I watched the Democrats debate in Wisconsin between Hillary and Bernie. I came to several conclusions.
The very fact of the debate shows that the DNC is now concerned with the Bernie Saunders rise in the poles and his crushing win in NH. Originally the Clinton forces wanted few debates. She had an overwhelming lead in the poles and there was no reason for her to confront her rivals for the nomination. Hillary is their choice and they will do everything they can to get her elected. Now we have four more debates scheduled.
It is clear that the Clinton machine was in full swing. The audience for the debate, which was held at the University, was heavily populated with Hillary supporters. Considering that the debate was held on a college campus, where Bernie has his greatest support, you would expect a different setting. But the Clinton organization marshaled their forces and the faithful were there in spades.
Hillary is a good debater. She has her facts and figures at her finger tips and can recall them at will. Her experience on that type of platform serves her well.
She clearly out shown Bernie on foreign affairs. She quoted all the agreements she negotiated for Obama and was well aware of the world situation, especially in the middle east. Her term as Secretary of State served her well in this arena.
Bernie seems to have the better of her on the domestic front, especially on those economic issues so close to the left wing of the party. Free health care, free college, forgiving student debt were all received well with the audience.
The moderators avoided asking the really tough questions that are at the heart of the opposition against Hillary. But, the format, because there were only two on the stage, allowed a much deeper and expansive description of the candidates position on their policies in response to the questions that were asked.
It is clear the Hillary has tied herself to the Obama legacy. She is proud of the nuclear agreement she negotiated with Iran, will defend the Affordable Care Act even against Bernie's universal , one payer system. She is in agreement with Obama's actions in the middle east and would likely do more of the same.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Sunday, January 31, 2016
The GOP and the Trumpless debate
Being the great prognosticator that I am, I felt it was my duty to give my impression of the latest round of GOP debates hosted by Fox, without the Donald.
First off, for some reason, it seemed that all the other candidates got significantly more time on the air that was allowed in the previous debates. Most of them took advantage of it and made a better case for themselves than they had previously.
In my opinion, the winners of this debate were the Governors. I think all of them got to express their vision with a little more vigor than I had seen previously. I thought the biggest winner among the Governors was Bush. I really don't think it's going to help him in any immediate way, but if he can keep this more forceful tone and demeanor for the rest of the way, it's possible that he could become a factor in this race. He certainly has the war chest for a long run.
The Senators are all burdened with the same set of problems. They all have a voting record where they have had to compromise to some extent in order get something else they wanted. Or, perhaps they have actually changed their minds. And, those votes and positions are being used to attack the other. Cruz and Rubio where at odds all evening, throwing each others voting records at each other like hand grenades. It seems that the contest is to see who is the most conservative. Cruz probably wins that battle.
Rubio's current stand on immigration is a little to the left of the other Senators so he hurts in that arena with the very conservative voter. However, I think his position will play much better in the general election.
To me Donald Trump is an enigma, as he seems to be for all the political pundits. He makes statements he can't possibly backup, does a complete switch on positions he held earlier, seems to insult everybody in sight, and still is on top of all the polls. All the experts are waiting for the shine to rub off, resulting in his fading in the polls, with one of the other candidates, probably Rubio, ascending. Bill O'Reilly interviewed Trump on his show. Trump's main retort on so many of the difficult questions was a restatement of how he's ahead in the polls. The Republican establishment is afraid that he will carry this momentum on through the nomination process and end up as the Republican candidate, and he'll bring the GOP crashing around down around him in the general. Not a groundless fear I'm afraid.
But, the Donald has dumbfounded all the political experts to this point, so who knows. He certainly packs in the crowds wherever he speaks. He's like a magnet for the people who really feel that we're loosing our countries honor, standing and core values. He certainly has taped into those feelings. But, the big city folks, especially cities like NY and SF don't seem to share that feeling. But, the Republicans are not likely to carry the big northeaster states anyway, so I'm not sure it matters. Of course California is a lost cause as far as the Republicans are concerned in the general election. Those states are dominated by the big city votes and makes the more conservative inland populace irrelevant. With his in your face style and his put down of the establishment in Washington, he just might find his way into the White House.
First off, for some reason, it seemed that all the other candidates got significantly more time on the air that was allowed in the previous debates. Most of them took advantage of it and made a better case for themselves than they had previously.
In my opinion, the winners of this debate were the Governors. I think all of them got to express their vision with a little more vigor than I had seen previously. I thought the biggest winner among the Governors was Bush. I really don't think it's going to help him in any immediate way, but if he can keep this more forceful tone and demeanor for the rest of the way, it's possible that he could become a factor in this race. He certainly has the war chest for a long run.
The Senators are all burdened with the same set of problems. They all have a voting record where they have had to compromise to some extent in order get something else they wanted. Or, perhaps they have actually changed their minds. And, those votes and positions are being used to attack the other. Cruz and Rubio where at odds all evening, throwing each others voting records at each other like hand grenades. It seems that the contest is to see who is the most conservative. Cruz probably wins that battle.
Rubio's current stand on immigration is a little to the left of the other Senators so he hurts in that arena with the very conservative voter. However, I think his position will play much better in the general election.
To me Donald Trump is an enigma, as he seems to be for all the political pundits. He makes statements he can't possibly backup, does a complete switch on positions he held earlier, seems to insult everybody in sight, and still is on top of all the polls. All the experts are waiting for the shine to rub off, resulting in his fading in the polls, with one of the other candidates, probably Rubio, ascending. Bill O'Reilly interviewed Trump on his show. Trump's main retort on so many of the difficult questions was a restatement of how he's ahead in the polls. The Republican establishment is afraid that he will carry this momentum on through the nomination process and end up as the Republican candidate, and he'll bring the GOP crashing around down around him in the general. Not a groundless fear I'm afraid.
But, the Donald has dumbfounded all the political experts to this point, so who knows. He certainly packs in the crowds wherever he speaks. He's like a magnet for the people who really feel that we're loosing our countries honor, standing and core values. He certainly has taped into those feelings. But, the big city folks, especially cities like NY and SF don't seem to share that feeling. But, the Republicans are not likely to carry the big northeaster states anyway, so I'm not sure it matters. Of course California is a lost cause as far as the Republicans are concerned in the general election. Those states are dominated by the big city votes and makes the more conservative inland populace irrelevant. With his in your face style and his put down of the establishment in Washington, he just might find his way into the White House.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Health Care in the United States
A subject that has been kicked around for some time and has a few attempts at doing something about, resulting in the mess that is known as Obama Care, which made the matter worse instead of better. I think it's time to look at the issue again.
To start with we should look at what's really happening in the American health care system, as opposed to what we might fool ourselves into believing. Our health care system is a mess. We have the most expensive health care system among the advanced nations of the world, with the lowest life expectancy, the highest infant mortality rate and some of the longest waiting times to see a physician. We spend almost twice as much on a per capita basis on health care the our next most expensive neighbor, Canada. We spend almost twice as much, as a percent of GDP, than France, Canada and Germany. Even though most other countries have a form of universal health care, the US spends more government revenue for health care than any of them, even though the government's share of the total costs is the least.
The World Health Organization compared the medical care across various nations and produced some disturbing results.
Other evaluations have been made by other organizations and the results are similar to the WHO. The United States is 37th in the rankings in health care for most of the world, the lowest of all the North American and European major nations.
A partial listing of the health care rankings by the WHO show the results of that ranking
While the rest of the world is seeing a rise in the cost of health care, the US is really out of control
A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund didn't exactly coincide with the WHO's findings, but both studies indicated the poor plight of the US healthcare system.
They pick and choose what data to emphasize to make the universal health care systems look inferior. But, they don't bother to compare the US system to the countries of Europe,the UK, Japan, Australia or other advance nations of the world. One of the selected data points they like to trot out is the wait times to see a doctor. But, as the data shows, the US is ranked fifth for that category by the Commonwealth Fund study. They love Canada with it's longer wait times and they publicized that fact as an example of what "Socialized Medicine" will bring, but that isn't representative of what you see in the UK or other European health systems. Of course anything that smacks of socialism is an anathema to a conservative, who believes that the free market is much better at curing ills. That is true where a free market exists, but when you think about it, the medical industry is not working in a free market. It is highly controlled industry by anyone's definition. They say that some unnamed bureaucracy in Washington will be making our medical decisions for us if we adopt a government run universal health system. But, the fact remains, unless you are very rich, an unnamed bureaucracy runs your medical decisions now through the allowable procedures dictated by the insurance companies. Of course if you're on Medicare or any of the other government programs, the decisions are already being made by a government bureaucracy. Only the very wealthy can take advantage of a pseudo free market for their health care because they are generally self insured. They can go anywhere and get any treatment they desire. Not so for the great unwashed masses.
They like to portray the government bureaucracies as a bunch of know nothing government appointees to create a greater fear factor, but in fact they are the same type of experts in each of the medical fields that the insurance companies employ, only without the profit motive.
The price we pay for patented prescription drugs is mind boggling . A lot of this is the governments doing: it often takes over a Billion Dollars to bring a new drug to market. The FDA is so afraid that a drug might turn out to have harmful side effects that they demand extraordinary measures be taken before it is approved for the American consumer. Another important factor is something the many European countries take advantage of that we don't. They have tremendous power to negotiate drug prices because they can act for their whole country, while our position is fragmented, thus losing that bargaining position. I know of no other product that is free to set their own prices without competition, that has the property of being needed by the consumer. The drug companies have a total monopoly on their own drugs as long as they are protected by a patent. It is very cheap to manufacture and distribute drugs, so the price they can sell the drug can be low and still turn a profit. To some extent the US is subsidizing the prescription drug market for most of the world. The drug companies can sell to Canada cheaper and make a profit and depend on charging enough to the American consumer to cover the R&D costs, as well as boost the profit margin.
