Month: December 2011

Barack Obama And Promotion Of Gay Rights Abroad: An Extension Of Jimmy Carter’s Human Rights Initiative!

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A few weeks ago, President Barack Obama took a major step forward in the promotion of human rights abroad, an expansion of the vision of former President Jimmy Carter in and out of office since the late 1970s.

Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced early in December that the American government would use all of the tools of American diplomacy, including foreign aid, to promote gay rights around the world.

This includes fighting efforts in other nations to criminalize homosexual conduct, and to abuse or overlook abuse against gay men, lesbians bisexuals, and transgender people.

Hillary Clinton connected gay rights to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by 48 nations after World War II. The goal is to stop nations from making it a crime to be gay.

Several nations have made strides in this regard recently, including South Africa, Colombia, Argentina, Nepal, and Mongolia. Much of Europe and China have taken being gay off the list of legal prohibitions.

But at the same time, many Muslim nations in particular still ban homosexuality and punish and discriminate against gays, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uganda, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia as leading examples.

And of course, Republicans in general attacked the idea of including gay rights as part of a foreign policy vision, and many of the potential nominees for the Presidency make it clear they would like to reverse the progress made in America in recent years.

So the battle for human rights for gays is far from over!

The Absolutely Worst Congress In Modern American History: The 112th Congress, First Session!

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The first session of the 112th Congress stands out only negatively: as the Congress which did nothing to unite the American people, solve problems, promote cooperation with the President; or avoid crises. Instead, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives under Speaker of the House John Boehner was unable to work to create jobs or show willingness to cooperate at all with the President.

Meanwhile, the Senate, technically under Democratic control, had its 47 Republican member minority abuse the filibuster and even utilize the threat to use it, so as to make it impossible to accomplish any legislation, or any cooperation with the White House.

Only when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky realized that his party was looking badly on the middle class tax cut continuation issue did he take action to force the Republican majority in the House to give in and prevent a tax increase, which would have been political suicide.

The Tea Party Caucus of about 80 members promoted destructive behavior and an anti government anarchism that is totally terrifying.

Only if McConnell and Boehner decide to fight letting one third of their caucus to continue their “blackmail” over the leadership of their party in both houses of Congress, will they get elected to a majority in the Congressional Elections of 2012. To expect any action of positive nature from the 112th Congress is a dream not to be fulfilled as things stand right now.

It is odd that the disaster of the 112th Congress comes after the very successful 111th Congress, the best since the 89th Congress of 1965-1966!

The Tea Party Put Into Action: The Tragedy Of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback

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Kansas is the state that helped to bring on the Civil War, due to bloodshed in that territory after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, allowing the possibility of the expansion of slavery into that Great Plains state.

Kansas was one of the centers of the Prohibition Movement, which led to the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, outlawing the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in 1919, although Prohibition was ended by the 21st Amendment in 1933.

Kansas was the center of the segregation battles, as the only truly non Southern state to allow segregation of the races, becoming the center of attention in the Brown V. Board of Education Of Topeka, Kansas case in 1954, outlawing school segregation nationally.

Kansas was also the state of some of the major anti abortion battles, the murder of an abortion provider, Dr George Tiller, and the present attempt to prevent all abortions in the state, contestable in the federal courts right now.

And now, Kansas is the center of the greatest experiment of all in the promotion of the Tea Party Movement, with former Senator Sam Brownback now the new Governor of Kansas, and determined to promote its basic principles.

The goal of Brownback is to cut expenditures for education; take action against the Obama Health Care legislation; promote massive cuts in social service agencies and the arts; reduce the number of laws and regulations and state agencies; cut the number of state workers; and take advantage of the biggest Republican dominance in the state in a half century by working to eliminate even moderates in the party who oppose such drastic change.

Brownback is promoting the virtues of limited government, but his critics accuse him of “slash and burn” tactics, and a level of arrogance tied to his devout religious beliefs. The influence and support of the Koch Brothers, Charles and David, is clearcut in Kansas.

The critics believe Kansas will be damaged long term by what Brownback is doing, and that his hope of promoting economic growth in a state that has not seen for decades any major population surge will fail to be achieved.

Meanwhile, Kansas will continue to be at the center of some of the major controversies in the nation, as it has been since its beginning!

As Iowa Caucuses Near, Growing Problems For Front Runners Paul, Gingrich, Romney

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As the Iowa Caucuses near, just eight days from now, there are growing problems for the front runners in the polls.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is having problems explaining away the hateful, prejudiced, racist, anti Semitic, anti gay rants on his newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s, claiming he is not responsible for what was published under his name.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is having his account of his first divorce challenged, as court records show that he pursued the divorce, rather than his first wife. Also, it has been noted that Gingrich, even in the 1970s and early 1980s, expressed interest in running for President one day, and stated the view that his first wife, considerably older than himself, would be a burden to run with, because of the age difference and his view that she was not attractive enough to be First Lady!

