Sarah Palin

Another Potential GOP Presidential Candidate: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann Of Minnesota, An Absurd Candidate! :(

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As the new year has begun, we are getting more hints or rumors of possible Republican Presidential candidates for the 2012 election.

First, we added former Utah Governor and present Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman to the list of possibilities, arguably one of the better people on the long list.

Jeb Bush’s name has come up again, although he denies any interest, at least for 2012, but leaving open the possibility for 2016, which would be when Barack Obama would no longer be running for the position. It would also be precisely eight years after his brother’s term ended, while George W. ran exactly eight years after his father’s term was completed. This actually makes a lot of sense, as bad memories of George W. would be gone by then, and Jeb might have an advantage at that time, if his party failed to win the White House in 2012.

But now, an absurd and scary candidate is hinting at her interest in running, and the author is not referring to Sarah Palin!

Rather, it is the extremely controversial Congresswoman from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, who has made a name for herself by her extreme right wing ideas and loony statements in the four years she has served in the House of Representatives. Now she is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, by choice of Speaker of the House John Boehner, and has announced she will be going to Iowa to speak to various GOP groups in the first Presidential caucus state.

Compared to Sarah Palin, she actually has advantages, including a law degree, four years and counting of congressional experience, a lot of press coverage already (although much of it negative in tone), and a very attractive personal presence. She certainly makes Sarah Palin look less appealing by comparison, but still she is a very scary proposition. The thought that such an extremist, who has no problem with distortion and manipulation of the truth on anything, could actually be the Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States, is enough to give one nightmares! 🙁

So much of the potential list for President on the Republican side is so horrific, that it certainly makes people such as Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, and even Jeb Bush look far better by comparison!

History, Losing The Vice Presidency, and Sarah Palin: A Reality Check!

Ronald 1 Comment

Many people seem to think that Sarah Palin, the losing Vice Presidential nominee in 2008, has a real shot at being elected President of the United States in 2012.

The fact that Sarah Palin is ill qualified to be President, and the thought of what a nightmare it would be if such an ill informed, ignorant person such as the former Alaska Governor were to be elected, is also mollified by historical reality.

What is that historical reality? Only ONCE in American history has a LOSING Vice Presidential nominee gone on later to be elected President!

And what is that one exception to the rule that losing candidates do not go on to become President? FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, who ran with Governor James Cox of Ohio, in the worst ever defeat of a Presidential candidate until that time, in the Election of 1920, which brought us Warren G. Harding to the Presidency and Calvin Coolidge to the Vice Presidency! Franklin D. Roosevelt went on to be elected President TWELVE years later, in the worst depths of the Great Depression.

But that is indeed the only time a losing VP candidate has been elected President, and when one looks at all of the losing Vice Presidential candidates since 1960, Sarah Palin pales by comparison!

The list includes, chronologically by election, the following:

Henry Cabot Lodge
William E. Miller
Edmund Muskie
Sargeant Shriver
Bob Dole
Walter Mondale
Geraldine Ferraro
Lloyd Bentsen
Dan Quayle
Jack Kemp
Joe Lieberman
John Edwards

And only Dole and Mondale were nominated by their parties to run for President.

So the Palin lovers out there–it is time to face reality, as Sarah Palin has no chance to become President, and she certainly is no Franklin D. Roosevelt! 🙂

What If The Republicans Had Won The Presidency And Control Of Both Houses Of Congress In 2008? :(

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Let’s just imagine for a moment that the Republican Party had won back both houses of Congress in 2008, and that John McCain and Sarah Palin had become President and Vice President on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

How would the United States be different?

1. There would be no movement toward health care coverage for more than 30 million Americans.
2. Credit Card reform would not have occurred.
3. Student Loan reform would not have become law.
4. Wall Street reform would not have been passed in any form.
5. The domestic auto industry would be gone, except for Ford Motor Company, causing miilions of job losses, both direct and indirect.
6. Unemployment would be closer to 17 percent, instead of 9.8 percent, as there would not have been any economic stimulus.
7. Two Supreme Court nominees, much more like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, would be sitting on the bench.
8. Major Food Safety legislation would not have become law.
9. The end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for gays in the military would not have happened.
10. John McCain would have been hostile and antagonistic toward the news media to a greater extent than even Richard Nixon, displaying his anger and fury on a regular basis.
11. Sarah Palin would have made so many errors in statements and actions that people would have longed for the days of Dan Quayle as Vice President.
12. There would be growing concern about the possibility of Sarah Palin as President, were John McCain to have a health crisis, reminding many of the fear of Dan Quayle when George H W Bush had a health crisis in office.
13. Relations with the rest of the world would be far more confrontational, nationalistic, and belligerent.
14. Open war with Iran and Pakistan, adding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would have been likely.

