott spent $73 million of his own money to get himself elected, despite a personality that was and is a turn off to most people who have any intelligence or compassion for others. It was an example of how backward Floridians were, that they would allow a convicted felon to become their Governor.

Scott has done massive damage on voting rights, privacy rights, public schools and higher education, environmental protection, and health care. His party controls three fourths of the seats in the legislature, and has taken Florida backwards at a time when it is about to become the third largest state in population.

Scott has made it harder for Florida citizens to vote; for those who are unemployed to gain unemployment compensation; for renters to avoid eviction; and made it easier for borrowers to be charged high interest rates on short term loans.

Scott has refused to accept Medicaid money for the poor, despite the fact that the federal government will pay all the costs for three years, and 90 percent after that. He fought ObamaCare tooth and nail, and still makes it difficult for citizens to apply for it.

Scott rejected federal money for high speed rail, while creating another state university, Florida Polytechnic University, which undermines the University of South Florida market for students. His administration spends less per public school student than when he took office, and promotes private charter schools over public schools. He has undermined respect for a liberal arts education, and teachers at all levels have been treated with disrespect by his education policies.

Scott has undermined the environment protections put into effect by his predecessors, and sees Florida as equivalent of a corporation that needs to be given freedom to abuse in every way possible, including health insurance rates, higher electric rates, and tax breaks for businesses that have not created the promised number of jobs.

Scott has demonstrated little concern for individual rights, wanting drug testing for state employees and welfare recipients; purging voter rolls, and restricting early voting. Luckily, there has been reaction against these ideas by courts, county elections supervisors, and the public.

The man has no compassion or empathy, and comes across as a cold, calculating individual, and it makes one wonder how Floridians could possibly consider him for a second term, but Scott is willing to spend whatever it takes to fool people, and to keep the vote numbers down by any means he can conjure up.

Scott gains less attention nationally than Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and other “Bully” Governors, all of whom are considered Presidential possibilities, but IF Rick Scott is re-elected, do not be surprised if he tries to bring his corruption, mean spirit, callousness, and lack of empathy or compassion to a national campaign for President.

One might say, wait, there is already Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio as potential candidates for President from Florida! The answer is: So What? Scott has never let ego or ethics get in his way in the past, and do not be surprised he might mount a national campaign if he defeats former Governor Charlie Crist, who has switched parties, and faces a massive challenge to be elected Governor as a Democrat, in a state with such a large Republican dominance in the state legislature!

The problem is that, even if Crist were to win, he is likely to face a hardline legislature, where only his veto might sometimes be effective, as Florida politics now represents one of the most backward agendas of any state, despite the fact that the state has nearly 20 million citizens, including many elderly, poor, sick, and disabled!

This is NOT a state where anyone who has a choice to move would decide to remain. YES, the weather is great, but the future for the elderly, the poor, the sick and the disabled, and for children in general, is gloomy!

Maryland, anyone?

The Republican War On The IRS Is An Anarchistic, Extremist Attack!

Ronald 6 Comments

The Republican Party has declared war on the Internal Revenue Service, the basic backbone of how the federal government operates, how it protects the nation, and advances the domestic agenda of the United States, to make it the nation of freedom, justice, and equality that it was meant to be!

If you left it to the Republican Party, which operates as an anarchistic, extremist movement against the whole structure of our federal government, they would move to repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which Republican President William Howard Taft advocated.

The Republican Party calls for abolition of the IRS, without saying how they would replace the funding that it provides for our national defense; for our multitude of federal government agencies that give Americans all kinds of services; and for protection of our elderly, our children, our disabled, our poor!

It seems that the Republican Party wants to go back to America and what it was in 1789–a nation of four million people with state governments having all of the power, or lack of it, to help maintain the safety, security, and advancement of its citizens!

Anyone who has studied American history knows that state governments have always been incompetent, inept, and too corrupt to be in charge of all of the massive responsibilities that the federal government has had since the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War!

If the Republican Party were, somehow, able to accomplish what they advocate, it would lead to total chaos, anarchy, disruption, and the dissolution of a stable government!

So the right wing of the GOP is a dangerous, anarchistic, extremist group! Let’s call the reality what it is, a danger to all of America’s citizens!

The False Voter Fraud Issue Of Republicans Challenged Head On By Barack Obama

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most outrageous activities of the Republican Party is its attempt to prevent people from voting by requiring all kinds of documents, and cutting voting days and hours, and refusing same day voting registration.

The GOP claim of widespread voter fraud is absolutely ridiculous, and Barack Obama took it on in a speech yesterday, at a time when the Supreme Court, Republican dominated majority, has weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, just as we celebrate 50 years of the Civil Rights Act, and next year, 50 years of a now weakened Voting Rights Act, something civil rights workers died for in the early 1960s.

As Obama pointed, statistics demonstrate that between 2002 and 2005, out of 197 million votes cast, there were ONLY 40 examples of people indicted for voter fraud, a infinitesimal number, a percentage of 0.00002 percent!

