MA Governor Makes Surprise Senate Appointment



MA Governor Deval Patrick

It's been musical chairs on Capital Hill lately. Ultra-conservative Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) to take over at the Heritage Foundation. Republican Governor Nikki Haley appointed freshman Tea Party Congressman Tim Scott to take the Senate Vacancy.

 Hillary Clinton is packing her bags and leaving her post as Secretary of State. The Senate overwhelming approved the appointment of John Kerry. Yesterday, MA Governor Deval Patrick appointed William "Mo" Cowan, his former Chief Legal Counsel and Chief of Staff to fill Kerry's vacancy until the June 25th state wide election to determine a permanent replacement.

What's really interesting about these changes is the fact that they result in two African Americans serving in the U. S. Senate at the same time...a historical first. Here's a quick primer on African Americans serving in the Senate:

Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to serve in the Senate.

Blanche Kelso Bruce was the first African American to serve a full six-year term as senator and the only senator to be a former slave.^[3]

Edward William Brooke, III was the first African American to be popularly elected, the first to be re-elected, and the first to be elected outside of the southern states.

Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun was the first female African American to serve in the Senate.

Barack Hussein Obama, II was the fifth African American to serve as a senator.^[1] He resigned from his office to become the first African American President of the United States.

Roland Wallace Burris was the first African American to be appointed and the first to succeed another African American. He was appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich to succeed Barack Obama.



SC Senator Tim Scott

  

Timothy Eugene "Tim" Scott was both the first African American and the first to be affiliated with the Republican Party to represent a southern state since the end of the Reconstruction Era. He was appointed by Governor Nikki Haley to succeed Jim DeMint.

      

 

William "Mo" Cowan will be the first black senator appointed by an African-American governor, Deval Patrick. The appointment of Cowan will also mark the first time that two African-Americans have served concurrently in the senate, as Cowan will serve alongside Tim Scott.

This information should allow you to be well prepared when these questions surface in next months' tests.

U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice Under Attack

A group of 97 House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Monday, saying that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice misled the nation about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, making her unfit to be a candidate to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The letter, organized by South Carolina freshman Jeff Duncan, said Rice's "misleading statements" about the attack that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans "caused irreparable damage to her credibility both at home and around the world."

It was the latest GOP effort to single out Rice for the mixed signals sent out by the administration in the immediate aftermath of the September attack in Benghazi. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have led criticism in the Senate, saying Rice is unqualified and untrustworthy and promising to block her nomination if Obama picks her to take over the State Department after Clinton steps down.

Election 2012-Did Education Matter?

Election 2012 has finally been completed. The final tally of electoral votes marked 332 for President Barack Obama and 206 for Governor Mitt Romney.  The media is having a field day and analysts are examining the data in every possible way.  I stumbled upon some information from the U. S. Census Bureau-American Community Survey. It collected information on  the best and worst educated states measuring the per cent of residents over 25 with college degrees and matched the winner of the states' electoral votes.  Here's how the states voted:

Best Educated States: Voted for President Obama

Massachusetts (39.1)
Maryland (36.9)
Colorado (36.7)
Connecticut (36.2)
Vermont (35.4)
New Jersey (35.3)
Virginia (35.1)
New Hampshire (33.4)
New York (32.9)
Minnesota (32.4)


Worst Educated States: Voted for Gov. Mitt Romney (except Nevada)

West Virginia (18.5)
Mississippi (19.8)
Arkansas (20.3)
Kentucky (21.1)
Louisiana (21.1)
Alabama (22.3)
Nevada (22.5)
Indiana (23.0)
Tennessee (23.6)
Oklahoma (23.8)


Got any thoughts on this data?

Memory Lane: Obama's First Four Years

Well, Election 2012 is history and Republicans are still scratching their heads figuring out "how Romney lost". I'd rather focus on President Obama's hard won, meticulously planned and executed victory. He put his faith in a diverse coalition of African Americans, Latinos, young people, women and white folks. He maintained a superior ground game that found likely voters, persuaded them to his side and turned out the vote, despite voter suppression efforts. The President asked for four more years so that he could finish the job he started. Many folks do not know or may not remember what Barack Obama accomplished during the first four years. The list is long, impressive and well worth a second look.

New York Times and Washington Post Endorse President Obama

The New York Times editorial board endorsed President Barack Obama for president this weekend.
The venerable newspaper applauded the president’s role in rescuing the U.S. economy and passing health care reform while slamming Republican Mitt Romney for linking up with ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas.”
The editorial added that Romney “has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear.”
The newspaper endorsed Obama in 2008.

The Washington Post endorsement said:
We come to that judgment with eyes open to the disappointments of Mr. Obama’s time in office. He did not end, as he promised he would, “our chronic avoidance of tough decisions” on fiscal matters. But Mr. Obama is committed to the only approach that can succeed: a balance of entitlement reform and revenue increases. Mr. Romney, by contrast, has embraced his party’s reality-defying ideology that taxes can always go down but may never go up. Along that road lies a future in which interest payments crowd out everything else a government should do, from defending the nation to caring for its poor and sick to investing in its children. Mr. Romney’s future also is one in which an ever-greater share of the nation’s wealth resides with the nation’s wealthy, at a time when inequality already is growing.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term Thursday.
"You know, I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012, and I'll be voting for he and Vice President Joe Biden next month," he said on CBS' "This Morning."
Powell praised the president's handling of the economy and ending of the Iraq War.
"I think we ought to keep on the track we are on," he said.
Powell said he had the "utmost respect" for Mitt Romney, but criticized his tax plan.
He said Romney's foreign policy was a "moving target." "One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Gov. Romney agreed with the president with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign."
Powell, a Republican who served in President George W. Bush's first term, backed Obama in 2008. He was frequently mentioned as a potential Republican challenger against Bill Clinton in 1996, but decided against it.

"There's only one way to succeed
in anything and that is
to give everything."
- Vince Lombardi

Armstrong Cable To Air Anti-Obama Film for Free

The Republicans continue to use every underhanded means at their disposal to garner votes for Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney. They seem to think that they can buy the election with their money and positions of power. In addition to the scandalous voter suppression efforts of Republican legislators, Romney supporters are telling their employees how to vote and threatening them to make campaign donations to their candidate.  No lie is to audacious for the candidate and his minions to tell and re-writing his past positions on issues occurs on a daily basis. Here's the latest effort to influence voters in swing states as reported in the Grio:

Christian Churches and Election 2012

Our country has distinct rules on the separation of Church and State, but to a large degree these rules seem to be clearly disregarded in some cases and grossly misunderstood in others.