US House Of Representatives

Republican Attack On PBS And NPR: Attempt To Suppress Knowledge And Analysis!

Ronald Leave a comment

The Republican Party is setting out to destroy the public education system nationally and in many states, and part of that attack is the plan to zero budget the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio.

Both PBS and NPR have been contributing to the knowledge, entertainment, and education of the American people since the mid 1960s, part of the many contributions of the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.

But because conservatives and many Republicans hate both PBS and NPR because of their perceived liberal and progressive bent, they want to wipe it out, and take away all of the benefits of both over the past 45 years.

This is, effectively, promoting censorship and ignorance, and it should be condemned, and petitions, emails and phone calls need to be sent to the House of Representatives to call upon them to stop these intolerant steps, as they try to suppress freedom of expression.

The amount of public funding of PBS and NPR is so minimal, and will not have any real effect on the national debt or deficit.

It is short sighted and demagogic to call for the removal of public support for television and radio programming that is the highest quality found in the communications industry today!

Presidents and Split Congresses: A New Observation

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A while back, the author wrote about split Congresses, whereby the House of Representatives and the Senate have been placed in the hands of opposing political parties.

As indicated, it has now happened for 12 years since 1900–under President William Howard Taft 1911-1913, President Herbert Hoover in 1931-1933, President Ronald Reagan 1981-1987, and now President Barack Obama from 2011-2013.

And as reported, in each of the first three cases, a Republican President faced a Democratic House and Republican Senate, while now for the first time a Democratic President faces the opposite, a Republican House and Democratic Senate.

What has now been realized through the assistance of one of my History students, Stephanie Mundo, at Florida Atlantic University, is the observation, never crossing my mind, that the “people’s branch”, the House of Representatives, which is elected every two years, has been in each case put into the hands of the party opposing the President, while the Senate, which only turns over one third at a time due to the six year Senate terms, remains with the President. So the vote of no confidence is demonstrated by the House of Representatives becoming the center of opposition.

This fact really makes sense, and may only be of concern to true academics and political junkies, but it IS an interesting point, and I wish to thank Stephanie Mundo for making me realize that interesting, and actually very significant, point of analysis about split Congresses.

Time For High Speed Rail Projects Across Nation: Great Step Forward!

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The Obama Administration is committing Recovery Act funds to promote intercity high speed rail projects across the nation, and Vice President Joe Biden announced today $53 billion over the next six years to advance such projects.

This will promote economic recovery by creating many jobs, save oil consumption by encouraging more people to travel to work and on vacation on high speed rail, and improve the environment as well.

Already, we have high speed “bullet” trains in Japan and South Korea, as well as in Great Britain and France, and they offer convenient travel and have put these nations way ahead of Americans in envisioning the future of transportation!

This is another stage of the transportation revolution, as much as Abraham Lincoln promoting the transcontinental railroad network in the 1860s, and Dwight D. Eisenhower advocating the interstate highway system in the 1950s!

The Obama goal is provide high speed rail transportation to 80 percent of the American people over the next 25 years! This is a priority that needs to be accomplished, but the Republicans in the House of Representatives may stand in the way of this investment, which would indeed be tragic! 🙁

The Proposal To Increase The Size Of The House Of Representatives: An Unworkable Idea! :(

Ronald 4 Comments

A political science professor at Northwestern University, in combination with one at New York University, recently promoted an idea in a NY Times op-ed on how to reform the US House of Representatives.

Their proposal was to increase the size of the House closer to the original intent of the Founding Fathers, who set up the original House to reflect 30,000 white males in each congressional district in 1789 and after. Of course, women and blacks and native Americans were not counted at the beginning for purposes of congressional representation.

Their point was that now a member of the House of Representatives represents approximately 700,000 people, and that the fixed total of 435 was only set after the 1910 census.

Meanwhile the population has tripled since 1910, so the argument is that a member of Congress cannot represent his or her constituents adequately, as there are too many people per congressional district.

Their proposal is to raise the number of members of the House of Representatives from 435 to 1500, so that each congressional district represent only 200,000 people, about the same as in 1910. This would, supposedly, make members of Congress closer to their constituents and make for greater levels of democracy.

