Day: May 1, 2011

Two Events To Commemorate On May 1: Holocaust Remembrance (Yom HaShoah) And The Death Of Mass Murderer Osama Bin Laden!

Ronald 2 Comments

As we come to the end of the first day of May, we have two developments to commemorate–both Holocausts of different sizes!

Today is the day we commemorate the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, which killed 6 million Jews and 7 million other victims! It is called Yom HaShoah, and it is a day to remember the sacrifices of these millions of victims!

Ironic that on Yom HaShoah that we learn that Osama Bin Laden, the most sought man in the world, responsible for 3,000 deaths at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, has been killed by the United States through the CIA, with a statement due soon by President Obama as we near midnight!

Bin Laden also hated the Jews, so this is a double day of remembrance for those people who support Israel and Jewish survival through the thick and thin of world history!

This is a great moment, and it unites Americans like nothing since September 11!

It is thrilling to witness tourists outside the White House singing the National Anthem, and it is a time for all of us to rejoice that justice has been done!

It also makes President Obama look great, that this happened on his watch, and it strengthens him in his re-election contest in the fall of 2012! What can the Republican Party say in opposition to Obama, considering that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were unable to resolve this matter in seven years after September 11?

This will make Obama look strong on defense matters, and overcome the old myth that Democrats are weak on defense!

It will give some solace to the families of the 3,000 victims of September 11, and will make May 1 a special day in the history of the United States, to be commemorated every year as one of the major events of American history for all time!

It, however, also makes us need to be more cautious and on alert, as the odds are that Al Qaeda will want to strike back at the United States in retaliation for Bin Laden’s death!

As John King of CNN just stated, this is an HISTORIC day in capital letters, and we will applaud this as one of the major successes of Barack Obama’s great leadership in the War On Terror!

Is Unemployment The Priority Of The 112th Congress? Apparently Not!

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Considering that we have more unemployed people, over 15 million now, greater than ever in American history, one would think that the 112th Congress would be doing something about it.

However, any such thoughts have been shown to be just that, thoughts, as the Republican House of Representatives, led by Speaker John Boehner, is clearly unwilling to address the issue, certainly not with more spending to create public service jobs, even though there is clearly a need for infrastructure building and rebuilding.

If anything, the goal is to cut government spending, and to stop interference in state government budget crises, as President Obama attempted to do in the first two years of his administration, with a Democratic Congress.

The effects of the state budget crises all over America is to cause growing unemployment in public jobs, and the rhetoric is more toward ignoring the plight of millions of Americans, who are discovering that the GOP majority they created in the House of Representatives, plus the takeover of many Governorships by Republicans, is showing utter disregard of the unemployed and unfortunate among us.

It is likely that this 112th Congress will go down as the least productive since the time of Herbert Hoover, in regards to the reality that unemployed people are desperate, and the “99ers” are left without any income, in an economy that offers no hope of any change for many years, and for some of them, probably never!

Since the GOP controls the budget matters before it gets to the US Senate, any chance of Democrats or President Obama doing anything substantive for the unemployed, seems unlikely.

The only hope is that the nation will see how the Republicans simply don’t care about those less fortunate, and that these unemployed, plus many people fortunate to have a job, will react by throwing the Republicans out of control of the lower chamber in 2012!

Can The “Gang Of Six” In The Senate Promote A Solution To National Debt Crisis?

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In the midst of the national debt crisis, and the issue of the extension of the debt limit just around the corner, six US Senators, three Democrats and three Republicans, have been meeting for months trying to come up with a plan that can be accepted by both parties, and show the American people that the politicians in Washington can work together on an issue that is threatening the short term and long term stability of the economy.

The Democrats are Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, and Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota. The Republicans are Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Senator Michael Crapo of Idaho.

No matter what these six Senators come up with, it could fail in the Republican controlled House of Representatives, if the extremist Tea Party people refuse to budge on tax reform or tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, even by getting rid of tax loopholes and tax breaks.

It is clear there will have to be not only tax increases, as well as cuts in military spending, but also reforms of Medicare and Medicaid that will not destroy the system but modify it, and long range planning to change the full Social Security age and tax all income on Social Security, instead of the limit on contributions now in the law.

This is a time for politicians to do what needs to be done, without fear of losing their seats in future elections, and to take the philosophical view that they would rather do what is proper and sensible to do, than to bend to extremists who have no understanding of the need for change, and only want to promote their one sided, impractical, and dangerous views of the future of the nation, despite the realities of the urgency of action!