TRNS Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner speaks with Charles Dunn, the Dean of Government at Regent University in Virginia, on how the Conservative community views Sarah Palin and steps the former Vice Presidential candidate can take to improve the way she is perceived by the public. Dunn also discusses Palin’s resignation from the Alaskan governorship, describing the decision as “very smart politics.” (7:32)

 

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TRNS Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner speaks with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) about where things stand with the senate healthcare bill. Levin says he is hopeful that a final bill in the Senate will come to the floor by the end of the week. Calling it a “long, complicated bill,” Levin explains that folks have some time to read the full legislation online. Finally, Levin, one of the more liberal members of the Senate, says it is essential for the Senate’s version to contain a public option plan. Click on the audio icon below to listen to the entire conversation. (5:02)

 

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TRNS Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner speaks with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) about the status of healthcare reform legislation in the Senate. Merkley tells Ratner that he expects Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to release a merged bill later today, but adds that Republicans will attempt to block a vote on the bill, which he hopes will take place by this weekend at the latest. The Democrat from Oregon says he doesn’t think the bill will come out of conference until January. Merkley describes the whole process as being “painfully slow.” Click the audio icon below to listen to the full interview. (7:44)

 

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I have spent the last week traveling through two similar, yet very different countries. After leaving southern Sudan, I traveled to Bhutan and India. Bhutan is a kingdom that has just transitioned into a democracy. It is a small country of 750,000 people, about the size of Switzerland. India is the sub-continent that will most likely surpass China in population. Currently, about 1.3 billion people live in India. I travel to understand the world better and to get other cultures’ perspectives on the United States.

Bhutan was a closed community, and until fairly recently the only way to see it was by invitation. It is slowly joining the modern world. In 2000, its government began allowing television to be broadcast in the country. The fourth king of Bhutan abdicated in favor of his son so that the country could transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Bhutan is a member of the United Nations, but, in an attempt to keep from angering China, it has chosen not to have ambassadorial exchange with any of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

My junior high school geography teacher was way ahead of the author of “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as he was a firm believer that geography was destiny. He was certainly right when it comes to India and Bhutan. As our guide led us to a beautiful view of exquisite mountains, he pointed out that the tallest of the mountains was what separated Bhutan from Tibet. Tibet was taken over by China in the late 1940s and the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959. One glimpse of the beautiful mountains and it is clear that Bhutan could be overrun in a nanosecond.

Bhutan rests between China and India. It is to India’s advantage to protect Bhutan, which is why the Indian army patrols the border between China and Bhutan. America does a ton of business with China, but between its human rights record, its Taiwan issue and its refusal to let the Tibetan people rule their own country, the Chinese are not exactly the most popular people in Bhutan and India.

Most of the folks I spoke with in both countries have the same views as people in the United States. They watch American television on their satellite dishes, and they see the same news we see at the same time we see it. When news broke last week of the shootings at Fort Hood, the people in Bhutan and India got the news as people in the U.S. did. Even the Indian language stations were showing video instantaneously. Same view, same pictures, but very different views on what needs to happen for the world to improve.

Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, does not concern them. India trades with Russia and has a good relationship with them. China, on the other hand, is a different story. Most people who engaged in conversation with me had dire warnings for the United States, and they all said roughly the same thing:

1) Get your debt down. All were aware that the sizable debt that the United States has taken on has compromised our policy objectives. It is hard to take on China on Tibet or human rights when America is owned by China to the tune of at least $1 trillion. The Federal Reserve chairman’s advice for healing the U.S. economy is to make more consumers out of the Chinese. If that is the solution for solving our job crisis, then maybe I should teach economics. It is scary to me that this is what our leadership thinks will pull us out of the current mess. Moreover, it is not going to happen at a fast enough rate to change our balance of trade and reverse our economy.

2) Stop your consumption of oil. India gets hydropower from Bhutan and is looking to solar and other alternatives. Oil makes the U.S. dependent on Middle East countries, and the people I talked to view such dependency as fueling not just Americans’ cars, but terrorism in their region of the world. One Indian businessman I spoke with said our reliance on foreign oil was the reason for us getting involved in “silly wars that kill American young people.”

3) Conserve your resources. With the burgeoning world population needing food and water as well as energy, America is viewed as being wasteful. With manufacturing jobs leaving the United States for poorer countries, most people I talked with saw the U.S. as a nation of spendthrifts who will use up more than our fair share of the world’s resources, in the process going bankrupt.

4) Don’t rely on one country to do your manufacturing. China has the United States’ head in a vise, but if American companies spread manufacturing to 20 or more countries around the globe, China would not have the power to control currency and the economic future of the United States.