There are other scenarios to imagine and to discuss, but is not the above enough to make one want to wake up from this NIGHTMARE? 🙁

Arizona Badly Served By John McCain And Jon Kyl: A Longing For The Times Of Barry Goldwater! :(

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Arizona has been badly served by its two Senators–John McCain and Jon Kyl– who have become so right wing, anti immigrant, anti gay, out to do anything to prevent any social or economic progress or foreign policy advancements! 🙁

McCain was once considered a moderate and a maverick, but that now seems long gone, and McCain himself so labeled himself as never having been a maverick as he ran a right wing campaign to hold on to his Senate seat this year. 🙁

McCain showed a lack of leadership during the financial panic of 2008, chose the absolutely most disastrous possible Vice Presidential running mate in Sarah Palin, and has constantly reneged on what he believed in and advocated during his earlier years in the Senate.

Jon Kyl also originally was perceived as a moderate, but has lately become a bitter man like McCain, and is blocking the START Treaty, fought against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as vehemently as McCain, and is also leading the fight against the September 11 First Responders Medical legislation, a shameful action, which lowers the esteem any reasonable person can have of Kyl! 🙁

When one compares these two present Arizona Senators to past Senator Barry Goldwater, the classical Mr. Conservative, one has to actually wish for the “good old days” of the 1960s, when Goldwater stood on principle, but cooperated with John F. Kennedy, and later came out for abortion rights and gay rights, and said regarding the military that as long as a soldier can shoot straight, who cares if he is straight?

Goldwater may have been a conservative, but he was never a bitter, hateful obstructionist on so many issues as John McCain and Jon Kyl have now proved to be! 🙁

It just goes to show how far the Republican party has moved from the mainstream where it was located in the 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s! 🙁

Barack Obama: The New “Comeback” Kid!

Ronald 1 Comment

It is hard to believe that just a month ago, Barack Obama had suffered a major “shellacking” as he termed it, with the loss of 63 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 in the Senate.

But by the success of his “compromise” deal with the Republicans, Obama is a “comeback” kid, much like Bill Clinton was in 1995, but ahead of schedule as compared to Clinton.

Obama was able to get unemployment compensation extension, a tax cut by lowering the Social Security tax temporarily, various business tax cuts as well, and a continuation of the tax cuts to 98 percent of the population, all guaranteed to please the average American.

Of course, Obama had to swallow the tax cut continuation for the wealthy, and puts the Social Security system theoretically in some danger by cutting the contributions temporarily to that program.

But he still has the veto power and a Democratic Senate, and is seen by many as having “won” over his GOP opponents overall.

And he has likely improved his chances to win re-election in 2012, as even Charles Krauthammer of the Weekly Standard and Fox New Channel asserts.

In comparisons to every possible GOP opponent, Obama wins, and leads Sarah Palin in a theoretical matchup by 22 points!

Obama has placed himself squarely in the center, and that is the way to win Presidential elections in America.

So Obama has truly, and very quickly, become the “Comeback” Kid!

Republicans Gone Mad: Jan Brewer And Mitt Romney Go Neanderthal! :(

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It is very obvious that the next two years of Republican control of the House of Representatives is going to be a literal “nightmare” for the country, and the attempt to promote “compromise” or “common ground” as Speaker to be John Boehner terms it, is almost certain to fail, and not because Barack Obama is causing it.

