states rights

Rapidly Escalating Tea Party Rhetoric Endangering President Obama And Civil Order!

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For any sane person in America, the rapidly escalating Tea Party rhetoric that is developing on Capitol Hill, on right wing talk radio, in religious right wing rants, on conservative think tanks, and on Fox News Channel, is endangering the life of President Obama, and creating the threat of the breakdown of civil order!

There seems to be no limit to what utterances and threats are being issued, and the growing chant for impeachment of the President, which would under no circumstances lead to removal from the Presidency, but would disrupt American government and economic progress and foreign policy formulation, is an alarm bell ringing during the wee hours of the morning, giving one a sense of foreboding not seen since the time of the Civil War, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whose 205th birthday we celebrate today.

The responsible Republican leadership in Congress seems, FINALLY, to realize the danger created by the anarchistic, fascistic Tea Party Movement, which is setting out to destroy the party of Lincoln, TR, and Ike, in their mad dash to take us back in every way possible to the 19th century, including talk of secession and states rights and racism and the use of violence to accomplish their goals!

This is a national emergency for survival of our democracy and system of equal justice for all, and everyone who has any common sense and sanity and decency, whether they agree or disagree with the administration in office, MUST speak up for calm and for eliminating the threat to our President, and to civil order for now and the long term future.

And some praying for divine guidance, whether religious or not, is appropriate here, hoping that we can return to a time of respect for our government, and acceptance of the reality that we are all in this together, the return of civil order and the ending of conflict that endangers the American future!

Republicans Need To Face Facts: Old White And Religious Males In South, Great Plains, and Mountain West Are A Dying Breed!

Ronald 7 Comments

The Republican Party seems to be unable to understand that their future is gloomy until they abandon the idea of old white and religious males in the South And Great Plains and Mountain West being enough to win elections.

This country wants total separation of church and state.

This country wants women, African Americans, Latinos, and Gays and Lesbians to be treated with dignity.

The young are voting in greater numbers, and they are voting Democratic, as they do not want the agenda of limited government, states rights, and religion in government that the Republicans are constantly trying to force on them.

The Civil War has been over for 150 years, and states rights will not be the dominant viewpoint of future generations.

Small national government disappeared in the time of the Great Depression 80 years ago, and it is NOT coming back.

This nation is becoming one of fewer whites, and more diversity, and nothing is going to stop that trend.

And women are liberated, and will NOT allow any man to dictate what they can and cannot do with their bodies and their futures.

Until and when the GOP understands these realties, they will be a losing party, and the benefits for the Democratic Party will grow by leaps and bounds!

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin And The Confederate Flag At The White House: Reprehensible!

Ronald 3 Comments

A crowd descended on the gates at the White House on Sunday, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP Vice Presidential nominee.

They stood by as Confederate flags were brandished, and a speaker said it was time for Barack Obama to stop obeying the Muslim faith, and to resign from the Presidency!

What a spectacle it was, with National Park police called out in riot gear, in case the demonstration became unruly or worse.

These three demagogues—Cruz, Lee, and Palin—who are destroying the Republican brand with their fight to undermine the federal government, blamed Obama for the shutdown of the federal government, rather than Cruz and Lee taking responsibility for encouraging House Tea Party Republicans to do what everyone knows they provoked, intimidating Speaker John Boehner into what has become a disaster for the Republican Party brand!

By appearing with these Confederate, secessionist, states rights riight wingers, they are encouraging violent insurrection against the government, and poisoning the atmosphere for peaceful resolution of differences, and also undermining respect for the office of the Presidency!

Republican leadership—much more than Senator John McCain of Arizona and Congressman Peter King of New York—must speak up and denounce these tactics, or the GOP is totally doomed as a major political party for the long run!

The Arguments Against States Rights

Ronald 1 Comment

Conservatives and Republicans LOVE to promote states rights, and for good reason!

It allows many states to deny their citizens the same rights and privileges and benefits that other states provide!

Historically, it allowed states to have slaves, when others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to promote segregation of the races, when others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to promote capital punishment, when others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to show no concern for the poor, while others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to exploit labor through “right to work” laws, while others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to exploit the environment for industrial benefit, while others did not.

Historically, it allowed states to victimize women and children, while others did not.

And now, it allows states to deny basic health care expansion under Medicaid and ObamaCare, while others do not.

And the states that regularly have been denying their citizens equal treatment under the law are mostly in the South, but also in the Great Plains and some Mountain states.

In other words, the most backward and regressive states, almost all Republican states in 2013, are showing lack of concern for the health and welfare of their citizens.

So states rights is a good thing? Not when one looks at the facts!

Texas: State Legislature And Governor Out Of Control, With Filibuster Rules Outrageous!

