Ronald Reagan

House Speaker Becomes A Race: Kevin McCarthy, Jason Chaffetz, Or Daniel Webster? YES, Daniel Webster (Not The Famous One)!

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There is now developing a real race for who should be Speaker of the House, in the wake of the resignation of John Boehner.  It will make us miss Boehner, for all of the faults and shortcomings he possesses!

Present House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has flubbed badly in his comment on the House Benghazi Committee investigating the attack in Libya which led to the death of the ambassador and three others on September 11. 2011.  That committee has been in business longer than any special committee in the history of the United States, and is seen as a purely partisan venture. McCarthy made it clear that the committee was formed to weaken  Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton, and now has tried to backtrack that statement, infuriating Jason Chaffetz of Utah, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who has decided to challenge McCarthy for the Speakership.

McCarthy comes across as incompetent and a poor candidate to be two heartbeats away from the Presidency, and his inability to use good judgment on what to say publicly, plus his lack of experience (only nine years), lack of accomplishments, and his use of words such as “Hungria” for the nation “Hungary”. and making up a new word for Hillary Clinton (untrustable) instead of “untrustworthy”, raises intelligent people’s eyes.

But Chaffetz himself, while better spoken, has only seven years in the House, two fewer than McCarthy, and he was a former Democrat, who actually campaigned for Democrat Michael Dukakis for President in 1988, before meeting former President Ronald Reagan in 1990, seemingly transforming his  life.

To top it off, Florida Congressman Daniel Webster from central Florida, a distant relation of the famous Massachusetts Senator of the same name before the Civil War, but no match for his ancestor, is also in the race, and is seen as a Tea Party candidate for the Speakership.

This whole embarrassment of the battle between McCarthy, Chaffetz, and Webster makes clear that the nation is in trouble, having to look at any of these three men as being two heartbeats away from the Presidency, and it will make us wish John Boehner had not resigned.

And the job to make the House Republicans be united and responsible, with the Tea Party element of 40 or so members the balancing act, means tough times ahead for the GOP, and gives a glimmer of hope that the Democrats might, maybe, be able to squeak out a majority of seats in the 2016 elections, but considered highly unlikely!

Jimmy Carter Reaches 91 Years Of Age: A Day To Celebrate!

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Former President Jimmy Carter has reached today the age of 91, a day to celebrate this great human being and statesman!

Carter becomes the fourth President to reach the age of 91, joining the President before him, Gerald Ford, and the two Presidents after his time in office, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush!

Carter has become much more respected and admired, as he has set a record every day for the longest retirement of any President in American history, soon to be 35 years on January 20, 2016.

Many will call Carter a weak President, the worst President of modern times, but that is all right wing propaganda, and that of people who do not know of Jimmy Carter’s achievements in office, which are just starting to be appreciated.

By living so long and now battling against what is said to be terminal cancer, Carter adds to his stature as a statesman and a courageous battler against great odds.

Let us hope that he defies the odds and lives two and a half or more years, so that he can break the age longevity record of Gerald Ford, who outlived Ronald Reagan by 45 days.

Marco Rubio Rising, Jeb Bush Falling: The Two Floridians A Generation Apart!

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It now seems clear that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is gaining support, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is rapidly losing support in the Republican Presidential race.

Rubio always has called Bush his “mentor”,  as Rubio entered the Florida legislature during the tenure of Jeb Bush as Governor of the “Sunshine” State.

Also, Rubio is almost a full generation younger than Bush, born 18 years after Bush.

Bush, more than ever, is seen as representing the past, the Bush Dynasty, and has been out of office since the end of 2006.

Rubio is one of the youngest Senators, and has been in office since the new century began, and is portraying himself as the “new generation” of leadership, the kind of appeal that John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama used as a pitch when they ran for President on the Democratic Party side.

The Democrats now have a problem, if Marco Rubio is able to become the Republican Presidential nominee, as their three leading candidates—Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden, if he enters the race–will be 69 to 75 at the beginning of their term of office, making them 24 to 30 years older than the Florida Senator.

Generally, the nation goes for the younger candidate for President, with the exception in modern times of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.

