The Marriage Debate

Oh, how I wish this were a topic of lesser proportions, but alas, it cannot be and never will be, Where did the marriage concept, legally speaking, become the dominant force for social and other policies to become so ingrained into a cataclysmic problem?

Over the course of history, marriage became a more spiritual and religious component to a more legal standing. Where and when the precise moments of that change are not easily found. Thus, it must be that during the mid to late 20th century, in America that such a concept was adopted: that marriage was descriptive of a legal point of view and under the purview of the government.

Now, I am no proponent of the government telling me that their description of marriage is absolute law. Before you begin to think, he's ok with bestiality or polygamy!, I do say that there are certain limitations that should be collectively argued as irreconcilable with society and the general welfare of the people.

With the growing approval of same-sex marriages from the repeal of DADT and DOMA (United States v. Windsor), it seems inevitable. With the 6th Circuit of Appeals defending the state constitutional bans in contrast with the 9th, 10th, 4th, 7th, 11th, all either overturning and staying decision for appeal to the Supreme Court or overturning and not staying for appeal, it created a split decision for a full Supreme Court hearing.

With the legal stuff behind, I looked to other things affecting the concept of full marriage equality. Unfortunately, there not much basis for a differing opinion for escaping this issue, unless common law marriages, civil unions, or eliminating marriage from the law are in concert with your beliefs.

I once discussed this issue with an old friend, who unfortunately since passed away from horrible circumstances, and while it was a lively debate, I do not regret this debate.

As a New Age Conservative, there are realities that we must get behind, and marriage equality for all, save the outlawed portions that are as previously stated not good for society and its general welfare, is going to be one of them.

It is a reality because, as I have stated in other posts, the hyper-religious and extremist far-right, have become the anti-morality of our time. They embody the things that are wrong with my party. Marriage has and always be a spiritual component of life, regardless of religious affiliation. Before the creation of many of the monotheist religious, homosexuality was once a common practice, with much of the Ancient  World never mentioning it because it wasn't an important topic.

Many of my Republican friends will most likely excommunicate me and cry foul, but that doesn't matter anymore. We have larger battles to deal with than marriage--to which I firmly believe is something that should be extended to all peoples. And yes, this a complete 180 from my belief of a few years ago.

My beliefs are my own, they can change and can be altered, However, one notion that I cannot stand, is Democrats and Republicans saying that I am a traitor to my party or a person who is "idiotic and stupid" for being a Republican or even a New Age Conservative. 

MH17: A State Sponsored Terrorist Attack?

Just around noon today, Malaysian Flight 17 had lost contact with the towers. Moments later, all US news broke in to report that Interfax, a non-governmental news agency based in Russia claimed that Pro-Russian militants and rebels had shot down the flight in an attempt to attack a Ukrainian warplane or barge transporting items to the region.

What does this all mean for the world? With all the passengers and crew--totaling 295 humans, it means that there is a clear problem with the regional stability and the actual conflict that has been fought for months between Russia and Ukraine. The international community, to date, has done excessively little to help or aid in the problem. No UN peacekeepers or peace enforcers--two totally different things--have yet to be sent in. In essence, the world has not acknowledged that any such actions have existed. This is a world issue, with Russia--under the power of Putin, a longstanding KGB officer, it has become a kettle pot of intrigue and devastation as it attempts to rebuild its former bloc states to "protect" itself from the West. (Russia did this in response to the invasions from years past, including the French invasion under Napoleon)

As for America, this poses a unique and horrible outcome. Should this attack be linked to the Pro-Russian rebels and that they were armed with the weaponry built by and funded by the Kremlin, the first hand story of state-sponsored terrorism has been shown. This type of terrorism leads many to believe that through state sponsorship, many action may be carried out with the ability to say, "we had no idea they would do such a thing." Another problem is that reports of the manifest show that 23 Americans were on that flight to Malaysia. Compounded with the notions of terrorism as the Ukrainian Ministry of the Inteiror and Defense Ministry claim, this could pull the United States into a conflict with Russia.

Many will say that this is wrong, citing a casus belli to make or affirm public support for the use of force in the region is not warranted. When this action by the Russian government is far from being just a single reason for just cause.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly asked for international support for a war that has been in their own backyard. Their European allies have failed them, the US has failed them. The entire world has failed them.

