Olympia Snowe

Lisa Murkowski Victory Over Joe Miller A Blow To Sarah Palin And Tea Party Movement!

Ronald 2 Comments

The miraculous write in victory of Senator Lisa Murkowski over Republican nominee Joe Miller in Alaska is a serious blow to the Tea Party Movement and to Sarah Palin, and that is a good thing!

Murkowski was too lax in seeking another term as Senator, and lost the GOP nomination to Joe Miller, but then decided not to give up, and to mount a write in campaign against a candidate who came across as radical and objectionable in his behavior and his views on issues!

Murkowski, while generally considered a conservative, is a mainstream conservative, with only Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown being more moderate than she is.

So in the GOP caucus, she is actually the fourth most moderate or liberal in her views, far preferable to Joe Miller, who would have been close to being further right wing than almost anyone in the Republican party, except maybe South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and Oklahoma Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe!

Murkowski has made clear her opposition to the Tea Party Movement, and her support of earmarks, despite the GOP announcement that they would oppose any earmarks over the next two years.

Any victory for a more moderate conservative candidate in the Republican party is good for the future of the party, and anything which lessens the appeal of Sarah Palin, as she hints she will seek the Presidency, is also good, as she would be a disaster for the Republican party, were she to win the nomination!

As Senator Murkowski said, Sarah Palin does not enjoy governing and making decisions, and she is also not intellectually curious enough to be qualified for the Presidency!

Lisa Murkowski is very wise and perceptive, and it is good for the Senate that she retains her seat, and Joe Miller goes back into obscurity!

Profile In Courage Needed By Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, And Lindsey Graham Against Tea Party Movement Threat To Honored Traditions Of GOP!

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In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his anti Communist rampage, promoting fear and hysteria in millions of Americans; destroying the reputation of many public figures in government, media, Hollywood, and the professoriate; and silencing most members of the Senate who feared to speak up against him and his witch hunt! 🙁

But early on, a courageous woman Republican senator, Margaret Chase Smith, spoke up against McCarthy when no one else was willing to do so!

Smith was the first long serving woman in the US Senate, ultimately serving four terms from 1949-1973 for the state of Maine! She was truly a “profile in courage”, the title of a Pulitzer Prize winning book by Senator John F. Kennedy a few years later, although Kennedy was unwilling to speak out against McCarthy, particularly because his own father was supporting and financing the Wisconsin Senator!

The kind of courage Smith displayed, showing she had principles and was willing to risk her career to speak out against McCarthy’s tirades, needs desperately now to be copied by several Republican Senators, who are decent, mainstream Republicans, and who in their heart and mind, cannot be imagined to be supportive of the Tea Party Movement trying to usurp power and take over the Republican Party! 🙁

I am referring to Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

Graham has, actually, been courageous to express doubts and criticism about the Tea Party Movement, but the others have remained silent. It could be because Snowe and Lugar face reelection contests in 2012, while Collins and Graham face it in 2014.

Graham has set the standard and needs to convince Collins, Snowe and Lugar to condemn what is going on, even if the result is a challenge to their seats when reelection time comes!

Sixty years later, we need some reputable GOP Senators to uphold the honored tradition of the party at a time when the party is in deep trouble and about to commit potential suicide!

Finally, Federal Government Aid To States For Education And Medicaid Support!

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Thanks to the two Maine Republican Senators (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins), the Senate was able to overcome a GOP filibuster and provide $26 billion in aid to the states, to help support education and medicaid, and partially relieve the crisis in state budgets in this worst economy of the past 75 years!

Approximately 160,000 teaching positions nationally will be saved, and medicaid assistance to the states will help to plug the shortfall which threatened the continuation of the essential programs for the poor and handicapped!

The House of Representatives had adjourned for the summer break, but will return next Tuesday to pass the bill and help to relieve the economic crisis for the coming year!

