I am glad to hear that President is taking recess time of his own, away from the interruptions of usual family affairs and politics. I wish him to recharge himself with passion, vigor and energy during this vacation to emerge with the clear view of priorities of political and 2010/2012 election issues and what is most important for this country and him.

I sincerely wish to see him succeed in his mission. As an extremely meager christian who barely follows the basic christian rules but trust myself as a right-minded human being and my pure intention for him and this country, I sincerely believe that there is a reason why God appointed him as a Head of this country at this point of time. I wish him to achieve, accomplish the purposes of his existence, his mission that God assigned to him.

And I applaud his handling of following: “….but shortly after the president arrived, he announced a series of recess appointments. He filled four diplomatic and agency jobs under a temporary authority he gains while Congress is on recess, and he blamed Republicans for forcing him to bypass the normal confirmation process.”

Will Hispanic backlash against Arizona’s anti-immigration law outshadow the Senate's failure of passing the job bill in favor of Democrats in November election?

It appears that there will be an interesting reversal of political luck for the Democratic Party regarding the upcoming November election. The traditional wisidom or earlier prediction was, the political party that is associated with President (in this case the Democratic Party) usually loses in the mid-term elections. Despite the progresses in health care and financial sector reforms, still bad US economy and job situations, unexpected BP oil spill and some criticism on President’s seemingly not-so-fast-reaction to the spill, and recent failure in the passage of Democratic Job Bill in the Senate floor that is designed to extend unemployment benefits are going to contribute to the not-so-rosy election scenario.

Recent news, however, reveals that the implementation of Arizona anti-Immigration Law, which was reportedly designed as a Republican's short-term political pleaser to the tea-party and anti-immigrant supporters, has infuriated Hispanic voters, causing Hispanic Backlash that is ripping Hispanic votes of Republican politicians such as Texas Governor Rick Perry and Colorado Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton in favor of their Democrat opponents.

Why is everything happening all together? The almost-collapse of car industry, the meltdown of housing and financial markets, health care and financial reforms, BP oil spill and the aftermath, all of which has directed public attention to the appalling role of lobbyists and interest politics on US politics and economy. Are these some kind of prophecy telling the public that this is the time for America to wake up and do a comprehensive overhaul of her whole structure if she wants to safely navigate and survive in modern times? “

Recently, a renowned actor, Robert Redford, produced a video, “The Fix: Robert Redford Reflects on the Gulf Oil Disaster,” and stated on Big Oil in his Huff Post blog post as below.

“As I try to convey in my new video, 'The Fix,' I am appalled by what this spill is doing to Gulf fishermen, families, communities and wildlife. But I am also disgusted by what it reveals about the oil industry’s role in American political life … With their deep pockets, oil companies have purchased loose safety regulations, slack oversight and support from key lawmakers. Last year alone, the industry spent a $168 million on lobbying — $16 million of which came from BP. The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon is a symptom of this undue influence.”

The Earth has undergone several mass extinctions of living species since its creation. I remember an old article of Time magazine asserting that, since the beginning of human civilization, “Climate Change” is the most dire crisis of human existence, more dangerous than any wars that human has fought, any natural disasters that human has encountered, or any epidemics that killed many of us throughout history.

Since the late 2008, we have undergone the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s: crisis with health care system and the meltdowns of housing market and financial sector. These are tragic social, political problems that we have encountered cyclically but can be solved depending on what kind of politicians voters chose to put in power. But none of these problems are as fundamental as the current challenge posed by “the Crisis of Climate Change.”

Sadly, poor people always seem to be the targets of natural or man-made disasters or any kind of misfortunes. For example, recent political history showed that health care crisis, housing market meltdown, recession and unemployment hit the less privileged, poor people hardest while the rich always seem to find ways to avoid any kind misfortunes. Even “Global Warming” is expected to hit the poorest people in poor or developing countries or those in the United States of America instead of rich people, rich countries.

Professor Robert Reigh says that recent BP’s oil spill, Massey’s mine disaster, and Goldman’s alleged fraud, all are the outcomes of government deregulation of businesses and few or low penalties for business misconduct over the last three decades. He states:

“When shareholders demand the highest returns possible and executive pay is linked to stock performance, many companies will do whatever necessary to squeeze out added profits. And that will spell disaster – giant oil spills, terrible coal-mine disasters, and Wall Street meltdowns — unless the nation has tough regulations backed up by significant penalties….After thirty years of deregulation, it’s time for the rebirth of regulation: Not heavy-handed and unnecessarily costly regulation, but regulation that’s up to the task of protecting the public from companies and executives that will do almost anything to make a buck.”

