Showing posts with label presidency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidency. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Age ain't nothing but a number
He signed into law the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, the $1 trillion (or so) bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the 2022 climate-and-health spending bill.
He got an albeit modest gun-safety law on the books...one that expanded background checks (if not universally), made it easier to prosecute illegal gun trafficking, and provided federal money for red-flag laws. (Still, a modest gun-safety law is better than no gun-safety legislation if you've been tired of all the mass shootings going on here in the US...let alone years of inaction at the top.)
And he ended the Afghanistan War...America's longest-running military conflict.
The CHIPS Act (hiking stateside production of semiconductors), the passage of a long-awaited postal-reform bill, much-needed military aid for Ukraine, and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act all happened under his watch.
So did executive orders to forgive student loans and to pardon folks who were busted for possession of marijuana.
He's nominated federal judges at a breakneck pace...breakneck according to historical standards. Plus, he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to this country's Supreme Court...and made some more history in the process.
COVID has claimed 400 American lives a day since this past April...far below previous rates of 2,000-3,000 dead per day.
The United States has rejoined the Paris Agreement and has done away with that (fill in your favorite expletive) Muslim travel ban.
Speaking of travel...the Environmental Protection Agency has established new, higher fuel-efficiency standards for 2023-2026 vehicles.
Service members have now been given a much-needed pay increase. We've now got legislation addressing acts of violence against Asian Americans partly by expanding access to the reporting of hate crimes and expediting the review of COVID-related hate crimes.
And at long last, Juneteenth is a federal holiday...and at long last, lynching is a federal hate crime.
All if this under the watch of a man who turned 80 years old on 11-20-2022.
Still, some of his fellow Democrats are asking him not to go after a second term of office in 2024. (They want somebody younger to be the Donkeys' standardbearer.)
The way I see it, though: Even with a lot more stuff needing to be done to get the US beyond the shadow of where it was on 1-6-2021, I'd love to see Joe Biden run for a second term in the White House.
How about you?
Friday, September 30, 2016
Just in Case This Week's Debate Didn't Convince You...
First of all, she wants to get America's multimillionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share to invest in the country they loudly proclaim they love. (Her solution: A "Fair Share Surcharge" on their taxes.)
She wants to use the proceeds from that surcharge to fund the nation's ambitious investments.
She wants to simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so that those firms can hire and grow.
She'd like to launch a $7.5 billion fund for new federal-and-state partnerships so that local leaders can cook up programs to treat and prevent drug addiction...whether the drug is alcohol, meth, cocaine, marijuana, or anything in between.
She's got a 100-days jobs plan that emphasizes repairing America's infrastructure, bringing more manufacturing jobs to these shores, aiding small businesses, propping up research and technology, and making clean energy more of a reality for these fifty states.
Speaking of clean energy...she's proposed a $60 billion program to not only promote clean energy, but also to cut carbon pollution.
She wants 500 million new solar panels up and in use by 1-20-2021.
She's out to give America's college students a debt-free experience.
What's more, she wants to make that college experience a safer one...by giving this country's institutions of higher learning more of the tools they'll need to end campus sexual assault.
She wants $2 billion invested annually for research to prevent, treat, and- by 2025- find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease.
She vows to end the heinous 2010 Corporations United (oops, I mean Citizens United) decision...and to get dark money out of US politics once and for all.
She'll vow to help the coalition air campaign against the Islamic State, increase support for local Arab and Kurdish forces, and use diplomacy to end Syria's civil war.
She'll also work hand in hand with European intelligence officials to spot and stop those groups and individuals who've been funding and enabling terrorism.
She wants a meaningful, healthy dialog with America's Muslims...a far cry from the stance taken by her biggest rival for the top spot in America's government.
On top of that, she thinks it's a great idea to let the FBI stop gun sales to suspected terrorists...and she thinks it's cool to give the country's first responders all the help they need to fight terrorism on these shores.
There's a lot more where this came from (including said nominee's Website).
I'm going with the nominee who's got more government experience than the other three nominees out there for 2016 combined.
Take it from a man who started 2016 going for US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the Democrats' presidential nominee.
America's much better off going with Hillary Jane Rodham Clinton as the replacement for fellow Democrat Barack Obama.
Don't believe all the lies you've heard about the former first lady/US senator/US secretary of state.
She wants to use the proceeds from that surcharge to fund the nation's ambitious investments.
She wants to simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so that those firms can hire and grow.
She'd like to launch a $7.5 billion fund for new federal-and-state partnerships so that local leaders can cook up programs to treat and prevent drug addiction...whether the drug is alcohol, meth, cocaine, marijuana, or anything in between.
She's got a 100-days jobs plan that emphasizes repairing America's infrastructure, bringing more manufacturing jobs to these shores, aiding small businesses, propping up research and technology, and making clean energy more of a reality for these fifty states.
Speaking of clean energy...she's proposed a $60 billion program to not only promote clean energy, but also to cut carbon pollution.
She wants 500 million new solar panels up and in use by 1-20-2021.
She's out to give America's college students a debt-free experience.
What's more, she wants to make that college experience a safer one...by giving this country's institutions of higher learning more of the tools they'll need to end campus sexual assault.
She wants $2 billion invested annually for research to prevent, treat, and- by 2025- find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease.
She vows to end the heinous 2010 Corporations United (oops, I mean Citizens United) decision...and to get dark money out of US politics once and for all.
She'll vow to help the coalition air campaign against the Islamic State, increase support for local Arab and Kurdish forces, and use diplomacy to end Syria's civil war.
She'll also work hand in hand with European intelligence officials to spot and stop those groups and individuals who've been funding and enabling terrorism.
She wants a meaningful, healthy dialog with America's Muslims...a far cry from the stance taken by her biggest rival for the top spot in America's government.