We are at the brink of a regional war that will compound into two regional wars. With the failure of the US Department of Defense and the State Department to actually do something productive in Syria, to the near total loss of Iraq to a Al-Qaeda compatriot called ISIS, who is more radical and irrational than Al-Qaeda, and this global over reach by the Russian government, we cannot keep the peace.

Isolationist views, from the current Administration and from other Senators, would have us not worry, that this will be all fixed when we have no entanglements and no worries about the outside. That refocusing every last resource to doing nothing for the international community would be the best for the country is beyond reprehensible.

I am not saying we should entangle ourselves in the Russian conflict with Ukraine, but if it is a terrorist attack from Pro-Russian  rebels who had authorization from Putin, the deaths of those reported Americans will now be a determining factor.

This could also become a key issue in the November mid-term elections.

The 300 Military Advisors

We all know what happened to the 300 Spartan warriors who gave their life in a valiant, yet quasi-illegal move against the Spartan leaders, to defend their nation off from a massive invasion force of the grand Persian empire.

Today, we are sending just 300 men, military advisors to help a nation, Iraq, retrain and reaffirm that they are incompetent enough to win their own full scale civil war. In many ways, this is quite similar in nature to Darth Sidious/Chancellor Palpatine's massive plot to be the ruler of the galaxy. While we don't have massive naval space ships or laser cannons to demolish each other, it is imperative to note that we cannot do anything of real value to help them.

300 advisors cannot and will not do a damn thing to aid them, even if we agree to do targeted bombing from drone strikes--which was highly controversial when we started to drone strike. Secondly, what can we do?

Here are your options:

A) Nothing at all. This option seems like the most "popular" option because we are war weary and cannot move another muscle to do anything.

B) Avoid the possibility of intervention with standard issue placation of blame for anything that could go wrong. We are the most powerful at doing this option until it becomes so much that we just are blamed into action.

C) Send in "advisors" who will amount to the Spartan 300 and will achieve nothing and allow the government of Iraq fall, which "some allies have called for removal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki" as USA Today wrote in their piece. Is this viable for an Obama Admin? It's hard to say because we can only do so much before it become too late to do any real action that would prevent another all out war.

D) Follow the ancient Rumsfeld Doctrine and reinsert a proportional amount of troops that is relative to the mission with maximum technology and limited boots on the ground. This doctrine, which was primarily used to invade Iraq in the second conflict that precipitated the original invasion for the 2001 attacks created by the Al Qaeda network. Using this option would actually result in the same current crisis from ISIS and other insurgents 

E) The Powell Doctrine. This option is very powerful, because it expects that your objective is complete and total dominance over your mission, whether it be incursion into a territory or to occupy and control the entire country. While this is a Cold-War tactic and when we used "military v. military" tactics for a 1.5 war concept. Here, the Powell Doctrine could be used to reassert control and would be quick, it would be an investment of possibly a few years because the deployment of the current Iraqi troops would be reassimilated into the training process, the outcome is as unknown as it was when the Rumsfeld Doctrine was utilized, but it could be said that either way, the outcome could be the same. 

While these options aren't the most exhaustive list, and others would or could be an alternative option, these options are probably the most viable options that will be discussed in our current and future cycle of elections. 

The 2012 Election: What Is Going to Happen?

The 2012 election will probably be one of the most contentious elections to date, more so than the 2000 election in which it was decided by the Supreme Court. With two very polarizing candidates from both Party's, the election could split this nation--but this is far from reality at this time.

What needs to be understood is that, this election is based largely on the economic downturn of 2008 and the continual shrinking of the economy coupled with the rise of unemployment, stock market lagging, the Euro-Zone in jeopardy from Greece, and largely investments. The current President, while being able to pull out of the Iraq Conflict and seemingly moving towards reducing the Afghanistan Conflict, has had very few wins (the DADT repeal, and the controversial Affordable Health Care Act) which have only split the nation and caused his ratings during his first term to hover close to 50 percent. Normally, a first term president is capable of holding a higher--albeit a medium rating of 50 percent to 60 percent of approval. President Obama established a high dominance of popular support and ratings during his first year in office. As several colleagues and I discuss continually, if he had planned his objectives correctly, the outcome of this election may not be so contentious. (We'll save this for another day.) 