I am in favor of the “Party of Country.” Whatever good for the country, I am in favor.

It’s good to hear that, despite all those political chaos of the first year of Mr. Obama’s presidency, the majority of democrats stick with President, but sad to hear that the majority of republicans are against him and the republican policy is to oppose to whatever the administration proposes, taking it as the party’s “Fast Track to Get Back to Power.” According to the latest Gallup poll, “Obama has averaged a job approval rating of 88 percent among Democrats and just 23 percent among Republicans,” suggesting that American politics shows the deepest polarization ever through history. If republican’s “Opposition for the sake of Opposition” political strategy is good for the country, it would be OK. But if this kind of political strategy is destructive for the country, it would be traitorous.

How savvy senior House Democrats are? Today’s news is, senior House Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are asking to revoke the health insurance industry’s exemption from the federal antitrust laws in the House-senate compromise bill. House Democrats also demand to include a “Nationwide Insurance Exchange” in the final bill, which is regulated by the federal government and enables consumers to shop for private coverage.

The combination of these measures in the final bill will definitely introduce competition in health insurance market and alleviate this country and consumers' pain from the industry's oligopoly (competition among a few big companies) or monopoly (market domination by one big company without competition) market structure that has killed competition and driven this country's health care costs and insurance premiums to unprecedented, unaffordable levels. However, the effectiveness of having these measures in reducing health care costs and insurance premium will be probably less than the one that can be achieved by “Public Plan.” Because, under public plan, the government can set the market standards that can drive health care costs and premiums to the lowest levels and make insurance companies offer similar insurance options to the public in order to survive competition from public plan and maintain consumer base for their business.

Regarding current “ job situation” or high unemployment rate, I don’t believe that there is any magic bullet to quickly solve it. In many senses, job recovery can be pretty much independent from how much the public outcries for the administration’s mistakes or incompetence in solving this problem.

Current bad job situation is the outcome of this country’s industrial and political structural misfits and the crash of bubble economy after being buoyed by the financial sector’s reckless gambling. In this country, everybody cares only for themselves and demand that the rest of country, people should sacrifice for their benefits. There seems to be no common goals, collective wisdom, or cooperation among individuals or different entities. The financial industry, health care industry, labor union, and many social sectors have been out of sync, manipulating government policies and social structure in their favor, demanding to protect and maximize only their rights, benefits, and profits without considering, accepting the reality, often at the huge sacrifices of the rest of the economy and industrial competitiveness. The current recession and job losses are just the simple outcome, side effect of this social, structural failure of this country and an event that happened to accelerate the gradual process of winding down this economy within a short time.

I read a blog post which basically criticizes President Obama in a simplest way. Oh, zeeeeee, that kind of simplistic approach, criticism (I have to tell you) makes me feel really itch all around. So, I ended up disputing that person’s criticism. The link to this person’s blog is here.

My dispute is as below.

You sound too much like “black” and “white”, “apples” and “bananas.” You don’t seem to grasp the complexity of problems the current administration has been facing. To me, this kind of lack of understanding by public has been one of major social problems that this country has suffered through. There have been many players that have done push-pull games of politics to paint current political climate: special interests, not completely reliable media, relatively uninformed/inconsistent pubic, and the administration/congress. Up to now, the dominant player over the last decades has been industrial special interests that have controlled media, public, and the government in their favor via various methods of financial resources and media manipulation. You just criticize why the administration is not functioning well while completely ignoring other players’ roles on this picture. It doesn’t sound fair to me. More of these perspectives can be found in my previous blog posts as below.

I would like to introduce a comment from Huffington Post that seems to summarize this country's political environment pretty well. A commentator, jeanrenoire, made this comment in response to Dr. Robert Reich’s blog, What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010. Although the language is too rough for my ears, his/her comment contains some truth regarding the core problems of this country, which have driven this country into wrong, self-destructive direction and led to current recession and historical unemployment. The comment is as below...