On top of that, she thinks it's a great idea to let the FBI stop gun sales to suspected terrorists...and she thinks it's cool to give the country's first responders all the help they need to fight terrorism on these shores.
There's a lot more where this came from (including said nominee's Website).
I'm going with the nominee who's got more government experience than the other three nominees out there for 2016 combined.
Take it from a man who started 2016 going for US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the Democrats' presidential nominee.
America's much better off going with Hillary Jane Rodham Clinton as the replacement for fellow Democrat Barack Obama.
Don't believe all the lies you've heard about the former first lady/US senator/US secretary of state.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
A Moral Obligation
He's disparaged Mexicans, labeling them as murderers, rapists, and drug runners.
He's called African-American people lazy...and said "they can't help it."
He's talked about banning (or at least curtailing) immigration to America, and he doesn't want Muslims to travel to these United States "until we can figure out what to do with them."
He still wants to build that wall along the US-Mexico border.
His weapons of first choice: Nuclear bombs.
He's made dirty, rotten, filthy remarks about women of all colors. To say he's got utter contempt for women is an understatement.
He poked fun at a reporter (Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times) who's surviving cerebral palsy.
He's made it clear that if you disagree with him in any way, shape, or form (especially if you're a news reporter), you'll suffer dire consequences. (Just ask the folks at The Washington Post. They're not allowed to interview him anymore.)
He still insists Barack Obama (who's got the job our subject is after) wasn't even born here in the US...despite planeloads of evidence showing otherwise.
He's got a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin...and thinks it's cool for the KGB to spy on Americans.
He's suggested that his chief 2016 US presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, should be murdered by Second Amendment advocates.
As a real-estate tycoon, he's filed for bankruptcy six times and been sued 3,000 times.
He's too darned chicken to disclose his income tax returns.
He's been known to shortchange his rank-and-file employees and to stiff his contractors. What's more, he wants to see the nation's minimum wage lowered.
All along the campaign trail, he's incited violence...time and time and tiresome time again.
He's got too enormous an ego to compromise, to delegate...to actually do the job he's seeking.
With his authoritarian bent, he isn't really running for the presidency. He's running to be the nation's first dictator.
He doesn't give a crap about the country's rank-and-file citizens. It's all about HIM, HIM, HIM.
His whole campaign has been built on bigotry.
With him in front of the Republican Party, the GOP continues to represent the biggest threat to any hope for democracy in these United States.
He's been treating his whole campaign as if it were another season of The Apprentice.
The bottom line:
We Americans have a moral obligation to make DOGGONE SURE Donald John Trump doesn't give the next inaugural address.
After all, the whole world is watching us.
He's called African-American people lazy...and said "they can't help it."
He's talked about banning (or at least curtailing) immigration to America, and he doesn't want Muslims to travel to these United States "until we can figure out what to do with them."
He still wants to build that wall along the US-Mexico border.
His weapons of first choice: Nuclear bombs.
He's made dirty, rotten, filthy remarks about women of all colors. To say he's got utter contempt for women is an understatement.
He poked fun at a reporter (Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times) who's surviving cerebral palsy.
He's made it clear that if you disagree with him in any way, shape, or form (especially if you're a news reporter), you'll suffer dire consequences. (Just ask the folks at The Washington Post. They're not allowed to interview him anymore.)
He still insists Barack Obama (who's got the job our subject is after) wasn't even born here in the US...despite planeloads of evidence showing otherwise.
He's got a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin...and thinks it's cool for the KGB to spy on Americans.
He's suggested that his chief 2016 US presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, should be murdered by Second Amendment advocates.
As a real-estate tycoon, he's filed for bankruptcy six times and been sued 3,000 times.
He's too darned chicken to disclose his income tax returns.
He's been known to shortchange his rank-and-file employees and to stiff his contractors. What's more, he wants to see the nation's minimum wage lowered.
All along the campaign trail, he's incited violence...time and time and tiresome time again.
He's got too enormous an ego to compromise, to delegate...to actually do the job he's seeking.
With his authoritarian bent, he isn't really running for the presidency. He's running to be the nation's first dictator.
He doesn't give a crap about the country's rank-and-file citizens. It's all about HIM, HIM, HIM.
His whole campaign has been built on bigotry.
With him in front of the Republican Party, the GOP continues to represent the biggest threat to any hope for democracy in these United States.
He's been treating his whole campaign as if it were another season of The Apprentice.
The bottom line:
We Americans have a moral obligation to make DOGGONE SURE Donald John Trump doesn't give the next inaugural address.
After all, the whole world is watching us.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
I've Got My Paper Bag(s) Ready...How about You?
Take a look at all these Republican presidential candidates for 2016.
Study them.
If you've got the stomach, pick up a copy of your local newspaper or a newsmagazine and read what they've got to say.
And if you've got even more of a stomach, watch these candidates on TV...and listen to what they've got to say.
Donald Trump...John Ellis Bush...Scott Walker...Rafael "Ted" Cruz...Rand Paul...Rick Perry...Marco Rubio...Rick Santorum...Chris Christie...Mike Huckabee...Piyush "Bobby" Jindal...Lindsey Graham...Ben Carson...Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina. (I've got the feeling I've left somebody out!)
You hear them bashing this ethnic group, that ethnic group, LGBT people, America's middle-income and low-income households, this country's rank-and-file employees.
You catch the officeholders among them just plain making it harder for rank-and-file Americans to live their own lives. If the Walkers and Jindals among them aren't fighting to put labor unions out of business, they're working 24/7 to make sure women can't get real access to health care products and services.