The author must say that he totally disagrees with this proposal, considering it unworkable and chaotic!

As it is, the House of Representatives is too unwieldy with 435 members, and often what goes on in the House is nothing more than chaos, as it is hard to keep order and to move forward on legislation expeditiously.

To have 1500 members is an insane idea, and would not promote progress, but rather confusion and disarray. And the idea of third party movements having a say only promotes further chaos, anarchy, stalemate and gridlock.

A multiparty system would not work better than our two party system, and would be far less efficient.

And also, how about the offices and seating space required for 1500 members in the House Office Buildings and House chamber? And what about the costs of having that large a legislative body?

The comparison is made by the authors of this op-ed that Great Britain has 61 million people and 650 members of their Parliament, making it one for every 78,000 people, and that Canada has 33 million people and 308 members of their Parliament, making it one for every 109,000 people.

But these countries are a lot smaller in population, so they can have the luxury of having smaller numbers of people per representative.

But to have such a large number as 1,500 in a nation of 310 million people is simply too unwieldy and difficult to manage and to work efficiently.

If anything, the author would argue for a smaller House, closer to 301, where each member represents one million people, as a way to make for efficiency. but of course the Congress would have to vote to make themselves smaller, which is not about to happen! 🙂

And also remember that members of the largest populated states in the Union have their Senators represent many millions of people, and as long as they have adequate office space, budget, and staff, that can be accomplished, so the idea of a larger House of Representatives is just that–an idea that will see no fruition, but certainly is an interesting subject for discussion by academics! 🙂

Senator Rand Paul Of Kentucky: Center Of Controversy And Nightmare For The Republican Party! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has had to learn to live with fellow Kentucky Senate colleagues that have both embarrassed him and made his life miserable! If only one could read his mind, as his body language regarding past Senator Jim Bunning and his successor Rand Paul reveals discomfort, it would be an interesting analysis of how a party leader must survive both fools and loons! 🙁

Rand Paul may only have been in the Senate now for one month, but he is like a hurricane in his promotion of ideas that almost no one will accept, even in his own party, but yet saluted by the Tea Party movement!

Rand Paul seems to love introducing legislation that will never pass, just to draw attention to his looniness and his weird libertarian ideas which will never go anywhere, except into the minds of those who believe that government is a total evil and that we must isolate ourselves from the outside world! 🙁

Rand Paul, in association with Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, is promoting a Life at Conception Act, which he believes would overrule Roe V. Wade, and in the process take a woman’s right over her own body totally away! 🙁

He is also sponsoring legislation to prevent the children of illegal immigrants born in America from being citizens, thereby introducing a new interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship!

Additionally, Rand Paul wants all foreign aid to our ally, Israel, ended, as part of his proposal to cut $500 billion from the present year’s national budget with only eight months left in the fiscal year. He wants the $3 billion aid to Israel ended, along with massive cuts in education, housing and energy programs, the most extreme idea of cuts proposed by any Republican, with the party shooting for only $100 billion cuts this fiscal year, with no cut in aid to Israel and other foreign aid, which he wants cut by $20 billion!

Republican leaders such as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ilena Ros-Lehtinen of Florida have condemned a cutoff of aid to Israel, and Jewish groups in both major political parties, and both conservatives and liberals have made clear their opposition to such a cutoff, so Rand Paul’s advocacy has no chance of success, anymore than his other ideas mentioned above!

And get this: this past week, the Senate unanimously, except for Paul, adopted a measure making it a federal crime to aim a laser point at an aircraft, with the Kentucky senator feeling that should be an issue for states to handle individually, even though aviation is interstate, and there has been a growing problem of such incidents, thankfully without a disaster occurring!

It is clear that Rand Paul will be a center of attention over the next six years with his outrageous statements and actions, and imagine this. It is rumored that his father, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, may run for the soon to be open seat in that state after Kay Bailey Hutchison decided not to run for re-election in 2012!

If Ron Paul were to win that seat, he would be the oldest first time freshman at age 77 to take a seat in the US Senate!

Can one imagine having two Senators Paul at the same time? 🙁

The only worse scenario is the nightmare of either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann as President of the United States in 2013!

