May 2012

Romer resigns presidential bid

Another third party candidate moves on

I was saddened today to receive notification that Buddy Roemer has suspended his presidential run.  While I am not, specifically, a Buddy Roemer supporter, I am a supporter of choice – especially as we enter an election cycle that already has the wealthy striving to purchase the election.  Roemer has been staunchly against big money, yet he has been dealt a death blow by not being able to stand up to the Super PACs as, at first, a Republican candidate, then through American’s Elect, and at last the Reform Party.

Romney's Education Pseudo-Plan

Romney's found a bit of unclaimed real estate on the education reform front, and I hate that I agree with it.

The current national education reform plan is largely a foregone conclusion ; a coordinated and well-funded movement by legislators, business leaders, non profits, and billionaire philanthropists. As such, Obama has largely been able to claim the movement under his current education reform agenda. This leaves little room for his opposition to come up with new ideas that are going to get this large dollars interested. However, education reform has, since the passage of NCLB under George W. Bush, necessitated large-scale government intervention. On this, at least, Romney can claim some ground, making a “limited government” argument. Otherwise, however, Romney is advocating the same general talking points (with the same dubious results) as Obama.

Unemployed? No problem.

Mitt Romney promises six percent unemployment.

Mitt Romney is back to reminding us just how horrible the economy is (even if the stock market is near an all-time high and unemployment continues to creep downward).  To counter act the reality of a slowly growing economy, Romney is pledging to bring the unemployment rate below six percent by the end of his first term, as reported by The Hill.  He plans to do this by implementing policies that remind me of the failed Bush policies.

Erwin Rommel - A Brilliant General on the Wrong Side of WWII

Born November 15, 1891, Erwin Rommel might have led a completely different life had not fate and his father intervened.  He originally wished to pursue a career as an engineer, but due to his father’s disapproval he ended up joining the German army.  It was in the military that Rommel would gain his fame as well as his infamy, winning battle after battle for the armies of Adolf Hitler.

He was active during the First World War, fighting on the Western Front.  His successes there later gained him a position on the Italian front.  During the course of the first war he earned himself many promotions and medals.  He rose through the ranks and, following the war, became a teacher at a military academy.  Being an intelligent and skilled soldier, his lectures on infantry tactics would eventually be published.  Hitler would read his words and recruit Rommel to help him in his ambitions for world conquest.

Is now the time for a viable third party?

A voice for the middle

Over the last four years, American politics have become more and more polarized.  The left is becoming more progressive and the right, extremely conservative.  The rise of the Tea Party has moved the right even further right.  So much so that popular Republican Presidents - Reagan, Roosevelt, and even Nixon would find themselves too liberal for the likes of today’s Republican Party.

Is Obama Really A Socialist?

The GOP likes to paint the man as a socialist, but Obama's record tells a different story.

Once again the Republican bloc has invoked the “socialist” brand in describing President Obama, this time during the Republican convention over the weekend. Following the list of talking points, Obama is weak on economic recovery, has inflated government spending and public sector employment, and is withering the private sector upon which our great democratic (read: capitalist) nation is built. However, there are a few things that don’t quite jive with that characterization, and although they’re all things that grate on me personally, in the fairness of what is (rather than what the GOP would “have be”), I think they’re important to mention.

Government spending: The national debt is the highest that it has ever been, this is undeniable. However, Obama’s tactic in providing federal stimulus dollars to large banks and the auto manufacturers struck me as a strangely “trickle-down” approach, whereas President Bush’s (Jr.) approach before him had been to simply cut a check to the people in the form of a tax break. Now, of course, Democrats are also attempting to do that with low federal interest rates and payroll tax deductions. This twist gets stranger still when you see the Republicans fighting to protect big business (which Obama’s TARP accomplished), and Democrats wagging their fingers at the very goliaths they bailed out in the first place.

The rhetoric cup of hypocrisy overfloweth

Short attention spans, failed memories and hypocrisy

The rhetoric cup is starting to overflow with hypocrisy.  Of course this is expected in politics, but I can hardly believe that the Republicans would go there.  Go where, you may ask?  Accusations that President Obama politicized the killing of Osama bin Laden. Whether he did or not is not really the question – it is the accusation that is jaw dropping when just eight years ago that the entire GOP presidential campaign, including the 2004 national convention, was organized around the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and George W. Bush’s response to them.