Month: April 2013

The Korean Crisis Could Be The Most Important Foreign Policy Moment For Barack Obama!

Ronald 2 Comments

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, along with other top administration officials, now face what is likely to be the most profound crisis in foreign policy of the Obama Presidency.

We could be on the edge of a major war in the Korean peninsula, with the potential for a massive loss of life in South Korea and Japan, and danger to our own troops, presently numbering 28,000 brave men and women.

Kim Jong Un is a young man who should not be in power, has nuclear capability, and is even worrying his neighbor, China, with his reckless statements and actions.

It will take all of the statesmanship and courage of our leadership to resolve this without a major disaster, and the prognosis seems grim indeed!

Republicans Double Down On Anti Gay Stand: Long Range Move To Oblivion!

Ronald 26 Comments

The Republican Party’s National Committee has decided that they will double down on their anti gay stand, just at a time when the nation is rapidly accepting gays as equals in every way, including the civil right to marry.

This is a losing proposition, as within the next ten years, the GOP will look like a dinosaur culturally, as the nation is moving away from narrow mindedness, prejudice, discrimination, and the bullying that goes on, encouraged by lack of concern for and respect for the rights of those with a different sexual orientation. And gay marriage is being considered right now by the Supreme Court, and no matter what they decide in June, the momentum is with movement in that direction.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois are the only two sitting GOP Senators who have endorsed gay marriage, although former Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Dan Evans of Washington, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Pressler of South Dakota, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, and Olympia Snowe of Maine have also backed gay marriage.

A number of College Republican groups, and s few Republican members of the House of Representatives. along with prominent former Republicans Governors, including Jon Huntsman, Tom Ridge, Jesse Ventura, Tom Kean, James Thompson, William Weld, and Christie Todd Whitman have also supported gay marriage.

Additionally, many other non elected Republicans have signed statements calling on the Supreme Court to accept gay marriage as constitutional everywhere in America!

When we look back by 2025 to 2030, the Republican Party will have paid a heavy price for their refusal to adjust to changing times, and to their decision to allow organized religion to dictate social policy, in a nation that is based on the Founding Fathers’ promotion of the separation of church and state!

Rush Limbaugh And Sean Hannity Reach New Low, Even For Them!

Ronald 5 Comments

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are two of the most outrageous right wing talk show hosts, and they are on a rampage now because of the promotion of gun regulation protection by the Obama Administration in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre.

Limbaugh was on the attack against Michelle Obama, due to the fact that the First Lady compared her growing up in Chicago to that of victim Hadiya Pendleton, who had marched in the Inauguration Day Parade in Washington DC on January 20, and then was murdered in a park in Chicago not far from where Michele Obama grew up. Michelle Obama had tears in her eyes, but that led Limbaugh to go ballistic, and to ridicule the girl who died due to that tragic gun violence!

And then Sean Hannity denounced the President for “using” the Sandy Hook parents who came on Air Force One with the President to the US Capitol, to try to influence the debate on gun regulations now going on in earnest!

How could anyone NOT have sympathy for what happened to Hadiya Pendleton in Chicago and to the Sandy Hook Elementary School children, and agree that it is time for action on gun violence?

If the President and First Lady had not done what they did, it would be proper to condemn them for lack of compassion and empathy, and unwillingness to take a strong moral stand on the violence killing our children!

Limbaugh and Hannity are beyond the pale, despicable, heartless excuses for human beings, who continue to gain wealth spewing forth hatred and division in America!

Massive Turnover In The US Senate In Past Three Two Year Cycles!

Ronald 3 Comments

The US Senate is a fascinating institution with a long, distinguished history of exciting personalities and significant historical actions.

But the US Senate is now in the midst of so much turmoil and upheaval that its image and reputation are in great danger of being irreparably harmed for the long run!

46 percent of the Senate membership will have changed since the inauguration of Barack Obama as President in 2009, including the announced retirements over the next two years, and the likelihood of possible defeats of sitting members in primaries or reelection contests in 2014 making an even higher percentage than 46 percent by the beginning of the 114th Senate in 2015!