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the acknowledged wealthiest person running for President, has refused to release any financial records, which only a small number of presidential possibilities have failed to do in the past. This is an issue that will not go away, particularly because of the knowledge that when he worked at Bain Capital, his goal was to cut work forces at companies controlled by that corporation, rather than to increase job opportunity, something he claims he would be good at, as compared to Barack Obama.

So more than ever, the Iowa Caucuses seem more muddled, and probably insignificant, since the number of participants are so small, and so one sided in their views, that they are not representative of the nation, or really, even New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada, the other “early states”!

Today Is A Shared Death Date Of Two Courageous Presidents, Often Criticized In Office Endlessly!

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Today, December 26, is a shared death date of two courageous Presidents, often criticized in office endlessly.

These two Presidents were Harry Truman who died in 1972, and Gerald Ford, who died in 2006.

Harry Truman was incessantly attacked on all sides, by Republicans who thought he would be easy to defeat in 1948, and were surprised by his upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey; and who later bitterly attacked his strategy on the Korean War. But also, liberal Democrats were disappointed in him, seeing him as a poor replacement for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who he succeeded in 1945. So he faced the opposition of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace and the Progressive Party of 1948. But he also faced the opposition of Southern Democrats, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who ran for President in 1948 as a “Dixiecrat” on the States Rights Party line, because of Truman’s brave stand ending segregation in Washington, DC, and in the armed forces, by executive order.

Truman had twenty years in retirement, and grew in stature as the years went by.

Gerald Ford, not even elected Vice President, ended up succeeding Richard Nixon, when he resigned due to the Watergate scandal in 1974.

Ford gained criticism because of the pardon of Nixon one month later, and because of the economic recession that had already begun, and was the worst economic downturn since 1939.

Ford also had to battle for the GOP nomination against conservatives who backed former Governor Ronald Reagan, who nearly defeated Ford in the Republican National Convention of 1976, and this forced Ford to drop Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and replace him with Kansas Senator Bob Dole. He came close to the defeat of Democratic nominee Governor Jimmy Carter, losing in Ohio and Hawaii by very small margins, enough to have defeated Carter if only he had gained a few thousand votes.

Ford came to be regarded with respect and admiration, even by Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who in 1999 said he had been wrong to attack Ford for the Nixon pardon 25 years earlier.

Ford lived on for 29 years after the Presidency, and is looked at kindly now, much like Truman.

These were two men who had in common that they came across to average Americans as being “one of us”! May they rest in peace!

How Christmas Day Changed The Course Of American History, In 1861 And 1991!

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Christmas Day has long been celebrated as a special day, but in terms of American history, two particular Christmas Days have had a dramatic effect on our future.

In 1861, on Christmas Day, as the Civil War was entering its second year, it seemed as if the United States was about to go to war with Great Britain, due to the Trent Affair, the seizure of two Confederate agents, James Mason and John Slidell, from a British ship by the crew of an American ship, the San Jacinto.

Instead, the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln agreed that it was better to release the two Confederate agents, as fighting a two front war against the South and Great Britain would be a losing proposition. It would have made it more likely that the Confederate States of America would have won its independence, and the United States might have been occupied by Great Britain, and transformed our history in a tragic fashion.

Also, in 1991, on Christmas Day, the Soviet Union’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, declared the end of the 74 year experiment in Communist dictatorship, and the breakup of the Soviet Union into separate nations, with the largest being the Russian Federation led by Boris Yeltsin.

This was a courageous act by Gorbachev, and was the final end of the nearly fifty year Cold War, seemingly allowing peace in the world, and America without a major competing nation for world leadership.

Unfortunately, the optimism would not last, as Middle East terrorism became the new challenge for the United States and the Western world, in many ways a greater threat than Communism had been.

But both Christmas Days, 1861 and 1991, 150 years ago and 20 years ago respectively, had a massive impact on our history!

The Virginia Presidential Primary: Romney Vs Paul, With No One Else On Ballot!

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A weird development has set up the Virginia Presidential primary of March 6 to be a potential major factor in the GOP Presidential race.

Virginia is a “swing state” with a Republican state government stronger than ever before; with a Governor, Bob McDonnell, who is a potential Vice Presidential nominee; with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, thought to be supportive of the Tea Party struggles against Speaker of the House John Boehner; and a state with northern Virginia very liberal and the rest of the state more traditional Old South. It is a state that Barack Obama won, and is a crucial state for him to win in 2012.