This country's biggest media companies don't help when their reporters and their immediate superiors (and the superiors' own bosses) care more about Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails (and actual or perceived role in the 9-11-2012 Benghazi uprising) than about JEB's role in the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s, his role in the 2000 US presidential election, and his signing of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law when he ran the Sunshine State's government.
It all makes me want to vomit. (And I've thrown up just twice in my life...once in 1965, and then again two years later!)
The rhetoric of today's Republicans- especially those trying to get the chance to ride Air Force One- just makes me want to vomit.
How about you?
Friday, November 22, 2013
Fifty Years Ago Today
It changed America's spirit.
It changed politics.
It changed history.
It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.
And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.
On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.
And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.
I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened.
Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.
And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights.
It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.
But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.
And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.
Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.)
One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy.
Three symbols of hope.
Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.
And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.
When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit.
Don't think so?
Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how.
One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.
When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.
Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.
I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963.
Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.
Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.
Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.
And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down.
Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?
Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?
It changed politics.
It changed history.
It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.
And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.
On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.
And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.
I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened.
Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.
And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights.
It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.
But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.
And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.
Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.)
One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy.
Three symbols of hope.
Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.
And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.
When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit.
Don't think so?
Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how.
One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.
When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.
Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.
I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963.
Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.
Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.
Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.
And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down.
Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?
Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
We Had an Inauguration, Not a Coronation
Yesterday, for the second (and final) time in his life, Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States. (I ended up making a DVD copy of the inauguration ceremonies, then watching C-SPAN's rerun of the ceremonies when I got home from work last night.)
And as much as I liked Obama's first inaugural address (1-20-2009), I liked his second one better.
One phrase kept sticking out as the nation's 44th chief executive gave what turned out to be a 14-minute speech: "We the People."
In addition, one other word stuck out: "Together."
The former US senator from Illinois talked about how it's on ALL of us to keep this undertaking called America going...by using solutions that are unique to OUR time, OUR day and age to deal with the problems that we're right now facing.
And, just as Ronald Reagan put the glow on the conservative point of view when he gave his first address as this country's president (1-20-1981), Obama put the halo on the liberal way of doing things in government. [Well, I like to think so! After all, take a look at what happened to the earning power and the buying power of rank-and-file Americans since the former host of TV's General Electric Theater assumed the biggest role he ever had. (They've gone down since 1981.)]
Last week (in fact, on 1-16-2013), this father of two daughters signed 23 executive orders into law. And it was all part of the most extensive gun-control plan since...well, since Reagan got in. (If not that, since an assault-weapon ban was signed into law in 1994 by none other than Bill Clinton.)
The new executive orders include more sharing of government data for background checks, better databases, and government research into why we've got gun violence here in the US. (Don't worry: Improved school safety and better mental-health services will be covered through the new directives.)
On top of that, I like how we're finally going to have a new chief at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
It'd been far too long since an ATFE chief was appointed.
The vacancy- and so many other appointments- would've been filled these last four years if it hadn't been for (let's not kid ourselves) all those Republicans in Congress.
One of those sticks in the mud (oops, I mean Republicans), US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), wants to get legislation pushed through to block all 23 executive orders. (Paul the Younger thinks Obama's acting like a king.)
Then you've got US Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), who just got back the same seat he had in the mid-1990s, about the time Clinton signed the assault-weapon ban into law.
All Stockman wants is the impeachment of the newest lefthander to call the shots from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Stockman thinks the executive orders are a White House overreach.
No, it's just like Sasha's and Malia's dad said: "We're all in this together." (And what's to do when a Republican-led House simply won't act on one issue after another?)
The previous (112th) Congress passed the fewest bills of any such group since the Congresses Harry Truman had to deal with in the late 1940s: 68 of 'em. Instead of tackling the budget, the debt ceiling, America's infrastructure, and jobs (that last one was the issue all those new US reps who got elected in 2010 loudly proclaimed they'd deal with first and foremost), the House Republicans have, instead, gone on witch hunts...trying to take down not only Obama himself, but also Attorney General Eric Holder as well as the millions of women who use contraceptives.
I don't know if either Paul (Rand or his father Ron) showed up to the inaugural proceedings. Can't tell you if Stockman came to the Capitol to see the ceremonies. But I did see House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) walk across my TV screen (and millions of other people's TV screens).
And Ryan and Boehner might have been thinking: "What am I doing here?"
Speaking of Ryan, I like how BHO shot down both PDR's notion that we're a nation of takers and the whole idea that the three most successful government programs to come out these United States (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) have weakened the country.
Those three programs have actually helped Americans live longer than was the case in the 1930s.
To sum it all up, I like what Michelle's husband wants to do with the next four years...and I like his message that, regardless of what we look like, what we believe for a religion, where we were born, etc., etc., we've ALL got a stake in trying to improve the world's most talked-about, most envied, most closely-watched nation there is.
And I'm going to try my best to help. (How about you?)
And as much as I liked Obama's first inaugural address (1-20-2009), I liked his second one better.
One phrase kept sticking out as the nation's 44th chief executive gave what turned out to be a 14-minute speech: "We the People."
In addition, one other word stuck out: "Together."
The former US senator from Illinois talked about how it's on ALL of us to keep this undertaking called America going...by using solutions that are unique to OUR time, OUR day and age to deal with the problems that we're right now facing.
And, just as Ronald Reagan put the glow on the conservative point of view when he gave his first address as this country's president (1-20-1981), Obama put the halo on the liberal way of doing things in government. [Well, I like to think so! After all, take a look at what happened to the earning power and the buying power of rank-and-file Americans since the former host of TV's General Electric Theater assumed the biggest role he ever had. (They've gone down since 1981.)]
Last week (in fact, on 1-16-2013), this father of two daughters signed 23 executive orders into law. And it was all part of the most extensive gun-control plan since...well, since Reagan got in. (If not that, since an assault-weapon ban was signed into law in 1994 by none other than Bill Clinton.)
