Governor Kathleen Sebelius will be a fine secretary of Health and Human Services, but President Obama needs to also utilize Governor Howard Dean, who revitalized the Democratic Party and helped Obama get elected. Why not put Dean in the White House as the Health Care czar that Tom Daschle was once to be (double duty was planned.)
Running HHS is enough to keep Sebelius super busy. It will keep her plate overfilled. Let medical doctor Howard Dean campaign for health care reform.
The administration faces a daunting goal: to get healthcare reform passed by year's end. Like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Obama is taking on healthcare at a time when Democrats enjoy majorities in both the House and Senate. However, we all know how that story ended. For this reason, Obama is looking for someone who not only understands the labyrinthine world of healthcare, but commands respect on Capitol Hill.
President Obama -- use that great brain of yours and see the wisdom in using Howard Dean, himself a doctor who has delivered on healthcare reform. As Governor of Vermont, Dean expanded healthcare coverage for children and pregnant women. When he left office, only 9.6 percent of Vermont residents were uninsured (in contrast, about 15 percent of all Americans are uninsured). Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal just listed Dean as one of the main contenders for HHS.
We hear that, as DNC Chair, Dean butted heads with future Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other Beltway insiders. Why? They bitterly opposed Dean's 50-state strategy -- the farsighted blueprint that enabled the Democrats to retake the House and Senate in 2006, as well as made Obama's landslide victory possible. Well, what about the big tent of Obama? Is the tail (Emmanuel) wagging the lion (Obama)? If President Obama can reach out to Republicans, why not also reach out to Democrats who see things differently? Especially one that played a key role in your election. Dean was right by the way, and Emmanuel was wrong.
It is sad that some of the great Democrats who carried water for Obama, like Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, have been overlooked by the Emmanuel-driven White House. Where is the gratitude? Are you really utilizing the best the Democratic Party has to offer?
Howard Dean is exactly what Obama needs to get health care reform passed: a policy expert and populist who knows how to get things done.
Health care reform cannot wait. Please call the White House (202.456.1414) and ask President Obama to give Howard Dean the job of championing health care reform. Sebelius will need all the help she can get.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Republicans Have a Memory Problem -- They are Stuck on Tax Cuts and Kill the Government
Republicans have a real memory problem. They have presided over record deficits and it is their policies that got us into the financial meltdown, and yet they act as if President Obama invented deficit spending. He did not. He inherited this mess from George W. Bush.
News flash! The Republicans know little about economics. They never did. All they want to do is cut taxes and kill government. They almost succeeded.
There is now doubt what must be done. We must defeat a few more senators to be rid of them forever. May a new second party take their place after 2010.
News flash! The Republicans know little about economics. They never did. All they want to do is cut taxes and kill government. They almost succeeded.
There is now doubt what must be done. We must defeat a few more senators to be rid of them forever. May a new second party take their place after 2010.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Zekariah Smith Returns: Do the Republicans Even Realize Who Won the Last Election?
The stupidity of the Republican Party is amazing. They and their policies were repudiated in the last election, but they are determined to be the tail that wags the dog in Congress, obstucting the change that Prsident Obama promised and that people voted overwhelmingly to happen. John McCain, who got his tail beat in the election, lectures the President from the floor of the senate. Give me a break!
The stimulus package needs to be passed to attempt to save the economy the Republicans severed and crushed with their pro-greed policies. And anyone knows, except for the Republican stooges in Congress, that any spending is stimulative! What they so proudly call pork are good programs that went lacking in the Bush years. Republicans are now sanctimonious about the deficit after Bush ran us into the ground destorying, and then stimulating Iraq. They are such pompous hypocrites, and the cable news, desperate for any storyline to fill their air time, suck up the Republican drivel like shop vacs in a sewage overflow.
That is why we must drive a stake through the Republican heart and elect a super majority 60 plus Democratic senators in the next election. Here is the truth -- you cannot be bi-partisan unilaterally. It takes two to dance and the current Republican party has two right feet and wants to lead even though they lost.
President Obama reached out to them. They rejected his good intentions. Now he needs to take a lead from the scriptures, where Christ told the apostles that if people rejected their message, "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet." Matthew 10:14.
Commentator Chris Matthews of MSNBC had it right. Call the Republicans bluff. Let them bring the cots in and filibuster and see where that gets them. It will eventually bring on the super majority and then maybe we can get things done in Washington. I believe in the two party system, but the current second party needs to die before this nation can be healed.
The stimulus package needs to be passed to attempt to save the economy the Republicans severed and crushed with their pro-greed policies. And anyone knows, except for the Republican stooges in Congress, that any spending is stimulative! What they so proudly call pork are good programs that went lacking in the Bush years. Republicans are now sanctimonious about the deficit after Bush ran us into the ground destorying, and then stimulating Iraq. They are such pompous hypocrites, and the cable news, desperate for any storyline to fill their air time, suck up the Republican drivel like shop vacs in a sewage overflow.
That is why we must drive a stake through the Republican heart and elect a super majority 60 plus Democratic senators in the next election. Here is the truth -- you cannot be bi-partisan unilaterally. It takes two to dance and the current Republican party has two right feet and wants to lead even though they lost.
President Obama reached out to them. They rejected his good intentions. Now he needs to take a lead from the scriptures, where Christ told the apostles that if people rejected their message, "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet." Matthew 10:14.
