Where’s Ross Perot When We Need Him?

What happened this past Tuesday night might cause a massive shift in the political landscape over the next five years. It could also be the catalyst for something that is much needed in American Politics today. But it’s not what you think.

You will hear in the coming days and weeks that the Republican victories were a vote against Obama. That this was a referendum against a far left agenda. That the Republican Party is back with a vengeance, and the Democrats have much to fear in terms of next years congressional elections, as they ponder how to vote on a sweeping program inclusive of government run Healthcare.

For the Democratic side, you will hear spin and back peddling. You will be confused as to why if you logged onto CNN.com yesterday AM, you only saw a single line about the elections on the front page. But you saw a lead article explaining why “the change we need” is taking so long.

And this is all true. But there is a greater truth, a greater opportunity.

Last night while watching election coverage on FOX, I saw that FOX convened a voter focus group in Virginia. Granted, most of the folks who are going to show up are probably conservatives, but there seemed to be a good mix of Democrats and Independents as well judging from the dialogue.

The commentator asked a really interesting question, I will paraphrase because I don’t recall his exact words. “Who is just angry at our government?” Three fourths of the hands in the room shot up as if they had just been offered free money to whoever raised their hand first.

Then the commentator asked, “Of those who are angry, who voted for Bob McDonnell?”. Every single person who claimed to be angry – voted for the Republican McDonnell.

The anger in America has shifted. The anger and protest that elected a Democratic President, has moved in favor of the Republicans. A protest vote against government is now a Republican vote.

Now let’s do the heavy lifting and thinking. Is this really a swing to the Republican Party?

No its not. It is however validation that government, as it currently exists, is not working for the American people. It is a referendum in favor of a third party, and against both parties. If the anger can shift so fundamentally, in 12 months, against an incredibly likeable President, then it means far more than a shift in political party momentum. It means its time for a viable third choice.

Let Election Day 2009 be the day the Americans collectively said “We’re mad as Hell, and we are not going to take it anymore”

We need change, and not the change that either party can provide.

What do you think?

Guest Blogger – Jeff Hine

Obama Gets Nobel Peace Prize, Glenn Gets the Evil Eye

President Barack Obama

At 6:15am this morning, I walked into my exercise class and three women were talking. One said,

Did you hear Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?

I said,

Well that’s impressive… what did he win it for?

The look on their faces was like I had just hit a puppy with a bat. Is it just me or isn’t there usually an accomplishment associated with the Nobel Prize? So, I did some research.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said,

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

Okay, I get it, the committee is in love with the idea of Obama versus and tangable accomplishments. Setting a tone is great and necessary, but its strikes me that the end goal of peace should be the bar. Then again, I am not on the selection committee. As for me, I am happy for President Obama. He is certainly gaining worldwide recognition and it can’t hurt us on the international front for having a sitting president having this credential early on in his term. So to President Obama, I say Bravo. Oh, and can we get some resolution to the healthcare problem? Thanks.

To the Norwegian Nobel Committee, I say… what are you thinking? I get that peace is not medicine or physics where you can point to a tangible discovery or breakthrough. However, your award now seems to be more of a political statement rather than one that is predicated on accomplishment.

Past Nobel Prize Winners:

• 2009 – Barack Obama
• 2008 – Martti Ahtisaari
• 2007 – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore
• 2006 – Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
• 2005 – International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
• 2004 – Wangari Maathai
• 2003 – Shirin Ebadi
• 2002 – Jimmy Carter
• 2001 – United Nations, Kofi Annan
• 2000 – Kim Dae-jung
• 1999 – Médecins Sans Frontières
• 1998 – John Hume, David Trimble
• 1997 – International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams
• 1996 – Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta
• 1995 – Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
• 1994 – Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
• 1993 – Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk
• 1992 – Rigoberta Menchú Tum
• 1991 – Aung San Suu Kyi
• 1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev
• 1989 – The 14th Dalai Lama
• 1988 – United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
• 1987 – Oscar Arias Sánchez
• 1986 – Elie Wiesel
• 1985 – International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
• 1984 – Desmond Tutu
• 1983 – Lech Walesa
• 1982 – Alva Myrdal, Alfonso García Robles
• 1981 – Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• 1980 – Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
• 1979 – Mother Teresa
• 1978 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin
• 1977 – Amnesty International
• 1976 – Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan
• 1975 – Andrei Sakharov
• 1974 – Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato
• 1973 – Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
• 1972 – The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund
• 1971 – Willy Brandt
• 1970 – Norman Borlaug
• 1969 – International Labour Organization
• 1968 – René Cassin
• 1967 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
• 1966 – The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
• 1965 – United Nations Children’s Fund
• 1964 – Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1963 – International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies
• 1962 – Linus Pauling
• 1961 – Dag Hammarskjöld
• 1960 – Albert Lutuli
• 1959 – Philip Noel-Baker
• 1958 – Georges Pire
• 1957 – Lester Bowles Pearson
• 1956 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
• 1955 – The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
• 1954 – Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• 1953 – George C. Marshall
• 1952 – Albert Schweitzer
• 1951 – Léon Jouhaux
• 1950 – Ralph Bunche
• 1949 – Lord Boyd Orr
• 1948 – The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
• 1947 – Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee
• 1946 – Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott
• 1945 – Cordell Hull
• 1944 – International Committee of the Red Cross