2010 Census Apportionment of US House of Reps. 

First, to understand this cycle of elections we must first look at the numbers. The Electoral College represents a system that--albeit controversial to many--is old fashioned and highly misunderstood. The Electoral Map is considered in two forms: the apportionment of Congressional seats and the allotment of two Senatorial seats. These two allotments create the total value of the Electoral College at being 535 votes allowed. In any election 270 is necessary to capture the election for a president. So, why am I bringing this up? Well, the 2010 Census brought us some unique changes, several key states have either gained or lost at least1 or 2 seats. The photo from TPM and the U.S. Census Bureau show the states mostly affected by the changes in population. One of the key points here is that Florida and Texas have gained the more electoral votes and thus more Representatives in Congress. New York and Pennsylvania have lost 2 seats in each state. This has unique impact of Democratic Party control of the New England States and how it may not translate into an automatic win for President Obama. The Obama team will need to move outside of the more traditional states and attempt to advance into Republican territory as it did in 2008 and failed to do in 2004. 

Yet, with the rising unpopularity among Independents and minorities that have been disenfranchised by the Democratic Party, Team Obama must reinvigorate its use of the youth vote just four years ago. Unfortunately, those same youth that catapulted him to the presidency may not be there. With the constant battles of political correctness and political infighting--now seen from the recent ads Team Obama has pushed against his confirmed frontrunner Team Romney. In the most recent polls, from RealClearPolitics, Team Obama has roughly 1 point lead, which leading up to the election means that the President has a much less change than he did almost a year ago in polling data. Team Romney, since his primary competitors have all backed out, has a clear road to the nomination and can now directly focus on the President and his record of controversial items. 

Second, we must look at the value of other factors, such as the entire elections on the entire congress.

"This means a disproportionately high number of Democrats seats are up for grabs in 2012. Including the two Independent Senators who caucus with the Democrats, the party has twenty-three seats to defend. In contrast, the GOP has only ten. This is significant for obvious reasons. Republicans have to defend less than half the seats of their opponents. Their opponents will have to allocate more time and resources than they would like. In addition, there is less opportunity for Democrats to take Republican seats as a hedge against possible losses (luckily for liberals, a few of the seats on the Republican side happen to be competitive- more on that later)."

A quote from an article by Kyle Romines, above, clearly depicts the problem for Democrats.Money is key and paramount to this electoral fight. The Democratic National Convention, in effect, will not only outspend Republicans, but must in essence fund itself in a highly competitive race. It could in the end, leave the DNC with a massive debt bill that it will need to fix before the midterm elections. In this scenario, Republicans would need to capture four seats, with keeping its ten, to seal a majority vote to unseat the Democratic controlled Senate from 2006. The Senate plays a much bigger role than some consider, especially with nominations for Supreme Court appointments, treaties, and other items that must be sent to the Senate for approval. In the Senate race, Democrats have a large possibility of losing those four seats needed to retain a majority--if the President wins reelection and maintains the tie-breaker vote of Vice-President Biden. If, of course, Romney wins the election, Republicans would only need three seats to retain majority as the Senate would be tied fifty votes to fifty in a party lineup.

Finally, let's consider the impact of the last four years for this election. President Obama had seemingly wooed the populous and somewhat can by his ability of speech. Yet, this does not always translate into votes. In all of what President Obama wanted to do, he has achieved two items: health care reform and pulling out of Iraq. While some would stipulate his push for LGBT rights, through the DADT repeal, it has done little to improve the overall goal of LGBT advocates--at least that is what some of my colleagues are stating independently. Therefore, it is not an achievement in the manner in the face of Affordable Health Care Act, etc. Obama may have been able to use minority politics as a cornerstone of his implementation, but beyond his vehement speeches and grandstanding, where are those policy initiatives? Not really anywhere beyond the minimal required. Would Republicans do the same? Yes, they have in the past to some constitutents and will most likely do it in the future. Moreover, what must be said is that this election is pivotal on two fronts: the decline of the populism of Obama and the increasingly dissatisfaction of any real policy changes.

