Month: April 2011

Earth Day: Time To Reflect On Progress Made, But Challenges Ahead!

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The environmental movement celebrates its greatest day on April 22 every year, since Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson promoted the idea of an Earth Day in 1970, and President Richard Nixon and Interior Secretary Walter Hickel acted on it nationally.

We have had environmental champions since, including Nixon, Hickel, President Jimmy Carter, Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus under Carter, Vice President Al Gore under Bill Clinton, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt under Clinton, and many others in and out of government!

We have also had those who have become environmental enemies, including President Ronald Reagan, Interior Secretary James Watt under Reagan, President George W. Bush, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, other Republicans in Congress, and of course, the corporate community!

So the battle for environmental protection is a never ending struggle, but one which is worth remembering on this Earth Day!

The energy industry is always at work to combat environmentalism, including the coal, oil, and nuclear power industry. The Republican Party is far from the era oF Theodore Roosevelt, the great conservationist, who would be mortified were he to come back and see what the GOP has become–a corporate party not concerned about pollution of the environment!

Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, And The Fight Over Medicare’s Future!

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During this Easter-Passover break in the Congressional session, President Obama has been campaigning against the Paul Ryan Republican plan on the budget, particularly with the proposal to change Medicare over ten years to a voucher system.

Obama has said that such a change would be destructive and make it essential for seniors in the future to pay heavy extra costs for health care, as the vouchers would only pay about one third of the expenses.

Ryan has said that the voucher is the only way to save Medicare and promote a future balanced budget.

But Ryan has been gaining some unfriendly reactions, even in his own district in Wisconsin, and Obama has been seeing growing support in public opinion polls, against major changes in Medicare, even among Republicans, and even Tea Party people, as well as Independents!

It is clear that Americans want Medicare retained in its basic form, with some tinkering with it to cut costs!

After all, either an American is on Medicare; or nearing Medicare; or his or her parents or grandparents are on Medicare; or smartly realizes that one day they will be elderly and want the protection and the benefits of Medicare!

In any case, most Americans are willing to pay more to insure that the overwhelmingly popular Medicare enacted by Lyndon Johnson’s Administration survives into the long term!

So, the GOP should go ahead and promote privatization of Medicare, and the more Paul Ryan and other Republicans promote it, the more it helps the Democrats and Barack Obama!

The fact that 235 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for the Ryan plan has the potential to destroy the GOP majority in the House in 2012. It could very well be the wedge that keeps Barack Obama in the Presidency, the Democrats in control of the US Senate, and help the Democrats gain the 25 or more votes needed to regain the House of Representatives!

So, Paul Ryan and the Republicans, keep on advocating the end of Medicare as we know it! Don’t stop; keep pushing it, and allow Democrats to salivate!

Maine On The Road To The 19th Century: Governor Paul LePage And Labor Laws

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The state of Maine has often be seen as a state of independent minded people who have been ahead of much of the rest of the nation in many ways.

The reputation of Maine is about to be damaged irrevocably by the insanity of Tea Party favorite and Governor Paul LePage!

He wants the state labor laws to be changed, after having removed labor murals from the state Labor Department building as objectionable!

Now he wants the state to change the child labor laws to allow 16 year old high school students to work 24 hours a week, rather than the present 20. What this means is that there will be a higher dropout rate as students will have no time to study and focus on school. He also wants high school students to be allowed to work to 11 pm, rather than the present 10 pm, on school nights, another horrible idea!

LePage also wants the state minimum wage law to be changed to allow workers under the age of 20 to be paid a minimum wage of $5.25 instead of the prevailing wage of $7.50!

This would be slave labor wages in the 21st century, as no one can even live on the minimum wage as it is, and it would be exploiting young people and making it harder for older people out of work to gain even a minimum wage job!

Paul LePage is another despicable governor who represents backwardness and craziness, much like Rick Scott of Florida, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Snyder of Michigan, John Kasich of Ohio, and Chris Christie of New Jersey!

If Maine had any sense, it should take action to remove this disgraceful excuse for a governor through recall or impeachment, as he will destroy the state with his loony, retrogressive agenda!

