Month: December 2009

Finally, A Real Effort To Create Jobs By The Obama Administration!

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President Obama will, in a speech Tuesday, propose using $200 billion from TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program) to create jobs, including roads and bridges building, weatherizing homes, and providing aid to individuals and businesses and state and local governments.

This is a good use of the TARP money, rather than just assisting banks and corporations–that is, assist Main Street, along with Wall Street.

The pressure is on to create a NEW DEAL set of employment agencies equivalent to the PWA, WPA and CCC, which had such a major impact on the 1930s and are urgently needed now!

NY Times Columnist Tom Friedman And Obama’s Afghan Policy

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NY Times columnist Tom Friedman is a thoughtful, insightful man, who is often seen as very perceptive.

Therefore, what he says about President Obama’s Afghan War policy is something to reflect upon.

He compares what Obama is doing to an unemployed couple in the United States adopting a “special needs” child. Obviously, it is hard to make sense of such an action.

Friedman makes clear his belief that we have so much to do at home, and so little in resources to do it, and are creating an unsustainable national debt. Also, Afghanistan, the poorest non African country in the world, is so corrupt and has such an inept government that we cannot expect that country to be self sustaining, so how can we expect to leave that nation beginning in mid 2011?

Friedman wonders how we can build a decent government that Afghans will want to fight for. He sees doom ahead, with a heavy loss of American lives and an unsustainable increase in the national debt.

This wise man must be paid attention to, and it certainly sobers the author and many other thoughtful doubters of this war strategy of our President, who means well, but is likely leading us down the wrong path!

Barack Obama Wins Public Support For His Afghanistan Policy

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While there are many Americans who are disappointed that President Obama has decided to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, including the author, it turns out his arguments for that escalation have won him public support, according to a CNN poll.

Obama said America’s safety and security are at stake, and 64 percent in the poll agree. Also, 63 percent agree that being involved in Afghanistan is morally justified.

This is a very different reaction than when George W. Bush escalated the war in Iraq via a “surge” in 2007, with that war always being seen as not justified morally and based on false premises.

The war in Afghanistan was poorly handled because of the war in Iraq, and therefore, it seems that Americans are willing to give President Obama more time to make the war a worthwhile intervention.

But with a deadline of starting to withdraw in July 2011, the support for the war might not continue long term. For now, though, Obama has gained time and broad support, but again with skepticism and sadness by many, including the author. We can only hope for the best, but expect the worst might come–a long, drawn out war with heavy casualties for many years!

Illegal Immigrants And Basic Decency In An Arizona Court Room

Ronald 1 Comment

The debate over what to do regarding illegal immigration rages on, but what is happening now in the state of Arizona cries out for a sense of decency and common humanity.

An Arizona resident, a member of a group called No More Deaths, which supports humanitarian aid to illegal immigrants along the US-Mexico border, specifically in the form of jugs of water left for illegals crossing the Mexican-Arizona desert, was convicted of littering, and faces the possibility of 25 days in jail for leaving water to prevent deaths occurring.

The number of illegals who die in the desert is staggering, and no matter what one thinks about the concept of illegal immigration itself, it is obvious that many of these illegals are escaping Mexico out of economic desperation and take dangerous chances trying to walk across the border.

Is it appropriate to put someone in jail for this basic gesture of providing water? Are we that lacking in humanity and decency as to have no concern for life or death of these illegals?

Should someone be punished for having a standard of morality and ethics where he cannot turn away from his fellow man in trouble? I say absolutely NO! This is a disgrace and a miscarriage of justice!

Barack Obama, The Senate Democrats, And Health Care

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President Obama is scheduled to go up to Capitol Hill for a meeting with Senate Democrats at 2 pm on Sunday.

This may be the most crucial meeting and moment in the fight for health care, but it does not loom well for the President or the health care legislation, which has been a controversy for many months.

How is the President going to rally the forces in the Senate, a notoriously egotistical body of men and women who all love the sound of their own voices and have complete belief in their own virtues, to overcome their differences, particularly in relation to the “public option”, abortion, and their own individual re-election campaigns that they will face in 2010 or 2012?

This is the time to be the so called “fly on the wall”, able to observe the body language and the verbal interaction between the President and his colleagues in the Democratic party.

Barack Obama has many skills, but it is not clear yet that he is the successor to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson in the ability to win over support by whatever means necessary.

At this point in the debate over health care, that is what is required! Unfortunately, don’t bet on it! 🙁

The Greatest Crisis For National Security: Education And Our Future

Ronald 4 Comments

As a college professor, I have witnessed the catastrophic decline in educational standards in public education over the past 40 years. This represents the greatest crisis for our national security in the 21st century.

Young people today may be able to do well at video games, and to connect socially via Facebook and other social websites, but they do not have the basic skills or higher level thinking processes necessary for the secure future of our nation.

When half of our students drop out of high school before graduation in many urban districts, and when only one third of high school graduates come to college, if they do at all, in a well prepared way without the need for remedial work in English and Math, that is a real warning sign for our future.

When countries in Asia and Europe outdo our graduates, and are ahead of us in many fields of knowledge, that is a sign of impending emergency. How are we, the leaders of the free world, to compete and to meet the challenges that face us in this new century?

I wonder, as many do, are we in the direction of dramatic decline, when we have young people who have no thirst for knowledge, who are easily bored, who lack an attention span, who come out of high school with no GK, general knowledge base, to build on?

