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Monday, January 30, 2012

Spanish as a Voting Language

Voting Rights Act GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney agreed that ballots should be available only in English, a position that goes against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The law, passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, dismantled many of the obstacles that intentionally impeded blacks and other disenfranchised communities from voting. It was sweeping in its intent and enforcement. Today, according to the U.S. Census, “248 jurisdictions across the nation that must provide language assistance during elections for groups who are unable to speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process.”

And yet, both Gingrich and Romney are in the lead for the GOP nomination, and just as bad, corporate media characterizes them as people to be taken seriously. Recent examples of their dim witted ideas:

  • Last week Gingrich served up the insane idea to colonize the moon and then convert it into the 51st state. The District of Colombia, with more than 600,000 residents, have been clamoring for statehood for decades to no avail. And they host Congress, the White House and K Street lobbyists. And it is the capitol of the country.
  • Romney pushed for a “self-deportation”plan for people with visas.

 

No wonder real estate tycoon, TV personality and Rosie O’Donnell hater Donald Trump thought he made perfect sense when he opted to run for the presidency. Any lunatic with money can.

The good news is that come election time, voters will go with President Obama again. Hopefully.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Romney’s Millions and Obama’s Law

 

obama Corporate and even independent media outlets have been leading the national conversation on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s vast wealth. What no one points out is that Romney’s millions is a cornerstone of the American Dream pitch, where all one has to do is work hard in dogged pursuit of wealth and happiness becomes a constant in your life.

Romney has not broken any law nor twisted any IRS regulation to benefit himself to the tune of a $20 million annual payout derived from his investments.

But it is so much easier and pleasing to blow all out of proportion Romney’s wealth and leave Warren Buffet, Bill Gate  and the canonized Steve Jobs plus the rest of Fortune 500’s top billionaires and millionaires alone. Romney’s a Mormon, a Republican and apparently, unAmerican for having achieved the American Dream.

The public discourse on the leading GOP presidential candidates is locked on the least important aspects of a candidate – his wealth as a barometer of his ability to “relate”to the common people. It matters little how much Romney has in his bank accounts, offshore or at home. Just as it mattered little, if at all, John Kennedy’s trust fund built on his father’s talent for bootlegging in Prohibition. Millionaires and billionaires and trust fund babies have no way of knowing what common people’s lives are like. But that doesn’t mean we need a presidential candidate to experience losing a home, not have health insurance, choose between medicine and food in order to come up bright ideas on how to make policies to improve people’s lives and chances.

Now all this sounds like a defense of Mitt Romney. It is not. I do not agree with his current views on just about everything he says. But if I want to push for intelligent debates, then I am obligated to call out dangerously foolish media tactics aimed at demonizing a man for his millions. Instead, I want the media to get specifics from him and others in the GOP camp – and from President Obama – on HOW their policies will create permanent jobs with living wages.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. There are about 30 million underemployed or unemployed people in the United States as a result of George W. Bush’s ludicrous presidency and a out-of-control, unregulated Wall Street that triggered a global crisis.

Romney’s millions don’t matter to us anymore than Tom Brady’s $20 million or Steve Jobs’s $8 billion.

What does matter is thoughtful debates that force candidates to be specific about how they will create jobs and address the other pressing issues of the day.

Lacking that, then a deep look into why Obama signed a law that makes indefinite detention of anyone possible in the United States.

According to American Civil Liberties Union, “"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

Why is it that so many liberals want to ignore this in favor of pouncing Romney’s wealth?

Read full text of Obama’s justification for the signing the law here.