We have some things to look proud about. The US leads the world in medical innovations. Since 1951, 76 Americans have either been awarded, either as individuals or shared, the Nobel Prize for Medicine. That is more awards than all other nations combined. Of course a lot of these awards were to scientists that weren't native born Americans. This reflects the wealth that America is able to expend on research facilities and grants as much as any thing else which brings research scientists to our shores. The next most was awarded to researchers in the United Kingdom with 19.
We can boast of some of the greatest medical centers in the world, and if you have access to them and you have the necessary financial position, you can match or exceed the medical treatment you can receive any place else. Of course some of our top medical professionals pick and choose which insurance plans they will take, and, in fact some don't take any at all. It's cash only.
Something to think about.
To start with we should look at what's really happening in the American health care system, as opposed to what we might fool ourselves into believing. Our health care system is a mess. We have the most expensive health care system among the advanced nations of the world, with the lowest life expectancy, the highest infant mortality rate and some of the longest waiting times to see a physician. We spend almost twice as much on a per capita basis on health care the our next most expensive neighbor, Canada. We spend almost twice as much, as a percent of GDP, than France, Canada and Germany. Even though most other countries have a form of universal health care, the US spends more government revenue for health care than any of them, even though the government's share of the total costs is the least.
The World Health Organization compared the medical care across various nations and produced some disturbing results.
A partial listing of the health care rankings by the WHO show the results of that ranking
One good measure of a health cares effectiveness is the rate of infant mortality. Where once the US was not the worst in that category, over time the other nations studied showed that we a lagging behind the advanced nations in that respect.
The problem is even worse when one looks at the growth rate for medical costs over the last 40 years of so.
While the rest of the world is seeing a rise in the cost of health care, the US is really out of control
A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund didn't exactly coincide with the WHO's findings, but both studies indicated the poor plight of the US healthcare system.
It might be useful to break the above chart down for specific parameters.
It seems that the UK is doing something right, but Canada, with it's single pay system, is ranked only slightly better than the US in both studies. So a single payer system alone doesn't guarantee success. Perhaps we should look at what the UK does that makes it such a success.
To start with there is not a single health system in the UK. Each of the countries comprising the UK has it's own publicly funded healthcare system.
To start with there is not a single health system in the UK. Each of the countries comprising the UK has it's own publicly funded healthcare system.
But they have a lot of similarities. They are all have government funded universal healthcare. What the conservatives call Socialized Medicine, with just some twists. They all seem to have sprung from the major healthcare overhaul that occurred in 1948 with the birth of the NHS, and modified since then with the last reorganization occurring in England in 2013. The other countries in the UK have also performed changes in their systems over roughly the same time period. It should also be noted the most of the medical systems in the rest of the advanced nations include prescription drug coverage, at least to some extent.
The biggest opponents to the US adopting any form of healthcare as practiced in the UK, the western European nations, or most of the advanced nations of the world, is the insurance industry. They have a fully paid PR staff and a horde of lobbyists dedicated to demeaning the UK's NHS and any other government funded system. They generate tons of propaganda toward that end. Obama Care is an example of just how powerful the insurance industry is. It resulted in a windfall for them. They pick and choose what data to emphasize to make the universal health care systems look inferior. But, they don't bother to compare the US system to the countries of Europe,the UK, Japan, Australia or other advance nations of the world. One of the selected data points they like to trot out is the wait times to see a doctor. But, as the data shows, the US is ranked fifth for that category by the Commonwealth Fund study. They love Canada with it's longer wait times and they publicized that fact as an example of what "Socialized Medicine" will bring, but that isn't representative of what you see in the UK or other European health systems. Of course anything that smacks of socialism is an anathema to a conservative, who believes that the free market is much better at curing ills. That is true where a free market exists, but when you think about it, the medical industry is not working in a free market. It is highly controlled industry by anyone's definition. They say that some unnamed bureaucracy in Washington will be making our medical decisions for us if we adopt a government run universal health system. But, the fact remains, unless you are very rich, an unnamed bureaucracy runs your medical decisions now through the allowable procedures dictated by the insurance companies. Of course if you're on Medicare or any of the other government programs, the decisions are already being made by a government bureaucracy. Only the very wealthy can take advantage of a pseudo free market for their health care because they are generally self insured. They can go anywhere and get any treatment they desire. Not so for the great unwashed masses.
They like to portray the government bureaucracies as a bunch of know nothing government appointees to create a greater fear factor, but in fact they are the same type of experts in each of the medical fields that the insurance companies employ, only without the profit motive.
The price we pay for patented prescription drugs is mind boggling . A lot of this is the governments doing: it often takes over a Billion Dollars to bring a new drug to market. The FDA is so afraid that a drug might turn out to have harmful side effects that they demand extraordinary measures be taken before it is approved for the American consumer. Another important factor is something the many European countries take advantage of that we don't. They have tremendous power to negotiate drug prices because they can act for their whole country, while our position is fragmented, thus losing that bargaining position. I know of no other product that is free to set their own prices without competition, that has the property of being needed by the consumer. The drug companies have a total monopoly on their own drugs as long as they are protected by a patent. It is very cheap to manufacture and distribute drugs, so the price they can sell the drug can be low and still turn a profit. To some extent the US is subsidizing the prescription drug market for most of the world. The drug companies can sell to Canada cheaper and make a profit and depend on charging enough to the American consumer to cover the R&D costs, as well as boost the profit margin.
We have some things to look proud about. The US leads the world in medical innovations. Since 1951, 76 Americans have either been awarded, either as individuals or shared, the Nobel Prize for Medicine. That is more awards than all other nations combined. Of course a lot of these awards were to scientists that weren't native born Americans. This reflects the wealth that America is able to expend on research facilities and grants as much as any thing else which brings research scientists to our shores. The next most was awarded to researchers in the United Kingdom with 19.
We can boast of some of the greatest medical centers in the world, and if you have access to them and you have the necessary financial position, you can match or exceed the medical treatment you can receive any place else. Of course some of our top medical professionals pick and choose which insurance plans they will take, and, in fact some don't take any at all. It's cash only.
Something to think about.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
GOP candidates and the White House
I have been interested in the world of politics for some time, but this election cycle is a cut above what has come before. The Democratic front runner is a weak candidate by any stretch of the imagination with her involvement in some of the most unpopular events and actions of the current administration and her obvious entanglement with the State Department correspondence on her personal servers. She would be a disaster if she is elected and she is ripe for the picking, if the GOP picks a viable candidate from the pack that is running. Most of them would seem to be a step up from Clinton by any measure.
There is still a lot of time before the big primaries that will decide the eventual nominee, but several of the candidates seem to be moving into a good position to be the GOP standard bearer.
There are two questions: Which of the candidates will win the nomination and which of all the candidates would make a better President.
Right now I think that the eventual winner is sort of a crap shoot. I have some real doubts that the Donald can carry enough votes into the convention to win the nomination. I'm not sure that his shoot from the hip and let the chips fall where they may, will hold up when many of the 2nd tier candidates start dropping out and their supporters coalesce behind someone else, and I don't think it will be Trump. It's far more likely to be Rubio or Cruz. My own choice at the moment is Rubio. Over and over again the front runner in January and in the early Iowa and New Hampshire contests have not emerged as the nominee. I just think that Rubio is in a good position to capture the big states when the main primary cycle begins in the middle of the year. But, then I haven't a good record in this arena.
An issue has been raised concerning the eligibility of Ted Cruz to be President.
The following excerpt was taken from the Wikipedia online encyclopedia:
"Ted Cruz announced on March 22, 2015, that he was running for the Republican Party's nomination for president in the 2016 election.[128] Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,[129] to a "U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban immigrant father",[130] giving him dual Canadian-American citizenship.[131] Cruz applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada, on May 14, 2014.[132][133] Professor Chin (see above),[130] former Solicitor General Paul Clement,[134] former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal,[134] and Professor Peter Spiro of Temple University Law School[135] believe Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to be eligible for the presidency.[136]
Professor Tribe, however, described Cruz's eligibility as "murky and unsettled".[137] Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein believes that Cruz is eligible, but agrees with University of San Diego Professor Michael Ramsey that Cruz's eligibility is not "an easy question". Sunstein believes concerns over standing and the political-question doctrine will prevent the courts from resolving issues surrounding Cruz's eligibility.[138]
Professor McManamon (see above) believes generally that natural-born citizens must be born in the United States, which would make Cruz ineligible.[139] She has explicitly written that Cruz is ineligible.[140] Alan Grayson, a Democratic Member of Congress from Florida, does not believe Cruz is a natural-born citizen, and stated he intends to file a lawsuit should Cruz be the Republican nominee.[141] Orly Taitz, Larry Klayman, and Mario Apuzzo, who each filed multiple lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility, have also asserted that Cruz is not eligible.[142][143]
In November 2015, two ballot challenges were filed in New Hampshire, alleging Cruz was ineligible because he was born in Canada.[144] The ballot commission rejected the challenges.[145] In December, similar lawsuits were filed in Vermont and Florida.[146][147] In January 2016, a similar lawsuit was filed in Texas.[148"
So I'm not at all sure that the matter has really been settled.
It is clear to me that Hillary has a real problem on her hands in any debate with whoever comes out on top of the GOP nomination process. Whoever they are, will have been honed by numerous, rather brutal debates, so they will come into any debate with Hillary with a lot more experience and background in handling the venue. Her experience has been the run she made 8 years ago, where Obama annihilated her,and a cake walk through a couple milk toast confrontations with Bernie Sanders, the Socialist. It might be that Hillary will opt out of any debate at all. That might the smartest move for her. She will be killed in an open debate with any of the GOP nominees. She just has too many issues they can use against her. Her best chance is to avoid the controversial, even illegal, issues that are in her background and just depend on the basic Democratic base and the women's vote (she hopes) to carry her over the top. She is sure she will capture the women's votes, just because she's a woman.
It certainly is not clear as to which of the candidates would actually make the better President. Our history is rife with people who came out of essentially nowhere, with no background that would foretell that this person would be a strong and determined President when they entered the office and then they rose to the occasion. Think Harry Truman. And, some have entered the office with seeming impeccable credentials that didn't do so well, in fact they were a disaster. We have had ex generals, senators, congressmen, governors, bureaucrats and college professors elected or thrust in the office. There seems to be little experience that can pre-judge a Presidents performance once they attain the office.