If both scenarios were to occur, the nation would be in a living hell of its own making, due to stupidity, ignorance, and lack of common sense of the American people! 🙁

A Time Of True Leadership Versus Demagoguery! Obama Versus Ryan And Bachmann!

Ronald 1 Comment

President Obama last night delivered one of his greatest speeches as he gave us the State of the Union, not easy for a man known for great oratory.

He appealed to our better nature, speaking up for the DREAM Act, for commitment to modernization of technology, commitment to education, research and development, and to bipartisanship as we face the challenges of dealing with the deficit and national debt.

The only disappointments in the author’s view were his failure to face the reality of the Afghanistan War, and his decision not to use the Tucson tragedy to call for new regulations on assault weapons, magazines, and the need to have new controls on who is able to buy weapons legally.

Meanwhile, the GOP response was, predictably, disappointing. Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chair of the Budget Committee, came across as an appealing person who really introduced himself for the first time to a national audience, and accomplished the goal of making us realize that not all Republicans are loony and lacking in credibility!

But his ten minute response to the State of the Union Address was broad and vague, and he hid from us the horrific details of his plan to cut taxes for the wealthy and, despite what he claimed, destroy the safety net of the New Deal and the Great Society. What he believes in is seen as radical by most observers, and an attempt to negate 75 years of social and economic reform, and therefore, totally unacceptable, and really dead on arrival in practical terms!

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman from Minnesota, could only write her own version of history, a warped view, to say the least, although in her five minute Tea Party Movement sponsored address, she avoided the outrageous historical fantasies that she had enunciated earlier in the day. This was probably a reaction to the bitter attacks and condemnations of observers to her ridiculous and ignorant assertions about slavery in American history a few hours earlier. But she did her cause and that of the Tea Party no favors, because she is a horrible representative for her party and the movement, and the thought of her likely being on the campaign trail for the Presidency is enough to engender a massive headache! 🙁

The Republicans And The State Of The Union: Not The Time For Obama To Cave In To GOP Threats! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

The Republicans have declared war on the federal budget, and the House membership of the party today unanimously backed a resolution giving Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, total control over the House budget bill for the remainder of the fiscal year 2010-2011.

This is fascinating for a party that is against centralized power and for states rights, that now they are willing to hand over total control to one Congressman over the federal budget. This makes Ryan a “Czar”, a title that Republicans are very willing to assign to advisers to President Obama who deal with different issues, but suddenly it is alright to have a financial “Czar”! 🙁

But Ryan, who will give the GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address tonight, has already made clear that he wants to privatize Social Security, gut Medicare and Medicaid, and dramatically lower taxes on the wealthy, even more than they have already by deals between President Obama and the GOP leadership last month.

And the Republican Study Group, a group of Congressional Republicans even MORE conservative than Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan, wants more draconian cuts in the federal budget immediately and long term, including gutting Amtrak, PBS, NPR, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and funding for research on many diseases, including cancer, AIDS, and heart disease. And also the goal is the wiping out of the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy! 🙁

And to add insult to injury, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the Tea Party favorite, will give her own response to the President’s State of the Union address, after Congressman Paul Ryan gives the official response!

And Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, has made it clear that the Congress will NOT give any aid to any state or city to avoid layoffs of police, firefighters, teachers, and other public servants, therefore guaranteeing massive losses of jobs, and adding to the unemployment rate!

Rather than working to create jobs, the GOP is warring on the job market as it is, and has only destructive intentions as part of a war, not only on Barack Obama’s health care plan and other reforms, but also with the express purpose of destroying the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson and the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt! 🙁

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said today that if President Obama offers a message that includes all of what the GOP wants, they will be glad to support him!

What gall and nerve, without any indication that the Republicans in Congress are willing to make any concessions, but just expect Obama to cave in ! 🙁

The answer is that the President needs to make clear that he is willing to work and negotiate with the opposition party, but will not surrender the right to disagree and use his Presidential powers to protect government programs and the historic accomplishments of Roosevelt, Johnson and even Richard Nixon!