Martin O’Malley, former Governor of Maryland, represents the “younger generation” in the Democratic Party, but has not “taken off” at all, a perplexing situation, and again, a problem for the Democratic Party as it enters the 2016 Presidential competition.

Predatory Capitalism: The Pharmaceutical, Petroleum, Automobile, Banking And Other Industries Create A New “Gilded Age”!

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Recent news about many industries make it clear that we are living through a new “Gilded Age”, following the original predatory capitalism of the “Robber Barons” of the late 19th century, followed by the abusive practices of the Ronald Reagan era, predated by the Richard Nixon administration.

Now we have the pharmaceutical industry holding hostages of the sick, disabled, and elderly, with the price of medication going sky high, as with the despicable young hedge fund billionaire who raised a price 5,000 percent until social media forced him, finally, to drop the price increase.

We have the petroleum industry, which does not give a damn about pollution damage, as in the British Petroleum oil spill in 2010, which will damage the long term environmental future in the Gulf of Mexico.  And now oil companies want to drill for oil in Alaska, the worst possible outcome, as we should learn from their mistakes, which have been many over the years.

And we also have Volkswagen having purposely avoided meeting the emission standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which should lead to billions in assessment, but also put corporate leaders in prison.  And the General Motors scandal on faulty ignition switches, which caused many deaths and many injuries, should also  lead to prison time and major fines to punish that automobile company.

The banking industry continues exploiting homeowners and their mortgages, and has no conscience in their practices, and their leaders come to Capitol Hill and are worshiped by many members of Congress, when instead, they should be facing prison time for their illegal and unethical business practices.

It is long past time for a major increase in government regulation and intervention to make all corporations accountable, and force them to change their practices, which include horrible exploitation of their work force, as well as consumers.

A new Progressive Era, that promoted by Theodore Roosevelt, needs to develop, along with expansion of the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, along with the reforms under Barack Obama.

But to do so, the right wing Republican party , which stands in the way of regulating capitalism appropriately, must be defeated for the Presidency, as well as Congress.  And only a future Democratic President can make judicial appointments to insure the long range future of regulation and intervention of the corporate world!

The Modern Republican Myth About Ronald Reagan: He Could Not Be Nominated In 2016!

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The modern Republican Party lives by a myth, a deification of the 40th President, Ronald Reagan.

Based on the mean spirit of the Republican Party today and their ignorance of history, Ronald Reagan could NOT be nominated for President in 2016.

Ronald Reagan signed abortion bills as California Governor.

Ronald Reagan had an “11th Commandment”, not attack fellow Republicans, and he was willing to work with a Congress controlled by the opposition Democrats.

Ronald Reagan raised taxes multiple times, in 1982, 1983, and 1986, and made it harder for middle class people, while benefiting the wealthy elite.

Ronald Reagan made a deal with Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill to save Social Security, not destroy it.

Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for three million undocumented or illegal immigrants in 1986.

Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt from about $900 million to $2.6 trillion in his eight years in office.

Ronald Reagan increased the federal bureaucracy by 325,000 workers, after saying he would cut the work force.

Ronald Reagan gave in to terrorism by withdrawing troops from Lebanon after the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks killed 241 Americans in 1983.

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire”, and then negotiated arms agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ronald Reagan worked with Saddam Hussein, and hailed the freedom fighters fighting Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, including a guerrilla fighter named Osama Bin Laden.

You can be sure that most Republican voters and most Republican officeholders either do not know the truth about Ronald Reagan, or do not care, but if Reagan was running for office now with these parts of his record in office, he could not be nominated!

 

 

Democratic Presidents Create Twice As Many Jobs As Republican Presidents!

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Statistics prove that Democratic Presidents have presided over the creation of twice the number of new jobs, as compared to Republican Presidents since 1940.

Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, from 1940-2015, 74 million jobs have been created.

Under Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, 35 million jobs have been created over the same 75 year period.

Also, all of the major economic downturns since 1940 occurred under Republican Presidents as follows:

1958 recession–Eisenhower

1974-1975 recession—Nixon and Ford

1981-1982 recession—Reagan

1992 recession—H W Bush

2007-2009 Great Recession–W Bush

These are facts, whether Republicans want to accept them or not as the truth!