The new executive orders include more sharing of government data for background checks, better databases, and government research into why we've got gun violence here in the US. (Don't worry: Improved school safety and better mental-health services will be covered through the new directives.)
On top of that, I like how we're finally going to have a new chief at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
It'd been far too long since an ATFE chief was appointed.
The vacancy- and so many other appointments- would've been filled these last four years if it hadn't been for (let's not kid ourselves) all those Republicans in Congress.
One of those sticks in the mud (oops, I mean Republicans), US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), wants to get legislation pushed through to block all 23 executive orders. (Paul the Younger thinks Obama's acting like a king.)
Then you've got US Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), who just got back the same seat he had in the mid-1990s, about the time Clinton signed the assault-weapon ban into law.
All Stockman wants is the impeachment of the newest lefthander to call the shots from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Stockman thinks the executive orders are a White House overreach.
No, it's just like Sasha's and Malia's dad said: "We're all in this together." (And what's to do when a Republican-led House simply won't act on one issue after another?)
The previous (112th) Congress passed the fewest bills of any such group since the Congresses Harry Truman had to deal with in the late 1940s: 68 of 'em. Instead of tackling the budget, the debt ceiling, America's infrastructure, and jobs (that last one was the issue all those new US reps who got elected in 2010 loudly proclaimed they'd deal with first and foremost), the House Republicans have, instead, gone on witch hunts...trying to take down not only Obama himself, but also Attorney General Eric Holder as well as the millions of women who use contraceptives.
I don't know if either Paul (Rand or his father Ron) showed up to the inaugural proceedings. Can't tell you if Stockman came to the Capitol to see the ceremonies. But I did see House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) walk across my TV screen (and millions of other people's TV screens).
And Ryan and Boehner might have been thinking: "What am I doing here?"
Speaking of Ryan, I like how BHO shot down both PDR's notion that we're a nation of takers and the whole idea that the three most successful government programs to come out these United States (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) have weakened the country.
Those three programs have actually helped Americans live longer than was the case in the 1930s.
To sum it all up, I like what Michelle's husband wants to do with the next four years...and I like his message that, regardless of what we look like, what we believe for a religion, where we were born, etc., etc., we've ALL got a stake in trying to improve the world's most talked-about, most envied, most closely-watched nation there is.
And I'm going to try my best to help. (How about you?)
Friday, November 23, 2012
Where? Where? Where? Where? Where Do They Go from Here?
It's now been 17 days since the 2012 US presidential election took place...and the Republican Party has spent all of this time wondering just what happened (and why it happened).
Party officials (along with their cheerleaders on the nation's AM so-called news and information radio stations) have spent this time not only licking party wounds...but also trying to nail down the reason(s) why Willard M. Romney couldn't put it in his hip pocket despite an early lead on Election Night.
Some in the GOP think the party couldn't end Barack Obama's presidency because Romney didn't choose US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to run alongside the former Massachusetts governor. Others feel the loss was due to the "emasculation" of Romney's campaign.
The man the son of a former Michigan governor did select as a running mate, US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), racked it up to "urban" voters...while WMR himself, in that now-infamous (or famous, depending on your point of view) conference call to his campaign team, chalked the 2012 results to Obama supposedly giving "gifts" to Hispanic Americans, African Americans, young voters of all ethnicities, and women of all ethnic backgrounds.
Regardless of your socioeconomic background, what would YOU do if someone offered you an actual, honest-to-goodness freebie?
Next door in Iowa, you've got Matt Schultz, its secretary of state, who's trying to get its lawmakers to join all those other states in getting voter suppression (oops...I mean voter ID) laws put into place. ("You know...if All Those Other People hadn't turned out for this year's election...")
Only a few brave Republicans have had the guts to blame the party's overall message for why we'll have to wait until 1-20-2017 for the country's 45th commander in chief to give the inaugural address.
Yes...I could really dig all of this GOP self-evaluation and all this soul searching among the current trustees of the party of Abraham Lincoln and of Teddy Roosevelt and of Dwight Eisenhower if it were heartfelt and not mere lip service.
I keep turning on my TV set and finding US Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) trying to prevent UN Ambassador Susan Rice from accepting the State Department's top gig because they don't like how Rice has handled the Benghazi affair of 9-11-2012.
McCain thinks Rice isn't qualified to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. (And that's hilarious of McCain...especially when you consider his 2008 decision to have Sarah Palin run alongside him in the former Navy pilot's effort to prevent the creation of an Obama administration to begin with!)
It all smacks of Business As Usual as far as I'm concerned. You see, if McCain and Graham can get Obama to change his mind and ask US Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to take over from Rodham Clinton on 1-21-2013...well, Scott Brown can keep his own seat in the US Senate (this time as Kerry's replacement).
So much for the Republicans' loudly-proclaimed slogan of 2008: "Country First."
Democrats, independents, and other non-Republicans have shown themselves more likely to put America first.
With Republicans, it's- with very few exceptions- party first. (One of those exceptions has been New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's work alongside BHO in the Garden State's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.)
Another major component of the GOP message, besides "Party First," is: "It's every man for himself. It's every woman for herself. I've got mine. You go get yours.
"In fact...I want yours, and I'm going to keep you from getting yours!"
To top it all off, Republican lawmakers and aides go to great lengths to make anybody who isn't a Caucasian-American man feel unwelcome. (Todd Akin's and Richard Mourdock's sexist remarks come to mind...as do racist jibes from Newton Gingrich, John Sununu, Donald Trump, Ryan, Romney, Brown, Palin, etc., etc., etc.)
And these same Republicans have the audacity- the unmitigated nerve- to wonder why they can't get votes from people who aren't Caucasian-American men!