When we have so many examples of college students, including many who are so ill equipped and lacking in motivation, who seem to show up just to gain financial support from government, and are more interested in the money than the learning, it screams out that we MUST raise standards of what our country expects from its students.

But also, it mandates that our parents MUST instill in their children the importance of learning, not just the acquisition of money for “trying” college, but really putting education first as a priority goal, over video games and “hanging out” on social websites as the way young people “waste” their youth NOT learning what they need, and we need, for their and our survival long term!

If one thinks about it, this is exactly what President Obama has said over and over again. Education is the single most important goal and aim that all of us must emphasize for our own personal futures and our national security.

Do not forget that even in this Great Recession that we are going through, that those with education and professional degrees, have a LOWER unemployment rate than other groups. So again, it rings true: EDUCATION, EDUCATION, and EDUCATION–similar to the saying that when one buys a home, what matters is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! 🙂

Sarah Palin Is At It Again! Being Irresponsible!

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Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is on a book tour, and already has sold a million copies of her memoir, which has been shown to be factually inaccurate, and vindictive toward the staff of her running mate last year, Senator John McCain. She is very good at blaming everyone for their transgressions, but failing to see her own shortcomings.

Now, however, she is, seemingly, encouraging the continuation of the “birther” movement, which continues to claim that President Obama was born in Kenya, not the United States, and therefore is an illegal immigrant who has no right to sit in the Oval Office. She told a conservative talk show host that those who believe in the conspiracy theory have the right to continue to contest his birth, even though later on Facebook, she seemed to backtrack on her statement of her own doubts about Obama’s birthplace.

What Palin is doing, however, is encouraging whackos and nut jobs to continue to promote hate, hysteria, and lies! And while she is at this game, I suggest that we revive an investigation into her husband Todd, who we KNOW was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, which is a right wing group that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union!

This was lightly brought up in the 2008 campaign by the Democrats, but then dropped as not really relevant. But if Palin is willing to continue to discuss the “birther” conspiracy, then we need to hammer home that her husband was ready to break the US Constitution, promoting secession, which was resoundingly defeated in a Civil War which killed two thirds of a million men in the name of upholding the Union.

Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, led the struggle to preserve the Union, but Sarah Palin, also a Republican, has a husband who was involved in what could be termed by many people as “treasonous” activities which Sarah has never explained!

Ok, Sarah, how about explaining this, or will you, as usual, blame the media for bringing it up, and say it is a “gotcha” moment? Hmmm, how about it, Sarah! Speak up! Defend your husband’s action, which you well know you cannot do! 🙁

Signs Of Progress! Unemployment Rate Declines In November!

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For the first time since the Great Recession began in December, 2007, the unemployment rate has declined!

Compared to the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every month, and 7.2 million lost in the past year, the month of November shows only 11,000 jobs lost and the rate declining from 10.2 percent to 10 percent.

Professional and medical jobs are up, which again shows the power of education. But job losses in construction and manufacturing are also lessening, which is a good sign.

It is hoped that the unemployment rate peaked last month, and that the 10.8 percent unemployment rate of 1982 under the Reagan Administration will not be matched or surpassed!

This news comes just after the Jobs Summit at the White House yesterday and the President on the road today in Allentown, Pennsylvania, promoting the job agenda in public meetings.

Inexplicable Stonewalling By Obama White House On Security Breach

Ronald 1 Comment

It is inexplicable to many observers why the Obama White House is stonewalling an investigation by Congress of the security breach at the first formal state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister last week.

Obama’s refusal to let the White House Social Secretary testify as to how a couple were able to get into the White House dinner when they were not on the official guest list is extremely disturbing, as it is a potential danger if this kind of breach were to occur again.

It would have been easy, had this couple wished to do harm to the President or Vice President or anyone else at the dinner, to use a knife on the dinner table to assault someone.

The fact that Obama is willing to invoke executive privilege is mind boggling on such an issue as this, as it harms the President’s supposed intention to be transparent, after clearcut criticism of the Bush White House for being secretive and invoking executive privilege to prevent investigations into many controversies which arose during those eight years.

We were told this administration would be different, but apparently this is not the case, and it undermines faith and trust that things are really going to be different now.

What is it about Presidents that they all seem to be hypocrites, willing to be critical of their predecessors, and yet utilizing the same tactics, and attempting to avoid responsibility for the transgressions of those who they appoint, who only undermine the image of their Presidency?

The Urgency Of The Jobs Summit At The White House

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On Thursday afternoon, a Jobs Summit will be held at the White House with businessmen and academics trying to figure out how to deal with the unemployment crisis, with 10.2 percent unemployed officially, but counting those who have stopped looking or are off unemployment compensation, making it closer to 17.5 percent, and even higher numbers in poorer areas, particularly in African American neighborhoods.

The Congressional Black Caucus is threatening, along with others, a jobless people’s March on Washington, unless strong action is taken to deal with this growing crisis.

Sixteen million are out of work, and one third of those are out of work for six months or longer. Six workers are competing for each job that is available. More people are out of work now than at any time since 1983.

There is no more important initiative for the unfortunate citizens who are unemployed, or for the Democrats and President Obama, than to solve the issue through rapid development of public works projects. It will be interesting to see what transpires at the summit.