Day: April 12, 2011

Republican Lies And Deception Gets Worse! Jon Kyl And “Factual Statements”!

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The Republican Party is both famous and infamous for its lies and deceptions on a regular basis!

Is there any sane, normal, truth telling Republican left?

The latest outrage is Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who claimed that Planned Parenthood spends 90 percent of its money on abortion services!

The problem with Kyl’s statement is that it is a TOTAL DISTORTION of the truth, as only THREE percent of Planned Parenthood funds are spent on abortion, while women’s health services, including fighting breast cancer, is the bulk of their activities, and the GOP is willing to ignore women’s needs in their crazy struggle against abortion, while not giving a damn what happens to children AFTER they are born or to women’s health!

But even worse is that a Kyl spokesman says Kyl defended himself by stating what he said was not meant to be a “factual statement”!

So Kyl is saying that he is exaggerating, lying, manipulating the truth, etc, or is that NOT what he is doing?

One could not make up such stupidities and inanities as this if one wanted to downgrade the Republican Party, as they are much better at doing it to themselves! (head shaking in disbelief)!

150 Years Ago Today, The Civil War Began!

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On this day, April 12, in 1861, 150 years ago, the greatest tragedy in American history began, with the South Carolina government ordering the state militia to commence an attack against the US military fort, Fort Sumter, lying on an island in Charleston Harbor!

620,000 men were killed in the war that ensued for four years minus three days! 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives, and two percent of the population were wiped out, creating a young and middle age male shortage only overcome by immigration over the next two generations!

The South tried to say the war was fought over different civilizations clashing, and the fight for states rights, but the truth is that it was the institution of slavery and its expansion westward and northward which led to the war!

Today, we still hear Southerners and even Westerners threaten secession from the Union, but they well know that cannot be allowed to happen, as the Union won the war and settled the issue of states rights for all time, no matter what radicals say!

The Civil War remains the greatest crisis in American history, and scars still remain, as South Carolina is today celebrating, rather then commemorating, the Fort Sumter attack, as if it is something to be proud of!

But the regionalism that existed then still exists today and affects our politics in the 21st century!

More will be said about the Civil War as we continue to follow the events of that tragic conflict over the next four years!

66 Years Since FDR’s Passing: The New Deal Legacy

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On this day, April 12, in 1945, the second greatest President in American history, Franklin D. Roosevelt, passed away after 12 years and 39 days in office!

The President during the Great Depression and World War II, FDR saved the country from dictatorship and perpetuated democracy; saved the American capitalist system; promoted a sense of hope and faith in the American future; gave people dignity and a sense of optimism; provided millions of Americans with employment and income; promoted thousands of public works projects; gave American labor rights to collective bargaining; revived American agriculture; provided a sense of security for the elderly through the establishment of Social Security; provided public housing and electricity to millions of poor people; and convinced the American people that big national government could be responsive and successful as compared to incompetent state governments!

FDR also saved the country during World War II in the fight against Fascism, Nazism, and Japanese imperialism; advocated the concept of an international organization called the United Nations to promote world peace and cooperation; and promoted American becoming the leader of the free world!

Of course, there are criticisms that can be made of FDR and the New Deal and World War II policies, but despite those, FDR offered so much good service as President, and gave America the future it would have in the next two thirds of a century!

Now, sadly, the Republican Party is starting an assault on the New Deal, as well as Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, but liberals, progressives, and the Democratic Party must continue to fight, and not give in, to the reactionaries who wish to return us to the 1920s and Gilded Age mentality!

April 12: So Significant A Date In History In So Many Ways!

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Every day of the calendar year has events that make the date historic, but April 12 is a particularly amazing day in so many ways in history!

April 12, 1961, saw the first man in space orbit, Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union, exactly 50 years ago today!

April 12, 1981, saw the first US Space Shuttle flight, and the program is soon ending, 30 years after its inception!

April 12, 1954, saw the recording of the first Rock and Roll record, with Rock Around The Clock being recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets. Fifty seven years later, the genre of Rock and Roll still prospers, and there is a great museum giving testimony to it in Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, which the author and his two sons will be visiting in August on vacation!

Even with the advances into space and into Rock and Roll music as a significant form of culture, there are two other events even more significant and discussed in the next two blog entries following this one, so look ahead and see the two path breaking events that have transformed this nation!

50 Years Of Man In Space: NOT Time To Delay Space Exploration!

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Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth for the Soviet Union, becoming the first man in space, but followed soon after by Alan Shepard, John Glenn and many other American astronauts, along with many Soviet cosmonauts.

Space exploration opened up a new field of science, and on this anniversary, it is essential to look forward and continue space exploration as good for knowledge and for the future of the earth!

The purpose of America must be to compete in exploring the planets and beyond, and it should not be forgotten or delayed at a time when the space shuttle fleet is about to be retired!

Failure to explore space would be the equivalent of explorers deciding after Christopher Columbus to abandon the mission of settling the Western Hemisphere! To abandon space now would be a tragedy of long lasting effects!