Day: July 2, 2013

Mitt Romney Right On One Matter: Alternatives For 2012 GOP Nomination Were Worse Than Him!

Ronald 6 Comments

A forthcoming book by Dan Balz of the Washington Post reveals that 2012 GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not wish to run, and his family overwhelmingly did not want him to run, but that he decided to do so because of his conclusion that the alternatives for the nomination were worse than him!

For once, and only once, Mitt Romney is correct in his judgment, as the alternatives of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were all much more unacceptable, basically a comedy team!

Only Jon Huntsman, who had no chance to be the nominee, was a far better choice than Romney!

The Republican Party had the worst combination of choices for President of a major political party in the entire history of Presidential elections, and they deserved the defeat they suffered, and will, assuredly, face the same future in 2016!

21 States Are Refusing Federal Funding To Expand Medicaid Coverage To The Needy In 2014!

Ronald 2 Comments

21 states, all “red” Republican states, and governed by Republican Governors and legislatures, are refusing to expand Medicaid coverage for the the needy in their states for 2014, even though the federal government is covering the cost 100 percent for the first three years, starting next year, and 90 percent after that until 2020!

So millions of needy people will have no ability to have health care coverage under ObamaCare, as the Supreme Court gave the states the authority to decide if they wished to accept the Medicaid coverage expansion from the federal government.

Republicans, who claim to be “pro life” are willing to risk the lives of those less fortunate, including children, the elderly, and the poor, and yet they all claim to be “religious”, but are not acting with the compassion of Jesus Christ, particularly when the states have no cost for three years, and very little cost after!

So the following states have rejected this coverage:

Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Texas
Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska
South Dakota
Idaho
Montana
Wyoming
Utah
Missouri
Wisconsin
Maine
Alaska

These states are governed by such “Bully” Governors as Bob McDonnell of Virginia; Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Paul LePage of Maine–all totally despicable in their lack of concern for their less fortunate constituents!

Additionally, six other states are still debating whether to accept Medicaid expansion paid by the federal government, including the following:

New Hampshire
Ohio
Indiana
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Tennessee

This means Republican Governors, including John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, are actively working to deny coverage to their poorer populations!

Only 23 states, including Republican Governors Chris Christie in New Jersey, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, and Jan Brewer or Arizona are following through on commitment to the needs of their less fortunate, and those four Governors are to be commended, particularly Brewer in Arizona, who had a complete reversal in her view!

What a terrible state of affairs when conservatives and Republicans have no concern about those who are living but deprived, while at the same time, fighting to prevent abortions and force women to undergo ultrasound testing if they wish to end an abortion in the 24 weeks period allowed in the Roe V. Wade case. Additionally, North Dakota, Arkansas, Ohio and Texas, among other states, are trying to cut back, or have already done so, the amount of weeks of pregnancy in which a woman can have an abortion, and doing so in legislative sessions that are more run like a dictatorship, than a democratic means of passing legislation!

150th Anniversary Of Battle Of Gettysburg: Turning Point Of Civil War!

Ronald 3 Comments

A century and a half ago, on July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, the greatest battle of the Civil War occurred in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the furthest north the Confederate armies of the South ever managed to reach during the war!

About 50,000 casualties occurred in those three days, and only on July 3 was it clear that the Union Army had triumphed, but at great cost!

This author has visited the Gettysburg historic site with his older son, and we were both sobered by the reality of that battle, and the amount of blood that was shed, and the ghosts that many claim still haunt the battlefield and the homes nearby that date back to that time period.

President Abraham Lincoln commemorated the loss of life in November of that year, and the commitment to human freedom, that those who fought on the Union side died for, while acknowledging the bravery and commitment of the Confederate soldiers who died in that sleepy Pennsylvania town 150 years ago!

This is a time to commemorate those who died and were wounded, and keep the commitment to human freedom and legal equality that is always under challenge in the modern world, both outside our nation, but sadly also still being an issue that divides Americans, and even the Supreme Court!

Proud Day Of Civil Rights 49 Years Ago, And Now Backtracking On Lyndon B. Johnson!

Ronald 4 Comments

49 years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson had his proudest moment in office, signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and then following up with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Finally, the tragedy of the years after 1877, the end of Reconstruction, was being rectified, 88 and 89 years after African Americans in the South were abandoned by the Republican Party in preference to an alliance with big business and industry committed to economic aggrandizement, and political insensitivity to not only African Americans, immigrants, women, children and even native born men that made up the industrial labor force, exploited until the Progressive Era started to rectify the worst evils of industrial capitalism!

And now, a half century later after Lyndon B. Johnson, it is the Republicans on the Supreme Court who are allowing unbridled capitalism to be seen as “people”, and in the process corrupting the system again, including victimizing all of the groups above, and negating the protection of minorities, the poor, elderly and college students in the states that had a long history of discrimination in voting rights, and now will have open access to do it once again, as if the civil rights era never occurred!

The Supreme Court majority is attempting to negate the Warren and Burger Courts in the great progress they made toward social justice and legal equality for oppressed groups, and this is a tragedy that will continue to emerge until and when Democratic Presidents can select more members of the Court to replace aging Justices, including Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.

But sadly, the impact of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the legacy of the two Bush Presidencies, is likely to continue for the long haul, and set back the nation on so many issues over the years to come!

Women On The Supreme Court: Their Impact Is Massive!

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So far, we have had four women on the Supreme Court in its history:

Sandra Day O’Connor (1981-2006), appointed by Ronald Reagan
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993- ), appointed by Bill Clinton
Sonia Sotomayor (2009- ), appointed by Barack Obama
Elena Kagan (2010- ), appointed by Barack Obama

All four have had a massive effect on the Court, and made one wonder what it would be like if the Court was made up of only women, which of course will never be the case.

However, the likelihood of more Justices who are women seems bright, and when Ginsburg leaves at some time in the future (with her being 80 years of age), it would seem appropriate to replace her with another woman.

This, of course, did not occur when O’Connor left the Court, and we ended up with Samuel Alito, a sour puss who seems hostile to all three woman Justices, and at the least, shows publicly a lack of respect for them, highly regrettable and in reality, outrageous conduct unbecoming a Supreme Court Justice!

The only hope we can have about the Court is that the women will have an insidious effect and move the conservative men toward understanding issues that affect slightly more than half the population of the nation.

Sadly, at this point, Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas seem unreachable, and so we have a schizoid Supreme Court, arguably one of the most divided in its entire history, and that is bad for the nation, and for confidence in American government!