Commentator Chris Matthews of MSNBC had it right. Call the Republicans bluff. Let them bring the cots in and filibuster and see where that gets them. It will eventually bring on the super majority and then maybe we can get things done in Washington. I believe in the two party system, but the current second party needs to die before this nation can be healed.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Zekariah Smith in Mexico for Much-Needed Vacation
Dear ones who read and mull over these thoughts I have been writing for several years now -- I am going on a much needed vacation to visit some friends in Mexico. Keep praying for Obama and Biden. I will try to check in from time to time with a comment, perhaps once a week. But the regular column will not be back until the new year. Happy Holidays!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Obama is a Believer and a Person of Prayer
It is Veteran's Day. Let us be thankful for the service of our men and women in the Armed Forces, and all those who have served over the years, especially those who died for their country. Our freedom was won by their blood, sweat and tears!
And the faith of millions of Americans who have gone before us and paved the way with their prayers.
President-elect Obama is a man of prayer, and we need to surround him and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden with our prayers. They and our country dearly need our prayers!
"I am a Christian," the President-elect told the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago. "So, I have a deep faith," Obama continues. "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived."
When he was 6 years old, after his parents divorced, Obama moved with his mother and her new husband -- a non-practicing Muslim -- to Indonesia, where he lived until he was 10 and attended a Roman Catholic school.
"I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country, so I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and, at night, you'd hear the Muslim prayer call," Obama recalls. "My mother was a deeply spiritual person and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions and talk to me about them.
"Her view always was that underlying these religions was a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself, but also for the greater good."
Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he'd like, now that he's on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray.
"It's not formal, me getting on my knees," he says. "I think I have an ongoing conversation with God.... I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why I am doing it.
"The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass."
Illinois state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. Obama has stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study.
"I know that he's a person of prayer," Meeks says. "He came by for prayer."
Still, when you read Obama's books, you see his faith is a growing thing, just like with all of us. Let us pray that God will teach him many things in the next four years.
And the faith of millions of Americans who have gone before us and paved the way with their prayers.
President-elect Obama is a man of prayer, and we need to surround him and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden with our prayers. They and our country dearly need our prayers!
"I am a Christian," the President-elect told the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago. "So, I have a deep faith," Obama continues. "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived."
When he was 6 years old, after his parents divorced, Obama moved with his mother and her new husband -- a non-practicing Muslim -- to Indonesia, where he lived until he was 10 and attended a Roman Catholic school.
"I went to a Catholic school in a Muslim country, so I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and, at night, you'd hear the Muslim prayer call," Obama recalls. "My mother was a deeply spiritual person and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions and talk to me about them.
"Her view always was that underlying these religions was a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself, but also for the greater good."
Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he'd like, now that he's on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray.
"It's not formal, me getting on my knees," he says. "I think I have an ongoing conversation with God.... I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why I am doing it.
"The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass."
Illinois state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. Obama has stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study.
"I know that he's a person of prayer," Meeks says. "He came by for prayer."
Still, when you read Obama's books, you see his faith is a growing thing, just like with all of us. Let us pray that God will teach him many things in the next four years.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama Needs Our Prayers!
President-elect Barack Obama needs our prayers. The job he has won will take all the brilliance and patience and compassion he can muster, and then some. It is a daunting task, taking over this country after the failures of the last eight years.
Mr. Obama said it will be hard, but it can be done, in his historic victory speech in Chicago: “There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”
President-elect Obama said he needs our help, all Americans together: “What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people," Obama said.
Please do what you can to help Obama and Biden renew America. Pray. Do. Be positive about this country and its future.
Mr. Obama said it will be hard, but it can be done, in his historic victory speech in Chicago: “There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”
President-elect Obama said he needs our help, all Americans together: “What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people," Obama said.
Please do what you can to help Obama and Biden renew America. Pray. Do. Be positive about this country and its future.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama Picks Emmanuel, Who Gets Things Done!
So President-elect Obama makes his first and most important pick -- Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff. Emanuel, 48, has been leader in Congress committed to addressing the challenges facing families across the nation. Since taking the oath of office in 2003, he has been a strong, effective voice for Chicago in Congress. A Jewish politician whose father was Benjamin was born in Jerusalem. He is known as a fighter and Obama said he chosen Rahm because he knows how to "get things done."
Very good! We need someone like that! Emmanuel will be the quarterback for Coach Obama in the White House.
Let us hope that the Obama team can build some bridges with the other side. Vice-President-elect Joe Biden is working on it. On Tuesday night, in his a stirring victory speech, President –elect Barack Obama said of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin: “I look forward to working with them to renew this nations promise in the months ahead.” Oh, that we might have such a time of reconciliation.
He also hailed his partner in this amazing race, Vice-President-elect Joe Biden: “I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.”
He also made a statement of faith concerning his beloved grandmother: “And while she is no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.”
.Then he talked about the millions of supporters, stating the fact that this was a team election; “But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.
“It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generations apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory."
It is a victory for all who gave and went door to door and did the small things to win this campaign. But now the battle for change begins. Keep praying! Keep hope alive!
Very good! We need someone like that! Emmanuel will be the quarterback for Coach Obama in the White House.
Let us hope that the Obama team can build some bridges with the other side. Vice-President-elect Joe Biden is working on it. On Tuesday night, in his a stirring victory speech, President –elect Barack Obama said of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin: “I look forward to working with them to renew this nations promise in the months ahead.” Oh, that we might have such a time of reconciliation.
He also hailed his partner in this amazing race, Vice-President-elect Joe Biden: “I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.”
He also made a statement of faith concerning his beloved grandmother: “And while she is no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.”
.Then he talked about the millions of supporters, stating the fact that this was a team election; “But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.
“It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generations apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory."
It is a victory for all who gave and went door to door and did the small things to win this campaign. But now the battle for change begins. Keep praying! Keep hope alive!
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