Ronald 2 Comments

Texas now becomes the state with the most outrageous and ridiculous Governor and state legislature, both totally out of control, with their filibuster rules the craziest and most unjust ever conceived!

Governor Rick Perry and the Republicans are determined to wipe out abortion to a greater extent than any other state, and were attempting to ram through restrictions that would make it nearly impossible for women to gain abortion rights under almost any circumstances in much of the state!

A courageous Democratic State Senator, Wendy Davis, attempted a 13 hour filibuster to stop the bill, and in the midst of chaos and anarchy unbecoming any state legislature, she was able to stop such legislation for the time being, but only under the most ridiculous rules imaginable, and only after being ruled out of order after ten hours of her filibuster!

Wendy Davis was told she must speak constantly for 13 hours by herself, with no food, no water, no bathroom breaks, and no leaning or sitting allowed. When she put on a back brace, she almost was ruled out of order, and when she went off topic somewhat, according to critics, her filibuster was declared ended after ten hours, but due to a breakdown of order, the bill banning abortion failed to come to a vote for now.

Wendy Davis is a true heroine, and Texas is shown as the sham of a state that it has become! It is out to deny human rights to women guaranteed by Roe V. Wade!

But the filibuster rules are even more outrageous, as no such rules exist in the US Senate, where anyone can talk about anything when filibustering, and can take brief breaks for food, water, and bathroom breaks. Can one imagine a United States Senator being told that he or she must live under the strict rules that Wendy Davis faced yesterday in the Texas legislature?

Texas is an example of the worst reality of states rights, and lawsuits should be brought to change the looney rules of a filibuster which is inhumane and makes Texas the laughing stock among states that would rank as the worst governed in America!

Bill Maher On Ronald Reagan Two Weeks Ago: Right On The Mark!

Ronald 18 Comments

Comedian Bill Maher is famous, and infamous, for stating outrageous opinions, and sometimes, he states opinions through humor that one can find unacceptable, or disagree with.

But other times, he is right on the mark, and such case occurred two weeks ago, when he dared to challenge the mythology around President Ronald Reagan.

The Republican Party and conservatives tend to worship the ground that Ronald Reagan walked on, and while interpretations of Reagan will continue to evolve, both positive and negative, what Maher had to say about Reagan in a negative way, makes a lot of sense!

Maher said that Reagan, by his comments and his actions, fit the following profile:

That Reagan was the forerunner of the Tea Party Movement, that he was anti government, that he believed in busting unions, that he was anti abortion, that he was insensitive to gays on the issue of AIDS, that he was anti intellectual, that he cut the taxes of wealthy people while raising taxes on the average middle class person, that he worshiped the military industrial complex, that he believed Medicare was Socialism and that senior citizens were waiting for handouts on the program, that he promoted states rights, that he spread the myth of the welfare queen in Chicago who was black, and that minorities were waiting for the government to support their needs, described the New Deal as Fascism, said that unemployment compensation was a prepaid vacation for freeloaders, that he had no concern for the poor, that he said trees cause pollution, that he promoted hate of government, and that he is the man most responsible for our decline since the high point of the economy and wages in 1973!

Can anyone deny that all of the above is true and factual, based on what Reagan said and did, in and out of the Presidency?

50 Years Since Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers Was Killed In Mississippi

Ronald 5 Comments

A sad anniversary was reached today, as 50 years ago, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was killed in Mississippi by gunfire, as he stepped out of his car at his home, just hours after Alabama Governor George Wallace had stood in the door of the Registrar’s Office at the University of Alabama, attempting to stop the registration of two black students at the university, which had led to President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech that evening, one of the greatest Presidential speeches in American history!

It was just past midnight, when Evers, the Mississippi Field Secretary of the NAACP, was slaughtered, leaving three young children and a wife, Myrlie Evers-Williams, who survives him after 50 years, and later became the Chairwoman of the NAACP.

His assassin went free after a hung jury, but was later convicted on new evidence thirty years later, and served time in prison for the last seven years of his life.

A community college in New York City was created within a few years in his honor, and Evers has remained a leading part of the civil rights story.

His death also shaped the thoughts of a young generation of whites and blacks, and stained the reputation of both Mississippi and Alabama, as the two worst states on civil rights above all others, with Mississippi often compared in many ways to Nazi Germany in its treatment of its minority population, before the federal government intervened and enforced civil rights on all states by legislation in 1964, repudiating the arguments of states rights!

Commemoration Of The Selma To Montgomery March 48 Years Ago: Bloody Sunday Cannot Be Forgotten

Ronald 22 Comments

On March 7, 1965, a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, for voting rights for African Americans, was the location of brutal police action at the Edmund Pettus Bridge against the peaceful civil rights demonstrators.

