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Neal Jones

Obama: Welcome Back Carter?

Politics Comments Off
Jun 162010

President Obama’s Oval Office Address to the nation on Tuesday evening was a lot of talk about the problem, but no real solution. For the first two thirds of the speech, when he talked about the clean up, he seemed distant and may have contradicted himself. When he talked about clean energy being the future it seemed like it was the same old big dreams song I had heard before. Obama, like former President Jimmy Carter, is big on dreams and long term goals, but weak on immediate solutions.

Calling together panels of experts to solve the problem of the spill is all well and good, but 8 weeks later still not having a solution is unacceptable. The American people expect results, not committee meetings to further discuss possible strategies for reducing the leak. If another 8 weeks go by without that leak being shut down, then Obama’s numbers may never recover.

Saying BP will pay is nice, but making them pay long term is a much more complicated matter. An escrow account is a good start, but is 20 billion enough? Do we even have a clue yet of the final cost? What happens when BP decides enough is enough?

Using this disaster to push for alternative energy would be nice, but he talked about wind energy and other alternatives none of which really deal with what we use oil for. Oil is mainly for cars, Mr. President. What are we going to run them on? Not the hybrids or the smart cars, but all the cars that belong to people too broke from the recession to afford the new vehicles even if they were readily available.

A Gulf Coast Restoration Plan is nice, but again this is a long term goal not a short term solution. The reaction coming from those who make their living from the Gulf is that we do not need plans, but solutions. Counting days no longer matter when the root of the problem has still not been solved.

Carter faced a different oil crisis, but his lack of leadership and solutions in that time is being mirrored in this time by the current administration. We need solutions, not dreams. We need prompt results, not long term planning. We need leadership that we can get behind now, not hope that change will come some time. We were promised change, but not from bad to worse.

Posted by Neal Jones at 10:58 am Tagged with: , , , ,

It's Not Easy Being Greene

Politics Comments Off
Jun 152010

It is not easy being Alvin Greene, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from South Carolina. There are numerous questions, controversies, and even conspiracy theories surrounding his unlikely win in the primary last week. The media and politicians from both sides have questioned everything from his moral character to his mental capacity to run a campaign. Even with his win in the primary, he seems like the loser in this political game.

Greene is unemployed. He was kicked out of the military after 13 years last August because “things just weren’t working”. He lives in his father’s home, with no cell phone and no computer. None of this shouts political ambition.

Greene is facing felony obscenity charges. He was caught on video showing allegedly obscene photos from a website to a female victim at the University of South Carolina. These charges were filed before he through his hat into the political arena. He is being represented by a public defender because he claimed to be unable to afford his own attorney.

Greene funded his “campaign” himself. According to reports he originally tried to pay the $10,400 needed to get his name on the ballot with a personal check. He returned a few hours later with a check from his campaign account. Questions have been raised on where he got the money from, but he is adamant that it was his own money.

Greene is not the most eloquent speaker. His way of speaking has lead both interviewers and members of his own party to question his mental health. One democratic representative who spoke with Greene said that if he were his client he would ask for a mental evaluation. Something just seems off about his reactions to this entire situation.

Greene has almost no campaign support. No campaign staff. No office. No advertisements of any kind. He does not even have a website. Of course he would need to buy a computer to look at it anyway.

Greene has no party support. Leadership of the Democratic party have asked him to step down. They are not supporting him at all, but some are going so far as accusing him of being a Republican plant. Even if he was a plant that still does not explain how he got the votes. The scale of the conspiracy required to get him on the ballot and then get him the votes needed to win is unrealistically epic in scope.

The late Andy Warhol once said that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Mr. Greene your clock is running. I hope you survive the experience. It is not going to get any easier to be you any time soon.

Posted by Neal Jones at 10:44 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Who Are You Representative Etheridge?

Politics Comments Off
Jun 142010

“Who are you? Who are you?” No this is not the start of a CSI episode, or a Who concert, but the mantra repeated over and over again by Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC) in the course of his assault on a “student” who asked him nothing more than “Do you fully support the Obama agenda?” he says “Who are you?” or “Tell me who you are?” over 10 times in the course of the 1 minute 11 second video version I saw. In fact he does not say much else.

His actions spoke louder than his words. He acted like a fed up celebrity confronting a paparazzi, but he is not. He is an elected official, a public servant, and nothing justifies his grabbing the individual questioning him by the arm, knocking the camera out of his hand, or grabbing him by the neck. He acted like he had been threatened, insulted, or generally accosted. He was not. The individual addressed him respectfully and asked him a simple question. It was not personal, controversial, or even rude.

Questions have been raised over whether the individual is indeed a student as he portrayed himself, but this is really irrelevant. It serves as an attempt to spin it so that if the individual was being deceptive then Etheridge’s actions were somehow justified. No matter who the individual was the representative’s reaction was violent, excessive, and likely criminal. Nobody has the right to assault someone else no matter what the spin.

Whether DC authorities will have the nerve to take it as far as criminal prosecution remains to be seen, but I would doubt that they do. If this action were taken by a tea party attender or any other common citizen, I bet their treatment would be much different if also caught on video. Rank, as they say, has its privilege but some ranks come with responsibility and rules of behavior.

I would ask the representative who he was. Is he above the law? Is he setting a good example? Is he upholding the standard of his office? No, no and most definitely no.

Posted by Neal Jones at 6:46 pm Tagged with:
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