President Barack Obama: Latest U.S. Presidential Superlative?

Even if he had lost to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, did you know that President Barack Obama can still achieve some U.S. Presidential firsts and superlatives?

By: Ringo Bones

Aside from the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama is America’s first African-American president ever elected – whether he won or lost the 2012 US Presidential Elections to his opponent, former governor of the state of Massachusetts Mitt Romney – Obama did managed to earn other well-deserved first and other superlatives in the U.S. Presidency. If he failed to become reelected, President Obama could have become the second youngest U.S. ex president at 51. Though the title of youngest U.S. ex president belongs to Theodore Roosevelt who was only 50 years of age when he finished serving his two terms in office.

Fortunately, President Obama got reelected, and with this, managed to earn other U.S. Presidential firsts and superlatives. Given that the last two U.S. presidents where two-termers – i.e. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – the last time America got a trio of two-term presidents was back during the terms of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. And during the time when Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States of America back in 1801, the country was only 25 years old! And by the end of the term of this first trio of two-term U.S. Presidents, almost all of the veterans of the American Revolutionary Wars probably lived long enough to witness that particularly rare political event.

Another first to have happened in the U.S. political landscape of President Obama’s reelection is that America now has 20 women senators – the most in any other time in America’s political history. Given that President Obama is the first black / African-American U.S. president to be elected in office, is his administration paving the way for other ethnicities / genders to be another notch closer to be voted into the U.S. presidency? Who knows, historians could probably write that President Barack Obama was the one who paved for women to be elected into the U.S. presidency. Paging Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren! 

The Fiscal Cliff Deal: Deferment Of The Inevitable?

Even despite the seemingly insurmountable partisan divide, a new short-term deal averting the Fiscal Cliff had been reached, but is this just deferring the inevitable?

By: Ringo Bones

From a political standpoint, the signing of a new short-term deal – i.e. “The Fiscal Cliff Deal” – averting the supposedly inevitably looming Fiscal Cliff seems like the proverbial kicking of the can down the road. Even though the newly reached short-term deal on the Fiscal Cliff have created a rather bullish and euphoric market rally back in Wednesday, January 2, 2013, it has since inevitably petered out. And while the up to the last second partisan brinkmanship of the U.S. Republican Party controlled House of Representatives have some wonder whether “Dictator of the House Boehner” should really get his well-deserved defenestration off the Fiscal Cliff, at least America’s middle and lower income families won’t be facing an increased tax burden – for now. But the question now is, is the new Fiscal Cliff Deal nothing more than a deferment of another inevitable partisan showdown on Capitol Hill during the next two months?

Even though the U.S. government will reach the 16.4-trillion U.S. dollar Debt Ceiling in a few weeks time, by March 2013, there will be another partisan Congressional showdown over the raising of the Debt Ceiling and the negotiation on the U.S. Republican Party’s proposed unreasonably steep Spending Cuts on President Obama’s socio-economic safety net programs. Given that President Obama is unlikely to have a repeat of the very heated reaching across the partisan divide type of negotiations that the GOP controlled Congress played last-second brinkmanship in establishing the Fiscal Cliff Deal, a deadlock on the Debt Ceiling and Spending Cuts in a few months’ time could spook the global markets yet again.

As both the Debt Ceiling and Spending Cuts still need Congressional approval, the U.S. Republican Party had since become clueless on what initiated the “Clinton Era Economic Expansion” of the latter half of the 1990s in the first place. Given that the very generous Bush era tax cuts on America’s richest 1% have yet to trickle down, it seems like a suicidal act of fiscal insanity for the Republican controlled Congress to extend it further. Even though Republicans tend to look down on new immigrants, it was the venture capital investment of naturalized Balkan conflict era refugees / émigrés that funded the internet / dot com boom of the mid 1990s despite capital gains taxes being 30% higher during much of President Clinton’s term compared to that during the first term of President Obama. 

Is The Unregulated Second Amendment Destroying The Social Fabric Of America?

With the recent shooting of 6 to 7 year olds by a deranged gunman that broke into Sandy Hook Elementary School, is the largely unregulated Second Amendment slowly destroying the social fabric of America?

By: Ringo Bones

Despite the very tragic set of circumstances that lead to the senseless shooting and deaths of 20 6 to 7 year olds in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, it seems that Second Amendment advocates in the United States seem to be clinging harder and tighter to their political stance – and the right to bear arms – even if innocent bystanders have to suffer. But why do a significant number of Americans clung on to the oft misguided belief that private gun ownership is all that it takes to keep the United States of America free from tyranny?