But it is not just Congress that will be a center of conflict. It is already showing up in other ways that are very alarming! 🙁

We have Arizona Governor Jan Brewer denying transplants to about 100 very sick people, and saying they should ask the federal government for more stimulus money, something the GOP has been totally against until now! 🙁

But the cost involved for these approximately 100 patients is only 5 million dollars! So Republican Governor Jan Brewer does not believe in the “right to life” for transplant candidates, but insists that every fetus must come to term! And this is the party of Sarah Palin who talked about Obama’s health care plan promoting “death panels”! And what is this going on in Arizona, and probably soon in other states? Have we lost all our humanity? 🙁

Then, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, seen by many intelligent, rational people as probably the best potential nominee for President in his party, including the author, suddenly starts to appeal to the extreme right wing of his party by proposing that unemployment compensation be privatized, a shocking idea that people should open up accounts for the threat of unemployment in the future, with their own investments in the stock market, similar to what George W. Bush proposed for Social Security in 2005, which if it had been done, would have totally destroyed Social Security in 2008 when the stock market crashed! 🙁

If Romney is trying to appeal to the hard right of his party, heaven help us! Who is there out there that we can call a sane, civilized candidate who this nation could live with? Has Mitt Romney gone mad in his quest to be President, that now he backs away from his own state health care plan in Massachusetts, and obviously will now promote privatizing of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? How will he differentiate himself from the “loonies’ in his party if he is to adopt every demagogic concept they advocate? 🙁

This is not just being partisan, what Brewer and Romney are advocating, it is TOTAL INSANITY! 🙁

It is attempting to take all morality, all decency, out of American politics!

It is aiming to destroy the New Deal and Great Society which has humanized this nation over the past 75 years!

It is saying everyone is in this world just for himself, and to hell with anyone who is suffering from illness, unemployment, poverty, deprivation!

The message being sent is that this is a country of, by, and for the wealthy, and the “American dream” is to take as much as one can gain, no matter how it is acquired, as basic common decency no longer applies! To hell with those less fortunate or needy, as this is unadulterated laissez faire capitalism at its best! 🙁

The GOP is declaring war on common decency and morality and ethics, and the fight must begin to overcome this threat to our principles! The future of this nation as a beacon of freedom and opportunity is at stake! 🙁

Sarah Palin’s Quest To Learn Foreign Policy Begins In Haiti!

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Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is visiting Haiti this weekend in the midst of controversy over the recent presidential election, and the turmoil surrounding the cholera epidemic and the earthquake that have made this year probably the worst in the long tortured history of that nation. 🙁

She is traveling with Franklin Graham, the evangelical preacher son of Billy Graham, with both of them ignoring the request of the State Department and the Obama Administration to avoid visiting there at a delicate and dangerous time for Americans to visit, who require extra security coverage.

Why is Palin visiting? It is apparent she wants to build up foreign policy credentials for her expected run for the White House, and also continue to gain the support of evangelical Christians at the same time.

She also is expected to visit Israel and Great Britain, and possibly other European nations in the year 2011, even though it is clear that she carries little weight and respect in the eyes of foreign leaders.

Does Sarah Palin really understand the history of Haiti, and could she point it out on a world map without coaxing or hints? 🙁

Does she really have any background and depth in world affairs, and can she acquire this simply by doing photo ops with foreign leaders in what will obviously be just a publicity stunt? 🙁

Can Sarah Palin really make judgments when she has exhibited no curiosity about the world until now, and every time she opens her mouth and speaks, she makes one long for the “intellectual” George W. Bush or Dan Quayle, who by comparison are “geniuses”?

And beyond all of this, can Sarah Palin unite even her GOP colleagues when she utilizes such language as “impotent” and “limp” to describe her critics within the Republican Party who point out her total ignorance, and quite frankly, stupidity, every time she utters any comment on anything? 🙁

Again, she may be a nice neighbor and a friendly person, as long as you do not dare to criticize her. But since she is so defensive and negative and VERY ignorant, she does not belong in the very serious business of wishing to be President of the United States!

Not everyone born in the US is qualified to be President. You need real credentials and you need “smarts”, neither of which Sarah Palin possesses now, or ever will possess!