It would seem that the best background for the office would have been as the governor of one of the big states. They are the ones that have had to battle the entrenched bureaucracies, their own legislators and actually had to take actions that are part of the record. One of our greatest Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, was a former Governor. Of the front runners Christie, Bush and Kasich fit that bill. I might include Huckabee, but he really is out of it. I really don't know why he bothers to run. Of the three front runners, they all have a very good record that should be, and is appealing to the GOP voters. But, they can't seem to catch on to the Republican base. I believe any of them would make a good President, they certainly seem to have the experience most closely related to the office.
The two business people that have entered the race, Trump and Fiorina, The Donald is the front runner by far. Would Trump make a good President? It's almost impossible to predict. He would certainly have a rude awakening when he enters the White House and tries to impose his will on congress and other nations like he does as head of a multibillion dollar organization. Now, when he says jump, every body around him only asks "how high". But, he's a very smart man and it may be that he will learn to play the game of politics as well as he learned the game of real estate development. My take is, that if he wishes to be successful in the general election, he had better work a little harder at thinking before he opens his mouth. He doesn't have to change his position, just be a little more realistic about what is possible or not. Deport all illegals? That sounds nice, but exactly how do you do that? No specifics given. Build a wall and Mexico pays for it? How do you make that happen? Again no specifics. Balance the trade imbalance with China? By erecting stiff tariffs on Chinese goods? What does he think the response from China would be? My trouble with Trump is he's full of great ideas that are not only not going to happen, but might get us into more trouble if he tried.
There have been a few Congressmen that have stepped into the Oval Office that have been very good for the country. How about Lincoln? They had no earlier experience in an executive position of any kind, but they grew into the job fast. Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (although he did serve as the VP) are a few more examples.
Of all the candidates I think Kasich would likely make the better leader, but I don't see him being nominated and even if nominated, I think he might have the hardest time of all the front runners of beating Hillary. So I fall back on Rubio. He's young, dynamic and an excellent speaker. He would eat Hillary up in a debate, that is if Hillary commits to one. I think he is electable in a general election. He hasn't alienated the Latino voters, and will likely gain a lot of votes from that group. His biggest drawback in winning the nomination might be his stance on immigration. He isn't out to expel all the immigrants immediately. That might play well in the general election however, unless that one issue causes the strong Republican base to stay home.
Hillary will almost certainly be the Democrat's candidate short of an indictment for criminal activity for the use of her private server in handling of classified material, or the link of the Clinton foundation to some rather nefarious activities. That may or may not happen. It won't if the Attorney General of the United States can avoid it. I'm afraid that no matter what the FBI turns up, the Justice Department will try to squash it. A lot depends on what Obama wants to do. If he wants it put under the table, that's very likely to happen.
Right now it looks like Hillary against Trump, Rubio or Cruz. All the pundits seem to picking Cruz, but my own favorite is Rubio. Of the three,I think he will be the strongest in the general election. He will appeal to a lot independents, a fair number of conservative Democrats and still hold on to the Republican base.
In any event, because of the Democrats superior numbers, the race to the White House seems tilted in their favor no matter who is running. But, I have a feeling that we're likely to see a Republican victory and by a rather large margin. But, that's for November. Still a long ways off.
148
There is still a lot of time before the big primaries that will decide the eventual nominee, but several of the candidates seem to be moving into a good position to be the GOP standard bearer.
There are two questions: Which of the candidates will win the nomination and which of all the candidates would make a better President.
Right now I think that the eventual winner is sort of a crap shoot. I have some real doubts that the Donald can carry enough votes into the convention to win the nomination. I'm not sure that his shoot from the hip and let the chips fall where they may, will hold up when many of the 2nd tier candidates start dropping out and their supporters coalesce behind someone else, and I don't think it will be Trump. It's far more likely to be Rubio or Cruz. My own choice at the moment is Rubio. Over and over again the front runner in January and in the early Iowa and New Hampshire contests have not emerged as the nominee. I just think that Rubio is in a good position to capture the big states when the main primary cycle begins in the middle of the year. But, then I haven't a good record in this arena.
An issue has been raised concerning the eligibility of Ted Cruz to be President.
The following excerpt was taken from the Wikipedia online encyclopedia:
"Ted Cruz announced on March 22, 2015, that he was running for the Republican Party's nomination for president in the 2016 election.[128] Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,[129] to a "U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban immigrant father",[130] giving him dual Canadian-American citizenship.[131] Cruz applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada, on May 14, 2014.[132][133] Professor Chin (see above),[130] former Solicitor General Paul Clement,[134] former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal,[134] and Professor Peter Spiro of Temple University Law School[135] believe Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to be eligible for the presidency.[136]
Professor Tribe, however, described Cruz's eligibility as "murky and unsettled".[137] Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein believes that Cruz is eligible, but agrees with University of San Diego Professor Michael Ramsey that Cruz's eligibility is not "an easy question". Sunstein believes concerns over standing and the political-question doctrine will prevent the courts from resolving issues surrounding Cruz's eligibility.[138]
Professor McManamon (see above) believes generally that natural-born citizens must be born in the United States, which would make Cruz ineligible.[139] She has explicitly written that Cruz is ineligible.[140] Alan Grayson, a Democratic Member of Congress from Florida, does not believe Cruz is a natural-born citizen, and stated he intends to file a lawsuit should Cruz be the Republican nominee.[141] Orly Taitz, Larry Klayman, and Mario Apuzzo, who each filed multiple lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility, have also asserted that Cruz is not eligible.[142][143]
In November 2015, two ballot challenges were filed in New Hampshire, alleging Cruz was ineligible because he was born in Canada.[144] The ballot commission rejected the challenges.[145] In December, similar lawsuits were filed in Vermont and Florida.[146][147] In January 2016, a similar lawsuit was filed in Texas.[148"
So I'm not at all sure that the matter has really been settled.
It is clear to me that Hillary has a real problem on her hands in any debate with whoever comes out on top of the GOP nomination process. Whoever they are, will have been honed by numerous, rather brutal debates, so they will come into any debate with Hillary with a lot more experience and background in handling the venue. Her experience has been the run she made 8 years ago, where Obama annihilated her,and a cake walk through a couple milk toast confrontations with Bernie Sanders, the Socialist. It might be that Hillary will opt out of any debate at all. That might the smartest move for her. She will be killed in an open debate with any of the GOP nominees. She just has too many issues they can use against her. Her best chance is to avoid the controversial, even illegal, issues that are in her background and just depend on the basic Democratic base and the women's vote (she hopes) to carry her over the top. She is sure she will capture the women's votes, just because she's a woman.
It certainly is not clear as to which of the candidates would actually make the better President. Our history is rife with people who came out of essentially nowhere, with no background that would foretell that this person would be a strong and determined President when they entered the office and then they rose to the occasion. Think Harry Truman. And, some have entered the office with seeming impeccable credentials that didn't do so well, in fact they were a disaster. We have had ex generals, senators, congressmen, governors, bureaucrats and college professors elected or thrust in the office. There seems to be little experience that can pre-judge a Presidents performance once they attain the office.
It would seem that the best background for the office would have been as the governor of one of the big states. They are the ones that have had to battle the entrenched bureaucracies, their own legislators and actually had to take actions that are part of the record. One of our greatest Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, was a former Governor. Of the front runners Christie, Bush and Kasich fit that bill. I might include Huckabee, but he really is out of it. I really don't know why he bothers to run. Of the three front runners, they all have a very good record that should be, and is appealing to the GOP voters. But, they can't seem to catch on to the Republican base. I believe any of them would make a good President, they certainly seem to have the experience most closely related to the office.
The two business people that have entered the race, Trump and Fiorina, The Donald is the front runner by far. Would Trump make a good President? It's almost impossible to predict. He would certainly have a rude awakening when he enters the White House and tries to impose his will on congress and other nations like he does as head of a multibillion dollar organization. Now, when he says jump, every body around him only asks "how high". But, he's a very smart man and it may be that he will learn to play the game of politics as well as he learned the game of real estate development. My take is, that if he wishes to be successful in the general election, he had better work a little harder at thinking before he opens his mouth. He doesn't have to change his position, just be a little more realistic about what is possible or not. Deport all illegals? That sounds nice, but exactly how do you do that? No specifics given. Build a wall and Mexico pays for it? How do you make that happen? Again no specifics. Balance the trade imbalance with China? By erecting stiff tariffs on Chinese goods? What does he think the response from China would be? My trouble with Trump is he's full of great ideas that are not only not going to happen, but might get us into more trouble if he tried.
There have been a few Congressmen that have stepped into the Oval Office that have been very good for the country. How about Lincoln? They had no earlier experience in an executive position of any kind, but they grew into the job fast. Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (although he did serve as the VP) are a few more examples.
Of all the candidates I think Kasich would likely make the better leader, but I don't see him being nominated and even if nominated, I think he might have the hardest time of all the front runners of beating Hillary. So I fall back on Rubio. He's young, dynamic and an excellent speaker. He would eat Hillary up in a debate, that is if Hillary commits to one. I think he is electable in a general election. He hasn't alienated the Latino voters, and will likely gain a lot of votes from that group. His biggest drawback in winning the nomination might be his stance on immigration. He isn't out to expel all the immigrants immediately. That might play well in the general election however, unless that one issue causes the strong Republican base to stay home.
Hillary will almost certainly be the Democrat's candidate short of an indictment for criminal activity for the use of her private server in handling of classified material, or the link of the Clinton foundation to some rather nefarious activities. That may or may not happen. It won't if the Attorney General of the United States can avoid it. I'm afraid that no matter what the FBI turns up, the Justice Department will try to squash it. A lot depends on what Obama wants to do. If he wants it put under the table, that's very likely to happen.