The President and the Democratic Party and progressives and liberals everywhere MUST understand that this is a battle for the heart and soul of the American nation, and they cannot cave in to the destructive tendencies of the Republican party, and must stand and fight to the bitter end, and stop worrying about those who say they are unwilling to negotiate and compromise, and tell them to look in the mirror at themselves! 🙁

The Loss Of America’s Soul: The Declining Interest In Government Promotion Of The Arts And Humanities! :(

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Tonight, at the John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts in Washington, DC, there will be a concert reminding people of the great musician Pablo Casals, who performed at the White House for President Kennedy nearly fifty years ago.

The Kennedy Presidency promoted interest and involvement in the arts and humanities, and Lyndon Johnson created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities during his administration.

Today, sadly, we are hearing from the Republicans in the House of Representatives that all funding for the arts and humanities should be cut, and on the local level all over the country, we see art, music, drama and other cultural programs being dropped from public school curriculums, and even some universities cutting back on majors in some of the fields of the arts and humanities.

This is indeed a sad time, that somehow it is felt that the arts and humanities are “frills” that are not needed, and that the younger generation need not be exposed to the best of our cultural heritage!

This is a true sign of the decline of America, when we have politicians advocating that we eliminate the best part of the nation, its creativity and originality in everything but making profit!

A nation without the promotion of the arts and humanities is indeed a country without its soul! 🙁

President Barack Obama is certainly not of this view, but whether we can see a revival of the spirit of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in these difficult times, and harsh, no holds barred negativism, is an issue that awaits expectations! 🙁

Eric Cantor’s View Of The Senate: Hypocrisy Personified! :(

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia has expressed frustration about the fact that the US Senate, under Democratic control, will not even take up the Health Care Reform repeal bill passed by the House of Representatives yesterday.

He feels that it is wrong that the Senate becomes the equivalent of the “graveyard” or “dust bin” (my language) of legislation that passes the House of Representatives.

Somehow, this comes across as if Eric Cantor has not been awake and conscious in the past two years, when the Senate minority, the Republicans, bottle necked hundreds of House bills by utilizing the filibuster tactic. That apparently was not a problem to Cantor, and we never heard him protest the blockage of what the majority wanted in the Senate.

But now when the MINORITY in the Senate wants to impose their agenda on the American people and take away the advantages of the Health Care Reform, suddenly Cantor is outraged that the Democrats are finally ready to play the same game, and block any consideration.

The only major difference, and I emphasize MAJOR, is that the Democrats ARE the majority, and have every right to block the attempt of the GOP to destroy a piece of legislation which is of historic proportions!

To say the least, Eric Cantor is a pure HYPOCRITE, par excellence! 🙁

Celebration Of Two Years Of Barack Obama: Public Opinion Ratings Soar! :)

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Today marks two years of the Obama Presidency, and an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll shows his rating with the public has soared from 45 to 53 percent in the past month, the highest it has been since July 2009! 🙂

Why has this happened? Apparently, his handling of the Lame Duck Session, demonstrating willingness to work with the opposition Republicans, is a major factor.

Also, his handling of the Tucson tragedy was overwhelmingly popular, as he showed empathy and ability to speak to the country in a soothing manner in the midst of a major crisis and depressing moment for the nation.

Also, there is growing optimism long term and short term about the economy, and Obama comes across as a reasonable person, rather than as an extremist, as so many Republicans present themselves.

The pressure is not on the President, as many thought after the midterm losses in Congress, but rather with the Republicans to show reasonableness and desire to work with the President for the good of the country.

But don’t hold your breath on such cooperation, as every evidence is just the opposite.

Speaker John Boehner failed to attend the State Dinner for the Chinese President, something totally inappropriate, considering that Boehner is second in line for the Presidency, and yet has no interest in interacting with the leader of the second largest economy.

Almost no Republicans attended the State Dinner, with the major exception of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who seemed somewhat embarrassed, when asked about it, that he was the rare Republican to be at the banquet.

The Republican party, with the battle beginning among probably more than a dozen individuals to be the GOP nominee for President in 2012, and with their ties to the Right Wing talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, among others, gives the advantage clearly to the camp of Barack Obama! 🙂

Congratulations, President Obama, on an outstanding first two years of your administration, and the growing likelihood that you will have the great advantage for a second term as President, because of your accomplishments and principles, and the growing image of the GOP as out of step with the American people, as evidenced by the Health Care repeal vote yesterday in the House of Representatives!