John Lewis, now a long term Congressman from Georgia, incurred a cracked skull that day, and today, he and Al Sharpton and many other people of all races converged on the site to commemorate the horrible events of that day 48 years ago, which had the effect of galvanizing action by Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson within four months, with the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Joining them today was Vice President Joe Biden, giving his usual inspiring speech, and making clear that the Voting Rights Act is now, now under potential threat of having the crucial Section 5 declared unconstitutional by a conservative Republican majority chosen by Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The Court may be ready to show they have either forgotten history, or choose to ignore the history of that day, and trust that the Southern states, which have worked to make voting more difficult in 2012 and earlier, can be trusted to avoid undermining the basic right to vote for all citizens, which is supposedly guaranteed by the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments,

This is a day to recall and to commit to prayer and statesmanship, hoping that the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and retain Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, since Congress has constantly renewed it, and ignore the call of states rights, which has been constantly tied to bigotry and discrimination!

Presidential-Vice Presidential Relationships Rarely Warm

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When one looks at the relationships between Presidents and Vice Presidents historically, it is clear that most Presidents look at their Vice Presidents and see their own mortality; often see the Vice President as a rival; often have disdain for the Vice President; and often do not support the Vice President in his Presidential ambitions to follow the President in office.

Examples of the above abound:

George Washington ignored John Adams, and Adams lamented that he was in an office that had no influence or respect.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were at constant odds, being of different political parties, and elected together by the early quirks of the Electoral College, later resolved by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in 1804.

Thomas Jefferson literally refused to recognize Aaron Burr, after Burr tried to steal the Presidency from him in 1800, with Burr’s contention that he and Jefferson had ended up in a “tie” vote in the Electoral College, forcing Alexander Hamilton, a rival of both Jefferson and Burr to intervene and call for support of Jefferson, which led to the gun duel between Hamilton and Burr in 1804, and Hamilton’s tragic death.

John Quincy Adams discovered that John C. Calhoun was undermining him, and Calhoun switched sides and ran with Andrew Jackson in 1828.

However, Jackson and Calhoun became bitter rivals, and the Nullification Crisis over the protective tariff, with Calhoun enunciating the doctrine of states rights, nullification, interposition, and secession almost led to civil war, prevented by the intervention of Henry Clay, but only after Jackson threatened to hang Calhoun, a threat that could not be ignored, since Jackson had killed several opponents in gun duels.

Abraham Lincoln hardly dealt with his first term Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, and then “dumped” him, for Andrew Johnson, someone he hardly knew.

When Theodore Roosevelt decided not to run for another term in 1908, he ignored his own Vice President, Charles Fairbanks, and backed his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft.

Woodrow Wilson gave little concern to the role of his Vice President, Thomas Marshall, and when Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, he did not intervene to prevent his wife from preventing Marshall from visiting him, and ascertaining the state of his health, or allow him to take over Presidential authority.

Franklin D. Roosevelt ignored his three Vice Presidents—John Nance Garner, Henry A. Wallace, and Harry Truman. This led Garner to say the Vice Presidency was not worth a pitcher of “warm spit”. Wallace was allowed to “hang in the wind” over his public statements on civil rights, and be “dumped” on the demand of Southern Democrats in 1944. Harry Truman was not informed of anything, including the atomic bomb project, in his brief Vice Presidency.

Dwight D. Eisenhower had a strong dislike for his Vice President, Richard Nixon, as shown by his original plan to “dump” Nixon in 1956; his lukewarm support of Nixon in 1960; and his having problems remembering Nixon as a potential future nominee in 1964. At the end, however, Ike witnessed his grandson, David, marry Nixon’s younger daughter, Julie, and was supportive of Nixon in his last year of life, the first year of the Nixon Presidency.

John F. Kennedy failed to use the talents of Lyndon B. Johnson, his Vice President, to a great extent due to the hatred of his brother, Robert Kennedy, for LBJ. Robert Kennedy went out of his way to embarrass and humiliate Johnson in every way possible.

Johnson abused his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, once he realized that Humphrey was critical of his Vietnam War policies. He threatened to leave Humphrey out of his cabinet meetings, and forced him to speak up for the war, which undermined Humphrey’s own Presidential campaign in 1968. And secretly, because Humphrey started to veer from support of the administration policies late in the campaign, Johnson hoped for a victory of Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon utilized his Vice President, Spiro Agnew for political gain, but showed little respect for him, and let him “hang in the wind” when Agnew was forced out of the Vice Presidency in 1973. And Nixon picked Gerald Ford as his successor Vice President under the 25th Amendment, thinking that this insured that Nixon would not be impeached and be removed from office.

Gerald Ford had a strong respect for Nelson Rockefeller, who he selected as his Vice President, but yet “dumped” him for Bob Dole in the 1976 Presidential race.