Right now it looks like Hillary against Trump, Rubio or Cruz. All the pundits seem to picking Cruz, but my own favorite is Rubio. Of the three,I think he will be the strongest in the general election. He will appeal to a lot independents, a fair number of conservative Democrats and still hold on to the Republican base.
In any event, because of the Democrats superior numbers, the race to the White House seems tilted in their favor no matter who is running. But, I have a feeling that we're likely to see a Republican victory and by a rather large margin. But, that's for November. Still a long ways off.
148
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Gun Control
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Further editing was done on this article after first publishing. The changes are noted in italics.
The second amendment to the Constitution seems clear to me and anybody else that isn't a lawyer. They can't seem to understand much of anything about the constitution. The Supreme Court has held that this right extends to all the people, not just to an organized militia. But, being primarily lawyers, they have held that certain restrictions may be placed on selling and ownership of guns. I'm not sure how they arrived at that position which clearly infringes on the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.
Anyone who has studied even a little of American history knows why the States insisted on that amendment to the Constitution. They had just came out a brutal war and remembered well what the British had imposed on the Colonists. You will also notice that the Constitution makes no provision for the establishment of a standing Army, only that congress could raise and army and call up the militia when needed. The founding fathers feared the rise of a strong and dictatorial central government, so provisions were included in the Constitution to try to prevent that from occurring. The second amendment was one of those curbs on central power.
Every time there is some mass shouting there is an outcry for more restrictions on the sell and ownership of guns. That is isn't surprising. It's a knee jerk reaction to the horrific events which has occurred.
But, without completely trampling on the Constitution, it is hard to image a set of laws and/or regulations that will keep guns out of the hands of people who wish to commit crimes. It has been shown over and over again, that none of the proposed restrictions now in force, or proposed, would have prevented the mass shooting that have been experienced in the last few years. Furthermore, study after study has not been able to show any correlation between the presence or absence of gun laws and the incidence of gun related crimes. A result the gun control lobby hates. But, no matter the evidence, the gun control enthusiasts maintain that all we have to do is enact more laws and the problem will be solved.
If guns are available through any source, people who want to commit mayhem will get their hands on them. The world is awash with AK47's and their knockoffs.
It seems the only path that makes any sense is to go to the extreme one way of the other. Either (1) remove most restrictions on the buying and carrying of firearms, so that whole citizenry is potentially armed. Remove any requirement for a need to own and carry a gun. It is enough that the citizen feels they have a need for one. Background checks would still be accomplished by licensed gun dealers so the firearms don't fall into the hands of known criminals and other such risky individuals, or (2) restrict the selling and possession of any firearm that isn't a single shot device. I.e. a single action revolver or bolt/lever/pump action rifle or shot gun. All with limit of 6-8 rounds of ammo in the piece. The penalty for selling or even possessing any other type of weapon would have to made severe. And continue the current practice of issuing permits for the carrying of concealed firearms. This might pass Supreme Court muster, but I kind of doubt it. The Supreme Court, in every case, has come down on the side of the right of individuals to own guns. The second amendment doesn't specify what kind of guns that the government can't infringe, so just maybe, with the right Court it could squeak through.
Of course there exists a third option: repeal the 2nd amendment. That is the option that the majority of the gun control lobby would like. That's not likely to happen any time soon.
The first condition would be perfectly in accordance with the Constitution. I really don't know what the outcome would be, but I feel that it would really deter any nut who wants to walk into a crowded theater and cut loose. When a lot of people in that mob could be packing, that would really put a damper on any potential shooter. Experience has shown that the nuts who commit mass shootings in crowded places are looking for soft targets. Targets where the victims can't shoot back. In every case when someone shows up with a weapon, they bolt. They're not about to face somebody armed. Of course the antigun lobby would argue that we would be hit with a rash of impulse shootings. I really have my doubts about that. In spite of the Hollywood westerns, shootouts in bars from drunken, armed, people wasn't really the prevalent in the old west where packing a six gun was normal. Look at Texas, which has the loosest gun control laws in the country. In fact, in Texas, it is legal to have a gun in plain sight, if you have a carry permit. The gun related crime is not as bad in that state as it is many states with strict gun control legislation. And, incidentally, I don't recall any mass shooting occurring in Texas.
The second condition would really trample on the Constitution, but would have the effect of removing the automatic and semiautomatic firearms that are prevalent used in mass shootings, and in gang warfare. Reloading a six shooter or bolt action rifle takes time, A time where people can do something, escape or attack. Of course it wouldn't prevent individual crimes, murder, robbery and crimes of that source, but it would put a big damper on mass shootings. Enforcing laws of this type would be rather hard to do. Like I said the world is awash in assault rifles and automatic pistols.
When you get down to it, the mass shooting, which capture the medias attention are really an insignificant part of the overall problem. I think that a more realistic approach is not a whole new set of gun laws, which have the effect of making it hard for the individual to purchase a firearm for self-defense and does very little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but rather, a severe crackdown on people who use a gun in committing a crime by increasing and enforcing the penalties associated with that use. Make it a federal offense so that after the state has their say in the commission of a state crime, the feds can then prosecute the criminal for use of a gun. Much as the race related crime is dealt with today in violation of civil rights laws. I think that such an approach would do more to reduce the use of guns than all the gun laws that can be passed could do. And, I feel that the NRA and the gun lobby would endorse such an approach, which would grease it's passage through the congress.
Further editing was done on this article after first publishing. The changes are noted in italics.
The second amendment to the Constitution seems clear to me and anybody else that isn't a lawyer. They can't seem to understand much of anything about the constitution. The Supreme Court has held that this right extends to all the people, not just to an organized militia. But, being primarily lawyers, they have held that certain restrictions may be placed on selling and ownership of guns. I'm not sure how they arrived at that position which clearly infringes on the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.
Anyone who has studied even a little of American history knows why the States insisted on that amendment to the Constitution. They had just came out a brutal war and remembered well what the British had imposed on the Colonists. You will also notice that the Constitution makes no provision for the establishment of a standing Army, only that congress could raise and army and call up the militia when needed. The founding fathers feared the rise of a strong and dictatorial central government, so provisions were included in the Constitution to try to prevent that from occurring. The second amendment was one of those curbs on central power.
Every time there is some mass shouting there is an outcry for more restrictions on the sell and ownership of guns. That is isn't surprising. It's a knee jerk reaction to the horrific events which has occurred.
But, without completely trampling on the Constitution, it is hard to image a set of laws and/or regulations that will keep guns out of the hands of people who wish to commit crimes. It has been shown over and over again, that none of the proposed restrictions now in force, or proposed, would have prevented the mass shooting that have been experienced in the last few years. Furthermore, study after study has not been able to show any correlation between the presence or absence of gun laws and the incidence of gun related crimes. A result the gun control lobby hates. But, no matter the evidence, the gun control enthusiasts maintain that all we have to do is enact more laws and the problem will be solved.
If guns are available through any source, people who want to commit mayhem will get their hands on them. The world is awash with AK47's and their knockoffs.
It seems the only path that makes any sense is to go to the extreme one way of the other. Either (1) remove most restrictions on the buying and carrying of firearms, so that whole citizenry is potentially armed. Remove any requirement for a need to own and carry a gun. It is enough that the citizen feels they have a need for one. Background checks would still be accomplished by licensed gun dealers so the firearms don't fall into the hands of known criminals and other such risky individuals, or (2) restrict the selling and possession of any firearm that isn't a single shot device. I.e. a single action revolver or bolt/lever/pump action rifle or shot gun. All with limit of 6-8 rounds of ammo in the piece. The penalty for selling or even possessing any other type of weapon would have to made severe. And continue the current practice of issuing permits for the carrying of concealed firearms. This might pass Supreme Court muster, but I kind of doubt it. The Supreme Court, in every case, has come down on the side of the right of individuals to own guns. The second amendment doesn't specify what kind of guns that the government can't infringe, so just maybe, with the right Court it could squeak through.
Of course there exists a third option: repeal the 2nd amendment. That is the option that the majority of the gun control lobby would like. That's not likely to happen any time soon.
The first condition would be perfectly in accordance with the Constitution. I really don't know what the outcome would be, but I feel that it would really deter any nut who wants to walk into a crowded theater and cut loose. When a lot of people in that mob could be packing, that would really put a damper on any potential shooter. Experience has shown that the nuts who commit mass shootings in crowded places are looking for soft targets. Targets where the victims can't shoot back. In every case when someone shows up with a weapon, they bolt. They're not about to face somebody armed. Of course the antigun lobby would argue that we would be hit with a rash of impulse shootings. I really have my doubts about that. In spite of the Hollywood westerns, shootouts in bars from drunken, armed, people wasn't really the prevalent in the old west where packing a six gun was normal. Look at Texas, which has the loosest gun control laws in the country. In fact, in Texas, it is legal to have a gun in plain sight, if you have a carry permit. The gun related crime is not as bad in that state as it is many states with strict gun control legislation. And, incidentally, I don't recall any mass shooting occurring in Texas.
The second condition would really trample on the Constitution, but would have the effect of removing the automatic and semiautomatic firearms that are prevalent used in mass shootings, and in gang warfare. Reloading a six shooter or bolt action rifle takes time, A time where people can do something, escape or attack. Of course it wouldn't prevent individual crimes, murder, robbery and crimes of that source, but it would put a big damper on mass shootings. Enforcing laws of this type would be rather hard to do. Like I said the world is awash in assault rifles and automatic pistols.
When you get down to it, the mass shooting, which capture the medias attention are really an insignificant part of the overall problem. I think that a more realistic approach is not a whole new set of gun laws, which have the effect of making it hard for the individual to purchase a firearm for self-defense and does very little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but rather, a severe crackdown on people who use a gun in committing a crime by increasing and enforcing the penalties associated with that use. Make it a federal offense so that after the state has their say in the commission of a state crime, the feds can then prosecute the criminal for use of a gun. Much as the race related crime is dealt with today in violation of civil rights laws. I think that such an approach would do more to reduce the use of guns than all the gun laws that can be passed could do. And, I feel that the NRA and the gun lobby would endorse such an approach, which would grease it's passage through the congress.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
What do you owe to your country?