For this, we need millions of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, elderly, poor, disabled, and young voters denied the basic right to vote?

What the Republican Party is doing in Republican controlled states with Republican legislatures and governors is against the whole concept of fairness, justice, and equality, dating back to the old Jim Crow days in the South, but now embraced in areas outside the South as well.

Abraham Lincoln is turning over in his grave as to what his party has done, a true example of their political corruption, and lack of ethics!

Four Years Of ObamaCare: Over 5 Million SIgned Up, And Now Irreversible Law!

Ronald 8 Comments

It is now four years since ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, became law, and over 5 million people have signed up since October 1 of last year, despite the flawed beginnings of the website.

ObamaCare is here to stay, but will certainly need adjustments and tweaking as it grows further, just like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare Part D needed to make such changes.

The Republican Party has attempted to end ObamaCare by over 50 votes in the House of Representatives, but it has been for naught, since the Senate is presently Democratic.

But even if the Republicans were to win the Senate and keep the House in the 2014 midterm elections, ObamaCare will not end, as President Obama has the power of the veto, and there is no chance that a two thirds override of a Presidential veto could ever occur.

So the GOP is looking ahead to their vision of winning both houses of Congress AND the Presidency in 2016, but their chances of that occurring are miniscule to zero, as ONLY if they were to nominate Jon Huntsman, would there be even a chance of defeating Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or any other Democrat, with the Electoral College heavily tilted in favor of the Democratic nominee, with the Republicans refusing to change their tune in their attitudes towards women, Latinos, African Americans, labor, the poor, the young, and the elderly.

The GOP is self destructive, and to imagine that they would be willing to repeal all aspects of ObamaCare, taking away health care from millions, and denying senior citizens the closing of the “donut hole” on prescriptions; the end of children being covered under their parents’ plans until age 26; the end of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and no more lifetime coverage; and many other benefits that have already helped many people who never had health care coverage before ObamaCare, is truly a sign that they do not give a damn about the health of the American people.

This is particularly so with the fact that ObamaCare is far less advanced than Hillary Care was in the 1990s, when Republicans fought it and defeated it in 1994, with the Heritage Foundation–Bob Dole-Newt Gingrich Republican plan which, in many details, became RomneyCare in Massachusetts in 2006, and then was suddenly no longer acceptable once Barack Obama moved to adopt it as a compromise from the concept of Medicare For All or the “public option”, both more “radical”, while ObamaCare allows private health care companies to control the market place.

The GOP has lost all credibility, and in the long run, if not the short run, when the American people finally “get it”, what that party is doing, they will suffer electorally in a massive way!

Paul Ryan Self Destructs Any Chance To Run For President!

Ronald 10 Comments

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who this blogger spent a lot of time working to undermine his Vice Presidential candidacy in 2012, and got blasted for it by right wing websites and bloggers, has again shown further evidence of what a terrible choice Mitt Romney made in his Presidential race, in selecting Ryan to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency!

Ryan, who knows nothing about budgets, except that the poor, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, and the young should see cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social programs; and there should be no extension of unemployment compensation for desperately unemployed people; and there should be no rise in the minimum wage, now has gone off the “deep end” with his assertion that those who live in the “inner cities” have no sense of the importance of work, and have not worked for generations!

This is a direct and racist assault on African Americans in particular, but also on Hispanics and Latinos, who are a majority of the poor in the urban areas of our nation.

But Ryan acts as if it is only minorities who are poor, and are unemployed, and in some cases, have not worked in a long time. From this statement, one would think that whites are not poor, that they all work, that they all have a heritage of understanding the point of work, and nothing could be further from the truth!

It is a fact, and always has been, that the vast majority of the poor do not live in cities, and are not minorities, although one would think so from a stereotype!

The fact is that there are millions of whites who live in the rural and suburban areas of the nation, and many are them do not work, have no hope of work, and live in depressed conditions often worse than urban slums. Many of these people are living in “Red” states, where Republicans vote to hurt their own constituents, while making it seem as if only minorities do not work, or have no work ethic. They live in Appalachia, the Great Plains, the Rockies, in comparatively sparsely populated areas, as compared to the urban areas on the East and West Coasts.

More whites receive food stamps, and the level of poverty percentage wise is higher in such places as Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska.

It is the lack of education; the tendency to have large families which are also dysfunctional; the reality of drugs and alcohol; the refusal of these state governments to give a damn about their white poor, along with minority poor; and the tendency to turn poor whites against poor minorities so that the GOP can keep power in the House and in the state legislatures, which is destroying generation after generation of deprived people of all races!

Only when there is a REAL war on poverty, instead of exploiting the issue based upon race, as Paul Ryan has now done, will we ever be able to guarantee a good future for millions of whites, as well as African Americans and Latinos!

And Paul Ryan, your potential Presidential candidacy is dead in the water, and while you might run, you have forfeited any realistic chance to be President of the United States, but that was clear, anyway, in 2012!