Retirement has been the most utilized method of leaving the Senate, including such luminaries as the following:

Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, George Voinovich, Judd Gregg in 2010

Kent Conrad, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Herb Kohl, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Jon Kyl in 2012

Tom Harkin, Frank Lautenberg, Jay Rockefeller, Saxby Chambliss, Carl Levin in 2014

Defeat has been another way to remove members of the Senate, including:

Russ Feingold, Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, Bob Bennett in 2010

Scott Brown, Richard Lugar in 2012

Death has also taken away the following:

Robert Byrd, Edward Kennedy by 2010

Daniel Inouye by 2012

Moving to other positions in government or political groups include:

Sam Brownback, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Ken Salazar by 2009 or 2010

Jim DeMint by 2012

John Kerry by 2013

Altogether, the totals are as follows from 2009-2014

Retiring: 25
Defeated: 6
Dying: 3
Resigning: 12

46 and counting, when one adds the likelihood of the defeat of some sitting Senators in primaries or elections in 2014, making HALF the Senate likely having changed since the 111th Senate met in January 2009!

And the statesmanship and experience that will be lost will be replaced by many Senators unwilling to negotiate or compromise, a hallmark of the historic Senate, which played such a major role in American history!

Margaret Thatcher: Loved By Republicans And Conservatives In America, Reviled In Her Homeland!

Ronald 39 Comments

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died yesterday at the age of 87, leaving behind her much discussion of her impact on her nation, on America, and on the world.

Without doubt, Thatcher was the most significant Prime Minister of Great Britain since Winston Churchill, and was the most significant woman leader of the 20th century anywhere in the world.

Without doubt, she transformed the world by her alliance with President Ronald Reagan, and convincing him that working with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the Cold War could come to an end and lead to the downfall of the Soviet system in eastern Europe.

Without doubt, Thatcher had a dramatic effect on domestic politics in her country, with her strong anti labor, anti immigrant policies, gaining a reputation as the Iron Lady who never compromised on her beliefs and created great social and political turmoil that still reverberates in a nation in the midst today of a failing austerity program, that should demonstrate what America should not be doing with its own economy!

But instead of Republicans and conservatives idolizing her for her hard line economic and social policies, they should learn from her ascendancy what happened to the opposition Labour Party, which had gone too far to the left, and was brought by default to the middle of the political spectrum, ultimately leading to the triumph of Prime Minister Tony Blair and a moderated party.

And this is what the extremist right wing Republican Party of 2013 so far has failed to accept—that their party has gone off the deep end in the era of Barack Obama, the first African American President, and that they will NOT come back to power on the national level as long as they veer ever further to the far Right, allowing right wing Christianity, right wing talk show hosts, and extremists on social and economic issues to continue to wield power over their future in the form of the Tea Party Movement!

Just as Margaret Thatcher led to Tony Blair over time, Barack Obama will lead, it is hoped, to a Republican Party more in the mold of the GOP of the 1960s and 1970s—the party of moderate conservative leaders who could appeal to a wide swath of Americans, rather than a narrow ideological group which causes a bad name and reputation for the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and the Reagan who was much more moderate in many ways than conservatives paint him to have been!

Threatened Filibuster On Vote On Gun Regulation Should Lead To Filibuster Reform In Response

Ronald 35 Comments

The threatened filibuster of having a vote on gun regulations, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre, should be enough to lead to filibuster reform in response!

Five Tea Party affiliated Senators should be ashamed of themselves for not allowing a vote at the least, since the likelihood of major reform is highly unlikely. But in honor of the 20 dead children and six educators at Sandy Hook, plus the victims in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater and other tragedies, why not let a vote take place? How obscene and heartless can these five Senators be?

The five Senators who should be roundly vilified and condemned are :

James Inhofe of Oklahoma
Mike Lee of Utah
Rand Paul of Kentucky
Ted Cruz of Texas
Marco Rubio of Florida.

The latter three have Presidential ambitions, but if the GOP were to nominate Paul, Cruz, or Rubio after not allowing a vote by a threatened filibuster on the gun issue, then they are most certainly dooming themselves for the long term future, as a party being led by heartless lunatics of the far right!

Majority Leader Harry Reid is threatening filibuster reform, which is a simple majority of the Senate, if the extreme right wing stands in the way of a vote on background checks for gun purchases, supported by 90 percent of the nation and 80 percent of Republicans in recent polls. And John McCain has protested the idea of a filibuster, and even Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania seems ready to promote some kind of gun regulation reform.

The GOP cannot allow its fringe members to destroy the party’s future, which is what the threatened filibuster would do!