Again, however, the Republican leadership in the Senate, headed by Mitch McConnell, complained that the states should not receive this extra aid, an amazing assertion when McConnell’s own home state of Kentucky is one of the poorest, most backward of all the states, and yet McConnell seems to have no concern! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND DISGRACEFUL! 🙁

Financial Reform Legislation Finally About To Pass, Thanks To Three Republican Senators! :)

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The most significant financial reform legislation in generations is about to pass the Senate, after patient behind the scenes negotiations by Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama Administration!

With the loss of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the opportunity of gaining 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster seemed unlikely, but as on the economic stimulus legislation, three Republican Senators from the Northeast, seen as moderates in a party more right wing than ever, have had the courage to cross party lines and back the President!

On the economic stimulus bill last year, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania backed the President, and then switched parties.

So Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are now joined by Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who has proved to be an independent in many ways, and very hard to predict what he will do on any legislation!

At a partisan time such as now, with the fall campaign already in motion, it is important that we salute Senators Collins, Snowe, and Brown for bipartisanship of the best kind!

Thank you, Senators, for doing what is best for the American people! 🙂

Four Moderate Republicans And Unemployment Compensation Extension Support!

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The Republican Party has been extremely negative on anything Barack Obama wants to do, and the multiple delays in extension of unemployment compensation, held up by the infamous Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, and now Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, is finally over!

We are in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and these senators, and others, who had no problem funding the two wars we are in, and the Medicare prescription Part D plan of George W. Bush, without figuring out how to pay for it, have now been overcome by cooperation of four colleagues, all of whom should have backed the Health Care reform legislation, but failed to do that!

But at least now there are signs of cooperation by these four moderates–Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and George Voinovich of Ohio.

The extension of unemployment benefits was won by a 60-34 vote, enough to stop any further attempt at a filibuster.

It is also encouraging to see Scott Brown, who accepted Tea Party support during his campaign to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, now fail to find time to go to a Tea Party event in Boston starring Sarah Palin. It seems that Brown is trying to separate himself from any association with Palin, certainly a smart move if he hopes to win reelection in 2012 when he will likely have to face a Kennedy family member challenging him for a full Senate term.

The hope is that these four senators, and a few others in the Republican party, will now back the Obama Administration on climate change and financial reform legislation coming up for consideration soon.

The best way to get things done is to promote bipartisanship, so let us applaud these four moderates for finally acting statesmanlike, instead of just territorially staying loyal to their party when it makes no sense!

60th Anniversary Of McCarthyism: What Has The Republican Party Learned? NOTHING! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

Sixty years ago today, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin began his rampage on the Communist issue, accusing everyone he could find of being a “Red”, a “Pinko”, or a “Fellow Traveler”, without any regard for the truth and for the damage he was doing to their reputations and lives.

Most Republicans backed him for political gain, not caring about justice and the truth. Fear and hysteria and panic reigned in that period, and only a few leaders of the Republican party spoke up against it.

One was Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who issued a Declaration of Conscience on June 1, 1950, condemning Senator McCarthy’s methods and tactics. She was a conservative who demonstrated truly a “Profile In Courage”, which even John F. Kennedy, who later published a Pulitzer Prize winning book under that name, did not have, due to the fact that his father Joe helped to finance Joseph McCarthy.

Today, we have the Tea Party Movement which embraces similar characterics, coming across as racist, anti immigrant, ignorant, and promoting similar fear and hysteria, including willingness to utilize Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin as advocates of its message, which includes conspiracy theories about Barack Obama and promotion of the concept that he is a dangerous “Socialist”. The Tea Party Movement has demonstrated that it is a right wing, fascist oriented, dangerous movement, much like Senator McCarthy represented sixty years ago.

And yet, who today in the Republican party is willing to speak up? Certainly, not the two women Republican senators from Margaret Chase Smith’s Maine, who have been thought to be moderates, but are unwilling to stick their necks out to speak up for what is right and good, instead choosing to remain silent.

I am referring to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who should show their courage and principle by denouncing the rightward trend of the party, and its collaboration with this extremist Tea Party Movement, but instead avoid any comment.