I remember when the Democrats ended up having to retool their party after Richard Nixon crushed George McGovern to keep the job he'd always wanted. That year, 1972, the Donkeys held a telethon.
And on that telecast, one of the speakers (I think it was Phil Donahue) said that, instead of the Democrats holding this telethon to pump money into the party, "John Wayne ought to have a telethon for war!"
It took a lot of years...but the Democratic Party remade itself into a party that not only cares about civil rights, but also cares more about America's middle-and-low-income citizens than the Republicans do.
Let's face it: The Elephants MUST retool if they're going to remain a viable major US political party (let alone win presidential elections again).
The Republicans can crow all they want to about having won seven of the last twelve US presidential elections.
Fact remains that this party has now LOST four of the last six US presidential elections.
If the Romneys and Ryans and Boehners and McConnells ever learn that, as Mom used to say, "You draw more flies with honey than vinegar," their party will have a chance to get back to winning the most talked-about political job there is.
But only as long as the Republicans REALLY mean what they say and say what they mean.
Party officials (along with their cheerleaders on the nation's AM so-called news and information radio stations) have spent this time not only licking party wounds...but also trying to nail down the reason(s) why Willard M. Romney couldn't put it in his hip pocket despite an early lead on Election Night.
Some in the GOP think the party couldn't end Barack Obama's presidency because Romney didn't choose US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to run alongside the former Massachusetts governor. Others feel the loss was due to the "emasculation" of Romney's campaign.
The man the son of a former Michigan governor did select as a running mate, US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), racked it up to "urban" voters...while WMR himself, in that now-infamous (or famous, depending on your point of view) conference call to his campaign team, chalked the 2012 results to Obama supposedly giving "gifts" to Hispanic Americans, African Americans, young voters of all ethnicities, and women of all ethnic backgrounds.
Regardless of your socioeconomic background, what would YOU do if someone offered you an actual, honest-to-goodness freebie?
Next door in Iowa, you've got Matt Schultz, its secretary of state, who's trying to get its lawmakers to join all those other states in getting voter suppression (oops...I mean voter ID) laws put into place. ("You know...if All Those Other People hadn't turned out for this year's election...")
Only a few brave Republicans have had the guts to blame the party's overall message for why we'll have to wait until 1-20-2017 for the country's 45th commander in chief to give the inaugural address.
Yes...I could really dig all of this GOP self-evaluation and all this soul searching among the current trustees of the party of Abraham Lincoln and of Teddy Roosevelt and of Dwight Eisenhower if it were heartfelt and not mere lip service.
I keep turning on my TV set and finding US Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) trying to prevent UN Ambassador Susan Rice from accepting the State Department's top gig because they don't like how Rice has handled the Benghazi affair of 9-11-2012.
McCain thinks Rice isn't qualified to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. (And that's hilarious of McCain...especially when you consider his 2008 decision to have Sarah Palin run alongside him in the former Navy pilot's effort to prevent the creation of an Obama administration to begin with!)
It all smacks of Business As Usual as far as I'm concerned. You see, if McCain and Graham can get Obama to change his mind and ask US Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to take over from Rodham Clinton on 1-21-2013...well, Scott Brown can keep his own seat in the US Senate (this time as Kerry's replacement).
So much for the Republicans' loudly-proclaimed slogan of 2008: "Country First."
Democrats, independents, and other non-Republicans have shown themselves more likely to put America first.
With Republicans, it's- with very few exceptions- party first. (One of those exceptions has been New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's work alongside BHO in the Garden State's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.)
Another major component of the GOP message, besides "Party First," is: "It's every man for himself. It's every woman for herself. I've got mine. You go get yours.
"In fact...I want yours, and I'm going to keep you from getting yours!"
To top it all off, Republican lawmakers and aides go to great lengths to make anybody who isn't a Caucasian-American man feel unwelcome. (Todd Akin's and Richard Mourdock's sexist remarks come to mind...as do racist jibes from Newton Gingrich, John Sununu, Donald Trump, Ryan, Romney, Brown, Palin, etc., etc., etc.)
And these same Republicans have the audacity- the unmitigated nerve- to wonder why they can't get votes from people who aren't Caucasian-American men!
I remember when the Democrats ended up having to retool their party after Richard Nixon crushed George McGovern to keep the job he'd always wanted. That year, 1972, the Donkeys held a telethon.
And on that telecast, one of the speakers (I think it was Phil Donahue) said that, instead of the Democrats holding this telethon to pump money into the party, "John Wayne ought to have a telethon for war!"
It took a lot of years...but the Democratic Party remade itself into a party that not only cares about civil rights, but also cares more about America's middle-and-low-income citizens than the Republicans do.
Let's face it: The Elephants MUST retool if they're going to remain a viable major US political party (let alone win presidential elections again).
The Republicans can crow all they want to about having won seven of the last twelve US presidential elections.
Fact remains that this party has now LOST four of the last six US presidential elections.
If the Romneys and Ryans and Boehners and McConnells ever learn that, as Mom used to say, "You draw more flies with honey than vinegar," their party will have a chance to get back to winning the most talked-about political job there is.
But only as long as the Republicans REALLY mean what they say and say what they mean.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Dear Mr. Romney:
Allow me to introduce myself.
You see, four months ago, when you spoke at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, FL, you referred to a certain group of people who want the US government to feed them, house them, provide them with health care, etc., etc., etc.
You labeled them as Americans who don't pay their taxes.
You said that these people make up 47% of this country's population.
And you stated that they're going to vote to keep Barack Obama in the White House.
What's more, Mr. Romney, you made it clear that you're giving up on trying to reach them (in spite of your recent claim in Miami, FL, that you were going to be the President of 100% of the nation's population).
