Month: July 2009

Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich has declared that the Southernization of the GOP is detrimental to the future of the party.

In this, he is absolutely correct!  He mentions specifically that when South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn speak, it loses national support for the Republicans.

It is not just the Southern background of these senators, as there are a large number of Southern senators who are seen as reputable.  It is the fact that SOME GOP senators from the South are Neanderthals in their outlook on government and policy making in domestic and foreign affairs, including DeMint and Coburn.

Of course,  there are other issues that cause grief for the GOP, but Senator Voinovich has certainly made it clear that the growing regionalization of the GOP is a prescription for long range disaster.

I am a tremendous fan of Vice President Joe Biden, and originally favored him for the Presidency in 2008, although I knew he would not be able to accomplish that goal. 

I was thrilled when President Obama chose Joe to be his running mate,  and I believe the Vice President has been a positive force overall for the administration.

However, Joe’s well known ability to talk too much has now led to an unwise public statement that Russia was a weakening country economically, and are falling behind the times, as they face a withering population base.  This is extremely unwise, to antagonize a nation as significant as Russia is,  and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did an excellent job defusing this touchy situation on Meet the Press this Sunday, without being critical of the Vice President.

The Obama Administration also has continued to praise the Vice President publicly, but realistically, it is time for Joe Biden to understand that when he speaks, it can create problems for the President, and that he needs to clear whatever he says before says it, so as not to create troubles for the government in its relations with foreign nations.

Even with this weakness of the Vice President regarding his mouth,  it is still far better than the dangerous involvement in the US government by former Vice President Dick Cheney.   So, despite criticisms that can be made of Biden, I still say it is good that he is our Vice President, but PLEASE temper your comments for the good of the Obama Administration!

This past weekend, we had two pieces of good news.  Sarah Palin finally resigned from the Governorship of Alaska, and Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky finally declared he would not run for a third term in 2010.

Both are embarrassments to the GOP, which has had more than its share of humiliations this year.  Palin has become a nightmare since her selection to be John McCain’s Vice Presidential running mate eleven months ago.  She has now proved that she cannot finish a task, and is a quitter, leaving the Governorship after two and a half years.  Alaska is better off without her, but now she will milk her fame or infamy by making a fortune exploiting her notoriety.  I find it hard to believe how any intelligent person could see her as having any validity ever again to run for any public office, let alone the Presidency.  But we know that Sarah will continue to be news because of her incompetence and ignorance, something unfortunately very appealing to many Americans.

Senator Bunning is famous as a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher with the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, but has been a real lemon as a Senator from Kentucky for two terms,  making ridiculous statements and accusations, and demonstrating to some evidence of mental instability when he ran for reelection in 2004.  He is at war with the Republican party nationally, and has a feud with fellow Kentuckian and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.   In my mind, McConnell is just barely tolerable, but he certainly looks a lot better when compared to Senator Bunning.  Bunning WAS a great pitcher in major league baseball,  but he has been a big disappointment in his Senate career, and it goes to show that excellence cannot be automatically transformed from one area of society to another.

So there is some good news coming to the GOP, as the leaving of Sarah Palin and Jim Bunning is a positive step along the long road to revival!

Here we are into the last week of July, with a congressional recess due to start in the next ten days,  and the Democratic party is badly split over details on  the health care legislation that President Obama is promoting as the major program of his first year in office.

The "Blue Dog"  Democrats, who are in many ways ideologically similar to many Republicans,  and many of whom come from the South and Appalachia, the GOP strongholds,  are resisting a public plan which most liberal and many moderate Democrats want.  In the Senate, there is also opposition from a small group of moderate Democrats, again heavily from the South and Great Plains,  where only a small portion of the American population resides.

This is all very frustrating, and only serves to encourage and excite the Republican party, which is totally opposed except for a couple of senators.  Conservative Jim DeMint of South Carolina has said he wants to promote the rejection of the legislation as a means to destroy the Obama Presidency, and says this legislation, if defeated,  would be the President’s  "Waterloo".   GOP National Chairman Michael Steele has emerged again as totally combative, and at the same time, unrelenting in his negativism toward dealing with the health care issue in any form.  Conservative ideologist Bill Kristol of THE WEEKLY STANDARD has called for total defeat of any legislation regarding health care.