The Republican party will self destruct if they continue down the road of the Tea Party Movement, and the fact that Sarah Palin chooses to support and defend this movement, should eliminate her as someone who could be considered for national office, for which she has demonstrated absolutely no competence anyway.

For Sarah Palin, whose husband was involved in the Alaska Independence movement, to go to Texas and speak up for Governor Rick Perry, who advocated secession and nullification, bringing back memories of John C. Calhoun and the Civil War, is just more evidence of the dangers of the Tea Party Movement and Sarah Palin, its champion!

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower should be totally ashamed on this anniversary of McCarthyism for its sinful past and its sinful present! What a disgrace for a major political party to have so little spine for what is good and decent! 🙁

Purification Of The Republican Party: Is There Room For Olympia Snowe And Charlie Crist?

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It looks as if Republicans are ready to purify their party by pushing out anyone who is perceived as moderate.

There is already a movement by FreedomWorks, the radical right movement led by Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader during the 1990s and early 2000s, to create challenges in 2010 for moderate Republicans, with Florida Governor Charlie Crist, running for the Senate, as one of their main targets in his race for the nomination against Marco Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker.

Governor Tim Pawlenty, trying to outdo Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, his potential rivals for the Presidency, has questioned the loyalty to Republican principles of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, who immediately responded that she has been a Republican all her life and had no intention of leaving the party.

It looks as if there will be civil war in the Republican party in 2010 to excise the “cancer” of moderation. How this will affect the 2010 election is unknown, but the possibility of a far right takeover of the party and its implication for 2012 is alarming and scary.

Hopefully, there will be enough economic progress in the next year so that the Democrats will retain most of their seats and overcome the extremist movement going on in the GOP.

The Two Maine Senators: Again Open To Bipartisanship

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Again, the two women Republican Senators from Maine–Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins–seem to be on the way to bipartisan support of the health care bill, as they were of the economic stimulus bill last winter.

Snowe voted for the Baucus Senate Finance Committee bill, and Collins now hints she may also be willing to support the bill on the Senate floor.

The problem for both is their unwillingness to support a public option as costing too much and adding to the debt, so if the House bill or the Senate Health Committee (Tom Harkin of Iowa) wins out over the Baucus bill, they may yet vote no, but even the possibility of support is appealing to the Obama Administration.

Some observers also think that George Voinovich of Ohio, another moderate and getting ready to retire from the Senate in 2010, might be a possible vote for a health care overhaul.

At the same time, there is no hint that even one GOP congressman will vote for it when the House gets to the final roll call.

The growing impact of Maine and its independent streak politically, as evidenced through its two GOP senators and otherwise, may yet be the story of the year, depending on events yet to be foretold.

Bill Clinton And The Right Wing Critics Of President Obama’s Administration

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Former President Bill Clinton was on Meet the Press this weekend, and he was asked if the “vast right wing conspiracy” still existed, the term developed by his wife, Hillary Clinton, for the vehement opposition to her husband’s administration ten years and more ago.

Clinton said yes, but I am not sure I would use the word “conspiracy”, which is too easily used by many irresponsible people when someone or a group is critical of what is being said or done.

However, there is no doubt that the so called “right wing” is actively involved in a vicious way in attacking the agenda of the Obama Administration, and trying to create, as Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said during the summer, Obama’s “Waterloo”. There is no question that the Republican leadership and the radio talk show hosts and Fox News are trying to destroy any possibility of health care reform, and are bitterly attacking Obama’s attempts to recast American foreign policy.

That is, of course, their right to do, but as Bill Clinton said, it is sad that instead of looking for bipartisanship on important matters, we have such virulent opposition. Instead of a civilized debate, we have harsh rhetoric which is very regrettable.

If only other Republicans besides Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, who was praised by Clinton, would be willing to be cooperative in trying to reform health care, this country would be much better off, but as the former President said, it is highly doubtful that the GOP will be able to damage the Obama Presidency in a major way in the midterm 2010 congressional elections.