As the Obama Administration has rolled out its proposals and priorities, I have questioned them in numerous TMV postings. However, I am still willing to give his Administration four years before passing final judgment. But if the first 9 months are a blueprint for the balance of his term, I do not expect any major edifices or landmarks in U.S. history to emerge. I am not bothered by the plethora of issues being simultaneously addressed by the Obama Administration, because these times require a...

A number of independent news sources and commentators have noted that many of the healthcare reform provisions in the proposed Congressional legislation might not become effective until 2013. If true, that would be extremely strange, illogical and politically dangerous for Democrats. Republicans and other opponents of healthcare reforms have succeeded this year in frightening many in the voting public with the fear of the unknown, in fact many fabricated unknowns. That is why the support for reform...

There have been numerous studies confirming the sad fact that we have a 2-tier justice system in the U.S. where the wealthy and powerful are often treated noticeably better than the poor and weak. The Roman Polanski affair bears some comment in light of this reality. For most Western Cultures over the past 100 years, the rape of a 13-year-old girl by a man in his 40’s by means of drugs and alcohol has been considered morally, ethically and criminally wrong. Punishment varies greatly by jurisdiction...

The President, the First Lady, and the Obama Administration did not lose anything by making a direct personal appeal to the International Olympic Committee on behalf of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. The President of Brazil and the top leaders of Japan and Spain were also there making the same promotional efforts. At best each city had only a 25% chance of winning. The President did not suffer any political defeat that will hamper his domestic and international initiatives. ...

Despite all the dysfunctional attributes of the U.S. healthcare and health insurance industries, we do provide some people with the world’s best medical care as a result of cutting-edge technology and procedures provided by the world’s most talented physicians at some of our top institutions. People with real life-threatening diseases come from around the world to many American medical centers to get care not available anywhere else. Some Americans also shop and travel internationally for...

A few Arizona public officials including the Mayor of Phoenix and the Director of State Tourism are upset to learn that Arthur Frommer of the famous Frommer’s Travel Guides has decided not to recommend Arizona as a travel destination due to its laws permitting the carrying of visible firearms. This statewide right was recently on display thanks to a dozen people attending various rallies outside the Phoenix Convention Center as President Obama addressed the Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars. Perhaps...

President Obama may or may not be a lame-duck after the 2010 Midterm elections and be swept from office in 2012, but such prognostications are really a waste of time because greater forces will dictate what happens to the U.S. both politically and economically. The reasons behind his moving so fast on so many fronts may be that he senses the ephemeral nature of political power in a deeply divided country with many uneducated and intransigent voters still in complete denial of our serious global...

The title is actually a recent headline from the New York Times for an article discussing what some U.S. college graduates are doing faced with a dismal domestic jobs market. In fact, this might be a solution to America’s more-than-likely future jobless recovery and our growing inability to create worthwhile new jobs. The U.S. today has now fewer jobs than it did in 2001, and that doesn’t even include the minimum of 150,000 new ones needed each month just to keep up with population growth....

Some critics of current Democratic healthcare reforms falsely assert that a public option entity would kill competition within the U.S. private health insurance market. This claim begs several questions. Is the private health insurance market really competitive? Should it even be based on free-market principles? Several studies have shown that in most cases across the U.S. just one or two private insurance companies dominate any particular region or state. The current regulatory system does...

A public plan or option does not necessarily require a governmental entity as an administrator, nor the creation of a subsidized non-profit foundation, a healthcare co-operative, or anything resembling a government-run program as part of the proposed local Health Care Exchanges. We could merely require that minimum healthcare coverage be offered to every American in a “public” plan by every private sector health insurance company. Democrats should not insist on a public plan run by a new governmental...

On 8/9/09 Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post outlined one of the largest problems today in our Constitution that distorts the legislative process and often thwarts the will of a large majority of Americans. The composition of the U.S. Senate permits several small state Senators to essentially wield excessive power. MacGillis wrote: “The Senate Finance Committee’s “Gang of Six” that is drafting health-care legislation that may shape the final deal..…represents six states...

I am never surprised by the ignorance of many people, but some expressions of stupidity sometimes amaze me. I find it difficult to swallow when some Americans compare any U.S. elected official they oppose to Chancellor Adolph Hitler of Germany’s Third Reich. Many years ago, a few on the left suggested that of President Bush but most mainstream Democrats publicly repudiated the connection. Now some prominent mouthpieces on the right are making the same comparison to Hitler with President Obama....

They’re up, they’re down, and they’re all over the place depending upon who is doing the polling. And sadly they are completely meaningless. They reflect a fickle, highly divided and generally ignorant public that has the attention span of an American Idol Judge. Meaningless poll questions about strongly or slightly disagreeing or agreeing with some pre-formulated simplistic positions, constitute a worthless barometer useful only to a 24/7 info-entertainment news sector that must fill in...

TMV is simultaneously an outpost from the 24/7 info-entertainment news cycle and yet it is a part of it. Perhaps those who work in the media, politics, mass communications, press, or public advocacy provide their brains with hourly dopamine fixes by constantly seeing and hearing something new, but most people don’t need the constant barrage of pointless facts, rumors, gossip and snippets of opinion that today is considered “news.” People are overwhelmed by just living and having to care for...

We may have recently elected a President who is a young, mixed-race natural-born U.S. citizen, but the political and economic power of this country still rests with a few thousand rich old white guys (ROWGs) born well before 1960. If one looks at the U.S. Senate, less than a dozen of these guys are making most of the decisions on how to run the U.S. – all the while principally representing the wealthiest corporate and private interests in the history of the world. Even though many under 30 have...

I do not eat kosher but I learned to cook kosher for friends and family when I was younger. I personally enjoy cooking and eating roast pork, barbequed baby-back ribs, pork sausages, pork chops and even bacon or prosciutto. (I’m not going to prepare a luncheon anytime soon for Temple Beth Israel.) About once a week I’ll eat some form of pig meat. I also eat a variety of other meats during the week but I prefer fresh seafood over any land-based protein. For economic and health reasons, I...

President Obama should study the tough political wheeler-dealers, horse-traders, and consummate arm-twisters that preceding him in office: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), and Ronald Wilson Reagan (RWR). They may have been all smiles for public consumption but they were top politicians behind closed doors who left policies and legacies that continue to influence America today. It’s nice that the President and the First Lady are emulating JFK and Camelot a bit in...

U.S. Senator John Ensign of Nevada recently admitted to an extramarital affair. We have gone through this many times before with other elected figures under different personal circumstances, including the failed impeachment of President Clinton. Some people who have inherited the faulty combination of prurient and puritan genes are getting themselves all worked up in a tizzy over something that is none of their business. History has proven that some of the most philandering and sexually slimy characters...

In contrast with the Republican-controlled Legislature, Republican Governor Jan Brewer is earnestly trying to fix problems that have been brewing for decades in Arizona. She inherited her position earlier this year when former Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano became Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama Administration. The dysfunctional state tax system was pressed to its limits by a rabid and irresponsible tax-cutting Legislature that occasionally compromised with Governor Napolitano....

This is a follow-up to my prior post of 6/9/09 which resulted in many interesting reader comments. At this point in time, North Korea has developed enough nuclear technology to produce a few bombs, but it is still working on a reliable delivery system and a steady stream of nuclear material. It is not a member of the advanced nuclear club as are the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K, Pakistan, and Israel. However, it could sell its technology abroad and in some years it may be able to sell...