Episode 50 – Obama Health Care Speech to Congress: Reality Check

Glenn and Jeff react almost immediately to President Obama’s speech to Congress, putting the speech in context, reminding listeners what they should watch from the President and Congress over the next week, and explaining the politics and policy ramifications of the speech.  They offer praise for the broad objectives met through the speech, dive deep into a discussion on the proposed health care exchanges and the effect on small business. Jeff reacts strongly to Congressman Wilson’s outrageous outburst during the President’s discussion on immigrants and Glenn takes heed of President Obama’s closing words and offers his strong views on the need for more reasoned and rational debate of issues. Always entertaining and informative, it’s PoliTalk — your weekly political podcast.

Join us in Boston on November 10, 2009! Register now for Early-Bird Special Pricing, visit http://nationaldebateseries.com

Listen to the current installment of PoliTalk and get yourself informed, inspired, entertained and ready for the day… spread the word… tell two friends, and so on and so on…

You can get the PoliTalk Podcast from  iTunes and Zune

The National Debt Road Trip

How does the Obama deficit compare with past presidents? And how did the national debt get so big anyway. This video tries to answer those questions by looking at the debt as a road trip and seeing how fast different administrations have been traveling… Be concerned… Be very concerned.

Health Care Reform: 2 Questions that MUST be answered

Health care reform is a joke unless it seriously answers the following 2 questions: 1) when someone suffers a serious illness, should someone profit financially, and if so, who and why? 2) Many, including Richard Scott, a multi-millionaire former mergers and acquisitions lawyer turned for-profit health care executive, attack any government involvement in health care as being overly bureaucratic. My question to them: how could the system they currently support, which made them millionaires by the way, which routinely denied my wife care she needed that I had to fight for, be more cumbersome, more bureaucratic, more byzantine, more complex and more confusing? Lets have a serious policy debate. But we can’t do that until we really expose what’s driving health care policy in Washington: and that’s the money and powered interests on all sides — liberal, conservative and everywhere in between. I’ve lots four people in my family to cancer, and the saddest thing is that I’m not alone in my struggles — there are too many people like me out there. As the debate rages on, nameless, faceless, voiceless people lay sick and dying — squeezed for profits, churned through heartless insurance bureaucracies. It’s enough to make you sick. — Jeff

Obama Superbowl Day Interview

Part 1

Part 2

President Obama speaks with Matt Lauer on NBC prior to Superbowl XLIII.

Episode 21 – Obama’s First 100, Bush’s Last One

What would you like to see President Obama do during his first 100 days in office? That is, if the inauguration will ever actually gets here (it seems like the lead up to this one will last forever).  Will you remember President Bush as a “single threaded” President, as Glenn  offers, or just a “total waste,” according to Jeff? If you had $600 million dollars, how would you spend it? Would you give it to something like cancer research or disabled veterans, or would you  spend it on notifying people about the switch to High Definition  television? We offer up our own unique PoliTalk solution to this problem. Is the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas politically motivated? Is the cease-fire between the conservative columnists and Barack Obama politically motivated? Listen to Episode 21 to get the answer to these questions, and our reviews of The Wrestler and Defiance — two must see movies. PoliTalk — where politics, policy and good conversation meet.

Listen to the current installment of PoliTalk and get yourself informed, inspired, entertained and ready for the day… spread the word… tell two friends, and so on and so on…

You can get the PoliTalk Podcast from Podcast.com and iTunes.

Harry Reid Blinks

CC - User icki on Flickr.com

Senate Democrats after just one day are reversing themselves. According to the AP, Senate Democrats are planning to seat Roland Burris in the Senate, when only yesterday they rejected his credentials and blocked his entrance to the chamber. This was predicted by Jeff in last Monday’s episode of PoliTalk – The Weekly Political Podcast. Listen in to PoliTalk to know things BEFORE they happen.

Roland Burris Turned Away From Senate

Photo by AP

According to Politico.com:

Roland Burris – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace Barack Obama in the Senate –was turned away from the chamber this morning after presenting credentials the secretary of the Senate deemed incomplete.

Episode 20 – Starting the New Year with a Bang

Most people ease into the new year. At PoliTalk, we jump right into it. From the legality and ethics of the Burris Senate appointment, to the wisdom of the Richardson and Panetta nods to the morality of war in Gaza, there isn’t an issue that Glenn and Jeff aren’t afraid to tackle. But unlike the screaming theater that is pretty much every other political talk show, Glenn and Jeff offer up their brand of talk in a genuine, irreverent even humble manner. Rather than the next breed of political talk show, they’re more like the “Car Talk” of Politics.  Tune in and then spread the word. Welcome to the next generation of political talk: PoliTalk.

Listen to the current installment of PoliTalk and get yourself informed, inspired, entertained and ready for the day… spread the word… tell two friends, and so on and so on…

You can get the PoliTalk Podcast from Podcast.com and iTunes.