Yes, I'm one of the country's low-income wage earners; and yes, I voted for Obama in 2008...one of 69.5 million to do that on 11-4-2008 (out of 131.3 million who voted that day...when the United States had 225.5 million eligible to cast ballots).
That's actually less than 31% of this land's eligible electors four years back...not 47%.
And as a matter of fact, I actually DO pay my taxes.
Okay, Mr. Romney, I've received money back from the State of Nebraska every year since I moved back here in 1997 from my birth state of Iowa...but it's been years since I got a refund from the Internal Revenue Service. (Okay, all right...for tax year 2011, I received a tax refund check of $109 from our state's Department of Revenue...while paying the United States Treasury $62.)
And I didn't go for the one-time US senator from Illinois because I wanted to be a freeloader.
I filled in the oval next to Obama's and Joe Biden's names because I thought the 2008 Democratic ticket could help more Americans than that year's Republican ticket...you know, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
By the way, when you gave that speech to 25 of your fellow bluebloods down in Boca Raton this past spring, you said you couldn't convince the so-called forty-seven-percenters to take responsibility for their lives.
Well, guess what?
I most certainly DO take responsibility for myself AND for my own life.
I know you're some kind of busy right now, but if you get a chance to read this blog (or its predecessor on http://www.freeblogit.com), you'll find that I've been at the same place of work (a factory) since 1-26-2004, and that I'm also an independent performer (old-time piano- check out http://r2rfestival.webs.com).
Last time I checked, that DIDN'T sound like someone not taking self-responsibility.
I remember when you made a campaign appearance late last year (at the height of the Occupy movement); a man attending the rally identified you as one of America's 300,000 wealthiest people. (Okay...he called you a one-percenter.)
I remember you calling him a divider.
As far as I'm concerned, the remarks you made this past May in that fast-growing Sunshine State city (86,445 lived there in 2009, up from a 2000 total of 74,764) are totally divisive.
If telling folks that Hispanic people giving their 2012 votes to the one-time Illinois state senator would ruin this nation isn't divisive, then...you were never governor of Massachusetts!
One more thing...I feel that this presidential election cycle, the way the Republicans have been running it, is the culmination of 48 years of- let's not kid ourselves- your party courting and attracting proven racists and sexists (in response to Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964).
By the way...every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows (or is about to learn) that America's government works best when all three branches- executive, legislative, and judicial- actually participate in decisions. And that goes for BOTH major political parties!
Your GOP buddies in the US House and the US Senate made it clear, right from the start of the current administration, that they were going to block every piece of legislation that BHO proposed...even if previous Republican lawmakers (or the current ones themselves) championed that legislation before.
The Republicans took back control of this country's House loudly proclaiming that jobs would be what they'd be working on.
It hasn't happened.
IN FACT, THIS STRATEGY HAS HELD THIS COUNTRY'S RANK-AND-FILE CITIZENS HOSTAGE!!
You knew darn good and well that if you refused to work to bring America's economy back up to snuff, you'd get enough sympathy from citizens at large to get The Prize back.
Speaking of economy...if the trickle-down economic philosophy Republicans have espoused since 1980 is so darn great...why hasn't the money trickled all the way down to us rank-and-file Americans?
After all, CEO pay here in America has skyrocketed since 1981 (and the pay for middle-income and low-income Americans has flatlined or, at times, even gone down).
That's not jive. That's research from Mother Jones.
To wrap it up, I'm going to vote the exact same way I did on 11-4-2008. (The Democrats- and independents- not only, as a whole, are talking the talk when it comes to putting America back on its feet. They're walking the walk.)
Barack Obama knows what and who he is.
Now, if you can just puh-leez figure out who you are...
Thank you for this opportunity to address you.
Sincerely, Jim Boston
You see, four months ago, when you spoke at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, FL, you referred to a certain group of people who want the US government to feed them, house them, provide them with health care, etc., etc., etc.
You labeled them as Americans who don't pay their taxes.
You said that these people make up 47% of this country's population.
And you stated that they're going to vote to keep Barack Obama in the White House.
What's more, Mr. Romney, you made it clear that you're giving up on trying to reach them (in spite of your recent claim in Miami, FL, that you were going to be the President of 100% of the nation's population).
Yes, I'm one of the country's low-income wage earners; and yes, I voted for Obama in 2008...one of 69.5 million to do that on 11-4-2008 (out of 131.3 million who voted that day...when the United States had 225.5 million eligible to cast ballots).
That's actually less than 31% of this land's eligible electors four years back...not 47%.
And as a matter of fact, I actually DO pay my taxes.
Okay, Mr. Romney, I've received money back from the State of Nebraska every year since I moved back here in 1997 from my birth state of Iowa...but it's been years since I got a refund from the Internal Revenue Service. (Okay, all right...for tax year 2011, I received a tax refund check of $109 from our state's Department of Revenue...while paying the United States Treasury $62.)
And I didn't go for the one-time US senator from Illinois because I wanted to be a freeloader.
I filled in the oval next to Obama's and Joe Biden's names because I thought the 2008 Democratic ticket could help more Americans than that year's Republican ticket...you know, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
By the way, when you gave that speech to 25 of your fellow bluebloods down in Boca Raton this past spring, you said you couldn't convince the so-called forty-seven-percenters to take responsibility for their lives.
Well, guess what?
I most certainly DO take responsibility for myself AND for my own life.
I know you're some kind of busy right now, but if you get a chance to read this blog (or its predecessor on http://www.freeblogit.com), you'll find that I've been at the same place of work (a factory) since 1-26-2004, and that I'm also an independent performer (old-time piano- check out http://r2rfestival.webs.com).
Last time I checked, that DIDN'T sound like someone not taking self-responsibility.
I remember when you made a campaign appearance late last year (at the height of the Occupy movement); a man attending the rally identified you as one of America's 300,000 wealthiest people. (Okay...he called you a one-percenter.)