First Anniversary Of BP Oil Spill: Nothing Has Changed!

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A year ago today, the BP Oil Spill, the worst in US history, began in the Gulf of Mexico, and no one has paid the price of criminal responsibility, and nothing has been done by Congress to deal with the dangers of future oil spills, as corporate America continues to “own” the Republican Party, and even many members of the Democratic Party, as well!

The economy of the Gulf States has been harmed long term, and the environmental damage to wildlife and the water supply is impossible to measure completely, but it will last for years!

Oil drilling is going on, and we are told that this kind of situation will never happen again, but there are no safeguards, other than trust, which is hard to take seriously as a solution!

The odds of any Congressional regulation of the oil industry is nil, and we continue to see our environment destroyed in the name of capitalism and profits, so the future of energy and the environment remains one of no likelihood of any major change in policy!

Insults And Rudeness Against President Obama Still Continues!

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Every President has been subjected to ridicule and criticism by comedians and ideologically biased commentators, but the level of insults and rudeness against President Obama has been nonstop!

This past week, a California Republican official in Orange County sent out an email depicting the President as a chimpanzee! This is not the first time this has happened, and it is very clear that the purpose of the email was racist!

The official apologized if what she did offended anyone, which is not quite the same thing as being really aware of how wrong and inappropriate such an email represented!

At the same time, not only Bill O’Reilly has shown disrespect against President Obama in an interview!

It has become an endemic problem for many reporters, even local reporters, who insist on interrupting the President before he can finish an answer to their questions. The fact that Obama was described as testy yesterday to a reporter, by simply asking that in the future he be allowed to finish his answers without interruption, has suddenly become a news item. The fact that Obama smiled through earlier such interruptions by O’Reilly and others is not as much noticed! As if the President is not entitled to be annoyed at the rudeness and disrespect displayed!

Imagine any earlier President being interrupted in the same manner! The fact that Dan Rather dared to tell President Richard Nixon that he had not answered the question AFTER Nixon had responded, was made a big controversy 40 years ago, and Rather was not being rude or disruptive at all.

This lack of respect and decency is part and parcel of the deterioration of American society, as witnessed by the lack of professionalism and incompetence so often witnessed today in all fields of work, as the author commented on yesterday in another blog entry!

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Finally Shows Some Courage!

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Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who has been wrong on almost everything, since she succeeded Janet Napolitano, has finally shown some common sense and courage, and is to be commended on that!

Brewer vetoed a bill to allow weapons on college campuses, and also vetoed a bill dubbed the “Birther” bill, which would have required Presidential candidates in 2012, to produce a copy of their birth certificate, or face being prevented from being on the Presidential ballot, a direct attack on President Barack Obama!

The Arizona legislature is so right wing that they have made their state a pariah!

But Brewer went against the vast majority of the legislature, and by using her veto pen, stopped such ridiculous laws as the two above from becoming law! So, for a rare occasion, let us salute Jan Brewer, but keep a watchful eye on her future actions and statements!

The Rise Of Mediocrity And Dishonesty In America’s Work Force

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America faces a myriad of problems, but one that is not often discussed is the growing epidemic of mediocrity and dishonesty in the work force.

Whether it is the alarming deterioration of the air traffic controllers performance in doing their job, or the alarming number of errors made by various medical personnel  in hospitals, or the poor performance of many teachers who just do the minimum in teaching their students, or the lack of knowledge and common sense by many politicians who show an amazing ability to be stupid and ignorant in alarming numbers, this country is in a major crisis!

Too many Americans in all occupational fields are satisfied to cut corners, cheat, steal, do just the minimum, avoid responsibility for their behavior, and put their own personal needs ahead of wishing to excel in job performance!

This is also evident more and more among students at all levels from elementary school through college, who wish to just go along with the minimum, have no desire to explore and inquire about knowledge beyond the amount needed to pass tests, and seem to have no common sense or general knowledge base, and are seemingly happy being clueless and ignorant, as if ignorance is bliss!

Ignorance, mediocrity and dishonesty are not a state of bliss!