Romney equally has a pivotal problem. Romney cast himself as the "moderate" among the other primary contenders, just as much as Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) claims. However, as many Republicans saw, through the primary season, that Romney was not clearly the choice--which could and probably will damage his chances among Republican voters in November. Romney--and equally McCain--are what some people call in the Republican Party a 'Liberal Republican.' These types tend to have more left-than-center views as an Moderate-Leaning Republican who identifies more so with the GOP on more than three policy issues, 'Liberal Republicans' tend to voice their alignment with the GOP in only one or two policy areas: usually foreign and economic policy. Romney, thus, has a deep uphill battle among Republican voters because their initial support was split between him and Rick Santorum, a more social and fiscal Republican. This split in votes will cost Romney a lot of support from the Republican base. This split of support coupled with his "flip-flop" policy decisions will definitely leave him attempting a balance act in the Convention to rally support and his decision of the Vice-President. Here, his Vice President could help him in his bid for the presidency.

In conclusion, the reality is simple. Each side has a deafening blow to both campaigns that will hinder their chances. Obama has an increasingly troubled approval rate in the midst of economic turbulence and erosion of some of his supporters from within Congress over his attacks on the free market policies. Romney has a plethora of problems that will largely be decided on his ability to pick a Vice Presidential candidate to calm those voters who nominally did not vote for him or refuse to vote for the 'Liberal Republican' facade. The predictions from polling data a clear in one aspect: this election will come down to the votes of the few. The 2012 election is not at this point decidable, and because of that we call it a toss-up in the Presidential election.Any one of them can win, they are equally on the same ground politically and realistically.

GOP Resurgence: Congress and the Presidency

Voices are a rumbling, especially in the Democrat sector of the spectrum. The recent data, which is fascinating to the more Conservative views and philosophers, is telling--more telling than before. The polling data has it showing a possible trend not just a year before the national election cycle for president, the House of Reps, and one-third of the Senate. So what are the data you say?

In the recent polling from all major research centers, the Republican party/candidate on the national level have pushed ahead favorably among the American voters who in 2006 and 2008, but not 2010, ousted a 16 year Republican dominance by near cataclysmic proportions. In a RCP poll, the Republicans have a very small lead on Democrats (+0.3%), Quinnipiac has them tied, and Rassmussen has Republican's at a 6-point lead. The trend, right, is a showing of the each party's favorability from Februrary 14 to October 12 of this year.

Is this strictly indicative of the rising ability of the Republican party to capture the Congressional seats enough to oust the Democrats from power? Not completely, while we are still so far from the election, it is possible that the Republican party can screw up and allow the Democrats to recapture their command in likability among voters. However, with the failings of the Stimulus packages, the controversial and problematic Affordable Health Care Act, the continuing rise in unemployment, the stock market erratic behavior, and the European bailout program for Greece is playing an insurmountable problem for the Democrats who command the Upper Chamber of Congress. With each passing moment that the Democrats (and Republicans) fail to address the problems of sever budget deficits and revenue shortfalls, the party has weakened its power and stance. In an article by Sean Trende from RealClear Politics, he rightfully posits that Republicans have the distinct upper hand in possible control of the Senate. With his analysis on the seat-by-seat, it is clear that the Democratic Party has an uphill battle that they may not win, no matter how much they attempt to corral their bases among the African-American voting populace--which did favor them in 2008. Yet, their lack-luster and failings to complete their dominance in early 2009 have weakened their buying power among their own. Seemingly so in the Presidency.

Barack Obama has a low approval rating, consistent with Bush-43's polling during the later years of his second term. With the approval ratings depressing so much after just three years, it is a wonder how the Democratic Party will function in the election cycle. A colleague of mine once suggested that the DNC would push, in essence, President Obama out of reelection and put the Clinton machine back in office. This would have drastic repercussions for the Republican party who could not deal a blow (oh so figuratively and literally) hard enough to challenge the Clinton Machine. In this respects, the Presidency would firmly rest back into the Democrats hands and possibly rectify any problems that would have been caused by the Obama Administration. If it were a choice, my choice would be to risk the Republican control of the Presidency for a far more competent Hillary Clinton. While she has Republican tendencies, she does have command of the Democrat base and would garner a large support from Republican social liberals. For what it's worth, Sec. Clinton will have to wait another round of elections to run for office, which she will most likely get if she does decide to run. With that, President Obama has a long and curvy road to traverse and will take almost all of his appeal, which is waning, to capture enough votes to defeat and not take this to the House of Reps for a deciding vote for the Presidency.