World Health Day: Hypertension The Silent Killer Worldwide

Ronald 8 Comments

Today marks World Health Day, and commemorates the United Nations World Health Organization, with attention being paid to the dangers of hypertension as a world wide danger to mankind’s health, a silent killer!

One of my readers and supporters Maggie Mitchell, is going to present an informed article on this topic, as she is a long time top rated and experienced Nurse, who I highly respect for her expertise. I hope all my readers will enjoy what she presents below, and I thank her for her contribution to the blog on this matter!

A Time For Foreign Policy Experts To Be Utilized Over Korean Crisis–Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, Jon Huntsman

Ronald 5 Comments

The crisis that has arisen over North Korea’s bullying and nuclear threats represents a danger to international stability in Asia, worrying not only the United States, but also South Korea and Japan, and even next door neighbor China.

Kim Jong Un, 29 years old, is clearly a wild card in the greatest description of the term, and could incite a major war that could devastate prosperous South Korea, and endanger US troops there and in Japan and the American territory of Guam, along with what seems like crazy threats to Hawaii, California, Texas, and Washington DC.

The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, have their hands full, and rationality and balance in response is required of President Barack Obama in what could become the major foreign policy crisis of his administration.

In the past, former Presidents and Vice Presidents have been utilized as contacts with North Korea—meaning Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, along with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Additionally, former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is an acknowledged expert on China and its neighbors.

It might be time to utilize Carter, Clinton, Gore, Richardson or Huntsman to figure out how to communicate with Kim Jong Un and resolve the tinderbox without war. President Obama would be wise to consider such diplomacy, in order to cut down the chance of war that no one can win!

Obama Is Wrong To Compromise On Social Security And Medicare, But GOP Will Save Him With Their Obstinacy On Taxes!

Ronald 33 Comments

President Barack Obama is infuriating progressives and liberals and Democrats with his move to suggest cuts in Social Security benefits and Medicare, which will harm senior citizens and veterans and widows and the disabled.

Many forget that Social Security is fully funded for at lest 25 more years, and all that needs to be done is to tax all income, not just $112,000, the same as with Medicare which taxes all income. Raising the Social Security tax to all income will insure Social Security for the rest of the century! Cutting Cost of Living Allowances is immoral and reprehensible, when we allow corporations to gain government funding, which should never have happened at any time!

Medicare needs to insure that all will know that cost cutting should be on waste, overpricing, and fraud, but not on benefits to the elderly and the disabled.

A country that does not take care of its elderly, its disabled, its veterans, its poor, is a nation that has become morally and ethically corrupt!

But the Republican Party will save the day, because part of the deal that Obama is attempting will require increase in taxes on the wealthy and the corporations, and since they will never agree to any deal, it will take Obama and the nation off the hook!

Politics Is An Art: Running A Government Is Meant For Those Who Have Been In Government!

Ronald 11 Comments

In recent years, the idea has developed that anyone can be a politician, even if no experience in government.

Therefore, we have had a businessman, Herman Cain, who operated a pizza corporation, and ran as a candidate for President in 2012.

We have been told that government should be run as if is a corporation, but government is NOT the same as business.

Now we have a brilliant neurosurgeon, Dr. Benjamin Carson, who is renowned for saving many children’s l lives, who is considering running for President in 2016, just as Herman Cain did in 2012.

Both, and others like them, are to be commended for their successes in their chosen fields, but neither, and often others, such as Donald Trump, who has flirted many times with running for President, are unwilling to work their way up through the state legislatures, state executive branch, the House of Represenatatives, or the US Senate, or working in a Presidential cabinet or major role in the military before running for President..

No matter how competent they are in their fields of business, medicine, or any other occupation, that does not mean that they should be seen as ready to jump into the fray, and believe, without ANY political and governmental experience, that they are qualified, or have any clue as to what runnning a government is all about.

It trivializes politics and government, as it would be if someone knowing nothing about history or math or science or whatever, goes in and teaches a class to college students, or someone who has never studied and practiced law or medicine or accounting or whatever, suddenly claims they are qualified to be engage in those professions!

This has nothing to do with whether it is Republicans or Democrats, or men or women, or people of different ethniciities or racial backgrounds!

The point is that many critics of Barack Obama claim he had too little experience in government, when he actually had TWELVE years in public office.

Many other Presidents have had less experience than Obama, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. But all of them had some government experience. And Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ullyses S. Grant had years of military experience, which also qualifies as knowledge to operate a government. And even Mitt Romney ran the state government of Massachusetts before running for President!