Instead, it is a warning of a rapid decline in America over the next two generations, if this attitude of malaise and lack of concern about performance and excellence is not reversed, and pronto!

April 19: Inspirational Date In History, But Also A Time To Remember Tragedy!

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April 19 is a date in history that has mixed messages of inspiration, but also tragedy!

In 1775, the American Revolution began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, inspiring people in this nation and worldwide!

In 1943, the Jews of Warsaw, Poland, forced into a ghetto by the Nazi occupiers, began their revolt against the Nazis, a heroic event, but ultimately a great tragedy as they became part of the Final Solution that the Nazis had planned for the Jews of Europe!

In 1995, we had the greatest terrorist attack by domestic enemies when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 Americans and injuring nearly a thousand people, and this by a white Christian fanatic who was allied with domestic militia groups, not with foreigners or Muslims, as people wanted to believe!

And tomorrow, April 20, ushers in reminders of the birthday of Adolf Hitler, who caused more loss of life in twelve years in power than anyone in world history, and also the anniversary in 1999 of the horrific Columbine Massacre in Colorado, where two high school students caused mass murder by their sick plot against high school classmates and teachers!

It is tragic that so much tragedy centers around these two days in a row, but yet the inspiration of the American Revolution and the struggle of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto also inspire us to plan for a future world with the hope of more good than evil triumphing over time!

The Libya Crisis For NATO And The United States: One Month And Counting!

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NATO and the United States decided one month ago today to intervene in the Libyan Civil War against dictator Moammar Gaddafi with the expectation that they would be able to prevent mass murder and overthrow the tyrant in a short period of time. President Obama said it would take just days, not weeks, to overcome the Gaddafi government by using air strikes against government forces, in support of the rebel group.

No one imagined that Gaddafi would employ troops in rebel cities in mosques and schools, and make it impossible to use air strikes to overcome him and his henchmen, and meanwhile, indications of mass murder have been evident, a very frustrating situation, amidst a mounting financial cost for the United States and the NATO nations!

But the United Nations directive, decided a month ago, was that the goal of the intervention was to protect civilians, and not to begin a ground invasion by Europeans and Americans of an Arab nation!

So now the question is what next? There is no desire of the American government or the NATO powers to get involved in a long, drawn out war in Libya, and there is little public support for a ground invasion, which has no guarantee of success in the short or long run!

But can the Obama Administration and NATO allow Gaddafi to remain in power, without it being seen as a human rights disaster and a blow to the whole concept of NATO’s effectiveness?

How can Obama look good if Gaddafi remains in power? How can that help his re-election campaign? What effect will this have on the Middle East revolutions that have erupted since January?

In other words, Barack Obama and the NATO nations are in the midst of a major morass, with no easy exit or solution, something no one could have imagined just a month ago!

105th Anniversary Of San Francisco Earthquake: A Reminder Of Nuclear And Natural Disaster Likely In The Future!

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On this 105th Anniversary of the infamous San Francisco Earthquake, which destroyed much of that city, and is still one of the top few greatest natural disasters in American history, if not the worst, we have a reminder of the doom and gloom predicted in the next 30 years by most scientists!

With a nuclear power plant right on the San Andreas Fault between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and another nuclear power plant between Los Angeles and San Diego, in a state with 37 million people, there is the looming threat of much more than a disastrous earthquake, but also of a much worse tragedy of nuclear radiation on the scale of what has happened last month in Japan and in Chernobyl in the old Soviet Union 25 years ago!

There has long been the prediction of a massive earthquake in California, and despite much planning and building of structures that are supposed to survive such a natural disaster, it is still worrisome that no one can possibly prepare adequately for a natural event such as an earthquake, and be sure that there would not be a worse disaster with a tsunami and or nuclear breakdown!

It seems more a question of when, not if, as to such a natural tragedy and possible nuclear disaster, and the cost of such an event both regarding loss of life and cost is impossible to measure, or to plan for. Disaster preparedness is far from an exact science, and no one seems willing to deal with the financial cost that cannot be forseen until it occurs!