Pardon My Politics

With the 2008 Democratic Pennsylvania primary looming, how will working-class of Bethlehem, PA vote?

With less than a week to go before the Pennsylvania primary, the Democratic presidential candidates used a debate on Wednesday night to make their cases with the voters across the state.

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As story after story is written about the race issue, Geraldine Ferraro and Rev. Wright, I have held still to see where we would go with it. It didn’t take long to flush out the bigots and rRacists from both sides of the fence. As much as we don’t want it to be, this election will come down to race. Hillary Clinton will not go down without a fight. Neither will John McCain. The Good Ole Boy System is a long way from being dead. The reality is, racism is thriving in this country today. It ain’t just white people either. It is all races. The difference between the two is one is considered the long-time aggressor, and the other is a long-time victim. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the debate about the government “doing something” to help homeowners in foreclosure has focused on what it should do. What kind of program should be passed, what the role of the FHA should be, how the Fed can manipulate interest rates lower, and so on. But none of these arguments gets to the heart of the matter, which is what authority the federal government is acting under to help people save their homes.

In fact, the question should be, does the federal government even have any authority to help homeowners stop foreclosure? The answer is absolutely not. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly two months after historic elections led to the first peaceful democratic transfer of power in Pakistan’s 60-year history, a window of opportunity exists to stabilize the country. The challenges are immense and interrelated, and the dynamic situation in Pakistan requires immediate attention. The United States needs to work with Pakistan’s leaders and other countries to help them take advantage of this opening to achieve progress on security, political and economic fronts.

Major questions loom unanswered after the election: Will President Pervez Musharraf stay in office for a full term? Will judicial independence be achieved? Will the relative calm in the security situation that has existed since the February national elections hold? And perhaps the question that most directly impacts the lives of Read the rest of this entry »