I remember you calling him a divider.
As far as I'm concerned, the remarks you made this past May in that fast-growing Sunshine State city (86,445 lived there in 2009, up from a 2000 total of 74,764) are totally divisive.
If telling folks that Hispanic people giving their 2012 votes to the one-time Illinois state senator would ruin this nation isn't divisive, then...you were never governor of Massachusetts!
One more thing...I feel that this presidential election cycle, the way the Republicans have been running it, is the culmination of 48 years of- let's not kid ourselves- your party courting and attracting proven racists and sexists (in response to Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964).
By the way...every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows (or is about to learn) that America's government works best when all three branches- executive, legislative, and judicial- actually participate in decisions. And that goes for BOTH major political parties!
Your GOP buddies in the US House and the US Senate made it clear, right from the start of the current administration, that they were going to block every piece of legislation that BHO proposed...even if previous Republican lawmakers (or the current ones themselves) championed that legislation before.
The Republicans took back control of this country's House loudly proclaiming that jobs would be what they'd be working on.
It hasn't happened.
IN FACT, THIS STRATEGY HAS HELD THIS COUNTRY'S RANK-AND-FILE CITIZENS HOSTAGE!!
You knew darn good and well that if you refused to work to bring America's economy back up to snuff, you'd get enough sympathy from citizens at large to get The Prize back.
Speaking of economy...if the trickle-down economic philosophy Republicans have espoused since 1980 is so darn great...why hasn't the money trickled all the way down to us rank-and-file Americans?
After all, CEO pay here in America has skyrocketed since 1981 (and the pay for middle-income and low-income Americans has flatlined or, at times, even gone down).
That's not jive. That's research from Mother Jones.
To wrap it up, I'm going to vote the exact same way I did on 11-4-2008. (The Democrats- and independents- not only, as a whole, are talking the talk when it comes to putting America back on its feet. They're walking the walk.)
Barack Obama knows what and who he is.
Now, if you can just puh-leez figure out who you are...
Thank you for this opportunity to address you.
Sincerely, Jim Boston
Thursday, March 1, 2012
I Wouldn't Buy a Used ANYTHING from Any of These People
I wouldn't buy a new item from any of them, either.
They've had twenty debates thus far; I watch some of the discussion shows on TV...and listening to the four remaining Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012 makes me sometimes want to...sometimes want to vomit.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Willard Romney (I'm sorry; I refuse to use his nickname!) has been on both sides of far too many issues, be they REAL issues or the wedge issues Republicans have been dining on for decades. His father (that's right, George Romney, the one-time Michigan governor who ran for the presidency in 1968...only to become Richard Nixon's first HUD secretary) has got to be turning over in his grave over his son's desire to see the very industry that kept food on the Romney family's table go straight down. (Remember when Romney pere ran the old American Motors Corporation?)
Yes, I know, I know...Pennsylvania's old junior US senator, Rick Santorum, is being praised for his honesty and for the courage of his convictions.
Here's the thing about it, though: Santorum's convictions include having only the well-to-do (the GOP's main bankrollers) be able to see to it that their sons (and, just maybe, daughters) can get access to a real education. After all, he doesn't want state or federal government involved in schools.
And that leaves city governments and county governments. As strapped as they are today, how's it all going to look having them and only them bankroll public schools?
Oh, by the way, Mr. Santorum...not every parent in America today is equipped to homeschool his or her children. (Got that?)
I listen to one-time House Speaker Newton Gingrich and current US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and conclude that they're still in the race to massage their egos.
And all the ugly, racist things Paul and Gingrich (as well as far too many other Republicans, especially these last three years) have said- be they in newsletters or speeches- make me feel that, like Santorum and Romney, they're not fit to give the next (or any future) inaugural speech.
That's what the Republican Party amounts to today...and has ever since the mid 1960s.
WHY?
Back then, the people in charge of the party courted the Southern Democrats who turned their backs on the Donkeys after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. (Strom Thurmond was one of those who switched to the Elephants at that time.)
The next time a presidential election came along, once Nixon got the 1968 GOP nomination, his campaign staff cooked up a "Southern strategy" to reel in all those Caucasian men angered over LBJ's decision to help make America live up to its proud promises.
One of Thurmond's trainees was Lee Atwater...the same Lee Atwater who helped Ronald Reagan get the greatest role of his career, then went on to enable Reagan's old veep, George Herbert Walker Bush, to become the first standing vice president since Martin Van Buren (in 1836) to win a presidential election.
It wasn't until Atwater was on his death bed that he decided, all at once, to 'fess up and admit that his racist views played a huge role in making that former CIA director into America's 41st chief executive.
Atwater's proteges are at work right now, 21 years after the former Republican National Committee chief died of a brain tumor. (And that includes ALL of the people who've taken out papers to get the opportunity to make Barack Obama the latest former president.)
Still wondering why Gingrich, Paul, Romney, and Santorum sound the way they do?
And then you've got these people's desire to tell women what to do with their bodies!
These four all are in favor of the amendment US Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) wants to push where any, any, ANY employer can opt out of providing access to contraceptives for religious and moral reasons. (This bill, if it becomes law, would allow CEOs to use any excuse they can think of.)
It's going to be a disaster for women here in the United States.
I don't know about these current Republicans. I feel nauseated over their desire to push this country all the way back to 1912...if they can't shift it all the way back to 1612.
Think about this.
If you're a middle-income person or a low-income person and you're thinking about giving any of these four men your vote on 11-6-2012, ask yourself if there's anything in it for you if you turn to the very people whose policies and attitudes helped pave the way for the Great Recession.
If they care so much about you and me, why are they so much more interested in telling women what they can do with their own bodies than in repairing America's economy?