“Death Panels” And “Pulling The Plug”: The Ultimate GOP Hypocrisy! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

During the long debate over the Obama Health Care reform legislation, the nation heard from Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, among others, that President Obama was promoting “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma”! These were, of course, totally false accusations, but since when does the GOP care about the truth? 🙁

But now, it turns out that the state of Arizona is indeed promoting the equivalent of “death panels” and “pulling the plug” in order to cut Medicaid services for their poorest citizens! 🙁

The cut involves withdrawing Medicaid coverage of certain kinds of transplants as a way to save the state money. But it is also saying life is not important if you are poor and cannot afford such surgery because you lack the ability to pay for health care coverage! 🙁

Suddenly, the “right to life” comes after saving money, but do you hear Senator Grassley or former Governor Palin or Arizona Senators John McCain or Jon Kyl speaking up in outrage? 🙁

Does one hear Governor Jan Brewer show any concern about the death warrant the cut in Medicaid services brings? 🙁

There is a 32 year old man in Arizona who desperately needs a liver transplant, has a wife and four children, but lost his job and medical coverage, came under Medicaid, and now is told he can only have transplant surgery if he comes up with $200,000 as a deposit to the hospital! 🙁

Is this the kind of country we want to become, where money stands in the way of saving lives? Are we comfortable with a young man in his thirties with children to have to die while the government stands by and does nothing for him? 🙁

A thought crosses the mind, considering we are talking about Arizona! Could it be that there is lack of concern in that state, the infamous one of the new illegal immigration law designed against Latinos now being contested in the courts, BECAUSE the young man in his thirties is a Latino? Good question to wonder about, heh? 🙁

And what about all those “good Christians” out there who claim to care about life, and are not yet rushing to provide financial support for this young man? How about it, don’t just preach and moralize, and take some action to back up your rhetoric! Don’t bet on it! 🙁

What a total example of hypocrisy by Republicans, conservatives and “good Christians” who claim to be against so called “death panels” and “pulling the plug”! 🙁

Senator John Thune Moving Up In Political Betting On 2012!

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South Dakota Senator John Thune, often seen as a “dark horse” for the Presidency in 2012, and judged by the author to have the best chance to be that “dark horse” nominee, has now been judged by several political bettors to be the third most likely nominee of the GOP for 2012, just behind Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin!

His good looks, his “Presidential” appearance, his newness on the national scene, his lack of controversy, and his defeat in 2004 of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, all are seen as pluses for 2012! Instead of being a retread from earlier campaigns, Thune is seen as a fresh face who looks like a President should look, and comes across as more moderate even though he is a conservative!

So even though he ranks way down in the listing with only two percent recognition right now, don’t underestimate John Thune’s potential for 2012!

It could be the best opportunity for the GOP to offer an alternative candidate who could possibly win the mainstream, so sorely needed if the party is to have a real chance to win the Presidency!

A Move Toward A Centrist Political Party, Called “No Labels”, And The Role Of Michael Bloomberg And Joe Scarborough!

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At Columbia University in New York City, on December 13, a centrist group is going to form a “No Labels” centrist movement to promote civility in American politics.

Among those who will engage in this new movement are the following: Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City; former Republican Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough, MSNBC talk show host of “Morning Joe”; retiring Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana; Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut; Democratic Senator Debby Stabenow of Michigan; former Republican Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia; Republican Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut;  Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles; and former Republican Governor Christie Todd Whitman of New Jersey, among others!

The group is against hyper partisanship, and promotes civility, calm, reason, and cooperation. Prominent fundraisers are involved in the new movement, and the hope is to form chapters in all 50 states.

There is growing speculation that Mayor Bloomberg might run as an independent for President, and some even speculate that Joe Scarborough might seek the Presidency or run with Bloomberg for Vice President on an independent party ticket, although the “No Labels” group claims that is not the purpose of the organization being formed!

One thing for sure: Joe Scarborough has begun a full scale attack on the incompetence and inadequacy of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a possible candidate for the Presidency by the Republican Party, joining many others who feel the same way, including not only Barbara Bush and Karl Rove, but also conservative columnists Mona Charen, David Frum, and Peggy Noonan.

Certainly, if Bloomberg were to run, being the wealthiest political figure in the nation, with billions of dollars in assets, he could fund his own campaign, but the question is could he win over the country with his overly liberal views on social issues, and being a New York Jew! In an early poll, it shows he would only win about eleven percent of the vote, but in a dry run with President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, Obama would be the beneficiary, as Bloomberg would hurt Romney more than he would hurt Obama!