The hope is that the Democrats,  during the recess, with the activities of President Obama and others, and a large scale advertising campaign,  can make a case for the necessity of a comprehensive national health care plan.  The fear is that IF it is prevented from being enacted,  then the GOP could use it,  along with the slow economic recovery that was obvious from the beginning of the economic crisis,  as a tool to shoot for regaining control of Congress in  2010,  as it was able to do in 1994 after the defeat of the Clinton health care initiatives.  The likelihood of such a scenario occurring seems remote, but still it is troubling. 

Upon further reflection and information now available,  the controversy over Professor Henry Louis Gates’s arrest looks more complicated and not as clearcut as it seemed to be when first reported.

President Obama became involved in the controversy at his press conference on Wednesday,  by stating that he felt the police department of Cambridge, Massachusetts,  had been involved in "stupidity",  by the actions of the police sergeant.   Today, however, he responded, after much criticism,  that this had been a case where both the police officer and the professor had allowed the situation to escalate, and that his goal was to promote discourse on the issue of racial relations, basically saying that he wished to retract his unfortunate language.  He made it clear that he did not intend to malign the police department or the police sergeant.

He told of calling the police officer, smoothing things over, and calling for a meeting at the White House of the police officer, the professor and himself, to have a "beer".  He said he wanted to make this a lesson that would benefit the nation at large and promote dialogue.

Despite the attempt of right wing talk show hosts and Republican leaders to exploit the issue as one of the Democrats and President Obama insulting law enforcement,  I think Obama has done a good job of de-escalating this unfortunate situation.  It is clear both men involved in the incident could have handled the situation differently, and hopefully,  Obama’s response to the growing crisis today will have a positive effect and resolve the issue, rather than aggravate it, as the enemies of the administration wish to accomplish.  What a sad day that this whole issue should be so politicized.

Governor Rick Perry of Texas has been the executive leader of his state for nine plus years, the successor to the governorship by the election of George W. Bush to the White House.  The longest lasting governor in America has been and remains a total disgrace, and now he threatens to refuse participation by his state in the health care reform program being promoted by the Obama Administration.

Earlier, he had rejected stimulus aid and also talked about secession from the Union, bringing back memories of the Civil War.  He has been an embarrassment to his state and made a fool of himself nationally by his utterances and his actions.

But his plans to reject national health care reform is detrimental to his state, which has 25 percent of the population having no health care coverage, and having more people uncovered than any other state of the Union.   Texas ranks near the bottom of the nation in many different social statistics, and Perry has been responsible for a lot of this tragedy affecting the poor and disadvantaged of his state.

Hopefully, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison  will be able to defeat Governor Perry in the March 2010 Republican primary.  Compared to Perry,  Hutchison would be a tremendous improvement, although it would be great if the Democrats, who are seen in the long run as likely to be a majority with the growing number of Hispanic residents, could come up with a nominee who could restore power to the party that gave us President Lyndon Johnson and Senator Ralph Yarborough.

Of course, Perry’s irresponsible behavior and statements only add to the tragedy that is the present day GOP.  Are there any respectable leaders left in the Republican party beyond maybe Mitt Romney and a small handful of others?   The party of Abraham Lincoln,  Theodore Roosevelt,  Robert La Follette, Sr,  George Norris,  Arthur Vandenberg, Nelson Rockefeller,  William Scranton, Charles Percy,  Mark Hatfield,  Charles Mathias and numerous others is in deep trouble and total collapse.  Just mention Rick Perry,  John Ensign,  Mark Sanford,  Dick Cheney,  Newt Gingrich,  Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele,  Tom DeLay,  Dick Armey, and Yes, George W. Bush, and numerous others,  and weep! 

I am saddened and outraged at the same time that the famous African American historian, Henry Louis Gates, Jr,  was arrested, handcuffed, photographed and booked over a misunderstanding,  when he had problems opening up his front door in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  after a research trip to China.

A neighbor had called saying she believed that the house was being broken into, and even Gates said later that he does not blame the neighbor,  as he would want his house protected from burglars, especially with all of his art and books contained inside the house.  But the white officer refused to accept his identifications of a driver’s license and Harvard ID card as legitimate,  entered his home without a warrant,  and handcuffed him outside the house after refusing to give his name and badge number to Gates.

As Gates has said, this demonstrates the problems that African Americans and other minorities face in America,  even in the time of the first African American President in the White House.  If Gates can become a victim,  then literally any African American   (and particularly males)  is indeed subject to the possibility of police abuse and brutality.  Many whites have not been willing to admit this is the case,  but the Gates situation proves that even in an enlightened city such as Cambridge, Massachusetts,  there is still a double standard based on race and ethnicity.