They've had twenty debates thus far; I watch some of the discussion shows on TV...and listening to the four remaining Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012 makes me sometimes want to...sometimes want to vomit.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Willard Romney (I'm sorry; I refuse to use his nickname!) has been on both sides of far too many issues, be they REAL issues or the wedge issues Republicans have been dining on for decades. His father (that's right, George Romney, the one-time Michigan governor who ran for the presidency in 1968...only to become Richard Nixon's first HUD secretary) has got to be turning over in his grave over his son's desire to see the very industry that kept food on the Romney family's table go straight down. (Remember when Romney pere ran the old American Motors Corporation?)
Yes, I know, I know...Pennsylvania's old junior US senator, Rick Santorum, is being praised for his honesty and for the courage of his convictions.
Here's the thing about it, though: Santorum's convictions include having only the well-to-do (the GOP's main bankrollers) be able to see to it that their sons (and, just maybe, daughters) can get access to a real education. After all, he doesn't want state or federal government involved in schools.
And that leaves city governments and county governments. As strapped as they are today, how's it all going to look having them and only them bankroll public schools?
Oh, by the way, Mr. Santorum...not every parent in America today is equipped to homeschool his or her children. (Got that?)
I listen to one-time House Speaker Newton Gingrich and current US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and conclude that they're still in the race to massage their egos.
And all the ugly, racist things Paul and Gingrich (as well as far too many other Republicans, especially these last three years) have said- be they in newsletters or speeches- make me feel that, like Santorum and Romney, they're not fit to give the next (or any future) inaugural speech.
That's what the Republican Party amounts to today...and has ever since the mid 1960s.
WHY?
Back then, the people in charge of the party courted the Southern Democrats who turned their backs on the Donkeys after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. (Strom Thurmond was one of those who switched to the Elephants at that time.)
The next time a presidential election came along, once Nixon got the 1968 GOP nomination, his campaign staff cooked up a "Southern strategy" to reel in all those Caucasian men angered over LBJ's decision to help make America live up to its proud promises.
One of Thurmond's trainees was Lee Atwater...the same Lee Atwater who helped Ronald Reagan get the greatest role of his career, then went on to enable Reagan's old veep, George Herbert Walker Bush, to become the first standing vice president since Martin Van Buren (in 1836) to win a presidential election.
It wasn't until Atwater was on his death bed that he decided, all at once, to 'fess up and admit that his racist views played a huge role in making that former CIA director into America's 41st chief executive.
Atwater's proteges are at work right now, 21 years after the former Republican National Committee chief died of a brain tumor. (And that includes ALL of the people who've taken out papers to get the opportunity to make Barack Obama the latest former president.)
Still wondering why Gingrich, Paul, Romney, and Santorum sound the way they do?
And then you've got these people's desire to tell women what to do with their bodies!
These four all are in favor of the amendment US Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) wants to push where any, any, ANY employer can opt out of providing access to contraceptives for religious and moral reasons. (This bill, if it becomes law, would allow CEOs to use any excuse they can think of.)
It's going to be a disaster for women here in the United States.
I don't know about these current Republicans. I feel nauseated over their desire to push this country all the way back to 1912...if they can't shift it all the way back to 1612.
Think about this.
If you're a middle-income person or a low-income person and you're thinking about giving any of these four men your vote on 11-6-2012, ask yourself if there's anything in it for you if you turn to the very people whose policies and attitudes helped pave the way for the Great Recession.
If they care so much about you and me, why are they so much more interested in telling women what they can do with their own bodies than in repairing America's economy?
Saturday, December 31, 2011
I Didn't Think He Had It in Him
"Gingrich weeps as he recalls his mom."
The man who served as this country's House Speaker from 1995 to 1999- who wants to get back into politics by going right to the very top- was at a coffeehouse in Des Moines to give his campaign one final pre-Iowa caucus push.
At some point or another, the discussion came to memories of the woman who adopted the Harrisburg, PA native when he was a child (she died in 2003).
Newton Leroy McPherson Gingrich (that's his full name, folks) told the coffeehouse crowd about how his adoptive mother had to battle bipolar depression, talked about how she lived a happy life, and then...he teared up.
I just hope that his tears the other day were truly genuine.
When USA Today did the story, the reporter told the world that Gingrich's tears were reminiscent of when, in early 2008, then US Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) answered a reporter's question about the rigors of campaigning for the most talked-about job in politics...only to shed some tears.
I remember how those same reporters, coming into 2008 itself, talked about how Rodham Clinton "lacked the warmth" supposedly needed for her to succeed as a presidential candidate. (They'd been after the former first lady since 1992, after all!)
Now many of these same media people are out there speculating over the idea of HRC trading in her gig heading up the State Department for the vice presidency.
Anyway, after the story about Rodham Clinton's tears broke, she ended up getting plenty of support- especially from the reporters who savaged her over events like her and husband Bill's 1992 interview on 60 Minutes.
And now, we're told that Gingrich's teardrops might pull more people toward supporting the former US representative from Georgia.
We shall see.
All I know is this: Many of the things NLMG has done since coming on the national political scene in the 1980s (especially masterminding two government shutdowns during the Bill Clinton years) have driven many people to tears.
And then you've got some of things Gingrich has said here in 2011 alone...especially his desire to rip the textbooks out of inner-city children's hands and replace those books with brooms and dustpans. (To say nothing of his contention that there's nothing American about the man who's got the job the ex-college prof and six other Republicans are after: Barack Obama.)
Above all, I'm wondering if Newton ever weeps as he recalls the two marriages he walked out on before he met a woman named Callista.
Oh, well...it was just a thought.
Well, that's all I've got for now...except: I'm Jim Boston, and I'll see you in 2012! Thanks for reading this blog!
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