Ask not what your country can do for you but, ask what you can do for your country. Sound familiar? John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address in 1961. Of course Kennedy was a war veteran, in fact a war hero, so he felt a deep commitment to service to the country. So I ask, what do you owe the United States of America? And based on what I'm seeing today, it seems to me that the population in general, with some exceptions, feels they owe nothing to this country, but rather the fact that they're in this country either legally of illegally means that the government owes them.
Every segment of the population seems to have their hand out pleading for the government to give them something. At the same time they protest paying taxes, avoid military service and any other commitment that might constitute a sacrifice of some kind.
They want the government to provide free health care, but don't want to pay for it. If they aren't making enough money to live the life style that they wish because they didn't pursue the opportunities (education, etc.) that are available them, then the government should take it from the people who did put in the effort and give it them.
Obamacare is a good example of effort by the government, read liberal Democrats, to provide health coverage for the twenty percent of the population that couldn't afford it, or at least choose to spend their money on other things rather than health insurance. Sounds good doesn't it. As a result of the act, the government has succeeded in providing health care for a lot of those people, but not all. But, at what cost? The eighty percent of the population that had health insurance and were perfectly happy with it, upon implementation of the act, faced an increase in premiums and an increase in deductibles. Many people found out that their policy didn't meet all the government's requirements, had their policies canceled and were forced to take on much more expensive coverage. To make sure that everybody complied with the provisions of the act, it was made mandatory and a fine is levied for people not participating. A lot of younger healthy people have chosen to pay the fine rather that buy the insurance; it's cheaper. On top of that the doctors are facing a reduction of payments from Medicare and private insurance companies. The payouts to doctors for medical care in some implementations is so low that it doesn't cover the costs involved. Patients go to the back of the line when seeking medical treatment. So the eighty percent of the population that had insurance now has to pay for the twenty percent who didn't.
Our armed forces today are all volunteers. The vast majority of the American people have no direct connection to them or to the events happening around the world. Very few of the younger generation (under 50) have any background in the military, let alone any combat experience in the brush fires that America has been fighting around the world for the last 30 years or so. After all, the last draft was for the debacle that was the Vietnam War that ended in the early seventies. The commitment to service that the average citizen should feel to his country isn't there. Why do you think that when the National Anthem is played at a ball game only the veterans seem to stand proud that they are Americans. Any mention of instituting the draft again is met with howls from the population at large.
People crash our borders and if they are successful in eluding detection for a few years they cry for amnesty and to demand they be given all the benefits offered by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. They owe no allegiance to the United States, don't wish to speak our language or adopt our customs, but they're perfectly willing to take anything they can get from the public trough. But the left sees them as political capital and fights to keep them in the country.
College students march on campus and demand that society give them a very expensive free education. The fact is that they don't even begin to pay the cost of their education now; most of the cost shouldered by the taxpayers. And what do they do with that largely subsidized education? They protest if an Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps recruiter is allowed on campus. In fact they have successfully bared such recruiters from a few campuses in the past. They have attempted to drive ROTC programs out. In fact I believe they succeeded in a few cases. They hate capitalism and the system that largely funds that education. They study the liberal arts in huge numbers, which is tantamount to studying the teachings of Karl Marx and Lenin. They flock to classes taught by socialist professors who imbue them with the socialist version of utopia.
They have become the Easily Offended Generation. Every thing must be Politically Correct. They have a knee jerk reaction to any event in the country that involves a minority and the police They march and protest without the slightest idea of what the real facts surrounding the incident about which they're marching and protesting. Many times they have a legitimate position, because there are instances of police misconduct, but the protesters, for the most part, don't really know the circumstances around which they're protesting. They demand that the colleges hire more black professors and admit more black students. They don't seem to realize that the demand for fully accredited and qualified educators of color is in such high demand that is very difficult to find enough to fill the positons available, even though the administrators have tried. The only way to admit more black students would be to implement racial profiling (otherwise known as affirmative action). But, the Supreme Court has held that to be unconstitutional. The schools still lean over backward to admit qualified minority students by taking other factors into consideration. An interesting irony occurs in California, where the University has had to practice sort of reverse discrimination by limiting the number of Asian students at some schools. At the University of California at Irvine, Asians make more than half the student body. They're just too good for the rest of us. I wonder why there isn't mass demonstrations of whites to demand that more slots in the student body be reserved for the underprivileged white applicants who don't measure up to the Asian applicants.
The University's liberal student activists have become the greatest threat to free speech in the country today. They are exercising extraordinary power on the campus. Because of weak willed, or willing administrators, they get their way in to many cases. Only persons that share their views are allowed to speak on campus. A conservative voice, or a dissenting opinion is shouted down. They have caused professors, deans and college presidents to resign because they dared make a small stand against the reigning orthodoxy of the left or did not actively fall in line with their positions. They have forced many Universities to designate Free Speech Zones, where conservative speech, labeled Hate Speech by the left, is allowed; such speech is not permitted at any other place on campus. I don't think they ever heard of the first amendment to the constitution which guarantees that the whole country, and that means the whole campus, is a free speech zone. The interesting thing is, that the protests are almost completely without participants from the science and engineering departments as well as the business schools. That includes their professors. Science depends on facts and conclusions reached from those facts. If the facts don't support the hypothesis, then it is concluded that the hypothesis is wrong. That doesn't seem to bother the demonstrators. They seem to have a set of preconceived notions and they stick to them, no matter the facts and real world experience.
What is really frightening is that these are the people that are most likely to enter the political arena or go to work for government and becoming part of that vast bureaucracy. After all, the private sector has no need for the skills and education they picked up in college. I see a push for a growing welfare state, higher taxes, a shrinking military, an ever expanding national debt and even more oppressive regulations to govern peoples lives. The public universities of the country are paving the way for a complete change in the direction this country has traveled up till recently. One that made us the most prosperous, mightiest nation in the world.
Every segment of the population seems to have their hand out pleading for the government to give them something. At the same time they protest paying taxes, avoid military service and any other commitment that might constitute a sacrifice of some kind.
They want the government to provide free health care, but don't want to pay for it. If they aren't making enough money to live the life style that they wish because they didn't pursue the opportunities (education, etc.) that are available them, then the government should take it from the people who did put in the effort and give it them.
Obamacare is a good example of effort by the government, read liberal Democrats, to provide health coverage for the twenty percent of the population that couldn't afford it, or at least choose to spend their money on other things rather than health insurance. Sounds good doesn't it. As a result of the act, the government has succeeded in providing health care for a lot of those people, but not all. But, at what cost? The eighty percent of the population that had health insurance and were perfectly happy with it, upon implementation of the act, faced an increase in premiums and an increase in deductibles. Many people found out that their policy didn't meet all the government's requirements, had their policies canceled and were forced to take on much more expensive coverage. To make sure that everybody complied with the provisions of the act, it was made mandatory and a fine is levied for people not participating. A lot of younger healthy people have chosen to pay the fine rather that buy the insurance; it's cheaper. On top of that the doctors are facing a reduction of payments from Medicare and private insurance companies. The payouts to doctors for medical care in some implementations is so low that it doesn't cover the costs involved. Patients go to the back of the line when seeking medical treatment. So the eighty percent of the population that had insurance now has to pay for the twenty percent who didn't.
Our armed forces today are all volunteers. The vast majority of the American people have no direct connection to them or to the events happening around the world. Very few of the younger generation (under 50) have any background in the military, let alone any combat experience in the brush fires that America has been fighting around the world for the last 30 years or so. After all, the last draft was for the debacle that was the Vietnam War that ended in the early seventies. The commitment to service that the average citizen should feel to his country isn't there. Why do you think that when the National Anthem is played at a ball game only the veterans seem to stand proud that they are Americans. Any mention of instituting the draft again is met with howls from the population at large.
People crash our borders and if they are successful in eluding detection for a few years they cry for amnesty and to demand they be given all the benefits offered by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. They owe no allegiance to the United States, don't wish to speak our language or adopt our customs, but they're perfectly willing to take anything they can get from the public trough. But the left sees them as political capital and fights to keep them in the country.
College students march on campus and demand that society give them a very expensive free education. The fact is that they don't even begin to pay the cost of their education now; most of the cost shouldered by the taxpayers. And what do they do with that largely subsidized education? They protest if an Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps recruiter is allowed on campus. In fact they have successfully bared such recruiters from a few campuses in the past. They have attempted to drive ROTC programs out. In fact I believe they succeeded in a few cases. They hate capitalism and the system that largely funds that education. They study the liberal arts in huge numbers, which is tantamount to studying the teachings of Karl Marx and Lenin. They flock to classes taught by socialist professors who imbue them with the socialist version of utopia.
They have become the Easily Offended Generation. Every thing must be Politically Correct. They have a knee jerk reaction to any event in the country that involves a minority and the police They march and protest without the slightest idea of what the real facts surrounding the incident about which they're marching and protesting. Many times they have a legitimate position, because there are instances of police misconduct, but the protesters, for the most part, don't really know the circumstances around which they're protesting. They demand that the colleges hire more black professors and admit more black students. They don't seem to realize that the demand for fully accredited and qualified educators of color is in such high demand that is very difficult to find enough to fill the positons available, even though the administrators have tried. The only way to admit more black students would be to implement racial profiling (otherwise known as affirmative action). But, the Supreme Court has held that to be unconstitutional. The schools still lean over backward to admit qualified minority students by taking other factors into consideration. An interesting irony occurs in California, where the University has had to practice sort of reverse discrimination by limiting the number of Asian students at some schools. At the University of California at Irvine, Asians make more than half the student body. They're just too good for the rest of us. I wonder why there isn't mass demonstrations of whites to demand that more slots in the student body be reserved for the underprivileged white applicants who don't measure up to the Asian applicants.