The bottom line, as one businessman said to me, is America is expecting to live the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to by writing IOUs. But, he added, such a lifestyle will prove to be unsustainable.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Talk Radio News Service Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner speaks with Mr. Soon Ju-An Chee, the opposition leader in Singapore. Soon Ju-An tells Ms. Ratner that he and his supporters would like U.S. President Barack Obama to address the serious human rights abuses taking place in Singapore when he visits that nation later this week. Soon Ju-An adds that Obama must hold political leaders in Singapore accountable for various violations involving the country’s legal system and crackdown on the press. Click the audio icon below to listen to the full conversation. (8:16)

 

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Talk Radio News Service Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner speaks with Dr. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist with the National Association of Realtors. Yun discusses the first-time home buyer tax credit which was part of the stimulus plan, and how it has positively impacted home sales of late. Yun says that there has never been a better time than now to buy a home, but adds that the time to take advantage of the tax credit is running out. Says Yun, unless his organization can successfully lobby Congress to extend the deadline, home buyers will need to close by the end of November. (4:11)

 

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TRNS Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner interviews Loralee Choate with BlogHer.com. Choate says that the Obama administration has really opened itself up to the blogosphere, and cites a conversation with White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett regarding healthcare reform as an example. (10:18)

 

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TRNS Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner interviews Elisa Camahort Page of BlogHer.com about the role the blogosphere has played in covering the Obama administration. (6:42)

 

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Ellen Ratner speaks with Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) about President Obama’s address on health insurance reform. Nadler says Congress should pass the bill President Obama is proposing. He explains how it would be good for small businesses. He says the House will insist on the public option. He also talks about some possible methods of tort reform.

Congress comes back into town this week. Over the past five weeks, House and Senate members alike have probably spent some time with their families and a lot of time in their district offices hoping they would not be ambushed at town hall meetings by angry members of the opposite party. It must be fun to be a member of Congress, except when you are faced with angry constituents. Then you wonder why you ever ran for office. It is a job that comes with great responsibility. It means passing laws and putting forth legislation that advances America and moves it further down the road.

Given this responsibility, I think Congress should not go home in late October/early November unless they pass some major legislation in several areas. This may require that the leadership keep Congress in session no matter how much campaigning needs to be done or how much lawmakers are itching to get home to raise money for the mid-term elections. I propose the following agenda for the remainder of this year:

Limit spending

Of the 12 appropriations bills, none have been passed and five have been passed by the Senate with no conference reports completed. (Conference reports are what comes from meetings between the House and Senate). Congress often runs out of time to submit these reports and, therefore, the two chambers combine many of their bills into a huge omnibus appropriations bill. So much pork and projects are stuck into that kind of bill that it becomes too heavy to carry and too long for anyone to read. We elect Congress to spend money carefully, but this is no way to do so. I say, stay in and get the individual bills passed without having to revert to an omnibus bill.

Pass health care

There will be meetings taking place on both sides of the aisle about what citizens want for health care when Congress returns this week. All of the advertisements, tea parties and union outreach don’t change the fact that people want to afford health insurance. Our small company, the Talk Radio News Service, has been trying to obtain insurance for two years. Finally, we found a company that said it would insure us, only to then double the rates shortly thereafter. Public option or not, people want to be able to purchase health care at a reasonable rate.

It is interesting to note that former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a physician and former governor, said that the Democrats are unwilling to take on the trial lawyers right now in the health-care debate. That is too bad because everyone in the health-care industry, Democrat or Republican, agrees that there has to be some limits on lawsuits. Doctors can’t afford the malpractice insurance in certain specialties, and some of the awards are off the charts. Congress should not go home without addressing tort reform as part of health-care legislation.

Create jobs

With the possibility that the national unemployment rate will rise to 10 percent or higher in the near future, there needs to be a real program to get people back to work. Shovel-ready projects are well and good, but they do not grow our economy. There are many ways to make sure we get jobs for people: One way is to make money available for training in high-tech jobs. Another is to stop bending to the will of the large broadband companies and to begin to encourage local communities to develop their own broadband accessibility. Broadband means jobs and the ability to compete worldwide. Congress needs to pave and pay for the road to the information highway. There are other ways Congress can help create jobs aside from infrastructure projects and government employment, but it is going to take creativity and both parties working together to do it.

Get serious about going green

There is too much back and forth about cap and trade. It might be way too political to pass this year. However, some of the oil-rich countries are realizing that oil can’t go on forever, and they are buying up our brain resources, in the process taking ownership of patents for technology developed by American citizens. This will make us beholden to those same oil-rich countries for green technology. Congress needs to start finding and funding those promising technologies so they are owned by Americans.

Spending, health care, jobs and green energy are just four areas that need congressional attention. Let’s hope our representatives stop carping and impeding legislation in the name of scoring points at the polls and start working on getting it all done this week when they arrive back in town.