Ronald Reagan was never close to George H. W. Bush, who had been his chief rival for the 1980 Presidential nomination, and never invited the Bushes to a private dinner at the White House, although he utilized Bush’s expertise in foreign policy and intelligence, as Bush had been head of the CIA.

Bush did not care for Dan Quayle very much, and considered “dumping” him in 1992 over Quayle’s embarrassing flubs. Quayle was given less involvement in the administration than his recent predecessors, and when he tried for the Presidential nomination in 1996, Bush did not back him in any way.

Bill Clinton was closer to Al Gore, but their friendship and collaboration suffered greatly during the scandal over Monica Lewinsky, and the pursuant impeachment trial. Gore decided not to ask Clinton, who remained popular, to work for him in the last days of the 2000 Presidential campaign. After his defeat, there were recriminations between Gore and Clinton over who had been responsible for Gore’s defeat.

George W. Bush relied on his Vice President, Dick Cheney, a lot in the first term, but became estranged from Cheney in the second term over the Scooter Libby scandal and in other ways, as Bush asserted himself much more, making clear he did not need Cheney as much as in the first term.

With all of the above examples of estrangement, or lack of closeness of Presidents with their Vice Presidents, there are two shining examples of very close, warm relationships between two Presidents and their Vice Presidents.

These would be Jimmy Carter with Walter Mondale, and Barack Obama with Joe Biden.

Carter and Mondale were the closest team in American history, with Carter allowing Mondale to share just about every decision in a way no Vice President, before or since, was able to do, and they remained close personal friends, for what is now the all time record of 32 PLUS years out of the Presidency, the longest lasting team in American history, with Carter now 88 plus and Mondale just passing 85, and both still in good health. No sense of any rift has ever existed between the two men, and their relationship was the smoothest ever, a lot of it due to Carter’s lack of insecurity about his Vice President, a testimonial to the former President!

Also, every indication is that Obama and Biden have as close a relationship, but with Biden nearly a generation older, while Carter and Mondale are less than four years apart in age. It seems as if there might be some issues between Obama and Biden, but that will have to be left to the future to find out. Also, a question arises as to how Obama will handle a possible competition for the next Presidential nomination between Biden and Hillary Clinton, both of whom have been crucial to his Presidency’s success so far.

So the Presidential-Vice Presidential relationships have been almost always far from warm and close, with only the two exceptions mentioned above.

This would be an excellent topic for a future scholarly study!

“Turning Point” Presidencies: Those With The Greatest Impact!

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With Presidents Day coming up on Monday, this author has, already, made clear which Presidents were transformative in the areas of foreign policy and diplomacy, and in domestic affairs.

Now, it is appropriate to make clear which Presidents have been the true “turning points” in American history, in the sense of changing the dynamics of Presidential leadership.

This author would say that there have been EIGHT Presidents who transformed America by their actions in office. In chronological order, they are:

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), who was the first President to transition from opposition leader to one who united the country in his inaugural address, adopted many ideas of the opposition as his views, and doubled the size of the nation, and kept America away from a war with Great Britain.

Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), who added greatly to Presidential power, and was the symbol of the spread of democracy to all white men, rather than just the aristocracy, and became the father of the Democratic Party.

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), who saved the Union by fighting the Civil War against the Confederacy, brought about the end of slavery, promoted nationalism over states rights, made the Republican Party the majority party in America, and greatly increased Presidential power

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), who revived and expanded the Presidential office, promoted government intervention in the economy, advocated for the environment and for labor rights, and became a model for later Presidents of both parties.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945), who helped bring America out of the Great Depression by massive federal government intervention and programs through his New Deal, and took America through another great crisis (World War II), all the time greatly increasing Presidential authority.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969), who greatly expanded federal authority beyond beyond the New Deal through his massive Great Society domestic programs, becoming the image of modern American liberalism at its peak.

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), who promoted a conservative “Revolution”, reversing the direction of the previous fifty years, and helped to bring about the end of rhe Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union.

Barack Obama (2009-2017), who brought about the greatest domestic reforms, including ObamaCare, since the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, and moved to change the direction of foreign policy and fight terrorism effectively, with of course, his final record of accomplishments still in process.

These eight Presidents all ushered in a generation or more of their political party’s dominance, with the exception of TR and LBJ, who saw what they represented repudiated or replaced by the opposition party within a short span of time.

And of course, the long range effect of Barack Obama is still questionable, although at the moment, it looks likely that his agenda will be pursued by a stronger Democratic coalition seen as likely to keep the Presidency in 2016 and beyond, with either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden as the standard bearer and inheritor of the Obama legacy!

Also, notice that these “Turning Point” Presidencies occur within a 16-40 year range from one President to another, with most within a generation of earlier such Presidents by the end of each of these Presidencies!