The University's liberal student activists have become the greatest threat to free speech in the country today. They are exercising extraordinary power on the campus. Because of weak willed, or willing administrators, they get their way in to many cases. Only persons that share their views are allowed to speak on campus. A conservative voice, or a dissenting opinion is shouted down. They have caused professors, deans and college presidents to resign because they dared make a small stand against the reigning orthodoxy of the left or did not actively fall in line with their positions. They have forced many Universities to designate Free Speech Zones, where conservative speech, labeled Hate Speech by the left, is allowed; such speech is not permitted at any other place on campus. I don't think they ever heard of the first amendment to the constitution which guarantees that the whole country, and that means the whole campus, is a free speech zone. The interesting thing is, that the protests are almost completely without participants from the science and engineering departments as well as the business schools. That includes their professors. Science depends on facts and conclusions reached from those facts. If the facts don't support the hypothesis, then it is concluded that the hypothesis is wrong. That doesn't seem to bother the demonstrators. They seem to have a set of preconceived notions and they stick to them, no matter the facts and real world experience.
What is really frightening is that these are the people that are most likely to enter the political arena or go to work for government and becoming part of that vast bureaucracy. After all, the private sector has no need for the skills and education they picked up in college. I see a push for a growing welfare state, higher taxes, a shrinking military, an ever expanding national debt and even more oppressive regulations to govern peoples lives. The public universities of the country are paving the way for a complete change in the direction this country has traveled up till recently. One that made us the most prosperous, mightiest nation in the world.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Obama is abandoning the Middle East
It is clear to anyone whose looking that the Obama administration has decided that the middle east is just too much trouble and he has decided to just pull out. It has been clear from the beginning of his administration that he felt that we really had no interest in that region. And, Donald Trump seems to agree with him. He proceeded to nullify all the gains, at the expense of American lives, that had been made before he took office. Whether you agree on our decision to topple the Iraq regime or not, the fact is, we were there and after a lot of effort had accomplished a great deal in pacifying the insurgents and making the country safe for it's citizens. Obama almost immediately started pulling our troops out of the region and left an unstable situation that just invited the Taliban and ISSIL to emerge again. You see what that has got us.
Lately, the nuclear deal with Iran and the move of the Russian/Iranian coalition into Syria is the latest and most damaging of his many moves in that direction. He has stated that we should let the Russians deal with that quagmire, he didn't want to. Our position has resulted in our few allies, especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in the middle east being very worried. They see the threat of the Iranians desiring to create a new Persian Empire. Of course Israel sees real danger ahead.
The net result of this administration's foreign policy will be the creation of an Islamic coalition dominated by Russia and Iran. That will leave Israel surrounded by countries that are dedicated to their destruction.
Pity the poor President who inherits this mess from Obama. For as sure as God made little green apples, Iran and it's allies, with Russia's backing, will attack Israel. After all, they have vowed to wipe Israel from the map. Then what are we going to do? If we move in to help Israel by the use of our armed forces we will be in a confrontation with not only the whole Islamic world, but their Russian backers. Obama has left the next administration with a no win scenario. Of course if that administration is anything like Obama we will just write Israel off as a not worth the risk.
Obama, by abandoning our role in the world, may well have set up WWWIII. He will join the long list of starry eyed politicos that sought peace to avoid confrontation at any price, and believed the promises of the Stalins, Hitlers and their ilk. Now, Putin is joining that group. Remember Chamberlain and his conceding another countries territory to Hitler? Before that, France when they didn't challenge the Germans when they marched into the Rhineland? History has shown the appeasement never works with a dictator that is bent on expansion of his power. Nor does their promises mean anything.
Just look at what Putin has accomplished while Obama has been the world leader. He has taken over the Crimea and effectively done the same with eastern Ukraine with no real challenge from America. He has actively supported the Iranian build up of their atomic program. He has moved into Syria with planes and likely soon with troops ,along with Iran, in support of another repressive dictator. He has rapidly climbed to the position of real power in the middle east and his reach is still expanding. It's anybody's guess as to what more will happen under the Obama watch, but I don't think it's going to good for American interests.
Lately, the nuclear deal with Iran and the move of the Russian/Iranian coalition into Syria is the latest and most damaging of his many moves in that direction. He has stated that we should let the Russians deal with that quagmire, he didn't want to. Our position has resulted in our few allies, especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in the middle east being very worried. They see the threat of the Iranians desiring to create a new Persian Empire. Of course Israel sees real danger ahead.
The net result of this administration's foreign policy will be the creation of an Islamic coalition dominated by Russia and Iran. That will leave Israel surrounded by countries that are dedicated to their destruction.
Pity the poor President who inherits this mess from Obama. For as sure as God made little green apples, Iran and it's allies, with Russia's backing, will attack Israel. After all, they have vowed to wipe Israel from the map. Then what are we going to do? If we move in to help Israel by the use of our armed forces we will be in a confrontation with not only the whole Islamic world, but their Russian backers. Obama has left the next administration with a no win scenario. Of course if that administration is anything like Obama we will just write Israel off as a not worth the risk.
Obama, by abandoning our role in the world, may well have set up WWWIII. He will join the long list of starry eyed politicos that sought peace to avoid confrontation at any price, and believed the promises of the Stalins, Hitlers and their ilk. Now, Putin is joining that group. Remember Chamberlain and his conceding another countries territory to Hitler? Before that, France when they didn't challenge the Germans when they marched into the Rhineland? History has shown the appeasement never works with a dictator that is bent on expansion of his power. Nor does their promises mean anything.
Just look at what Putin has accomplished while Obama has been the world leader. He has taken over the Crimea and effectively done the same with eastern Ukraine with no real challenge from America. He has actively supported the Iranian build up of their atomic program. He has moved into Syria with planes and likely soon with troops ,along with Iran, in support of another repressive dictator. He has rapidly climbed to the position of real power in the middle east and his reach is still expanding. It's anybody's guess as to what more will happen under the Obama watch, but I don't think it's going to good for American interests.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
The second GOP debates
I watched with interest a lot of the second GOP debates. I didn't feel one way or the other about most of the candidates as to their "performances" during the course of the three hours. I was only struck by the Donald's continued bombastic behavior. It was clear from the beginning that CNN wanted controversy and the manner of questions strove for that end. And, they pretty much got what they were looking for. As a result, an aggressive type like Trump thrived in that environment and seemed to dominate the podium. No matter what the question and who it was directed at he was there with his opinion. I'm not sure what the allure for some voters for this man is to become the President of the United States. He spouts lots of platitudes, which I guess appeals to a certain segment of the population, but he offers no idea how he would plan to carry them out. I really heard nothing from him about how he would actually handle illegal immigration, although that is a cornerstone of his campaign. He says he will deport all the illegals immediately, but when backed into a corner about the difficulty of such a move, he really waffled. The rest of the candidates seemed to be prepared and stated their positions rather well on all the subjects that came up. I most struck by Carly and Rubio.
What was more interesting was to see the post debate discussions by panels at both CNN and Fox. I have to admit that I felt the CNN had a better post debate wrap-up. I felt that their panel was clearer and really less biased about the debate than Fox's.
However, both the Fox and CNN panel felt that the Donald may have not done all that well in the debate, but he really didn't lose his base supporters. They both felt the Carly Fiorina was the real winner. However, they weren't sure how that will be reflected in the polls. Ben Carson was Ben Carson. Soft spoken and not the fire breather as were the rest of the candidates. This type of format was clearly not his strength.
I will be very interested in the next debate, but I wish they would somehow whittle the field down a little. Eleven is just too many for an intelligent debate.
I will be very interested in the next debate, but I wish they would somehow whittle the field down a little. Eleven is just too many for an intelligent debate.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Can The Problems Actually Be Fixed?
The country is suffering from a lot of problems, or at least perceived problems, for which the politicians say they have an answer. Just vote for them and all your problems will be solved. But, I wonder if anyone really has an answer to any of them. At least one that will actually work without disastrous consequences. I will try to list some of them and take up further discussion in later blog postings. Some of them may be real problems and others may be only those created to serve some political end. The list is just too long to have a meaningful discourse on all of them at once.
The wealth disparity. There is a vast gulf between the wealthiest among us and the rest of us. There is the fact that 0.1% if the population own about 25% of the wealth. The bottom 90% own about 20% or another way, the top 10% own 80% of the wealth of the country. That is a problem for all of us because that means that a very small number of people are really controlling the economy. And, they will take actions that will benefit them before they even think about the public good.
The middle class is disappearing. There is the lingering and growing problem of the disappearance of the middle class. The middle class is actually the ones who fuel the economy. They're the ones who purchase the cars, appliances, homes, etc. There is a two tier system; the people with the right skills in high demand and are compensated well, and those who have to settle for low skilled jobs and the low pay that goes with it. The old blue collar middle class jobs, which were primarily in manufacturing, are disappearing overseas or to the incorporation of extensive robotics. More and more of what's left of the middle class is composed of people working on the taxpayers dime. The problem, perhaps, is that the public sector of the job market seems to be growing.
Poverty level. There is the unyielding poverty level for about 15% of the population that is not getting any better. The government has tried many programs to try to lift the underclass out of poverty with little success. Making matters worse is the growing number of families where there is only the under trained or under educated woman to provide support. There is a valid argument that the real poverty level is really closer to 2%-3% after one factors in government programs such as assisted housing, food stamps and other forms of government assistance.
Cost of education keeps rising. A college education is getting almost prohibited to the children of the lower economic classes unless their child somehow stands out, either athletically or academically, and can get a scholarship. College tuition and other expenses have risen much faster than the growth in wages for almost everyone. The most elite universities are for either the very gifted, or with the right connections (meaning family money) to get admitted. What this usually means is the student graduates with a mountain of student loan debt that has to be repaid by somebody. To make matters worse, many of the degrees granted to graduates are really of no real value in the work place. It is common for a graduate to be under employed, if they have a job, with a huge debt.
The exporting of jobs. The continued exporting of jobs to foreign countries where the labor costs are much less than in this country is a problem. The global economy has resulted in the United States workers having to compete with foreign workers making a tenth of their salaries. Companies have had to move their operations to a foreign workplace or automate in a big way in order to compete in today's market.