Meanwhile, the greatest periods of economic growth since 1940 were under  Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama!

 

Polls And Joe Biden Speech Attacking Donald Trump Bring Biden Closer To Presidential Candidacy

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The watch and wait for Vice President Joe Biden to run for President continues, but has been encouraged by new polls and a Biden speech denouncing Donald Trump on immigration.

A new poll shows Joe Biden to be the most trustworthy candidate on either side of the campaign, a total of 81 percent seeing him as honest and truthful, an amazing number for any politician, particularly in a time of distrust of politicians rising to an all time high.  Biden’s authentic, genuine character is a major plus, and he is closest of any modern politician to a “regular guy”.

Another poll shows that 57 percent of Democrats want him to run, as the image of Hillary Clinton continues to decline, with disillusionment setting in, even among Democratic women who thought they would have the first woman President, but for now at least, souring on her.

And Joe Biden went on the attack yesterday in a vigorous manner against the nativist stand of Donald Trump, and indirectly, other Republican Presidential candidates, in a speech before an Hispanic group.  He seemed to have the “fire in his belly”, as Joe is inspired when he speaks.

Joe Biden is still sorting through the stages of mourning the death of a loved one, particularly one’s children dying before him.

Joe is sure to hear Beau Biden’s voice telling him he should run, and it now seems highly likely that he will decide to run on his own time table.

And when he does, if he enters the race, the effect will be magnetic, and will make the Presidential race so much better and more interesting, even in a year where there has been so much attention paid to Donald Trump, as Biden is the perfect candidate to attack and destroy the Trump message.

There is no better campaigner than Joe Biden, no more effective orator or debater than Joe Biden.

Joe Biden will remind us of “Give Them Hell” Harry Truman at his best, and Franklin D. Roosevelt attacking the power elite of Wall Street!

His oratory will soar like that of John F. Kennedy, and his charisma will match, if not surpass that of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

As a sitting Vice President, Joe Biden would enter the race in a totally different situation than in 1988 or 2008, and remember Ronald Reagan ran three times, losing the first two times, but then triumphing in the right time frame on his third try.

So the hope is once again to Joe Biden: Run, Joe, Run!

Republican Party History: Key Dates Of 1860, 1912, 1964, 2016—the 52 Year Syndrome!

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The Republican has had a long, controversial history since its founding in 1854 as a party opposed to the expansion of slavery, and containing within itself, those opposed to the institution of slavery itself.

After only six years, the Republican Party reached majority control of both houses of Congress and the White House, with Abraham Lincoln.

From then until 52 years later, 1912, the GOP dominated American politics, except in the South, where the Democrats prevailed.

In 1912, the party split between former President Theodore Roosevelt, an extremely popular and path breaking President, the greatest Republican President since Lincoln, and the incumbent President, William Howard Taft, who was supported by conservatives of the time against TR’s Progressive Party challenge, which led to Taft only winning two states and 23 percent of the national popular vote, and putting Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House.

While the Republicans recovered in the 1920s, and almost defeated Wilson in 1916 with their nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, the Great Depression decimated the Republican Party, and the Democrats became the majority party, while the Republicans continued to battle between moderates and conservatives, with the moderates winning the nominations for President, until finally, Senator Barry Goldwater defeated the Establishment  forces led by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1964, 52 years after the earlier collapse.  Goldwater went on to lose the popular vote in a two way race by a larger margin than ever in American history, with Lyndon B. Johnson winning over 61 percent of the national vote.

This massive defeat did not end the civil war in the GOP, with Gerald Ford just barely winning the nomination over Ronald Reagan in 1976, and losing a very close race to Jimmy Carter.  But Reagan then won the White House, and the right wing felt it was in its glory, although Reagan was, actually, very unpredictable in his policies and views, and would today, probably be rejected by the extreme right wing in control of the GOP in 2015.

The right wing was unhappy with George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney as insufficiently conservative, and now there is full scale civil war in the GOP, including revolts against Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  The rise of Donald Trump, Dr. Benjamin Carson, and Carly Fiorina, all non office holders, demonstrates the right wing desire to fight the GOP establishment, but what it means is certain defeat in 2016.