Sadly, in spite of the Second Amendment reminding and reiterating the Federal government that the establishment of a “Well-regulated militia shall not be infringed…the right to bear arms….” It seems that the “well-regulated” part of the Second Amendment is often the oft ignored stipulation of the Second Amendment whenever these “rednecks” exercise their Second Amendment rights and establish their own “not-so-well-regulated-militia”. A case in point is the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma back in April 19, 1995 where a misguided unregulated redneck militia led by Timothy McVeigh decided to dispense their own brand of justice on Federal workers who are only tenuously related to their grievances with the Federal government.

Assuming if the Second Amendment advocates are right when they oft “romantically” depict private gun owners as holding back a tidal wave of violence and crime in their neck of the woods, how come not a single Al Qaeda inspired sleeper cell was ever subjected to a Citizens Arrest action by a group of card carrying National Rifle Association (NRA) members since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks? More often than not, over eager white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant Second Amendment advocates only hassle Americans of Muslim faith with no connection to Al Qaeda whatsoever. And does this make a significant number of card-carrying NRA members / private gun owners who don’t know how to well-regulate themselves more a liability – rather than an asset – when it comes to America’s over-burdened national security apparatus?

As of late, President Obama mentions of a “meaningful action” to prevent the tragic shooting deaths of schoolchildren in Sandy Hook Elementary School from ever happening again. By meaningful action mean tighter gun controls and oversight of the sale and private ownership of handguns and semi-automatic assault rifles by private citizens in America. And even though the top brasses at the NRA may be right about gun violence statistically on the decline in America since 1990 and gun ownership the lowest it has been in 40 years despite of a surge of purchase of handguns by pro Second Amendment advocates during Pres. Obama’s election into the White House back in 2008, tighter gun control and regulation could be the only meaningful action the President can act on in the foreseeable future to avoid a repeat of the tragic shooting deaths in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Even though gun related violence is on the decline since 1990, America’s children need not to suffer the country’s Second Amendment / private gun ownership obsession.

The Looming Fiscal Cliff: President Obama’s Greatest Challenge?

Can newly reelected US President Barack Obama make a timely executive action to solve the looming Fiscal Cliff that could plunge America into another economic recession?

By: Ringo Bones

With reelection results that revealed a now highly politically polarized America, newly reelected President Obama could have his power seeped away from him if he doesn’t do a timely executive action to avoid the looming Fiscal Cliff that could not only plunge America into another economic recession, but could also increase the unemployment rate back to over 9 percent. With a seemingly insurmountable partisan divide between the president’s own party and the Republican controlled Congress, will President Obama succeed in solving his greatest political challenge of his second term – namely the looming Fiscal Cliff?

With less than two months to reach across the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans, the Fiscal Cliff might well be President Obama’s greatest challenge of his second term in office. The U.S. government budget’s 2013 Fiscal Cliff – also known as the U.S. Fiscal Cliff – refers to the effect of a series of enacted legislations, mostly during after the U.S. Republican Party took over Capitol Hill back in 2010, which if unchanged, will result in tax increases, spending cuts and a corresponding reduction in the budget deficit. These laws include tax increases due to the expiration of the Tax relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and the Job Creation Act of 2010 – not to mention the spending reductions / sequestrations under the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Just days after President Obama was reelected, Wall Street got spooked with a biggest sell-off that set back the DOW back to July 2012 levels. And leading credit rating agencies are threatening to reduce America’s Triple-A credit rating if both Democrats and Republicans can’t reach a consensus before the January 1, 2013 deadline in formulating a “streamlined” U.S. Government Budget with a lower deficit than before. Well, 600 billion US dollars worth of taxes and spending cuts are at steak and President Obama and the rest of the Democrats – especially in the US Senate – will only work across the partisan political divide if there are tax increases for the top 1 per cent of America who now controls over 90 percent of the wealth. That alone could serve President Obama’s greatest challenge for his second term in office.

Did Mitt Romney’s Politics Started A Meningitis Outbreak?

As the US Republican Party often extolled the advantages of a small government and minimal to nonexistent Federal regulatory oversight as the foundation of the American economic prosperity, did it backfire this time? 