The national debt. The growing, ever growing, national debt is a real problem now and more so in the future. I seems that we can't get off this ever expanding need to borrow money to finance ever growing demands from the public for more and more entitlements. Any politician who attempts to cut the entitlements now in place must be ready for a firestorm from the left, especially those who are getting the benefits. The main thrust by the liberals in congress at any attempt to control government expenditures (when they even think about such things) has been the effort to cut the military funding to a level that is posing a real threat to American interests. The interest on the national debt is growing and taking up more and more of the budget. We're in a position now where we are borrowing money in order pay the interest on the debt we already have. And a huge amount of that debt is owed to foreign countries.
The trade deficit. There is huge and expanding trade deficit. We are importing much more than we export. China virtually owns the United States now and the export deficit just keeps growing. Look at virtually everything you own, from your clothes, appliances, and cars. Chances are that most of them were manufactured in a foreign country. Even those brands we think of as American, think of Ford and GM's products, might very well be actually made in another country. Or at least a good number of the parts that go into the product even it's assembled in the US.
Public employee retirement benefits. State and local governments are faced with crippling unfunded benefits for their retired employees, and it's growing. The unfunded pension obligations for the State of California, for instance, has grown 3,046% since 2003. At that time the underfunded amount was 6.3 million dollars. It has grown to 198.2 million dollars in 2013. The emergence of the public employee unions and the fact that they can pour huge amounts of money into election campaigns, has resulted in elected officials being sympathetic to their pleas for greater and greater retirement benefits as well as pay raises and other benefits while working. The workers can hire their own bosses. Here in California, one of most powerful unions of public employees is the teachers union, who almost dictate the running of the public schools and are instrumental in the state wide elections. They have demanded and got retirement packages that are so liberal that it is heading toward bankruptcy with the taxpayer is on the hook for bailing the fund out.
The infrastructure. The public infrastructure of this country is breaking down. The highway taxes levied on gasoline, which was intended to keep the roads and bridges in good order and and for expansion of the highway system as needed, is commonly hijacked by the politicians in the state capitols for other purposes. Pot holes appear on our freeways and bridges collapse while we divert money elsewhere.
The public education system. Our schools are perceived to be among the lowest ranking of all the education systems of the industrial world. We spend a fortune on education while our students are being graduated without the skills to balance their checkbook or read simple directions. I wonder is this is really true.
The wealth disparity. There is a vast gulf between the wealthiest among us and the rest of us. There is the fact that 0.1% if the population own about 25% of the wealth. The bottom 90% own about 20% or another way, the top 10% own 80% of the wealth of the country. That is a problem for all of us because that means that a very small number of people are really controlling the economy. And, they will take actions that will benefit them before they even think about the public good.
The middle class is disappearing. There is the lingering and growing problem of the disappearance of the middle class. The middle class is actually the ones who fuel the economy. They're the ones who purchase the cars, appliances, homes, etc. There is a two tier system; the people with the right skills in high demand and are compensated well, and those who have to settle for low skilled jobs and the low pay that goes with it. The old blue collar middle class jobs, which were primarily in manufacturing, are disappearing overseas or to the incorporation of extensive robotics. More and more of what's left of the middle class is composed of people working on the taxpayers dime. The problem, perhaps, is that the public sector of the job market seems to be growing.
Poverty level. There is the unyielding poverty level for about 15% of the population that is not getting any better. The government has tried many programs to try to lift the underclass out of poverty with little success. Making matters worse is the growing number of families where there is only the under trained or under educated woman to provide support. There is a valid argument that the real poverty level is really closer to 2%-3% after one factors in government programs such as assisted housing, food stamps and other forms of government assistance.
Cost of education keeps rising. A college education is getting almost prohibited to the children of the lower economic classes unless their child somehow stands out, either athletically or academically, and can get a scholarship. College tuition and other expenses have risen much faster than the growth in wages for almost everyone. The most elite universities are for either the very gifted, or with the right connections (meaning family money) to get admitted. What this usually means is the student graduates with a mountain of student loan debt that has to be repaid by somebody. To make matters worse, many of the degrees granted to graduates are really of no real value in the work place. It is common for a graduate to be under employed, if they have a job, with a huge debt.
The exporting of jobs. The continued exporting of jobs to foreign countries where the labor costs are much less than in this country is a problem. The global economy has resulted in the United States workers having to compete with foreign workers making a tenth of their salaries. Companies have had to move their operations to a foreign workplace or automate in a big way in order to compete in today's market.
The national debt. The growing, ever growing, national debt is a real problem now and more so in the future. I seems that we can't get off this ever expanding need to borrow money to finance ever growing demands from the public for more and more entitlements. Any politician who attempts to cut the entitlements now in place must be ready for a firestorm from the left, especially those who are getting the benefits. The main thrust by the liberals in congress at any attempt to control government expenditures (when they even think about such things) has been the effort to cut the military funding to a level that is posing a real threat to American interests. The interest on the national debt is growing and taking up more and more of the budget. We're in a position now where we are borrowing money in order pay the interest on the debt we already have. And a huge amount of that debt is owed to foreign countries.
The trade deficit. There is huge and expanding trade deficit. We are importing much more than we export. China virtually owns the United States now and the export deficit just keeps growing. Look at virtually everything you own, from your clothes, appliances, and cars. Chances are that most of them were manufactured in a foreign country. Even those brands we think of as American, think of Ford and GM's products, might very well be actually made in another country. Or at least a good number of the parts that go into the product even it's assembled in the US.
Public employee retirement benefits. State and local governments are faced with crippling unfunded benefits for their retired employees, and it's growing. The unfunded pension obligations for the State of California, for instance, has grown 3,046% since 2003. At that time the underfunded amount was 6.3 million dollars. It has grown to 198.2 million dollars in 2013. The emergence of the public employee unions and the fact that they can pour huge amounts of money into election campaigns, has resulted in elected officials being sympathetic to their pleas for greater and greater retirement benefits as well as pay raises and other benefits while working. The workers can hire their own bosses. Here in California, one of most powerful unions of public employees is the teachers union, who almost dictate the running of the public schools and are instrumental in the state wide elections. They have demanded and got retirement packages that are so liberal that it is heading toward bankruptcy with the taxpayer is on the hook for bailing the fund out.
The infrastructure. The public infrastructure of this country is breaking down. The highway taxes levied on gasoline, which was intended to keep the roads and bridges in good order and and for expansion of the highway system as needed, is commonly hijacked by the politicians in the state capitols for other purposes. Pot holes appear on our freeways and bridges collapse while we divert money elsewhere.
The public education system. Our schools are perceived to be among the lowest ranking of all the education systems of the industrial world. We spend a fortune on education while our students are being graduated without the skills to balance their checkbook or read simple directions. I wonder is this is really true.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Chapter 3-What if Obama had been President when----
Adolf Hitler, climbed to power on the promise of returning Germany to it's former place as a world power after the humiliation of the WWI defeat and the terms of the Peace Treaty that assured that she would be mired in deep economic slumps for years. He rebuilt the German's armed forces and proceeded to take back territory that had been stripped from Germany as result of the treaty. He then moved to bring Austria into the Reich and then bluffed his way into capturing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. All this time the western powers set and watched. In fact the English were complicit in ceding of the Sudetenland to Germany, when Hitler promised Chamberlain that this acquisition would be the last of German ambitions. He had a piece of paper signed by Hitler to proof it.
Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin with a secret proviso specifying zones of influence between the two nations concerning all of eastern and northern Europe including Poland, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It was agreed that Germany's zone would include western Poland and the USSR's would include the eastern half
Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin with a secret proviso specifying zones of influence between the two nations concerning all of eastern and northern Europe including Poland, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It was agreed that Germany's zone would include western Poland and the USSR's would include the eastern half
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, based on a false pretext of Polish soldiers having attacked some German outpost, The Gleiwitz incident.
Nine days later the Soviets moved to occupy the eastern parts of Poland. The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belorussians who lived in the eastern part of Poland. (Sound familiar).
Britain had signed mutual defense pact with Poland, the British-Polish Pact of Mutual Assistance on 25 August. In this accord, Britain committed itself to the defense of Poland, guaranteeing to preserve Polish independence. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the second European War was on.
As war progressed the German army overran France in a matter of weeks and almost destroyed the British army before a good part of it was rescued at Dunkirk. Britain was now isolated and all alone in it's fight with Germany. They are an island nation and depend heavily on imports of food and other essentials to maintain their existence. Without outside help it is doubtful that England could have survived the first couple years of the war.
Roosevelt's sentiments were well know. In October 1937, he gave the "Quarantine" speech aiming to contain aggressive nations. He proposed that warmongering states be treated as a public health menace and be quarantined. So it isn't really surprising that Roosevelt jumped into the fray with both feet on the side of the British, as he could foresee the threat that the Nazis projected on the western democracies. He did every thing he could to support the British, the Chinese and the Soviets, short of declaring war. He was determined that the British would not be defeated. Some of his feeling might have been swayed by his personal friendship with Churchill.
Roosevelt was a visionary and detected the growth of military powers in Japan when they invaded Manchuria in 1931. In an effort to build up the Navy he commissioned the building of the USS Yorktown, launched 4 April, 1936 and USS Enterprise, launched 3 October 1938, reportedly by diverting funds from the WPA. Later he commissioned the building of the USS Hornet, which was launched 14 December, 1940. After Pearl Harbor these three carriers were the only significant power in the Pacific.
In 1939 he allowed the French to place huge orders with the American aircraft industry on a cash-and-carry basis. But, the aircraft they ordered was not ready at the time of France's collapse in May 1940, so Roosevelt arranged in June 1940 for the French orders to be sold to Britain.
The fall of Paris shocked the public and the isolationist sentiment declined. In July 1940 he appointed two interventionist Republicans to the cabinet as Secretaries of War and Navy. Roosevelt asked for and got the nation's first ever peacetime draft.