Likely, no matter who is nominated, the Republican Party is, seemingly, at a 52 year mark, again ready to implode upon itself, and give the Democrats long term control of the Presidency, as the situation now appears!

Labor Day: A Day To Recall Labor Unions And What They Have Done For America’s Workers

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Today is Labor Day, and it is too often a day ignored for its true meaning, the celebration of American workers and the labor unions which brought about the middle class in America, now under direct attack and threat.

It was the hard work of labor unions and workers that brought about the reforms we accept as normal today, including wages and hours laws, the minimum wage, the end of child labor, promotion of equal pay for equal work, occupational safety laws, and the expansion of basic worker benefits, such as health care, sick leave, vacation time, and pension benefits for millions.

But in the age of corporate greed and concentration, the second Gilded Age that we are in since the Ronald Reagan Presidency, we have seen the rapid decline of labor rights and of union power, and many ignorant Americans actually believe somehow that this is all to the good.  People applaud the anti union record of the Republican Party, which has been consistent for a century, and some think the war on public union rights by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is to be applauded, when it is an outrage!

Many people do not seem to realize that their basic worker rights have been curbed dramatically, and then wonder what can be done about it, and the answer is to work to promote union rights, and stop seeing unions as somehow a negative, simply because of some examples in the past of union corruption.

Yes, there have been union violations at times, but nowhere near the corporate violations of the public trust, and the way to expand labor rights is to support union expansion to combat the power of the corporations that have too much power over the American economy!

Back To The Future: Mitt Romney In 2016?

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The Republican Party is so torn apart that now there are rumors and hints that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, is reconsidering his decision not to run again, due to the collapse of the so called “Establishment” Republicans, led by former Governor Jeb Bush.

Bush has run a poor campaign, despite all of the money he has gathered, and there are indications that he is starting to be abandoned, as Donald Trump continues to take up all of the oxygen in the Republican race.

While Ohio Governor John Kaisch has made some progress in his campaign, he is far from being seen as anywhere near becoming a leader in the competition for the Presidency, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio has not impressed many in his quest for the nomination.

So Romney may decide to enter the race, but still with the same shortcomings and faults that caused his defeat by President Barack Obama in 2012.

To believe that Romney could, somehow, win the Presidency in 2016 is mostly hype and delusion.

The question arises:  How many times has a defeated Presidential candidate come back to win the Presidency?  Here are the facts, a total of 5 times:

Thomas Jefferson lost the Presidency in 1796 and won in 1800.

Andrew Jackson lost the Presidency in 1824 and won in 1828.

William Henry Harrison lost the Presidency in 1836 and won in 1840.

Grover Cleveland lost the Presidency in 1888 and won in 1892.

Richard Nixon lost the Presidency in 1960 and won in 1968.

That is it, five Presidents, but realize that Jackson and Cleveland actually won the popular vote in their losing races in 1824 and 1888, but lost the electoral vote, and Cleveland had been President, then lost, and then won.

Of course, there have been 4 times when a future President lost the nomination of his party, and then went on to win the Presidency later, including:

James Monroe lost the nomination in 1808 to James Madison, but then won the Presidency in 1816.

Lyndon B. Johnson lost the nomination in 1960 to John F. Kennedy, but then became President by succession in 1963.

Ronald Reagan lost the nomination in 1976 to Gerald Ford, but then won the Presidency in 1980.

George H. W. Bush lost the nomination in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, but then won the Presidency in 1988.

At the same time, there have been 5 candidates nominated multiple times and never winning the Presidency, as follows:

Charles C. Pinckney won the nomination in 1804 and 1808.

Henry Clay won the nomination in 1824, 1832, and 1844.

William Jennings Bryan won the nomination in 1896, 1900, and 1908.

Thomas E. Dewey won the nomination in 1944 and 1948.

Adlai E. Stevenson II won the nomination in 1952 and 1956.

Also being on the ballot for President multiple times were Socialist Party nominees Eugene V. Debs (1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920) and Norman Thomas (1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948) and Ross Perot (Independent in 1992 and Reform Party in 1996).

In any case, the odds that Romney, if he ran for President, would become the Republican nominee and win the Presidency are very poor!