Considering the significance of Virginia, one would think all seven GOP candidates for President would be on the ballot, but instead only TWO are to be listed–Mitt Romney, the candidate of “Establishment” Republicans; and Ron Paul, the libertarian and Tea Party, small government, and cutting back on interventions overseas, candidate!

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry failed to gain enough ballot signatures, and Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman chose not to compete at all in the state.

So, assuming the nomination has NOT been won already, which seems a highly likely scenario, this could be the ultimate battle in many ways of Nelson Rockefeller vs Barry Goldwater, modified of course, but definitely a battle for the soul of the Republican Party in 2012!

With Ron Paul Having His “Surge” In Iowa, The Investigation Of His Record Begins!

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Texas Congressman Ron Paul has been very appealing to libertarians, and was in fact the Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party in 1988.

Having run as a Republican for President in 2008, the only repeat candidate along with Mitt Romney, Paul is presently first in some Iowa public opinion polls as the Iowa Caucuses of January 3 get closer.

So Paul is having a “surge”, as earlier Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich have had. Only Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman have not had a “surge’ as the search for the non Romney candidate continues.

So now that Ron Paul is being paid more attention, let us look at the facts about a man who has been around a long time, and has taken positions on all kinds of issues, meaning at least some will be seen in a positive light, depending on the person looking at Paul’s record. But there is plenty to be disturbed about!

But face the facts: There is no way that Ron Paul can be the GOP Presidential nominee, and if he looked as if he was going to be, there would be such a ganging up on him by the Republican Party, which despite its claims, is NOT a libertarian, isolationist party as Ron Paul basically is.

What is objectionable about Ron Paul, in no special order?

1. Ron Paul has in the past, in a newsletter he now disavows, but was under his name, stated racist, anti Semitic, and anti gay statements. While he is not the only Republican to make racist or anti gay statements, the fact that he said them in a newsletter many years ago makes him even more objectionable, since it is harder to refute.

2. Paul is for taking America out of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and all free trade agreements. He is perceived as an isolationist.

3. He is highly critical of Israel, the only Republican candidate to be so, and yet does not see Iran as a threat for the future with the development of nuclear weapons.

4. Paul is for wiping out most government agencies and their bureaucracies, including Education, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Energy. He also would love to eliminate the Federal Reserve Board. None of this is going to happen, no matter what criticisms there might be of these agencies.

5. Paul promotes letting states decide most matters dealt with by the national government, and thinks climate change is a hoax, and advocates stopping interference with religion’s influence in government, including the teaching of intelligent design over evolution.

6. He is a strong believer in pro-life without exceptions; against any government intervention in the environment; any regulation of guns; and any aspect of affirmative action.

7. Paul opposes any kind of amnesty for illegal aliens, any support of any kind for them, and birthright citizenship for their children born in the United States.

8. Paul believes only in excise or sales taxes, and the wiping out of the income tax, and refuses to support any spending programs that create new debts.

Also, a study by a political science journal, The American Journal of Political Science, came to the conclusion that, overall, Paul has the most conservative voting record of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002!

So the attacks on Ron Paul as outside the mainstream, even of the GOP, is rapidly growing!

President Obama’s Vacation Time Under Dispute: Give Me A Break!

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President Obama will be off to vacation in his home state of Hawaii after signing the Tax Cut legislation that the Republicans finally agreed to in the House by unanimous consent this morning.

Of course, whenever Obama takes ANY vacation time, it is a hot dispute to Fox News Channel and the GOP!

But the facts are that Obama has only taken 61 days vacation in nearly three years in office.

Compare that to George W. Bush who took 180 days up to this point of his Presidency, and Ronald Reagan who took MUCH more time off, enough to make one wonder if he was really on the job!

But, of course, really, no President is ever off the job, as the job goes with him.

So it is all petty stuff when a President is told he may not get away, particularly when Congress takes inordinate amounts of time away on vacation EVERY year!

Barack Obama Now Attacked Over Dog Bo: What Else Is New?

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President Obama is now being attacked by the Republicans over the issue of spending an hour shopping for his dog Bo for Christmas, in the midst of the controversy over the middle class tax cut continuation, which finally was resolved by a caving of the House Republicans and Speaker John Boehner.

The nerve of Obama to spend time shopping for Christmas for Bo! This shows how preposterous and ridiculous things have become!

And yet, we did not hear criticism of George W. Bush spending time and money on his dog Barney!

Now we DID have the famous speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, defending his dog Fala against attacks, and interestinly, there is a sculpure of Fala as part of the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC!

So maybe Obama should make a speech like FDR did, and it would certainly be a light moment of laughs, something America needs!