The British ran out of money, so in March 1941 he pushed the Lend Lease Agreement through Congress, which would direct massive military and economic aid to Britain, the Republic of China and later the Soviet Union.
The sea lanes in the north Atlantic were treacherous for any shipping carrying supplies to Britain due to the intense U-Boat activity and the British needed more help in protecting the convoys carrying those supplies. Roosevelt had stated that America should be the "Arsenal of Democracy". On September 2, 1940, he openly defied the Neutrality Acts by passing the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, which transferred 50 WWI destroyers to Britain in exchange for basing rights in the British Caribbean Islands.
The American Navy was dispatched to protect convoys in the western Atlantic and they were actively involved before America was in the war. In April, 1941, Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland. British troops occupied Iceland after the fall of Denmark but, the USA was persuaded to provide forces to relieve them. American war ships began escorting Allied convoys in the western Atlantic as far as Iceland and had several hostile encounters with U-Boats. Tropical Atlantic had become dangerous for unescorted American as well as British cargo ships. On May 21, the SS Robin Moor, an American vessel carrying no military supplies was torpedoed, shelled and sunk by U-69. Roosevelt did refuse Churchill's request that the American warships extend their protection into the eastern Atlantic however.
On December 7, 1941 and Hitler's declaration of war on the United States, the Sino-Japanese and European wars became a world war.
That was what Roosevelt did, but what would Obama have done from 1933 until America entered the war at the very end of 1941? The answer, based on his record is---none of the above. Obama considers himself a peacemaker and would have spent what time he gave to foreign affairs trying to negotiate, although he would have more concerned with domestic affairs. If Obama had been President in the 30's he would faced with same domestic problems that plagued Roosevelt. Massive unemployment and a severely depressed stock market. That's where almost his energy would be spent. I don't think he could have juggled the demands of foreign policy problems along with the internal problems facing the nations. He would likely have tried the same kind of remedies that Roosevelt employed on the domestic front, with little more success than Roosevelt achieved.
It is hard to know what would have transpired from about 1941 and later, because the events after that depend mostly on what other nations did. Given the nature of Obama's actions in the Pacific and Hitler's whims, there were many courses this alternate history could have followed. One is based on the proposition that Japan still felt it was necessary to attack the US and the other that the empire felt it didn't need to neutralize the US to achieve it's objective in the Pacific. It is quite possible that the Japanese would not instigated a war with the United States as they saw no need to. They were getting their way in the Pacific. However, I think the Japanese felt that the acquisition of the Philippines was essential to their security and goals in the Pacific. So it is highly likely that there would have been a Pearl Harbor, or something like it. We would have been thrust into a war that we were totally unprepared for. In addition, Hitler, using whatever logic he used in the actual timeline, would have declared war on the United States in the wake of the Japanese declaration.
It is almost certain that England would have starved into accepting the German terms in order to survive. Hitler did not want the British Isles, his focus was to the east and the vast agricultural potential and natural resources of Russia. All he wanted was for England to get out of the way and let him have the run of Europe.
America would have entered any war without an army or navy of any consequence. As a result the war in Europe would only involve the Soviets and the Germans for at least a year, or possibly longer, before the Americans could lend any appreciable aid. Rommel would have ran rough shod over the British in Africa, captured Egypt and taken control of the Suez Canal without American supplies of arms.
Germany and the Soviets would have been in a death struggle, where the winner would become the masters of all of Europe. I'm not sure who would have won, but either way it would spell disaster for America.
If the Germans won, the German, Japanese and Italian Axis powers would have domination over a great part of the world. If the Soviets won, they would then turn on the Japanese, their traditional enemy, and take control of all of Europe and now the Asian sphere. No matter what, we were next.
German scientists were working on advance weapon systems that could threaten America. The jet powered aircraft, ballistic missiles, and atomic bombs. With little budget for national defense during the thirties America would have been left far behind in the development and deployment of advanced weapons.
There is just too many branches in this alternate history to predict with certainty at all. If Obama had been President, one thing is for sure. We would have a far different past that we have now.
Nine days later the Soviets moved to occupy the eastern parts of Poland. The Soviet government announced it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belorussians who lived in the eastern part of Poland. (Sound familiar).
Britain had signed mutual defense pact with Poland, the British-Polish Pact of Mutual Assistance on 25 August. In this accord, Britain committed itself to the defense of Poland, guaranteeing to preserve Polish independence. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the second European War was on.
As war progressed the German army overran France in a matter of weeks and almost destroyed the British army before a good part of it was rescued at Dunkirk. Britain was now isolated and all alone in it's fight with Germany. They are an island nation and depend heavily on imports of food and other essentials to maintain their existence. Without outside help it is doubtful that England could have survived the first couple years of the war.
Roosevelt's sentiments were well know. In October 1937, he gave the "Quarantine" speech aiming to contain aggressive nations. He proposed that warmongering states be treated as a public health menace and be quarantined. So it isn't really surprising that Roosevelt jumped into the fray with both feet on the side of the British, as he could foresee the threat that the Nazis projected on the western democracies. He did every thing he could to support the British, the Chinese and the Soviets, short of declaring war. He was determined that the British would not be defeated. Some of his feeling might have been swayed by his personal friendship with Churchill.
Roosevelt was a visionary and detected the growth of military powers in Japan when they invaded Manchuria in 1931. In an effort to build up the Navy he commissioned the building of the USS Yorktown, launched 4 April, 1936 and USS Enterprise, launched 3 October 1938, reportedly by diverting funds from the WPA. Later he commissioned the building of the USS Hornet, which was launched 14 December, 1940. After Pearl Harbor these three carriers were the only significant power in the Pacific.
In 1939 he allowed the French to place huge orders with the American aircraft industry on a cash-and-carry basis. But, the aircraft they ordered was not ready at the time of France's collapse in May 1940, so Roosevelt arranged in June 1940 for the French orders to be sold to Britain.
The fall of Paris shocked the public and the isolationist sentiment declined. In July 1940 he appointed two interventionist Republicans to the cabinet as Secretaries of War and Navy. Roosevelt asked for and got the nation's first ever peacetime draft.
The British ran out of money, so in March 1941 he pushed the Lend Lease Agreement through Congress, which would direct massive military and economic aid to Britain, the Republic of China and later the Soviet Union.
The sea lanes in the north Atlantic were treacherous for any shipping carrying supplies to Britain due to the intense U-Boat activity and the British needed more help in protecting the convoys carrying those supplies. Roosevelt had stated that America should be the "Arsenal of Democracy". On September 2, 1940, he openly defied the Neutrality Acts by passing the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, which transferred 50 WWI destroyers to Britain in exchange for basing rights in the British Caribbean Islands.
The American Navy was dispatched to protect convoys in the western Atlantic and they were actively involved before America was in the war. In April, 1941, Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland. British troops occupied Iceland after the fall of Denmark but, the USA was persuaded to provide forces to relieve them. American war ships began escorting Allied convoys in the western Atlantic as far as Iceland and had several hostile encounters with U-Boats. Tropical Atlantic had become dangerous for unescorted American as well as British cargo ships. On May 21, the SS Robin Moor, an American vessel carrying no military supplies was torpedoed, shelled and sunk by U-69. Roosevelt did refuse Churchill's request that the American warships extend their protection into the eastern Atlantic however.
On December 7, 1941 and Hitler's declaration of war on the United States, the Sino-Japanese and European wars became a world war.
That was what Roosevelt did, but what would Obama have done from 1933 until America entered the war at the very end of 1941? The answer, based on his record is---none of the above. Obama considers himself a peacemaker and would have spent what time he gave to foreign affairs trying to negotiate, although he would have more concerned with domestic affairs. If Obama had been President in the 30's he would faced with same domestic problems that plagued Roosevelt. Massive unemployment and a severely depressed stock market. That's where almost his energy would be spent. I don't think he could have juggled the demands of foreign policy problems along with the internal problems facing the nations. He would likely have tried the same kind of remedies that Roosevelt employed on the domestic front, with little more success than Roosevelt achieved.
It is hard to know what would have transpired from about 1941 and later, because the events after that depend mostly on what other nations did. Given the nature of Obama's actions in the Pacific and Hitler's whims, there were many courses this alternate history could have followed. One is based on the proposition that Japan still felt it was necessary to attack the US and the other that the empire felt it didn't need to neutralize the US to achieve it's objective in the Pacific. It is quite possible that the Japanese would not instigated a war with the United States as they saw no need to. They were getting their way in the Pacific. However, I think the Japanese felt that the acquisition of the Philippines was essential to their security and goals in the Pacific. So it is highly likely that there would have been a Pearl Harbor, or something like it. We would have been thrust into a war that we were totally unprepared for. In addition, Hitler, using whatever logic he used in the actual timeline, would have declared war on the United States in the wake of the Japanese declaration.
It is almost certain that England would have starved into accepting the German terms in order to survive. Hitler did not want the British Isles, his focus was to the east and the vast agricultural potential and natural resources of Russia. All he wanted was for England to get out of the way and let him have the run of Europe.
America would have entered any war without an army or navy of any consequence. As a result the war in Europe would only involve the Soviets and the Germans for at least a year, or possibly longer, before the Americans could lend any appreciable aid. Rommel would have ran rough shod over the British in Africa, captured Egypt and taken control of the Suez Canal without American supplies of arms.
Germany and the Soviets would have been in a death struggle, where the winner would become the masters of all of Europe. I'm not sure who would have won, but either way it would spell disaster for America.
If the Germans won, the German, Japanese and Italian Axis powers would have domination over a great part of the world. If the Soviets won, they would then turn on the Japanese, their traditional enemy, and take control of all of Europe and now the Asian sphere. No matter what, we were next.
German scientists were working on advance weapon systems that could threaten America. The jet powered aircraft, ballistic missiles, and atomic bombs. With little budget for national defense during the thirties America would have been left far behind in the development and deployment of advanced weapons.
There is just too many branches in this alternate history to predict with certainty at all. If Obama had been President, one thing is for sure. We would have a far different past that we have now.
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