By: Ringo Bones

Sometimes I wonder if the meningitis outbreak inadvertently started by Mitt Romney can be handled by OBAMACARE – but did the US Republican Party’s obsession over the “perceived advantages” of a small and non-intrusive Federal government inadvertently placed public health – and even public safety at risk? Well, this is probably a textbook example.

During the days of his stint as Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney stoically stood by the GOP party line of a minimal to nonexistent Federal government intrusion and/or oversight on private business activity is the very foundation that made the American economy the envy of the whole world. Unfortunately, with nary an oversight – not even a minimally lax one - from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on New England Compounding Co., a Massachusetts based pharmaceutical company managed to manufacture and stock meningitis contaminated operating-room surgical theatre drugs that had recently been traced as the source of the recent meningitis outbreak. Did the GOP’s politics betray the now US Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney during his stint as the Republican governor of Massachusetts?

Well, many now an undecided voter weary of OBAMACARE are now starting to wonder if “ROMNEYCARE” is even worse due to the former Massachusetts governor’s politics inadvertently starting a meningitis outbreak by putting company profits above public health and public safety precedents. This proverbial “October Surprise” might have been overshadowed by the tragic wake of Superstorm Sandy – but could this issue swing the scores of undecided voters in President Obama’s favor this coming 6^th of November? Or will this be just another trivial factoid of the 2012 US Presidential Race?

Tropical Storm Sandy: The October Surprise No Political Party Ever Wants?

Even though Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney never mentioned climate change and global warming during all of their Presidential Debates, will Tropical Storm Sandy be the October Surprise both of them don’t want to face?

By: Ringo Bones

Almost all concerned groups in the United States and the rest of the world had been really concerned about both Democrats’ and Republicans’ silence over the issue of climate change and / or global warming for much of the 2012 US Presidential Race, and yet Tropical Storm Sandy – since dubbed as “Frankenstorm” by the US press – had put a damper on both political parties’ campaign tour schedules. Is Mother Nature now “forcing” both parties to have a serious discussion on the climate change / global warming issue?

As to appear not self-serving to their respective political parties, both Obama and Romney suspended their last minute political campaign tours scheduled in the US East Coast. Given that such natural disasters makes everyone think that it is always one more death too many, the US Democratic Party candidate and incumbent President Obama even chose not to appear in his planned rally in Orlando, Florida scheduled for Monday, October 29, 2012 even though it was Tropical Storm Sandy that closed shut the weather window over much of Florida to have allowed for the Air force One to safely land as hundreds of scheduled commercial flights in the US East Coast had already been cancelled. Though former Pres. Clinton appeared there as scheduled.

Given that probably all leading career politicians in America are now inextricably beholden by “Big Dirty Coal” and “Big Crude Oil” lobbyists and special interest groups – the issue of implementing policies that would curb America’s industrial output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by moving away from fossil-fuel burning will never be seriously discussed come election time. And even though this had been the very first time that the issue of global warming and / or climate change had glaringly never been discussed – as in the campaign period of the 2012 US Presidential Elections – nobody counted on Mother Nature to throw her very own October Surprise a week before the November elections.

Mitt Romney Versus Big Bird: Strangest Of All Adversaries?

Even tough US Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney won the first round of the 2012 US Presidential Debates so far, should he have antagonized Sesame Street’s Big Bird?

By: Ringo Bones

Since 2010, the TEA Party movement has been attacking every American taxpayer funded education and arts programs that don’t cater to their draconian and literal interpretation of White Anglo Saxon Evangelical Christianity. Eager to capitalize on the “conservative American vote, US Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney quickly seized the moment to denigrate the public money used to fund PBS. But is his decision to antagonize Sesame Street’s Big Bird just a bit over the top?

Mitt Romney got the obligatory political flack during the past few weeks after that notorious hidden camera footage of him denigrating the 47% of America as “freeloaders” who are too dependent on US government handouts in his own private fundraiser ceremony went viral on the internet. Already in trouble for being a “rich aloof” and uncaring towards the poor, this is something Mitt Romney doesn’t need so close to November’s elections. But should the Republican presidential hopeful pick a fight on Big Bird too?

To American voters aged 60 and younger, Sesame Street’s Big Bird is seen as an revered and venerable educator and an entertainer that had been with them during the tumultuous years of their childhood. Given the recent unrest in the Muslim world over that notorious anti-Islam film denigrating the Prophet Mohammad, it seems like the US Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is trying to incite a riot among America’s late baby-boomers and generation X-ers. Will this political gaffe eventually hurts his prospects for the 2012 US Presidency?