This is very troubling, and the fact that Gates’s arrest has been overturned does not solve the issue, as he was put through humiliating treatment and his mugshot was advertised all  over the news media.  This is an emotionally disturbing matter, and not only to people of minority background, but also to whites like myself who are deeply upset that such a situation still exists in America and even in the North in 2009.

So much work needs to be done before we can say that race does not  matter, as indeed this tragic event proves that it DOES matter, in a negative way!

There has long been a right wing promotion of the belief that Barack Obama was not a US citizen and was born in Kenya, despite the documented evidence available in Hawaii, which is found with magnification of the document in nine parts on FactCheck.org.    This has always been seen as the loonies stating such things, but the idea has not died and is spreading among a portion of the American people as another example of a conspiracy.

As outrageous as this is, now Lou Dobbs of CNN has joined the crowd and promoted a similar conspiracy belief on his tv and radio shows.  Lou Dobbs once had some credibility, but this has been deteriorating in the past couple of years with his rants and smirks on his CNN show,  so much so that I finally had to give up watching his show because it made me sick to the stomach.

Although once regarded as a leading business commentator,  Lou Dobbs has lost all sense of respectability and reputation,  not only with this ridiculous assertion, but with other over the wall statements in the past two years.  While he retains the right of freedom of speech,  I wonder if he is happy to be put into the same category as Rush Limbaugh,  Sean Hannity,  Bill O’Reilly,  Michael Savage,  and other right wing whackos.

I think Lou Dobbs needs to examine the website FactCheck.org,  and then issue a profuse apology to President Obama and condemn the continued assault on this President who is doing his very best to address the issues of the nation, and does not need to be confronted with outrageous, looney assertions that have no basis.   Somehow, though, well aware of Lou Dobb’s arrogance and egotistic nature,  such an appropriate apology is unlikely to be forthcoming,  but it is at the expense of his reputation.  He should be totally ashamed!

Former President Jimmy Carter, who brought the role of religion back to the White House with his profound belief in his Southern Baptist Church,  has long been uncomfortable with the overly conservative and traditionalist views of that church, and has now announced that after more than 60 years as an adherent of the church,  that he is leaving over its refusal to modernize,  and realize the rights of women.

Carter condemned the teachings of Southern Baptism that women must be subservient to their husbands, cannot be ordained as ministers, and that women should have no rights over their bodies and lives.

Carter stated that women are being denied fair access to health, employment, education and a role in their community by the teachings and doctrines of Southern Baptism, and that women are entitled to their dignity and basic human rights.

I applaud President Carter for taking such a courageous stand.  While he remains controversial for his views on Israel and the Middle East crisis, and stirs up opposition by many for his stands on other public issues, one must certainly say that he is a man of courage and convictions who does not worry about the enemies and opposition he engenders.  On this issue, Jimmy Carter deserves a round of applause!

We are in the midst of a tense, hectic time as Congress debates President Obama’s proposal for a National Health Care Act.

This is, many observers believe, the defining moment of the Obama Presidency:  Can he get through Congress a comprehensive health care plan that offers everyone in America something that every industrial democracy, except this nation, has:  a national health care system where everyone is entitled to health care coverage at a reasonable price?

Not only is this important for the American people.  It is important to see this as a commitment to honor Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who has spent most of his Senate career seeking just such a health care plan as the culmination of the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Anyone can see that Ted Kennedy is fighting for his life in Massachusetts from the malignant brain tumor that was diagnosed over a year ago.  He has shown great courage in the interim, and has also demonstrated great enthusiasm and commitment to accomplishment of his long time goal.  He wants desperately to see the accomplishment of this legislation while he is alive. 

It would be a tragedy were to he to die before the accomplishment of the passage of this plan into law.   One can argue about Ted Kennedy’s earlier sins and foibles, and he will remain a controversial figure in American history because of the complexity of his life.  But everyone in the Senate honors him and sees him as a great friend and colleague,  Democrat and Republican alike.    When the unfortunate time comes, which hopefully will NOT be soon, that he passes away, the country will be in great mourning for this senator, who despite his negatives, is seen as one of the greatest US Senators in our entire history. 

We owe it to Ted Kennedy, as well as to ourselves, to get this health care legislation into law as soon as possible, and of course, name it after the man who has had a greater impact on this issue than any living American.    This would be the greatest honor we could bestow on a great Senator and statesman!